AN: This is completely spoiler-FREE (except for two minis in the notes, but they have warnings). All my fanfics take place in a slightly AR but consistent 'verse, and since I didn't know about the Kureno Spoiler when I wrote the previous ones, it's not here either. The Akito Spoiler can be used if you like, but it isn't actually written in. Basically the parentage I constructed for Kureno was there to set out why he's "inferior" sans spoiler, and to answer my little question (SLIGHT SPOILER in next sentence) – what if Kyoko hadn't remembered Tohru when she was looking over that wall? Plus I don't know anything about Kureno's parents… whatever, I'm sure they were nothing like this.

Akito's six, Shigure's fourteen and Kureno's twelve.

Disclaimer: Nothing, I own nothing. I am desolate and alone. Even the first scene is Conner/Jasmine-inspired. I like it, though.

Dedication: Oh, wait, I'm not desolate and alone after all. Still the same.

Acknowledgements: neko-girl4 came up with Kureno as a candidate. I would never have thought of it in a million years. --bonks head, which echoes-- So yay for her!


The Little Boy Lost

"Mother! mother! where are you going?

"O do not walk so fast.

"Speak, mother, speak to your little boy,

"Or else I shall be lost."

The night was dark, no mother was there;

The child was wet with dew;

The mire was deep, & the child did weep,

And away the vapour flew.

"Tell me a story," I demand.

Kureno, sitting with his back against my futon and my legs dangling on either side of him so that I can play with his hair, says, "If you like, of course, but shouldn't you be thinking of going to sleep? And I'm not much good at telling stories."

I tighten my grip in his autumn-brown locks, smiling impatiently. "I want you to tell me a true story. And I'm not tired. Tell me where your parents are."

He goes very still and I can feel that gaping emptiness inside him, that place I can't touch.

I hate that place.

"You live here, with me all the time," I say softly. "No one takes care of you but me. Not even Mother minds you being with me. Why?"

"Akito…"

"Kureno…" I sing-song.

He sighs, almost a laugh. "All right, if you want to know."

He pauses, head hanging, and gathers his knees up to his chest, curling in on himself. I slide down beside him, tugging his knees down and climbing onto his lap.

I don't like it when he closes up.

"Well…? Once upon a time…" I prompt, because that's how Shigure starts his stories.

Kureno lifts his head and his eyes soften. I'm not sure why until he starts speaking. "Once up a time," he repeats, "there was a man who was a servant in a castle."

Not real. Like the stories Shigure tells. That's why… he needs a curtain. Is it so bad, then?

"The man had very simple duties – to clean and drive and follow orders. And usually, he followed them. But when it mattered most, he failed to obey. He fell in love with a girl he shouldn't have, a girl who was…" Kureno's cheeks look warm, and I put my hands on them. They feel burning, but then my hands are cold.

"A girl who was…"

He looks at me protectively, and I smile. He settles for, "A working girl."

"Oh." I nearly dismiss this, as real work, needed work, is obviously for paupers and not those worthy of the attentions of a Sohma. Only…

"But he worked."

Kureno won't look at me. "Well, her job, Akito, it wasn't… When you're older, okay?"

I glare. He pleads with his eyes.

"All right."

He takes a breath and his voice falls back into its lulling monotone. "He was told unequivocally to stay away from this girl, but he wouldn't. He married her in secret, and thought he could keep her that way. A secret. But then she… they had a child. And it wasn't… it was a cursed child. The rooster was expected, and he had to tell.

"The girl asked him not to. Then she told him not to. And when it came to that, she told him he'd have to choose between her and his family, but however he chose, she was keeping her child.

"He chose his family, and told them. But then he got sick…

"The girl ran away with her child, but the family in the castle found her easily and watched her.

"They just waited.

"And they were right. She couldn't take it. Having a child like that… it was too much. So she went to live with her husband, and they were given fine rooms in the castle, better work, everything they wished for.

"But the man never got better, and eventually he died.

"After that, the woman was very sad. She forgot about her child for a while, and the little boy… He waited for her. He kept thinking she'd come back and be behind her eyes again, that she'd… realize that he loved her, still.

"She never did. She got sick inside, and she wouldn't let the magician heal her mind. So one day, she drank a lot and let herself fall off a bridge.

"The little boy was four then. He'd been three when his father died, and now…

"The king of the castle told him that he would live there, in the castle still, and he didn't need to worry. The queen told him that he had better earn his keep if he was going to trouble them.

"So he did his best, but he was always alone inside until the queen found herself with child. He had a dream about the child and it filled him up, and when the queen told him that he was a present to her child and was supposed to take care of it, he didn't mind.

"When he was six, the child was born. And he fell in love with the baby right there and then, and took care of him forever, and they all lived happily ever after."

The rhythm of his voice, never straying in its tone, has made my eyes heavy, and I'm leaning against his chest.

I can hear his heartbeat.

"They were happy?" I murmur, wrapping my arms around him.

"Yes, they were happy," he repeats, voice hoarse and empty.

I frown, awake now, and sit up.

Shigure's stories make me more awake. His voice changes, his hands fly and his words are like water, curling around in whatever shapes he lays out.

