Issei stares at the door of the bathroom fixedly. His ears pick up the sounds of the ripples his mother makes as she shifts in the warm water. His back is resting against the white plastic side of the bath. He can almost feel the warmth of the water that swivels with each of her movements. Is it too hot? Too cold? She has said nothing since he sat down. Is she asleep?

He fights the urge to turn his head. Instead, he lets his head fall on the hard edge of her wheelchair. He scratches his temple, searching a little bit of comfort where metal can only offer him the smell of a prison and the toughness of bars.

"Mom?" he whispers.

He hears a ripple in the water. "…yes?"

"Everything's okay?" He tries to speak louder, but his throat chokes the last syllable.

"…yes." Her answer echoes like a question.

Issei gnaws on his bottom lip. He forced her to take a bath. He shouldn't have. She's probably mad at him, now.

The telling smell needed to disappear and only a good warm bath could have done the job. His mother had looked downright mortified when he offered to simply wipe down her body. He didn't remember her so prudish. Although he had never offered nor had to make her take a bath before, so that's maybe why he never saw that side of her. Their neighbor always helped his mother for everything concerning hygiene. He hadn't to worry about it before.

She needed a bath, his mind whispers. She had to take one. He is staying just in case she needs help. Better be by her side than busy resetting his memories for her story.

He pinches his thigh. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The end doesn't justify the means. It must not.

"I'm done."

He stands so fast his back pop. Dizziness hits him and ouch, he should have had more of that fish and rice thingy. Drinking lots of water isn't doing the trick anymore. Not when he ran everywhere to get the foodstuff for their little feast, panting and dying and still running with dots swinging across his vision because he had dared to bet on his mother's soundness of mind and he feared his bet would let him down somehow. He came back to their room sweating rivers to find his mother perfectly fine and happy to see him back. She had chuckled at his haste to see her again. The gesture was familiar, like her way of ordering him around as he slightly overcooked the fish but did a magnificent job with the rice in the kitchen. Even there, his heart was running a marathon. He didn't want her to stay in the communal kitchen of the hotel too long. Someone might have seen them. Someone might have seen them and recognized them.

They ate in their room. Well, she ate.

He clings to the sink counter and masks his dizziness by roughly grabbing her towels.

He hands them over without turning, without facing her. The bath's bottom is not curved. It's flat. She will not fall. He will give her modesty this little mercy. "There you go."

He closes his eyes and turn. He bends down, hands open to catch her own. His right leg wavers. Steady, steady, stay steady damn it.

His mother grasps his hands. "You can pull me."

So he does.

He hears, feels her movements. Wet feet meet the carpet and her warmth brushes him. He stands upright, helping her as much as he can without touching too much. She leads his arms, smelling like water and vanilla shampoo. He bends, following her frame. His eyelids quiver, but he doesn't open his eyes.

Her wheelchair creaks.

She is seated.

Issei turns around and opens his eyes.

It went better than expected.

He sags against the sink. Her leg hits his. He jolts.

They're too close. He is hindering her, he knows. He takes two large steps forward decisively. His nose meets wood covered by cheap paint.

Imperfections on its supposedly smooth surface do not disappear when he is closer. If anything, his closeness deepens their grotesque; a simple spot becomes a crater of dirt and old mold. The whole door looks like the photos of the Moon he has seen on the Net. The Moon people who do not leave in crowded cities can see. The Moon he wanted to see, once upon a time.

He glares at a dark stain made of mushroom and anxiety, twists his neck just a bit and catches a glimpse of pale skin on the mirror. He glues his eyes back to the door of the bathroom. He could open it. The heat and steam wouldn't suffocate him so much if he did. But his mother needs the warmth. Or does she? Should she be surrounded by cold?

He searches in his memories as he eyes the ceiling. His grandmother did say something about heat and cold when one is cold… Ah, yes. Warmth is better. Perspiration takes all the bad things from your body. It's better to sweat.

Issei will not open the door, then. He can survive the heat. His mother needs the heat.

He shifts. His eyes find a new dark spot to explore. His fingers play with the broken seam of his worn t-shirt.

His ears pick up the sound of crumpled clothes. His mother sighs. Coarse fabric rustles against fragile skin.

This is all very much awkward. Why did he need to stay in here, again? Ah, yes, his mother was comatose 2 days ago. He's thinking like a dumbass again.

A hand touches his thigh. Issei jostles. He bites his lips. The whimper stays suffocated in his closed mouth.

"I'm done," his mother chirps a bit too happily.

