A/N: Thanks for the follows, and reviews from Rival Argentica and ZainR! I'm glad you hate Kimito as much as Naoi and I do. From the way Naoi flinches at aggressive hugs and even startles at soft shoulder touches, I figured there was more to his father we weren't seeing. Ugh, my most hated canon character.

Rival Argentica: I love that you caught the symbolism there! I made up Akuma and specially chose the name for the demons of Naoi and Yuri's past (or in this case present). But the hell thing (4x) was unintentional, so nice catch! The fact that it was accidental is even better tbh. And yes - Ayato gets to be himself this time around at the very least. He still has to take over the business, but there's no cruel twin-swapping scheme. However, there's still plenty of room for identity crises.

Here's a dose of angsty Naoi goodness to brighten up your Mondays!

[Chapter 03]: Blood Bond

Weekends flew by when they were spent in the workshop—which was strange, since every minute spent training and sculpting felt like an hour. At least his mother had been ready with lunch as soon as he'd gotten home, and he worked too diligently to give Kimito a reason to make him miss any more meals.

On Monday, he managed to finish his chores at the pottery wheel in time to eat a quick breakfast insisted upon him by his mother and then leave early for school. It was a double win—he wouldn't have a repeat of Friday and Saturday, and there was no hurry to do anything but a leisurely pace on his walk into town.

Despite what had happened six years ago, he could still appreciate nature. The Naoi estate was separated from town by a forest with a trail in one direction, while another route to a different part of town had a quaint little walking bridge over a thin river.

When he wasn't hiding in his room, he and Hayato used to play in the forest. Those were the memories of his childhood that he cherished, the ones that stuck with him. He wouldn't remember the greatest high score he got on Air Busters, but he would always remember being eight, pretending he was being chased by a monster and climbing up in the trees with Hayato.

It used to feel weird walking through these trees without his twin brother—but after more than half a decade, he was used to the solitude. It still smelled like trees, and the sound and feel of the breeze rustling the leaves and his hair relaxed him. The farther away from the estate he walked, the lighter he felt.

The Akuma High School building was about as small as the city itself, but with plenty of spaces to hang out on campus afterwards. Though he was early, a group of kids were already dangling from the tree and sitting on the stone border at the spot where he'd been going to eat lunch all last week. One guy dangling from the tree swung from the branch a few times and kicked his friend off the bench. The other boy yelped, then got back on his feet and tackled the tree boy. They promptly started wrestling and jeering at each other.

Ayato rolled his eyes. Public school students truly were imbeciles.

His classroom was a third full by the time he walked in, but they had assigned seats so he claimed his usual middle seat by the window and nobody batted an eye. It was as if he wasn't even there.

The next couple of class periods passed faster than he would have liked, but it figured since it was already routine. Ami would be whispering to Kurimu, the girl in the seat behind him. Diagonal from Ami, hidden behind Kurimu's wild honey-brown hair, Souma Hejjiguchi was usually either asleep on his desk or kicking back in his seat with his book draped over his face. Ayato had heard Ami's and Kurimu's names only from their hushed conversations behind him, but he knew Hejjiguchi's full name because the teacher had yelled at him various times to wake up or get his feet off Kurimu's chair, since the girl was too polite to tell him herself.

The class after that would be a little quieter, being that it was History and a larger chunk of the class slept or daydreamed through it. He'd come to expect that from public school students. Sure, a lot of the teachers spoke in monotone and many of the subjects were tedious, but there were far worse fates. And far crueler people. And he liked learning about things that weren't made of clay.

His habitual willing of the clock to slow down—most students would find this peculiar, but most students weren't Kimito Naoi's son—was as ineffective as ever, so lunch rolled around and led him out to the courtyard. Sitting down on the stone border bench under the trees, he unpacked the meal his mother had prepared for him.

His mother…

Although they shared similar punishments and she understood his pain, she never dared comfort him out loud. Not in words that her husband could hear. No, she'd learned her lesson a few times. No one could ever contradict Kimito's criticisms or question his parenting skills and get away with it. Instead, she showed love in gifts and food.

Mostly food, since that was the only thing she could usually convince her husband that Ayato was worthy of receiving.

Suffice it to say that these days he and his mother didn't have too many heart-to-hearts, thanks to Kimito's interference and strict training schedule, but she knew which foods he liked. Chicken, rice, beans, korokke, and anpan, among other things. To give the woman credit, food was a nice means of communication when at times she couldn't even look him in the eye. Such was the trouble of a mother with one son left that looked like the other.