But they're not true. They hide him. This is different.

"Kureno, why aren't you happy?" I move to kneel on his legs, looking right into his eyes. "You have me."

"I am happy, Akito. I love you very much."

"Don't say that! Don't say it if you don't mean it!" My eyes narrow and I clench my hands in his shirt, hating how much I love the words, even empty. "Why are you sad?"

"I – I'm not sad… I just… I can't let them go. The only way to let it go is to forget them, and I can't. I can't let that happen. What they did was wrong and shameful, but they were my parents."

I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing myself to his chest so there's no room for him to breathe without breathing me. "But they left you." I let in the bigger part of myself, the part that blurs my edges and makes my head hurt. "They left you and I never will.

"They might have been your parents, but I am your god, and I am still here."

His eyes are very close. I'm reflected in them and don't like what I see.

That doesn't matter.

"Kureno… I love you. I love every bit of you, and every bit of you is mine. Including this hurt." I press a kiss on each of his eyelids, locking my hands behind his head. "It's mine and I want it."

I kiss his lips, pushing our mouths together. "Give it to me."

He puts his hands on my shoulders and gently guides me back. "Akito," he pleads, a hand unconsciously touching his lips where I did, "it's all I have of them."

I bite my lip, just a little boy again. "You love them more than me."

"Don't do that… please, don't be like your… listen, loving someone else doesn't mean I love them more. Things aren't black and white like that."

They are to me.

I stand abruptly, leaving him cold and empty where I was. "Get out."

"Akito." Plea, demand.

"Out! I told you to get out!" He stands and I grab his wrist, tipping my head back to look at him. He's too tall. "Why? Why are they better than me? You never even knew them!"

"They aren't, it isn't that… Why do I have to choose?"

"Because I told you to," I hiss. My heart is too small, squeezing on the feelings that threaten to spill out.

Every time I test them, prove her wrong, prove that their love for me is real, I'm so afraid…

That this will be the time they don't love me enough.

So afraid that I wonder if I wouldn't refuse to see it if it happened.

"Okay," he says.

I let out a sigh and drop my head, putting my arms around his waist. I have to stretch even to do that. "Okay…"

"What do you want me to do to prove it?" His voice is as empty as my victory, but everything will be better once this is over. That empty space's walls will collapse and I can have that space.

Then he'll be happy.

"Get rid of them. Forget them. Mother will remind you, I know. I'll tell you what you told me, and that you let Hatori take them away, and you'll know.

"But you won't feel it."

He kneels and meets my eyes. "Okay," he repeats.

He lets his head drop onto my shoulder and I smile and hug him tight.

I echo once again, "Okay."


One Day Later

"Kureno," Haa-niisan starts, his tone as close to openly strained as I've ever heard it.

Not that I hear it very much.

"Haa-nii, please don't. Yes, I know what I'm doing. Yes, I'm sure. No, I won't regret it."

"Not ever?" Gure-nii is leaning against the wall, eyes glinting. "Never is such a long time to not once think 'Damn, I wish I could remember mum' in."

"Nii-san…" I wish he wouldn't. If there is one person on earth who can make me doubt even Akito, it's Gure-nii. I think I'd be insane without him. "Nii-san. Tell me you could go in there and tell him that you wouldn't do something he wanted, something that matters to him."

Nii-san shakes his head. His ever-present grin is lurking only in the corners of his mouth, held by habit. "Someone has to," he murmurs. "Our sweet Akito-kun is getting a tad addicted to power."

I bite my lip at the blasphemy, but I know what he means. Those times when you know he's doing something just for fun, just because he can.

"Shigure!" Haa-nii snaps. "Stop that. Akito is god, anything he does is entirely his prerogative."

"Yes, Ha-san, there is that." Nii-san smiles cursorily. "But don't tell me it doesn't make you nervous. This is unnecessarily cruel, and we both know it. Akito doesn't. Do you realize the ditch we're digging ourselves into? It's not that he wants to hurt anyone; he just hasn't been taught that anyone else has a right to feelings. And we're making it worse."

Haa-nii turns back to me, because letting Nii-san see the look in his eyes would be too much of a confirmation but it doesn't matter if I do.

He looks like someone who has one foot over a cliff and is going to put the other over as well, maybe because it's too late, maybe because he just can't think of a rationalization for diving back.

He won't do anything. Neither will Nii-san, not even him I don't think. And I know I won't. How could we ever… no, we'll never be strong enough, and partly because he's so weak. He just looks at you like that and…

"Shigure, you should probably go."

Nii-san shakes his head, though not in negation. "Okey-dokey, Ha-san, whatever you say." He walks over and pats my head. "You come and see me after, 'kay, Kureno-kun?"

I nod, relieved. Nii-san will know what to do. I can trust him. I love Akito, but I… I don't think I can trust him anymore.

The doors slide shut behind Nii-san and Ha-niisan and I are left in the bare room, kneeling, facing one another.

"All right," he sighs. "Close your eyes."

