Slitting Happiness

To him joy is an incision,
Get a grip, taste the decision . . .

Chapter 1, Foreigners

Bloody hell, he chided mentally as he picked up his dime bag that he dropped moments ago, trying to scoop up some of the hydro and place it back into the Ziploc without appearing conspicuous, "Fucking druggy, I swear, I go through this same hell every damn day."

Speaking of hell, he really was in it, whoever thought hell would be in the countryside of England? Setsuna was condemned to a perpetual misery. The kind of misery that was worse than the misery you get from waking up with a hang over, worse than finding out you had AIDS, worse than having a nicotine fit when there are no cigarettes in sight. This was hell, hell at it's worst.

Setsuna scoffed once more as he crammed the remnants of weed in his back uniform pocket, some of it spilling out. Frankly he didn't give a rat's ass about Katou's abusive drug habit to care if he got every last bit of weed, that jackass could just fucking deal with it.

"What the hell are you doing you dumb fuck?" Katou spat from behind Setsuna.

The brown eyed boy shoved Katou's weed towards him, "Keep your shit together!" he growled, obviously antagonized with Katou's dirty habit.

Before Setsuna could lecture on about how he loathed carrying Katou's weed around Katou spoke, "We're gonna be late," the blonde said dully as he glanced at Setsuna's watch.

Setsuna's wrist immediately flicked upwards so he could read the time, "Shit."

He had been condemned to hell for about five years now, but Christmas break he would be coming home, and then he would at least be bumped up a level; purgatory wasn't all too bad. Setsuna's hell consisted of stone walls, concrete celestial beings, wooden crosses, books (mostly the Bible), and testosterone, a whole shit load of testosterone. In short, a catholic school for boys, St. Dominic's Catholic School for boys to be specific.

"Got something up your asses?" shouted a short red head from afar.

"We're late!" Katou and Setsuna snarled in unison.

"What!" Michael rapidly ran after them, his short legs not showing any mercy due to the heavy snow but he eventually caught up.

Once the party of three had skidded through the narrow halls, snuck past Father Zaphkiel's room, and managed to elude the eyes of his little pet Raziel they reached safety. Hurriedly the party straightened themselves up, knowing that being tidy when entering class was a pet peeve of their advisory teacher.

"Look good?" asked Katou with a lifted brow.

Setsuna nodded and Michael snickered, "You look like--"

The door was flung open and a cold hard cobalt gaze were set upon them, "Detention, for a month," came the stoically smooth voice of their teacher.

"Aww, c'mon Raphie--I mean, we didn't mean to be."

"Save your excuses--and I don't believe we're on a first name basis, Mr. Yue."

Katou muttered something incoherent and received another disdainful look from Raphael. Michael kept a smug smile of satisfaction on his lips as he walked casually to his seat, receiving a not so friendly finger gesture from Katou. Setsuna however paid no attention to his companions who were bickering through obscene gestures. He sat at his desk that was about three feet away from the window, sighing and resting his head in his arms, watching the overcast of gray outside, and wishing hell would stop existing.

"Listen up," their blonde teacher commanded, grabbing the attention of his pupils with his stern voice, "We have a new student"

Sara . . .are you thinking about me? I miss you. I'll be home soon.

"Mudo, pay attention."

Setsuna inwardly groaned at the effort he had to put forth in turning his head and pretending to listen to his teacher. When he decided to focus he noticed dark haired guy standing in the front of the classroom. New he assumed since he hadn't seen him around before and by the shape of his eyes he must've been Japanese.

"This is Kira Sakuya, he transferred here from Tokyo, Japan."

Older guy, looked pretty cerebral with those glasses on, but it was probably facade, boys don't get sent here not to learn, they get sent here because their parents are sick and tired of them. St. Dominic's was one of the oldest and most dilapidated Catholic schools in England, Our classic style of teaching will ensure your children will be successful and respectful in their futures, bullshit this place was full of delinquents with no place to go, a refugee camp.