Blocked from the exceptionally warm spring sun by the shade of the trees, he had finished his rice and was just starting into his chicken when another shadow fell over him.

"Interesting. I had you pegged for a rooftop lunch kind of loner."

His eyes snapped up and he paused in mid-bite, half the chicken sticking out of his mouth. He quickly swallowed it down, but there was no stopping the broad grin that crept across Yuri's face. What an attractive second impression he must have made on her.

"And I had you pegged for the type who ate lunch with her friends," he replied.

"Then I guess we're both pretty bad judges of character." She sat down beside him and began unpacking her lunch on her lap.

He opened his mouth, then realized that he didn't know what to call her.

"Nakamura—"

"I thought I introduced myself as Yuri," she said, and took a sip of her coffee. Canned Key coffee, it looked like. He'd seen the vending machine in the halls.

"Yuri," he amended. "Not to be rude, but why are you sitting with me?"

That came out rude anyway. It was just that she was a Nakamura. From the respect his father gave her parents, he knew her family was pretty wealthy. And on top of all that, she was—well—not too hard to look at. She had to have at least a handful of friends she'd rather eat with.

Yuri licked her lips, as if savoring the coffee that had lingered.

"Dunno," she said at last. "There's just kind of this weird connection we might have had on Saturday. I think we accidentally made some kind of blood bond or something."

"What are you talking about?" He turned to look at her, but she was grinning. So she was at least half-kidding.

"I'm just saying!" She held up her hands in defense, careful not to drop her food. "Your blood, sweat, and tears went into making those vases. And one of them cut me. And it was only after that that we started being nice to each other."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "So what you're saying is, you want to eat lunch with me because we formed an unintentional blood pact."

Yuri shrugged. "It would explain why I felt like seeking you out."

He hesitated then. He wouldn't go straight to the blood bond theory, but if she was saying they were somehow drawn to each other, he couldn't argue that. He had definitely felt an odd connection the moment he looked at her. If she was saying it wasn't just him, he wouldn't brush that off.

Besides, if he shot her down again, she might leave.

He didn't want her to leave.

"Naoi?"

Her voice brought him back into focus. "Yeah?"

"I was just wondering if your dad let you off the hook for those vases," she said, taking a bite of rice out of her lunch.

"Oh." He shook his head, thinking back to this past weekend. "For the most part. He mainly just had me start over again, so it's been a rough couple of days but it could have been a lot worse." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess I have you to thank for that."

Yuri frowned. "Happy to help, but I don't see how having to start all over again is being let off the hook."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear when I told you my dad was going to murder me."

"He couldn't literally murder you," Yuri said, waving her chopsticks in the air dismissively. "You're the only son he has left."

Ayato stopped chewing and gave her an incredulous look.

Another frown, this one more apologetic as she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Sorry," she said, biting her lip. "But I'm just going by One Last Child Syndrome."

"What the hell is One Last Child Syndrome?"

"It's a term I made up," Yuri explained, moving the remains of her lunch to her other side. She folded her arms across her chest and stared straight ahead into nothingness. "When a parent has two or more kids and by some cruel twist of fate, all but one dies, or they all die but the parents pop out one more kid before it's too late… it only makes sense that the parents would get really protective of—"

"I'm going to stop you right there." Ayato held up a hand to cut in. "You're right, you really are a bad judge of character."

Yuri pursed her lips into a frown. "True. This is Kimito Naoi we're talking about." She glanced down at her boots, then back at him with a sheepish expression. "I just figured, since he's your father…"

"If I'd broken both my arms in that fall, if I'd been paralyzed and couldn't spin the potter's wheel," Ayato looked her straight in the eye, "I assure you that man would want me dead."

She faltered, choosing to go quiet as she took another long drink of her coffee.

He mentally kicked himself. What was he doing, unleashing something that heavy on her? They'd only just met a few days ago. He might be a bit rusty in the friendship department, but he didn't think people talked about this kind of thing right off the bat. "Blood bond" or no "blood bond."

Then again, she was the one who led them into controversial topics.

"Sorry I brought it up," Yuri said, as if reading his mind. He made a noncommittal grunt, and she crushed her coffee can in her hands. "I just figured you could relate to me with the One Last Child Syndrome thing. I guess we have a little less in common than I thought."

"What would you know about One Last Child Syndrome?" Ayato asked.

The answer hit him a split second after he saw the look of surprise on her face.

"I guess word didn't spread as far as I thought," she said, raising an eyebrow. "That's good. My parents wanted to keep it quiet. They didn't want anyone to talk about it."