His hand is chilly and large across my closed lids. "This could take a few minutes," he cautions. "I need to bury them very deeply if you're going to be told about them and don't want to truly remember." There is, almost, a questioning inflection to his tone.

I'm a bit shocked, but perhaps it's just my imagination. I simply nod.

"Relax, then, Kureno," he sighs.

I could laugh at that, but I don't. I do try to, relax I mean.

There's white light and…

-"Oh! Oh, listen, love, Kureno-kun is talking! He said 'mama-'"

-"There's my boy, hold onto Daddy's hand and you'll be fine"

-"Why are you coughing so much? Did you take your medicine?"

-Glass smashing when Mama gets the call from the hospital

-Empty eyes that don't see me anymore

-"No, no, Kureno-san, your mother's busy right now"

-Crying, all night I can hear her crying through the walls

-Smell of alcohol in the kitchen every day

-"Mama?" Once every morning I try, but no more because I can't stand being invisible more than once a day

-"Your mother's gone out, Kureno-san, why? Do you not feel well?"

-"No! No, she wouldn't leave me forever, no, she was coming back"

-"Kureno-kun, it's okay, I've got you. Nii-san'll take care of you, okay? It wasn't your fault, you know that, right? She was just hurt too badly and it got infected, like a cut. Not your fault." But it is

-Why? Why couldn't you stay with me…Why did you ever come back here? Why weren't you stronger?

then blackness.


I hate waiting. It's pointless, especially for a god. You would think people wouldn't make me wait.

But I know Kureno doesn't mean to, and I'm really too kind-hearted to be cross. Just a tad impatient.

He finally, finally opens his eyes with a groan, and I clamber onto his bed to kneel where I can look down into them. "Kureno?" I say, while his vision clears. "Are you all right?"

I feel a little sick to my stomach, thinking that someone else has been in his head and he could be hurt and it's all my fault.

It makes me angry, thinking that anything could be my fault…

But Kureno's hand opens and I put mine against it, measuring our fingers together – mine still only half his size – and I forget that. "Akito? What happened? Why am I in bed in the middle of the day?"

I smile. "You were fulfilling your duty to me, remember?" I linger over the last word, and he puts a hand to his chest like it's paining him.

"Oh," he says, sitting up and moving his hand to his head. "My – my parents…" He looks sick and frightened. "I really can't… they're gone. They're truly gone." He looks up at me, and I blink, leaning back from the desperation in his gaze. "I don't even remember going to Hatori-niisan… I don't remember… anything…"

"Yes." I frown. "You don't need them." The walls around that empty space are crumbling. Soon he'll be all mine.

I wonder if that will change him?

"No." His voice echoes in the empty place. "No, I don't."

"Kureno, I – do you –" I start, but can't finish and in the silence there's a knock at the door.

"Akito-san? Has Sleeping Beauty arisen yet from her sweet slumber? Oops, I mean 'his', of course…"

I twist my lips, considering yelling. But it is Shigure, after all. I turn to Kureno. He looks startled, then touched. "Come in, Nii-san," he says.

"Ah, look at the two of you in bed," Shigure leers once the door is open. "Mind if I join you?" Without waiting for an answer, he plops down on my other side, wrapping an arm around me and reaching forward to tousle Kureno's hair. "Not to worry, I'll tell you all about the Aged Ps later on. And a florid tale it is, full of manly violence, the brave challenging of a cruel tyrant, and lots and lots of passionate –"

He says something else, but Kureno's hands are abruptly over my ears. Not an entirely effective way to block sounds, but I'm startled enough by his touch that I don't catch the word.

Kureno cautiously removes his hands under my baleful glare. "Sorry, Akito-san."

"Don't blame him, Akito-kun, he probably just saved me some severe disciplining later on, not to mention playing the white knight and defending your fragile virtue… So then, all's well that ends well, eh?"

I reach out, and Kureno gives me his hand.

Whatever he feels about what he's done… he did it. For me. And now he's all mine, nothing left for anyone else.

Still, I wait, and the knot in my stomach subsides only when Kureno says, "Yes, everything's fine," and smiles at me.

I don't know why I was worried.

I repeat to myself, "Everything's fine…"

Of course it is. This time, he won't be distracted. They're gone for good.


AN: SLIGHT SPOILER, nothing big, in the next paragraph:

I could just die, the way Kureno still calls Shigure Nii-san when they're in their twenties even after everything… and that little sketch of them as kids… They're so cute! Poor Kureno, Shigure saying that to him… and it wasn't really his fault… Anyway, that's why I have him use it so much instead of "Gure-nii" or whatever. I figured it must have been quite an ingrained habit to go to something so intimate after everything that's happened between them thirteen or fourteen years later.

Review! Anything and everything. The good, the bad, the happy and the sad… that's from a song and I don't remember which one… Anyway, I live for feedback.

Oh! And I apologize to anyone who reviewed and asked who'd be next and didn't get an answer. I assumed that no one was serious about wanting to know, because I hate spoilers in any form so much… I realized after I'd replied that not everyone is my carbon copy. Which, actually, is the problem with the world.

Wow, but I can yammer.

But that's the end. Fic done… I'm sad.