Her son unstuck his teeth from his hurt bottom lip. He turns his head smiles. The movement pains him. Why is he always faking? He tastes blood and keeps smiling.

He opens the door with a twist of his wrist. Cold air infiltrates the steaming bathroom. He grasps the handles of her wheelchair and back palls slowly into their room.

"It's your turn," his mother commands from her throne. She glances at him and smiles. "You need a shower."

Issei does not discreetly bend his neck to smell his armpits. Hmm. She isn't wrong. Smelly teen is smelly. He smells like his school's gym's locker room. Absolutely disgusting. He just needs stains of unknown origin in weird spots and a suffocating promiscuity with other smelly teens to be right back at the place where he didn't dare to change in, because his clothes had the habit of disappearing and the shame of going outside in only his boxers to get the teacher has not left him yet.

School. Great memories he made there, eh.

He rolls his mother back to her spot by the window. He grasps a corner or her blanket he so carelessly threw on the bed and covers her from her shoulders to her feet. The part with the Glorygold seal is put against her heart. He turns and bunches the blanket around her as if it were a cocoon to protect his fragile butterfly.

A fragile butterfly that wiggles an arm free the moment he delicately removes his hands from under her. "Do you have anything to read?" she asks as she wiggles her other arm free. Issei reigns on his desire to adjust her blanket again. "I think I saw some magazines by the TV."

Issei looks under the TV. She is right. He grabs a few gilded women's mags haphazardly and places them on her makeshift table, by her knees. Close enough to be taken, far enough from the edge to not fall thanks to gravity. "There you go."

She hums a thanks.

He hums in return.

Humming is a family thing alright. Issei smiles crookedly. When was the last time they had a family thing? His gaze falls on her fingers that flip shiny pages with ease. Bony, they are. In better condition than his, they are too. His eyes follow the arch of her arm, the slope of her neck, the checkered pattern of his wool tuque turned hers, to meet hazel eyes.

"Shower, Issei," she reminds him. The corners of her eyes are going toward the sky. Issei blinks and a part of him shivers. No cracks of age decorate her amused gaze.

He makes a beeline for his bag.

He flicks his phone into his mess and waddles back to the bathroom. He hasn't checked it since yesterday.

His grandmother can stew in her juices for a little bit longer. He disappeared for 2 weeks; it's not that much of a difference at this point. At least she knows he is alive and still peppy about gutting his biological sire.

Talking of stewing, his mother did need a bath. She didn't stink per say; she smelled like the hospital's detergent. It was a telling smell. Telling smell had to disappear.

Telling smell had to disappear so he wouldn't go insane, thinking about the hospital and the fact that they are so close to it, so close to the crime scene. Nobody has found them yet. How long until they do? How long until they drag them in a lab to observe his mysterious bow and her miraculous wellbeing.

Issei pushes the door of the bathroom closes, but barely so. Colder air comes and goes as it pleases from the crack left by the ajar door. He can't lock it. If something happens on the other side, he must be able to tear it open. From his bag, he fishes out some not too crumpled clothes and his notebooks. Reasonably thinking, he has fifteen minutes before his mother might consider something is amiss.

Leaving her unattended for fifteen minutes, with a paper-thin wall between them, will also give her the time to be less mad with his pushiness.

He promised her a story. He might as well start now. He finds a pen that's not completely dry in a small front pocket of his bag, stuck between dry grass and crumbles of a sad, abandoned cookie.

He flips a notebook opens. It's overflowing with facts and information about the Underworld and tear stains. A faded brown smear, part of a bigger picture of dots and shapeless stains soiled the curled paper. She might recognize it as an old bloodstain. She might also not.

Her questions would be damning all the same.

It is stuffed in the very depth of his bag, under many smelly or personal things his mother shouldn't seek out actively. He reaches for another, one that will hopefully be unused.

His fingertips brush cool paper, crumpled and fragile. He eyes the innards of his bag. No title on the pastel blue cover.

Bingo.

He flicks it open. The writer clicks his pen open. The ballpoint touches immaculate paper and Issei is gone. He writes and writes and writes until words writ under his troubled gaze, and his fingers are red from holding too hard, and his wrist begs a respite. There are not enough words in his vocabulary to recount all that he has gone through. He probably will have to burn these pages after they are read by familiar brown eyes, lest they end in a mean spirited soul's hands (or a good one. Bashir and he know Hell is paved with good intentions indeed.)

He anchors his life with ink and grotesque handwriting to a few scattered pages.

"Issei?" A distant call breaks his rhythm. The point of his pen slides to a stop.