"Setsuna, show your new roommate around."

"New roommate?" complained Katou.

"I didn't stutter Mr. Yue."

"Who'll be my new roommate?" he pressed on.

"Michael."

"Michael? What the hel--"

"Another word of profanity and I'll add an additional week to your detention."

Dense quietness.

Setsuna contained his laughter and beckoned Kira to follow him out the door. Kira followed maintaining his aloof demeanor as he straightened out his tie and exited the classroom, ignoring the dagger glares from Katou.

"You're from Tokyo?" Setsuna asked, a smidge of an English accent in his voice that was starting to fade away due to the plethora of American students that came who influenced the way people talked around school.

"Yeah," Kira answered with a voice that hardly sounded Japanese.

"My dad lives there," Setsuna answered trying to strike up conversation and he could tell Kira wasn't too much of a talker.

"Where are you leading us?" Kira asked, observing a porcelain statue of Mother Mary.

In their meaningless chit-chat Setsuna noticed he had led him to a dead end, "Sorry, this way," Setsuna darted backwards a bit, opening a wooden door that led to a winding staircase, "I'll show you where our dorms are at first."

Kira rearranged his glasses and followed Setsuna, listening to their foot steps echo eerily through the musty smelling stairway, "What's that smell?"

"Only God knows," Setsuna replied curtly as he opened the door to the second floor.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen, you?"

"Eighteen, why are we in the same class?"

"Not that many students here so they let teachers slack off and have integrated classes," he answered with some spite in his voice.

Setsuna approached his dorm digging his keys from inside his pocket, "Here have my spare key," he took a key from the ring of various keys and tossed it to Kira who caught it with fast reflexes, "Nice catch."

Kira watched as Setsuna turned the loose knob and revealed a dorm room that seemed to have a personality disorder, one half being sort of plain looking, decently clean, while the other side had clothes piled around, papers, a not-so-well-hidden bong, CD's, various miscellaneous objects, and smelled fragrantly of illegal substances.

"I'll make sure Katou gets his stuff straightened out."

Reluctantly Kira placed his bags on Katou's bed, then Setsuna quickly snatched them away, "Just put it in my closet," he commanded handing Kira's bags back to him.

"OK," Kira opened his closet and came face towards a pretty little girl, wavy hair set in pigtails, and in a pink ballerina outfit, "Is this your sister?"

"Do we look that alike?" he inquired, vexed at the major resemblance he shared with his sister.

"Same hair color, same eye color, just assumed it."

"Yeah, that's my sister."

"She's cute."

"Don't even think about it . . . besides, she's betrothed."

"If you weren't her brother I think you would sound jealous," Kira mocked as he exited Setsuna's room.

"--If she was your sister you'd be protective too!"

For the next hour and maybe a little longer Setsuna showed Kira every nook and cranny of the entire school. Revealing every little secret and rumor there was to know about the place without any remorse. For some reason he felt at ease around Kira, maybe it was his silent-like attitude or his ability to sense things that nobody else really noticed, but whatever it was it gave Setsuna contentment. Kira never spoke a word about himself, it was usually Setsuna doing most of the talking, talks about his family, his troubles, everything and anything. It was the first time he was really able to cough everything out and inhale something fresh and new, Kira was Setsuna's fresh air. Soon their conversation which had now delved into deeper matters came to a cease when the blind priest approached the both of them.

"Setsuna, go back to class, and who is that with you?" Setsuna did as told, mostly because a week's worth of detention was better than a hour of tea time with Zaphkiel.

"Alright," he replied, "This is Kira Sakuya, a transfer student from Tokyo."

A look Setsuna couldn't decipher came into the Father's eyes, "I see, well Mr. Sakuya, I hope you enjoy your stay here at St. Dominic's."

"Thank-you," he replied with a small bow then he following Setsuna down the hall.

Zaphkiel listened to their footsteps grow fainter by the second then turned around to pat Raziel's head, "Didn't think I heard you, did you?" he asked, proud of his tremendous sense of hearing.

