Kensuke knows his place.
He knows that Tsunayoshi will protect him if someone tries to hurt him. He knows that Nana will do the same, because he is family.
But above all, Kensuke knows his place, knows that when Tsunayoshi turns quiet and subdued, when Nana goes eerily still, he has to go back inside his room and lock himself in until he can no longer hear the slow drag of something heavy against creaking floors and the crunching of bones and the ripping of skin. He knows not to talk about it during dinner when Nana sets his breakfast on the table, knows not to ask Tsunayoshi questions about the noises on the way to school, knows never to open his mouth and tell anyone else.
He may be family, but he is no different from the corpses in the body bags Tsunayoshi drags home.
Which is precisely why he digs for the cutter he has in his school bag, slaps a hand over the boy's mouth, and slashes with not a hint of remorse when he notices him following Tsunayoshi in an alleyway and sees the reflexive recoil that jolts through his body the moment Tsunayoshi rips into the back of a rotting cat with his teeth.
He remembers feeling ill, remembers the unpleasant lurch of his stomach at the smooth gaping cut on the boy's neck, remembers the strangled gurgle that he made against the palm of his hand as the boy's eyes rolled to the back of his head and fell on the floor.
He remembers wiping the blood off of his face. He remembers Tsunayoshi watching it all with a faint smile, red and gold eyes lidded as Kensuke brought the boy to his feet.
Tsunayoshi might be impulsive but he isn't reckless- he would have sensed if he was being followed, would have put a stop to it before it could happen. He wouldn't be so careless as to blatantly feed in broad daylight.
This, Kensuke thought then in a momentary bout of clarity, was a lesson.
Tsunayoshi let it happen. He knew he was being followed, he knew that Kensuke will be there right behind him, he knew the risks, and he let it all happen to remind him.
(Tsunayoshi and Nana are kind and forgiving, compassionate in ways that even some humans can't be, but Kensuke has never once forgotten that they are murderers.
Underneath warm skin and bright smiles are fanged teeth and sharp claws.
And underneath family was-)
"Did you know Kensuke?" Tsunayoshi stood from where he is crouched behind a dumpster to approach the boy. He was around their age, if not a few years older. Kensuke has seen him in school and something in him twists at the thought.
"This boy," he held the boy's chin between dripping fingers, tilted it back to peer at the cut with a secretive smile, "tried to kill his three-month-old sister. His mother thinks it's an accident."
Kensuke didn't know, but he isn't surprised.
"Why did you make me do it?" he asked. A part of him is terrified - has always been ever since he saw Tsunayoshi's slender arm pierce through his father's chest and out his back - and unsettled that Tsunayoshi had little hesitation about putting Kensuke in such a place but at this point, a bigger part of him is curious.
Tsunayoshi regarded him with a blank look. Then, "Would you be able to do it again?"
Kensuke flinched.
"We aren't normal people, Kensuke. You've seen what we can do." He dug his fingers into the cut on the boy's throat, pried it open with ease, and licked at his fingers. "We're dangerous."
He wasn't referring to Kensuke. We are dangerous, he said, not to Kensuke, never to him, never to family, but they are dangerous to those around them and Kensuke is just human.
Tsunayoshi was asking to know if he'll be able to take another life for his own sake.
Staring at the blood sliding down the edge of his cutter, he looked up at the brunet, at his brother, and sliced through the meat of his palm. Black engulfed the whites of Tsunayoshi's eyes in a split second, red lines throbbing high above his cheeks.
"I'm prepared, Tsunayoshi," he said as he knelt to offer Tsunayoshi his hand, "I'm prepared to kill if I have to. I'm your brother, after all."
Tsunayoshi's lips curved into a dark smile, tongue lapping at the blood with a feral glint in his eyes.
Kensuke didn't have to be reminded.
He knows his place.