The teen closes his life's current chapter with a flip. He taps his phone open. He's been at it for more or less 8 minutes.

"Yes, mom?" He has a story ready about a rather dry and spicy poop before he is finished uttering those words.

"The front desk called." Oh, he didn't hear that. Is his hearing failing him too, now? "They said we have to vacate the room soon."

Issei drops the pen in his bag. That's an easy problem. Nothing in comparison to the shame of crying in front of his mother. Nothing compared to the awkwardness that lingers between them. He will wrestle a new room out of hostel's hands and they will thank him for it. "I will go talk with them."

Issei takes off his clothes with a spasm. The rancid odor of his shirt almost makes him gag. Shower. He doesn't have to smell like an ape to amiably take what he wants.

He glances at himself in the mirror, before his pants meet his shirt on the floor. He glances upwards again through his bangs. A faint outline decorates his right shoulder. It would almost be a tattoo if it wasn't white in color. It embraces his skin, tracing lighting along his veins from his collarbone to the nook of his elbow.

He doesn't resist the urge to poke the cradle of his elbow, pushing against pale skin, a jutting bone and twisting lines.

"Are you there?"

His skin tightens. Lines seem to move oh so slightly, tauntingly greeting him. Hello, host. You are ours.

Issei slowly takes his hand away from his haunted flesh, balling it into a fist.

His hands are not his anymore.

His throat is dry when he tries to gulp down his anxiety. You already knew that, you stupid fuck. Why panic now? Don't panic, Issei. Don't fucking panic.

His gaze leaves what he cannot change and goes back to the mirror. It reflects the pursued lips of a teen, small and scrawny. White dots of past mistakes litter the flat surface and a crack snakes its way across a corner, breaking the reflection of his left hand into a bizarre world of mirrors. Pale skin, bloody lips, pale eyes, dark bags, pale soul, bleak soul. Issei observes himself. He observes the marks acne left on his face, ugly craters that will never leave. The hollow scar he got on his left arm when he fell from the diving board after one too many wild jumps. Everything changed in the span of a few weeks, yet he still looks the same-

Ah. Issei blinks. There is a change.

His shoulders are wider than his hips. He stares at the alien change in his body. So adolescence does give other things than smelly feet, uh. He raises his arms. No hair there. Yet. Just lightning in his right armpit cradling the flesh and swirling to join the other patterns that go to the interior of his elbow.

A buzz shakes his bag. He bends down on instinct and grabs his phone.

His grandmother sent him another message. Issei doesn't read it immediately.

He blinks as a stray idea becomes a viable scheme. His gaze flickers downwards and he allows himself to read. [Please give me a sign. I'm in Kuoh. Will you be there for the cremation?]

He types calmly as a plan takes root in his mind. Yes. It could work. He lightly taps the send button and seals his immediate future. [Let's meet in Kuoh. Before the cremation. In front of the crematorium.]

That wheel of fate pushed, he throws his phone back into his bag. There would be no epic manipulation and guilt trip to get another room in the hotel for free. How saw.

Issei touches his face. He plays with the nonexistent flesh of his cheeks. It needs a good scrubbing. He's got no pizza face anymore, but he might as well offer his best to his estranged grandma. He twists the hot water knob. Water splashes everywhere in the sink and burns his awaiting hands.

Issei doesn't take them away. He doesn't feel much in his right hand anymore, he could train his left hand to be the same.


He escapes the bathroom a whooping four minutes later, freshly clothed (or at least his clothes do not stink anymore), damp faced and ready to fight the world. And angry, wrinkly grandma, if he must.

He grabs the little things he hasn't already put in his bag. It becomes heavier with each new item. With a sigh, he internally admits they will have to leave their leftovers in the communal fridge, down in the shared kitchen. If their little meeting goes alright, someone will take them and eat them in their memory. Probably. If it doesn't go well, they will have some snacks for tonight.

His mother looks up from what looks like a mind-numbing read. She doesn't seem particularly interested by the new fashion of last season. It's not her kidn of nerdy. "What are you doing?"

Issei balls one last underwear into his bursting bag before he answers. "We're going to see grandma." He zips it up with difficulty. The seams are cracking, ready to vomit back what he forced them to ingest. His bag didn't get lighter, that's for sure.

The magazines fall on the ground with a crumple of plasticized paper.

Issei turns with a jostle.

His mother purses her thin lips. The corners of her eyes drop as her gaze lands on the ground and the mess of colorful pages at her feet. Her hands are flat on her knees, pressing and leaving their traces on her blanket. Her pale skull shines softly with the peeking sunlight. She is turning away from him.