"No," Raziel answered, "Who was that with Setsuna? He looks new."

"Kira Sakuya," Zaphkiel replied walking towards his class, deciding this wasn't the best time to tell Raziel Kira's true identity, "Come on Raziel."

"Alright," the boy lingered for a brief moment to watch Kira and Setsuna enter the school, then followed hastily after Zaphkiel.

Kira and Setsuna had almost identical schedules, different science classes, but now they were in the middle of fourth period English, and Setsuna was sitting diagonally from Kira, who was idly listening to information he already knew.

"That would be 'an' instead of 'a', right Mr. Clay?" asked Lawrence with tender smile.

"Yes, actually it would, thank-you for pointing that out Lawr," Mr. Clay replied with the same sort of happy tone.

Kira lifted a brow at their over-friendly friendliness, noticing this Setsuna took it as an opportune moment to describe the situation at hand, "Flirting, they're flirting."

The Japanese teen glanced behind him to meet Setsuna's gaze, "Really?"

"Guys don't get much ass around here and cute wholesome Lawr over there comes from a dirty business in L. A., apparently his brother owned a whoring business."

A nod was the only answer Setsuna received from Kira who was beginning to scan through their textbook, overlooking the familiar and overrated story of Adam and Eve.

Soon a paper wad hit both Kira and Setsuna and out of reflex the younger one threw the wad back, "What do you want Katou?"

"Get the Jap!"

"--The hell Katou, you're Japanese too," Setsuna retorted.

"He has cigarettes!"

He never noticed it before but there was a box-like object sticking out of Kira's jacket pocket, count on the junkie to notice it first, "Hey Kira, Katou wants to know if he can have a cigarette," he asked .

Kira took the box from his pocket and dropped it on the ground, kicking it towards Katou while Setsuna acted as a guard for Kira, making sure Mr. Clay wouldn't turn around.

Katou grinned and grabbed the box from the ground, eager to smell fresh tobacco, but to his dismay there were none left, "You bastard--there aren't any in here!" he roared in a whisper tone.

"Katou, is there a problem?" Adrian placed a piece of chalk on his desk and began walking in Katou's direction.

"No, Mr. Clay!" Katou assured in a sing-song sort of tone, crumbling the box, and sitting on it.

Mr. Clay nodded, "Well, if you don't mind, why don't you pick up where I left off?"

Katou's eyes desperately went back and forth over the text, "--Um and we are . . . where?"

"Line forty-two."

"Oh, right."

Setsuna smirked at Kira who only returned the gesture with a slight upward movement in his lips.

The rest of the day surprisingly didn't progress slowly like the rest of the days in Hell. Kira was gradually beginning to grow more open with sharing his past with Setsuna. So far he learned that Kira's mother had died in a car crash when he was child, his father was tired of him (just like all the other boys) and decided to send him here to get a 'better education' and they both were in the same kind of circumstance.

"Feels like we've known each other for thousands of years," Setsuna grabbed his math homework and placed it in his binder.

"Maybe we have," Kira replied in a voice that sounded serious, taking his glasses off and putting them in the pocket where his cigarette box used to occupy.

"Maybe," Setsuna joked, unknowingly aware of Kira's seriousness.

A/N: Okie dokie noodles, my new Angel Sanctuary fic. Don't know what direction it's going, up down, backwards, but I know that I have one now, if you're a fan of Kaori Yuki's other works you might've noticed that I included Lawr and Adrian from Boys Next Door, and expect other characters coming in too, won't name them because it'd take all the fun away. Review and I'll update, no review . . . call me crazy but probably no update, and you better go check out Midnight Scribbler and DoughnutMagic's work, I'm currently a big fan of Your Sin Into Me and The Mad Teaparty. Yeah, go check them out, I dare you to.

Disclaimer/Claimer: I own something in this fic, the little poetry in the beginning is from the firsttwo lines of my poem Who Slits Happiness? Yeah, but besides that everything else is Kaori's.