Guess another one's out...took longer than I'd hoped. I do appreciate reviews, of course, so write a bunch and I wont let you down o.o

There didn't seem to be much of a point to this, Seimei thought with a scoff as the school bell rung gently nearby. All the children, big and small, turned their attention to the school – a gruesomely painted building with an imposing clock tower – before grabbing their stuff and shuffling nervously inside. The first day of school was nerve-wracking for any normal person. Therefore, Seimei couldn't care less, and no doubt that was the reason why he'd decided to skip it in favour of walking Ritsuka to school. His brother was, as usual, just as nervous as the other children, which unnerved Seimei more than he'd care to admit; seeing someone so like himself be so…unlike him at the same time, was puzzling to say the least.

"You're spacing out again, Seimei," the taller boy almost missed his brother's words as he was thinking to himself. The boy was tugging at his pant leg with his hands, looking up at him almost angrily. His ears were pinned to his head like a magnet to a fridge, and his tail curled protectively around his hips.

"Sorry," he managed a laugh before pushing the hair out of Ritsuka's face, to his younger brother's great dismay.

"Don't do that!" he shrieked, face turning red within seconds. He was always so touchy when near the school; not that he wasn't proud of his brother – in fact, he was – but he wasn't one for public displays of affection.

That makes two of us, then.

"I'll come pick you up at four," Seimei instructed his smaller self, still busy perfecting his brother's hair. It being a mess was just as bad on him as a sink filled with dirty dishes, so he made it a point to fix it. No matter how much Ritsuka disliked it. After all, it wasn't hurting him.

"Fine, now lemme go or I'll be late," he grumbled as his hair fell right back into its messy state. Seimei sighed.

"Of course."

And so the boy ran off, violet eyes filled with mirth and excitement at the prospect of the upcoming day. Seimei couldn't, for the life of him, ever remember feeling ecstatic about…anything, really, before. Not ever. Whatever feelings he had, if he had any, were surely more of a negative, obsessive or controlling nature. The latter two, mostly. For a fleeting second, just a flicker of a moment, he envied his brother just a bit. But then it was gone and he was fishing through his pocket for a cell phone, decided to make his Fighter's life a living hell on that Monday. After all, he was free, and bored, and Soubi would never let that happen. He wasn't allowed to.

He remembered that he'd left it lying miserably on his desk that morning, and he was left with no other choice but to find some other way to distract himself. He'd have liked to play with his brother, but Ritsuka was in school now, learning useless things, taught by incompetent people who didn't understand what they were talking about. Had Ritsuka not loved school so much, Seimei would have pulled him out as early as possible; the only reason he stayed in school was to keep his perfect image up. He didn't study or pay attention. After all, what he truly needed to know, books could tell him, and so he had no need for teachers.

He wondered what Ritsuka did all day in that stuffy classroom, crammed in with twenty other students. Was he quietly listening to the grown-up, taking notes, or was he talking to his classmates when the teacher's back was turned, kicking the neighbour's chair with his feet just to annoy them? He'd have loved to find out. And whatever Seimei loved, he got.

He pushed the mahogany door open – the one that lead to a large, overly-decorated room – and slipped past the receptionist into a darkened hallway. He could hear children laughing and screaming, but the class number on the doors didn't match his brother's. So he crept upstairs, careful to be stealthy but also to look good while doing it, and checked the class numbers on the second floor. Ritsuka's was the last door on the left, painted an ugly green with a silver door handle. The door, however, was wide open, and Seimei slid against the yellow lockers lining the wall to hide himself from prying eyes. For all the children could not see him, he could see them clearly, sitting round small, rectangular tables, their books strewn haphazardly across the wooden surface while the teacher prattled on about divisions.

There was Ritsuka, sitting straight in his little plastic chair, sharing a table with two other boys his age. Although his ears were pricked forward in attention, Seimei could tell that his brother knew what the teacher talked about before she even explained it – he'd taken the liberty of showing Ritsuka these things years back. Poor thing, being compared to all those filthy idiots sitting around him. His little brother didn't even know how unfair that was to him, how it made Seimei's blood boil to think about it. His tail waved around behind him like a snake, and when it accidentally brushed against a girl's bushy tail, she let out a shrill squeak.