He scrambles to her side. He grabs her hand in his own, covers her in his warmth and all the things that choke him speechless when he stares at her too long. "Mom, you need to trust me on this one. We need to go."

His mother blinks. For a terrible second, he sees hesitation in her glazed eyes. Issei clenches his jaw. "We're going to see grandma. Only her," he repeats softly.

And no man she once called her sweetheart, hopefully. The damn trash people call his father is still out the picture and he wants him out as long as possible. Issei has no need for trash. Trash belongs in a landfill. Not in his life.

He hopes his mother feels as he does.

She can't possibly love him, after all that has passed. The river of time and mistakes has torn them apart forever.

(Please, let it be so.)

Her boneless hand finds the little strength to lightly press his. "I thought we would have a little more time."

"I know. I'm sorry." It doesn't work with the plan. They can't keep his grandma away, lest she really has a heart attack. That would complicate everything immensely. He might start to feel sadness again. He has no time for sadness.

She quivers. Before he can ask what is wrong, she escapes his hold. "Let's go. Let's not make her wait," she commands with a poor smile.

He nods. He flicks the light off, takes his bag and off they go, her sitting and him pushing all the way to the elevator. He adjusts her tuques and scarf around her neck, hiding her face. He ducks his head, shoulders hunched high around his stiff neck. Seconds are spread across time, slow and painful, as they wait for the soft ding of the elevator that will take them downstairs.

A soft sound permits them entrance into their cage.

The descent is thankfully lonely. No one takes the elevator with them, leaving them to their awkwardness. Their stomachs drop and climb their spine with the descent.

Another ding decorates their silence. The slow opening of the sliding doors feels like torture. Issei pushes forward silently into the lobby. He will not give the key back. Not if the meeting doesn't go as planned. They need a bed, a roof if his grandmother refuses to shelter her flesh and blood.

The crematorium is a block away. Of course the cemetery is close by the hospital in their small town. Close to their sad little motel where people come and go, crying in despair or in joy, leaving indelible stains of liquor on carpet and imprinted feelings on blankets.

Issei nods at the woman behind the desk, different from the one he met when he booked a room. She nods back with a tilt, before her eyes go back to looking at nothingness. She looks even more unfazed by life and uninterested by its inhabitants that roam by her. He has the sneaky feeling she isn't exactly seeping tea from her thermos.

His phone buzzes in his pants pocket. The duo advances slightly faster as they finally cross the empty, carpeted land of the lobby and reach the door. One push later, the doors slowly open to let cold air in and a burdened teen and his sick mother out.

He glances downward. A spot of white skin is visible from his standpoint. Her collar is too wide. The son fixes her mussed scarf. In her red gear, she looks pale as snow. A snowdrop in a field of blood.

Issei knows he can leave his mother at the family's diner that's a block away from this gloomy place in the opposite direction. He could explain to the staff of the dinner that he has had an urgent call; his grandmother had a bad fall, could they please watch over his recuperating mother while he runs to save his grandmother. He could put her in front of a nice tea and go alone.

He does not.

So now they are walking toward a bus stop by the side of crematorium, half a ton of blankets enveloping his mother in a cocoon and still, he feels she must be cold. His hands are burning against the metal handles of her seat. His thighs are attacked by the wind, stiff and enveloped in biting ants. Without his trusty put atop his ears, they're also suffering. He fights the urge to cover them with his stiff fingers. The winter wind is humid and piercing and he should, he should have planed something else damnit-

His grandmother's little Toyota, a dingy old car his grandpa bought for nothing after their last car died in their backyard, is in the parking lot.

He parks his mother inside the bust stop. "I will get her. Stay here, okay."

"Un-huh."

He dearly hopes that means 'yes' in his mother's language. It used to. He hopes the fragments she coddles in her mind whisper an answer relatively unchanged. He fancies a heart attack as much as any other teens of his generation, but he would like it after they're somewhere relatively safe.

He eyes her. She answers his roamings with a steady gaze. He fights the urge to adjust her tuque again. He follows the slope of her neck when her own gaze wanders towards outside. The crematorium is less sinister than what his nightmares made it look like. Its exterior is neat. There are no giant webs or cracks that leak blood and guts. No ghosts moan along the wind. No tearful families haunt its entrance.

It's unsettling all the same. Issei turns his head away from the cracked plastic glass of their shelter. He huddles against his mother's side, the metal of her wheelchair digging into the bone of his tight. It's a feeble attempt to keep her warm and nothing else.

With a final glance at the dingy car he knows far too well and the building he never wished to know, he turns his mother around so she doesn't face the sinister monster of his nightmare.

