A Slow Burn

by Blu Rose

Series Summary: Not everyone reacts well to change. Just because Rin was able to adapt to no longer being human didn't mean his own son would do the same. In fact, he took the new way of life he was forced to follow quite poor. (Warning: Dark, depressing family stuff inside!)

4. Wants and Needs

EDIT: Changes have been made to the end of this chapter.

Disclaimer: Blu Rose doesn't own the Blue Exorcist series, only this fic.

X-X-X

Part 4: Wants and Needs

To Rin's dismay, Mephisto didn't allow him to live in the dorm with Kazuki and Kuroba. He gave excuses about the various ways it could look bad if someone saw a full-grown man coming out of a dorm that was supposed to be abandoned. Really, Rin felt like Mephisto only wanted him as far from his son as possible so he couldn't stop whatever shady plan he had in mind. But regardless of Mephisto's true intentions, he was still his superior…unfortunately.

But just because he wasn't allowed to live with the boys didn't mean he couldn't keep a close eye on them. Rin decided that it simply meant that he had to be there the moment they woke up and had to hurry off to class and the moment they returned home from cram school. So afternoons became the busiest time of day for Rin while the rest of his days' time was spent tending to his son—and sometimes by extension his lousy handler. It wasn't something that the boys themselves liked, but their favor wasn't Rin's main priority. All he wanted was to make sure Kazuki did nothing stupid ever again.

Of course, as a result, the already strained relationship between Rin and Kazuki got even worse. There were days when Kazuki managed to leave the dorm earlier than Rin could arrive and nights when he stayed out late with a lie of eating out, all so he could avoid his father—and Kuroba was more than happy to tag along rather than stop him. Not only that, but Kazuki actually seemed to be putting effort into trying to control his flames. Rin didn't know why, but his willingness to try and accept the flames was unsettling. Or maybe it was the ease with which Kazuki seemed to be going at it while still trying to resist everything else that was relatively new.

Regardless of whatever issues or doubts arose after Kazuki's third suicide attempt, nothing as serious happened afterwards. While things certainly didn't get any better, they settled into a sort of normalcy that gave Rin some peace of mind. Months passed and eventually, the spring semester at True Cross Academy was coming to a close. That also meant that the exwire promotion exam was approaching, which would determine whether or not Kazuki would continue taking cram school classes or flunk out. Neither Kazuki nor Kuroba talked about it, but he assumed that there were no problems.

That was before Shiemi came up to him in the cram school hallway and dragged the half-demon exorcist into the small plant-filled room she called her office to further talk about his son. When Shiemi sat down behind her desk and cleared her throat, Rin felt as if he'd been pulled into an impromptu parent-teacher conference. "We need to talk about Kazuki-kun. First of all, I think that you should know that Kazuki-kun hasn't done anything seriously bad…"

Rin blinked in surprise. "Uh, okay…" He honestly didn't think she'd want to talk about Kazuki unless he did something wrong again.

"However," the blonde continued, "When I gave the students the sheets to choose their desired meister, Kazuki-kun handed me back a blank sheet and told me to just choose one for him."

"Oh. That's not so bad."

Shiemi frowned and folded her arms across her chest. "You should be concerned about this, Rin! If Kazuki-kun flunks out of cram school, he'll be—!"

"No, he won't. Kazuki's too harmless to hurt anyone and too weak to be fighting against demons. There's no point in wanting him for anything." The blonde woman continued to frown and give Rin a disapproving look. "Really. There's no reason to worry—" He stopped when Shiemi narrowed her eyes.

"I sincerely hope you don't really believe that, because if you do and Kazuki-kun fails because you refused to consider the consequences, that may lead to something awful happening to him, and you're going to hate yourself so much for that." After a few seconds of glaring, Shiemi cleared her throat and folded her hands together. "Kazuki-kun turned down the 'optional' training camp as well. I would like it if someone changed his mind and got him to take part so he's prepared for the exwire exam—especially considering where the exam is going to take place. I've been trying to get him to reconsider all week, but you're his father. He's more likely to listen to you than to me."

"No, he's not."

