Disclaimers: No, I don't own this.

First Pita-ten fic. Uh… yeah. This could be considered a one-shot, but it's supposed to drag from volume seven to past that time. Problem is… well, I still don't have the last volume. Until then… well, yeah, hope you enjoy.

000

Watch Over Me

Prologue: Unshed Tears

It was raining again.

Strange. No matter how many times it happened, it still made him depressed. Maybe he was just really sensitive or something, but no, it was a different reason. He still couldn't place it though. Maybe it was lack of family support; his father was rarely there.

It wasn't his father's fault that that was so, so he didn't blame him. But still, it was a midge annoying from time to time. Was he even allowed to do that to a twelve-year-old?

His mother was already dead. She had died when he was really young, but he remembered the accident. Not to mention it had scarred him for life. What life did he have? One where he had to work hard.

He didn't want to look like a failure to his mother.

But he was still being haunted by them.

Spirits, ghosts, demons.

They were the sorts of things that plagued his mind. And he hated it.

It was still raining.

Kotarou Higuchi sighed, blowing a purple bang out of his face. How long had he been sitting here, watching as the rain continued to fall without any sort of indication of stopping. It had felt like hours, but he was sure that it had been half-an-hour at most. Maybe it was because he wasn't actually trying to distract himself that this information seemed to be more depressing then before. But he really couldn't help it.

It just hurt so much. There was nothing else he could do about it.

There had been a chance where he could be happy again, be with family again. And he'd blown it. He'd lost it and that was that. It was just too late to change it.

And it hurt.

"Shia-san…"

A name he knew so well, yet so little. A person who was kind and caring and very considerate, and yet she was a mystery. No one knew where she'd come from and no one knew of her past.

But now he did.

If the truth wasn't shocking he had no idea what was. Shia was his great grandmother. A demon who had come to the 'Human Realm' at a young age and fell in love with his great grandfather, Taro. She disappeared for a few years, they met again and got married. Then there were the two children they had and then she left. She didn't want to, though, but she had no other choice.

It seemed strange though, Kotarou mused silently, still watching as the gray clouds kept the water falling, that this was all happening to him. Or at least around him. It involved his family, to say the least, but it still seemed to come as a shock.

Then again, that could explain as to why he saw what he saw. There was no other explanation around that.

But even all that could not quench the pain that threatened to engulf him now. It was just too strong and he couldn't throw it away like that.

Shia was gone. No matter how much he wished it, he would never see her again.

Just the thought alone hurt him so much that he couldn't stand it. It had happened on their trip home, after the funeral of his great grandfather. It was because of him that he knew of the past, and of Shia's past. The past of a young girl with the name Shima.

Shia had promised though. She'd promised that she would stay with them and always be with them. So why wasn't she here? Kotarou couldn't understand it and that was what was hurting him the most.

She'd promised.

Her demon cat seemed to understand this though and had even said that in the end she was a true demon. Kotarou couldn't understand it; never, in her whole life, had Shia meant any sort of harm to them. So why now!

Forcing himself to calm down, the single child looked out the window again. He didn't want to believe it. He never wanted it to be true. He had already lost his mother, his great grandfather and now his great grandmother, although she was far from it. He just kept on losing people that he cared for and they cared for him. Why was it always him? Why did he keep on seeing the people close to him get hurt so much?

He just couldn't understand it. He would never understand it.

Still, there was Misha, a strange, hyperactive girl who was an angel. How this made sense, he wasn't quite sure, but he'd first found her annoying, and now… he really had no idea. She was tolerable, but that was about it. And she was his next door neighbor.

And Shia used to live with her.

He was so scared of the truth. It seemed to follow him around everywhere, no matter how far he ran. He could never get a clear breathing space and it suffocated him. He did his best but it wasn't enough.

It hurt him so much, but he really had no idea how to deal with it. Was he just alone again?

Shia… he was never going to see her again. Not as a family member, not as a good friend.

It was still raining; but only outside.

000

This was so sad… I mean, I feel sorry for him now. Read and review, please. Thank you.