He takes a shard of the mirror from their room out of his coat's pocket. Taking it out of the frame was easy. A few pushes and pulls around it, plus a pen stuck in the crack did the trick. He now has a spy glass and a way to make sure everything is alright.

He squints at the shard. He angles his right hand awkwardly to the side, against his left hip. This way, she should not see his actions too much nor understand what he is doing. Knowing her, she might get offended. She was so precious about her being able to do her normal tasks around the house at the beginning.

His mother hasn't moved. Yet. (Where would she go? Would she be able to push her wheelchair anywhere? Why would she leave? He is ridiculous.)

Issei twitches his mirror around to see her surroundings. It's not her he shouldn't trust. It's the rest of the world.

One of his feet, he doesn't know which in his state of concentration, hits a solid obstacle. He trips on air. A solid step forward allows his face to not meet concrete.

The teen clenches his jaw. The shard's jagged side ripped the skin of his thumb open.

"Issei."

Watered eyes are quickly blinked into a drier state as the grandson looks up. His grandma stands at the top of the three steps that leads to the crematorium main door, one gloved hand grasping the handrail. Her other hand covers her heart.

He glances one last time at his spy mirror. No movements from his mother. She is more patient than he is. He let his hand swing back to its rightful position. He stuffs his shard in his pocket.

"Grandma," he greets flatly.

She runs down the stairs.

"Oh, my boy." She hugs him. "I thought the worst had happened to you. Why didn't you ask for help?" She caresses his face, his hair with a gloved hand while the other retains him in her grasp and a need for it to be real.

He stays silent, even though he burns to know if she contacted anybody about his presence here. She better has not. "I had stuff going on."

No visual on his mother. That's bad. What if she has a relapse? What if someone approached her? He would have to be in people's face if it happens. He doesn't want to shock her with a violent scene. He tries to turn his head.

His grandmother holds his chin in place. Her eyes are exploring every nook and cranny of his face. "Where were you?"

"Places." He answers. That's not a lie. His mind zooms on where he left his mother and how worse it could get if they don't get to her soon. Kuoh is not known for its violent crimes, but he is sure rascals spend winter days roaming aimlessly around the crematorium, praying on sick mother and sad families.

"Issei." His grandmother tugs his collar. Her eyes are watering.

"Grandma." Issei holds her hands, covering her small knuckles and trembles with his own. He hopes his hands are steadier than his voice. He searches for words that will not shock her more than his simple presence already did. "Did you tell your son I was coming here?"

Oh wow, good job Issei. Much tact. Such gentleness. So good. You will get the award for best grandson of the year if you continue.

She shakes her head. "No. You told me not to."

Excellent. He squeezes her hands and that's supposed to be a reassuring gesture and not threatening, right? "Thanks."

She squeezes his fingers tenderly. She smiles and she is ready to say something beautiful when she notices his thumb is ripped open and putting stains on her. "You're bleeding."

He shifts. His thumb tries to escape her hold. It's putting blood on her beautiful leather glove. "It's nothing."

Her furrowed eyes and frowning lips are ready to berate him, because she can't be a good grandmother if she doesn't remind him he can't do anything right. Her eyes take a second to follow his shifting form and it is all it takes.

Her eyes widen and Issei's mind blares curses. "Hikari?"

The part that feels completely detached from the situation as he grasps his grandmother's elbows and holds her close because her knees are playing a wild maracas song giggles. At least he won't have to explain in a convoluted way that he kidnapped his own mother from the hospital and that his grandmother was going to attend another person's funeral. She saw for herself already.

He drags his grandmother to the bus station. His mother waves sedately. "Hello, mother-in-law."

"Ah." That's the only sound his grandmother produces. Her gloved hands grip Issei's arm for support. Her nails dig in.

He grasps her other elbow before her knees fail her completely. She leans against him, her hands pressed against chest. He smells her shampoo and pictures the incense she uses for his grandfather's altar. "Grandma, listen to me. There's a family dinner a block away from here. We are going to walk there and eat some food. Maybe drink some good tea too. When we're done, we will talk."

He put one of her hands on the handle of his mother's wheelchair and pushes. They hobble their way to the diner. Silently. Issei has no idea what to say to lighten the atmosphere. Can he even lighten it up?

Issei concentrates on the cracks of cement of the sidewalk, walking at a moderate pace for his mother as much as his grandmother. A part of his brain is already calculating how much he can spend to not go broke, in case his grandmother does not stand by her family.