"Sorry," Seimei heard his brother whisper near the girl's ear, his face red once more. The girl smiled shyly and nodded, and although Ritsuka turned back to face the teacher, the girl's eyes kept flicking back to the purple-eyed boy with interest. Seimei felt his elegant tail 'bush up' in anger behind him and he tried to mentally will the girl to pay attention to some other fool. Hopefully one as dirty as her. The only thing that kept him from throwing her out the window was the fact that Ritsuka paid her no mind at all.

The taller boy didn't see time pass as he watched his brother, and was brutally brought back to reality when the school bell rang once more, and the teacher announced that it was break time. The children got up and Seimei backed away into another hallway as Ritsuka and his classmates filed out of the room to grab their snack from their lunch box. He waited until all the children were back in the classroom before calmly walking back to his previous spot and spotting his brother sitting delightfully close to the door with some of his friends.

"Ritsuka, who was that man who walked you to school today?" the girl from earlier asked him as she chewed thoughtfully on a strawberry snack.

"That was my brother," Ritsuka piped. Seimei was satisfied to see that he talked about him with significant pride – not that he expected any less of Ritsuka – and that the friends seemed awe-struck by him. As long as they stayed that way, they'd stay away from him, and maybe his brother if he went to greet them personally.

"My brother had a lot of pimples, and he stinks," one of the boys groaned, "Yours doesn't. He's not really your brother then, y'know. Brothers are…big and burly and ugly!"

Seimei recoiled with disgust. What a stupid person his brother bothered to speak with. He'd have to clearly explain to Ritsuka the difference between intelligent people – which, as far as Seimei was concerned, was only the two of them – and the two-legged mammals that called themselves humans. They were hardly more than glorified apes.

"He is too!" Ritsuka defended himself as he crossed his arms over his chest. "It's not our fault your brother is ugly."

The girl, who had finished her snack and shot it at the trash can, giggled and batted her eyelashes in the youngest brother shamelessly. Seimei was appalled, but probably not for the reason one might suppose; rather, he wondered when girls had decided to start flirting at nine, ten years old. They certainly hadn't when he was Ritsuka's age, at which time he'd skipped two grades, and would have skipped more had his parents not pressed that he should be around people his age. He didn't try to socialize, nor did he give into his classmate's ridiculous attempt to make friends with him.

"My sister won the national tennis championship," someone perked, apparently following Ritsuka's group's conversation. It was a girl sporting long pig-tails and wearing a train wreck of a cerulean shirt.

"Yeah, well my brother is gunna be a doctor, like on television!" Whoever spoke was out of Seimei's eyesight.

"What about yours, Ritsuka?" the flirting pre-teen asked the suddenly disinterested Aoyagi boy. Ritsuka blinked, as if he'd been forcibly dragged out of a particularly interesting daydream, and pivoted on his heels to face the girl, his back turned to his brother.

"My brother…" he paused, and Seimei unconsciously leaned against the lockers to hear better, his tail waving sporadically behind him. "My brother's better than anyone else."

A satisfactory answer – also one that his poor classmates failed to understand. They cocked their heads sideways, glancing at one another, before shrugging it off and shifting the tide of conversation elsewhere. They gabbed on about some popular televised series while Ritsuka returned to his table and pulled out a large, hardcover book that Seimei recognized from his library. He flipped it open approximately halfway and his eyes began to follow a familiar pattern across the pages, right and then down, over and over again. It was a long book, yes, but an interesting one that the eldest Aoyagi boy had enjoyed as well. He couldn't remember all it was about, however.

The teacher called the end of recess and herded the children back to their respective places with a stern look. The rest of the day, they studied math some more, and at some point, while he was leaning heavily against the lockers and being lulled by the monotone voice of the teacher, his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. Thankfully, he was able to stand upright through his sleep, something he had learned so long ago that he could no longer remember why. He dreamt of nothing and did not witness anything that happened in the following hours; unfortunately, when the lunch bell rang, he was still quite deeply asleep and so he didn't have time to hide before his brother spotted him, along with his friends.

"Seimei?" Ritsuka squeaked, his ears flipping forward. The girl stared up at him and bit her lip anxiously when he shot her the coldest, iciest look he could muster, and she quickly excused herself. Ritsuka's newly formed smile faded slightly when he saw her go, but Seimei quickly demanded his little brother's attention. He stepped forward and bent down a little to brush his cheek against Ritsuka's, repressing a snort of amusement when his face turned red and he no doubt forgot all about the girl. His other friends stood a few feet away, awkwardly waiting for Ritsuka to join them for lunch as per usual. He felt the overwhelming need to wave them off, tell them they didn't deserve his presence and never would, but instead he hugged his brother tighter and kept his eyes on the tiled floor.