His mouth felt dry. "You had—"

"A little brother and sister. She was ten, he was eight. I was really protective of them." She clasped her hands over her knee, a wistful smile crossing her face. "But I couldn't be with them all the time. Their cool big sister decided she was cool enough to go to a friend's birthday party, instead of visiting our grandparents with them."

Ayato had a feeling he knew the part that was coming up next.

"My grandparents were… horrible drivers," Yuri said, a dry laugh escaping her lips. "It was snowing, so they shouldn't have been on the road anyway. But they wanted to take them out to eat. They just didn't expect it to get so bad out." She popped some chicken into her mouth, then kicked her heel in the dirt aimlessly. "The crash happened a couple of years ago. To tell you the truth I'm surprised your dad never mentioned it to you."

"I'm not." His abrupt answer made her turn to him with a questioning frown. "My father doesn't care about your family. Just your money. Anyway, he wouldn't talk to me about something like that."

Yuri hummed in understanding.

To think that she was the other girl who'd lost her siblings. Maybe her name had been mentioned in the lockers or whispered in class. He just hadn't bothered to listen.

"But I'm sorry about your brother and sister," he added feebly, realizing he was starting to sound just as uncaring as him.

When had he become this numb and cold? He'd never noticed it before, especially not in comparison to Kimito. But talking to Yuri now, his inherited bitterness felt painfully obvious—along with his complete lack of social skills.

It really was a wonder she was still sitting with him right now. Seemed incredibly dubious that she couldn't go to someone else for more sufficient sympathy.

"Hmm," was her half-hearted response. "Kind of feels good to talk about it for once."

But why to him? That was something he desperately wanted to ask her, but he couldn't bring himself to. It might come out wrong—rude, in fact. It certainly sounded rude in his head. Here she was, trying to confide in him about "blood bonds" and parents and losing her siblings and something about One Last Child Syndrome, and all he could do was try to wrap his busy mind around—

Wait.

He might have just given himself the answer.

"Are you trying to be my friend?" Ayato asked, glancing sideways at her. She blinked twice, and he had to keep from slapping himself.

Damn it. That was supposed to be surprise, not antagonism.

After a beat, Yuri gave a small shrug.

"That's the goal," she said, digging into the last of her lunch with her chopsticks. "As long as you want to be my friend."

Six years without a brother. Only four fully public-schooled years. He wasn't good at this sort of thing. He wasn't sure if he was even trained for it. After sixteen years of exposure to Kimito, he was pretty sure the man had groomed him to be toxic.

But weirdly enough, Yuri seemed sure of him.

His eyes fell to her chopsticks—or rather, the way she handled them. "How's your finger?"

She grinned. "Healing. Doesn't hurt much." She dropped her chopsticks into her lunch and waggled her afflicted finger for emphasis. Then she furrowed her brows. "Did I ever thank you for that?"

"For cutting your finger?" Ayato scoffed.

"No, I did that myself," Yuri said impatiently. "For tending to it."

"You thanked me by taking the blame for the vases and saving my skin." Just remembering it now, he felt the same disorienting sense of safety he had on Saturday. He had to hand it to her, he was still amazed she'd looked Kimito in the eye and owned up to everything. "I've never had someone protect me like that before," he said, with honest admiration.

Yuri smiled vaguely. "I do my best."

Something about her answer seemed off, almost sad. But before he had time to question it, a heavy drop of rain splashed down on the bridge of his nose. Yuri must have felt one too, because they both glanced up at the same time. Where there was once sunshine, thick grey clouds hovered overhead. The air smelled like storms—not the worm rain smell, the one with a scent like a drink of water.

It was nice—refreshing, even—but a look at his watch said it was time to go.

"We should get inside," he said.

With a nod, Yuri grabbed the remains of her lunch and he grabbed his. They escaped from under the trees and dashed across the courtyard as the rainclouds commenced their drizzle. He heard the distinct sound of a light thunder rumble before the school doors closed behind them.

After weeks of cold March and a too sunny early April, it was absolute glory to his ears.

A/N: See you on Saturday with Chapter 11 of Heartbreak Cure! As for TPS, the next update will probably be on July 31st. Still pacing myself on this one since it's the shorter and less frequently written prequel. But I do love it so. Hope you will too.

Preview:

"Walking home?"

"Our parents should switch jobs."

"I used to have to babysit my brother and sister all the time."

"You can leave me here."

"Now your dad's your only excuse."

"I'll find you."

[Chapter 04]: Home Trail.