They are sitting in a booth farther from the center of the restaurant a minute or ten later. His thighs burn less now that he is sitting on a warm bench. The staff's nothing but accommodating with his mother's physical state. Swift and to the point. They helped her into the bench. She sits leisurely between him and the wall. His grandmother is facing them. There are cups of tea and a teapot between them before they have the time to raise their hands and say 'Please…'.

He is tying a napkin around his bleeding thumb when a waitress helpfully brings him a band aid and ties it for him around his ripped wound. It stops bleeding everywhere. He offers his best smile and a bow. It probably looked like a grimace, but the intent behind it was good.

Japanese service sure is the best.

His grandmother cradles her too warm porcelain cup. Issei knows it's too warm because, in a moment of nervous, he tried to sip a lick of tea. It burned the tip of his tongue and the part of his palate that's just behind his front teeth horribly.

Mrs. Hyoudou senior puts her cup down decisively. "The hospital called. I was going to your funerals, Hikari."

Hikari waves the attention towards her son with a dainty movement of her hand. "Issei can fill you in the blanks."

He is grateful she hasn't outright admitted she knows nothing. He moistens his chapped lips. "I took mom from the hospital yesterday's night," he starts.

"Why?"

Issei opens his mouth. He clamps it shut. What was the reason behind his rush? He wanted to see his mother safe and sound? He wanted to alleviate the pain? He wanted to see her? He wanted. He wanted, so he acted.

"They were going to unplug me. My husband came to sign the papers. My case was… taking space and helping nobody, as they put it." Issei clings to his cup. He gulps back the bile and the hate. His thumb bleeds anew. "I heard them talk in my sleep," his mother finishes flatly. Her hand reaches for his wounded hand and flattens it against the varnished wood of the table, holding it down firmly.

"I didn't exactly have the right to spirit her away," Issei continues softly. He stares at his mother's hand, soft and small, over his own, rough and big.

He hears his grandmother sigh deeply. "Who are they burning?"

"Somebody else." Or nothing. Nothing sounds better than a nameless corpse put in his mother's vault. Nothing will not bring them bad luck or ghosts who claim to be his ancestors and need him to fulfill an ancient prophecy to save the world and cleanse their resting place from the filthy thing that will be placed there in a few hours.

Has life ever been so kind?

Ah. Ah. Ah.

"We should go to the hospital and demand answers. They can't do this." The end of her braid goes up and down with each of her huff. "Your mother needs to be treated," she rumbles.

That's his grandmother alright. A spitfire ready to get what she wants the way she wants it.

"No," Hikari interjects. "I'm fine now."

His grandma snaps her neck towards her daughter-in-law. Her anger is going to make her act and talk out of control in the diner, Issei knows. "What do you mean, you're alright? You were in coma two days ago."

Issei remembers his dreams. He remembers how Dream-Grandma was sweet and sour and would put offering in the mountains for Youkais. He could start with that. Youkais. It will tie to the rest of the world they will have to discover together. "Grandma, do you still believe in Youkais?"

Silence. His mother's hand retreats from its spot on his hand.

His grandmother reaches for the end of her braid and tug, once. She bends forwards. "Have you made a pact with one?"

"We have a lot to discuss," Issei lamely opts for. He will have to describe a whole new world. One that is dangerous beyond imagination, one he chose and can't quite leave now. She's so going to make him sleep on a rotten mat once she knows.

His grandmother wrinkles her nose. She doesn't push. She shifts focus. "It doesn't give them the right to place a nameless corpse in your mother's vault. Do we even if it is a person? It could dirty the tomb and disturb the resting of your ancestors."

Are his ancestors really going to come for him for reparation or something if they let it happen? Why can't even the dead stay where they are, minding their own damn business now?

His grandmother's frown looks too deep, twists her wrinkles too much for it to not be a real problem.

Damn it.

"Can we ask for the ashes?" he finds himself asking.

"I'm going to," his elder smiles the smile that spells 'people are going to die magnificently'. He mentally lights a candle for them. They shouldn't have been on her path.

His mother shifts on their cushioned bench. "It's probably a nameless corpse they took in the morgue." Her gaze flickers from her tea cup to them. "Everybody needs a resting place," she lets escape.

He sees his grandmother's hackles raising. He sees his mother's brows furrowing. "We could offer it a resting place in the mountains," he quickly adds.

"Not near the house," his grandmother immediately vetoes.

Issei glances at her linked hands that nurse her empty cup, then to her thin lips, pressed together. She didn't say no all together. He feels the smile coming on his face. "We just have to… purify a spot, right? I know you can do that."