"Do you want to eat with me, instead?" he offered. He felt a small hand grip his shoulder.

"Can I, really?" he perked up. His friends seemed thoroughly confused but only one of them spoke up.

"But you…you always eat with us, Ritsuka," he pointed out in a defiance-filled voice. He glared heatedly at the taller violet-eyed boy, his hedgehog-like tail bristled and arched.

Ritsuka seemed genuinely torn between the two offers and looked down at his hands, absent-mindedly playing with his fingers. Seimei sighed and stood up, pushing Ritsuka sideways.

"I think he'll be eating with me, if you…gentlemen wouldn't mind," he sneered with a perfectly innocent smile. Even the young, dim-witted hedgehog-like boy caught the hint of black anger dripping out of the older man's voice and he nodded stiffly and lead the way for the other children towards the cafeteria.

"You don't like my friends?" a puzzled child asked, but Seimei felt it unnecessary to answer him and grabbed Ritsuka's lunchbox out of his locker. He grabbed his brother's hand, something that never failed to dissipate his anger, and tugged him outside the building. A few staff members tried to stop him, saying that he couldn't just whisk one of the students away, but he ignored them and continued on his way. Once they were outside under the heavy sunlight, he let go of his brother's hand and allowed him to pick a spot. Ritsuka led them to a large patch of cool shade under a bushy tree, where they both sat down on the dry grass.

Ritsuka swiftly ate the sandwich his brother had put together for him that very morning and chugged down the orange juice, leaning heavily against Seimei's chest, their tails flicking against one another occasionally.

"Were you waiting to have lunch with me?"

"Does it bother you?" he half chuckled.

"No," Ritsuka huffed, kicking his lunchbox aside to stretch, curling into his brother's side and laying his head near his shoulder. Seimei's hand reached out, tickling the soft fur covering the two triangular appendages while hooking his free arm around Ritsuka's body. He cracked one eye open when he heard a cracking sound, only to see one of the janitors who had tried to stop him earlier snooping around. The man was openly glaring at him, clutching a cell phone angrily in his hand. What, did he honestly think he could call the police on him? Even if he really was stealing a child, acting like a pedophile, there was nothing anyone could do to keep him from it.

"Can I help you?" he smiled at the janitor.

"That – children aren't allowed outside the building until four."

"Family members are allowed to take the children out of school if they wish," he snapped curtly. He noticed that Ritsuka had drifted off to sleep against him.

"Do you have proof that you're family?" the man seemed extremely doubtful of Seimei's affirmation.

Seimei reached into his pocket and retrieved his student card, complete with his name and address. He threw it unceremoniously at the man, wishing that Ritsuka was far away so he could properly take care of this man. The janitor seemed to recognize his last name, because he gave it back to Seimei and returned to the school, deflated. He felt his brother stir against him and tightened his arm around the suddenly cold body, frowning a little when he heard a small whimper escape the small lips. He touched his brother's forehead with one hand but found nothing out of place.

The school bell rung again, but Seimei simply continued to sit there, looking down at his brother and wishing the day would come when he'd realize exactly how special he was – to him, to his Fighter, of course, to the world itself. It was hard to think that he'd existed without his brother, or that he'd ever wanted to hurt him in any way.

When the school day ended, he shook the indigo-eyed child awake and helped him up. Ritsuka blinked when he saw the children exiting the school, running towards their parents. He grabbed his lunchbox from the floor.

"I missed the afternoon?" he gasped.

"You wanted to sleep," he offered simply.

"What is my teacher going to say? And mom?"

"I'll tell them you were feeling sick, and I brought you to the hospital." He smiled down at Ritsuka.

"But I missed –"

"You know everything you need to know already," he purred in amusement. Why was he getting so nervous about missing an afternoon of school? "Let's go home," he added after a long stretch of silence.

And so they headed home, Ritsuka trudging happily behind his brother; as for Seimei, he kept his hands in his pockets, curled against his leg, even when he saw Soubi watching him from a little ways off. He simply continued on his way, completely ignoring his oh-so devoted Fighter.