"Very well," his grandmother relents after she gives him one last uncomfortable stare.

From the corner of his eyes, Issei sees a waitress hovering nearby, spying to see if they need her to order. Issei smiles at her. "Are you ready to order? My treat."

His grandmother clicks her tongue. "What are you saying? I'm the one who's treating you two."

"Grandma, I can-" the teen starts.

"Don't argue with your elder." She snaps back. She grabs his hand and squeezes it tight. "You went through enough already," she says softly, emotionally, and when was the last time he saw her so sad for so long?

"Thank you, Chiasa," Hikari whispers.

His mother glances at him with an arched eyebrow.

Issei sighs and bows. "Thank you, grandma."

One beef curry and some lame jokes later, Issei is relaxing against the board of their booth. His stomach doesn't hurt as much as before, it doesn't grind and grumble in a desperate call for food he likes to ignore. It's an annoyance he doesn't have to deal with for now.

His mother and grandmother have acted amiably with each other.

He has never dreamt he would get so much in one day.

His grandmother pays with a swipe of her debit card. She puts her gloves and scarf back on, hiding her wrinkled skin and braid from view effortlessly. "Stay here. I'm going to get the car."

Issei stands, unsure of the next course of actions. Is she going to come back for real or is she leaving?

"Stay with your mother, Issei. I know my way around Kuoh," she commands with a huff.

He watches his grandmother trots to the entrance. He follows her swaging silhouette until she turns a corner, the corner from where he could observe her get her car if he were to leave the restaurant. Just one minute…

"Ise," his mother calls. "You didn't finish your rice."

The son surveys his bowl. He did leave a little bit of rice. When was the last time he had so much food in his bowl? It feels like years ago. Another world. A world that's crumbling away, even in his memories.

She nudges his spoon towards him. "Don't be ungrateful for the food. Eat it."

Issei picks his chopsticks and eats the last grains of rice.

The door of the restaurant is open wide and a little lady with a many years stored in her white braid trots back inside.

The rest is a blur. They leave the restaurant quickly to get inside the car. Issei pushes his mother to the warm, old banger that still smells like his grandpa. He helps get inside safely. He packs the wheelchair in the truck. They drive back to the crematorium. They leave Hikari inside the car, saying they will be quick. Hopefully.

Then grandson and grandmother are inside the sinister building, talking with a secretary.

"We are the family of Hyoudou Hikari," the senior of the duo starts.

"You were late for the cremation. We had to do it without you. We are on a tight schedule," the secretary informs them grimly. She offers quiet condolences with a bow of her head.

Issei sneers amiably. As if you would have let us see the corpse one last time before the cremation.

"May we see the urn?" his grandmother asks. There's a quiver in her throat that could pass as contained sadness, but Issei knows she is just raging inside.

"Of course." The secretary nods and pushes a button. A man appears from an office a second later. He bows and greets them solemnly. He leads them down a gloomy hallway. On a quaint little table, a box covered in white fabric stands alone.

Issei walks to the table. The box is his nightmares taken on a solid form. The thought that his mother is waiting for them in the car stabilizes him. He only feels disgusted by the masquerade they're part of. It's all so fake.

The man bends a little to be at Issei's level. "Would you like to hold until we put it in the vault?"

"No. You're not burying it anymore. We're taking…" Issei's gaze flickers to the urn and he wants to curse. I hope it's not a real 'them'. For fuck' sake, "them with us."

The worker nods compassionately. "I'm sorry, young man. You have to be strong. Your mother is at peace now."

"No, what my grandson said is true. We're taking the ashes."

The man blinks. His frown turns less amiable when he turns to face the older woman. "You paid us to open the vault and put your daughter-in-law to rest. Everything is in place. We simply need to put her to rest with her family now."

Chiasa shakes her head. She bats the air and probably dreams of doing the same to his face. "We changed our mind. No need to open the tomb."

"Listen here; you can't change your mind about that."

His grandmother's smile is fixed and fuck, he is happy he isn't the one facing her. "You can keep your money. We simply want my daughter-in-law's ashes," she is enunciating each syllable clearly, as if she was talking with a child. Or an very slow person in need of new hearing aids.

"It doesn't work this way. We have to answer to our boss-"

Issei reaches for the urn and takes it from the table.

The worker's baffled look as he tries to grasp thin air is ridiculous.

Should've hold onto it harder, old man. "Have a good day." The teen bows, urn secured in his arms. A second later, he is scrambling away.

He is out before the man has the time to say anything useless again. His grandmother, from the sound her soft boots make, is hot on his heels.

His grandmother and he are running away from a crematorium after stealing ashes.

Issei snorts at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. He uses the car as a support as a waterfall of chuckles escapes his mouth,

His grandmother massages her waist as she arrives to the car. She sends him an unamused gaze through squinted eyes, all of it coupled with twisted thin lips. She looks the picture perfect of an adult completely overdone with a child's antics. She keeps it together for two seconds before his hilarity takes hold of her amber eyes.

"Really… you." She succeeds to mutter before it becomes too much and she hides her laugh behind her dainty hand.

His mother rolls her window down. "What is so funny?" She asks, gaze swinging from her giggling son to her laughing mother-in-law.

Issei adjusts his grip on the urn and no, he isn't puffing his chest out proudly. "I stole the ashes."

His mother blinks. "You… stole them?"

"Yeah. He was saying a lot of useless things so I made a run for it after taking the ashes from an old man's hands. The poor dude looked baffled. You know, like an owl. Big eyes, mouth wide open. A fly could've gone in there and he would have gulped the damn thing-"

"Language, Issei." Hikari and his grandmother cut in at the same time.

Issei wrinkles his nose. He does the adult thing and sticks his tongue out.

"Hey, you! Stop!"

Chiasa and Issei looks at the sagging man running towards their car. They exchange a glance. A Machiavellian plan takes root in this moment of complicity. The grandmother hops into her seat. The grandson closes his mother's door and skips around the car to the passenger's seat.

Issei straps the urn to the passenger's seat with a smile. "You're not going to fall anywhere, don't you worry."

His grandmother glances at the grey urn before she starts the engine. It rattles to life.

Issei opens the door next to his mother and clambers into the small car.

They leave the parking lot with a few coughs of the old motor. They bypass a yelling man throwing curses at their dingy car, form sagging and panting as he abandons his slow pursuit. By then, a giggle starts to ignite the atmosphere. The giggle becomes a soft laugh. The soft laugh becomes a roaring applause.

They are all puffing and giggling, bent against each other in a heap of happy, overgrown puppies. His grandmother discreetly wipes her cheeks. Issei turns his head and acts like he didn't notice.

"I missed you two," his grandmother confesses after the last giggle has died in her eyes.

"I missed you too." He missed the laugh. He missed his mother's warmth. He missed his grandmother's croaky voice.

They pass through the busy street where he used to work. The sweetshop is still standing, even though he has cursed his owner a few times. He sends another curse with a glare for good measure. They pass the Takoyaki stand and it's still as busy as ever, even though the cold burns in way sake does not. This time, Issei joins his hands and sends a blessing.

They are at the outskirt of the town where he spent all of his life in no time. "Will we ever come back?"

"I don't know."

Kuoh is behind them.

The future has sharp claws and plenty of nightmares to offer.

Issei flexes his fingers. In one hand, a bow and a path full of violence. In another, a dragon and a past full of grievances.

His mother hums. She closes her eyes.

Issei observes the disappearing city of his childhood a long time after they've passed the suburbs of the suburbs and his mother has fallen asleep.

Her head jolts with her neck feeble effort to keep everything straight. He reaches for her nape with his hand and brings her closer. Her head is at last secured on his bony shoulder. He breathes in her pale skin, blues cracks running along her skull. The top of her head smells like caramel and it's almost too sweet to be real. It smells like innocence.

Peach fuzz tickles his chin. He tries to adjust his angle; shifting around one muscle at the time so his pointy chin is not digging in her soft skin. They all are angles, the both of them. A thing they share, mother and son.

They will do just fine. They can do this. Living's not so difficult when he's got somebody to watch his back. Someone who can anchor him to the real world. And his mother is going to live a very long and fulfilling life. If anyone dares to try and take her away from him, Issei knows he will punch some warm bodies into a colder state.

If it is Hades who tries anything funny, Issei might just punch the god too. The beauty of the gesture would be grandiose.

He blinks and pauses his glorious fantasy. Hades' ugly mug scrunches up and disappears into an imaginary drawer.

Is a punch worth eternal damnation?

If Hades finds himself bedridden for the next millennia, it very well could be. If it protects his mother from any harm, it is.

Sharp brown eyes catch his mind out of his fantasy on the rear mirror. His grandmother blinks and her gaze goes back to the sinuous road to her mountainous dwelling. Issei observes her braided silver mane. A few strands escaped from the tight braid, thanks to their little run. They curl on her forehead and her nape.

He would like to have hair that white one day.

His grandmother turns on the radio and drowns his thoughts in an ocean of soft music.


18/06/2019