Shiemi sighed. "You know, Kazuki-kun would probably be more cooperative if you were more supportive and less negative about his talents."

"I'm not being negative! If he wanted to become an exorcist, I'd be behind him 100 percent! He doesn't have what it takes to be an exorcist, he doesn't want to be an exorcist and I don't wanna force him to do what he doesn't want to do."

"This isn't about what Kazuki-kun wants, it's about what he needs!"

"All he needs is to learn control, not fight for people against his will!" Shiemi opened her mouth to say more, but Rin interrupted her, saying, "I'll get Kazuki to participate in the promotion exam, but don't think I'm gonna tell him to become something he doesn't want to be. End of discussion. Thanks for your concern," he muttered before leaving Shiemi's office, unable to resist the urge to slam the door behind him as she did. "Of all people, I didn't think she'd say something like that. Unbelievable…" He muttered before going back about his business and trying to cool down.

X-X-X

"What meister do you want?" That had been the question Rin opened up with that evening in an attempt to start a conversation with Kazuki. It wasn't as if Kazuki's increased efforts made him any chattier during their training sessions, to Rin's dismay, but at least he still came to them…when Rin caught him just after his last cram school class.

"Dunno. Don't care. Doesn't matter," was all Kazuki said as he glared at the candle sitting in front of him.

"I know that you're not exactly planning on becoming an exorcist, but you could put at least a little effort into your cram school classes." When his son didn't give him an answer, Rin frowned. "Do you even know what a meister is?"

"It's what a person is called when they're good at some certain exorcist…thing. I don't need to know them anyway. You people can just choose what I do for me, just like how you choose everything else."

"Not when you suck at everything~!" Kuroba sang from over in the batting cages.

"True. Not that meisters matter. I'm just here to burnthings," Kazuki spoke to both his roommate and his father as he glared at the candle.

"They want you to do more than burn things!" Rin snapped. It got a loud laugh from Kuroba just as he hit a ball. "Anyway, there has to be one thing you think you'd be good at. Knight?"

"Only idiots fight demons head-on."

"Dragoon?"

Kazuki flinched. "I hate guns."

"Doctor?"

"You think the guy that wants to die is a good choice to heal people?"

"Tamer?"

"I hate demons. Why would I summon one?"

"Aria?"

"Yeah, fight a demon with words and rely on my memory to save me. I can't even remember things for normal classes..."

Rin sighed and held a hand against his head, feeling a migraine coming on. "There's more to you than just your flames, you know."

"No, there's not. That's all anyone cares about when it comes to me. 'Learn to control your flames.' 'Use your flames to help us kill demons.' If I was some plain, unimpressive demon, you people probably wouldn't care so much about me trying to kill myself."

"Stop lumping me together with the rest of them!"

"Hey! Akumura! You could be a familiar!" Kuroba called from the batting cages once more, though he wasn't looking over at the father and son. "Just think about it: you'd only have to work when your tamer summons you! When you flunk out, I could find it in my heart to make you my servant!"

"Fine. Whatever," Kazuki spoke flatly. "That's probably gonna be they're next step, anyway: I'm already their bitch. May as well make me their pet."

"That's not fine! You're not someone's pet or their servant!" Rin snapped.

"Technically, he is. He's the property of the Vatican who can be thrown away the moment they deem him useless. I'm trying to be nice and give him a less stressful alternative to getting executed," Kuroba explained, "since they sure as hell won't let a potential threat walk around freely. Especially if he can harm people worse than he harms himself."

"Will you just SHUT UP?!" Rin exploded. The training area fell silent for a minute, save the sound of the ball machine constantly chuffing out tennis balls. Rin took a deep breath and sighed, the migraine reaching the peak of its pain. He bent over and ruffled Kazuki's hair playfully. "I won't let anyone harm you. So don't worry, okay?"

"Yeah, because you haven't let me down before," Kazuki spoke sarcastically.

Rin flinched from the comment and pulled his hand away from Kazuki, but he didn't push that topic any further. He changed the subject to, "The exwire promotion exam is gonna happen soon. Are you ready for it?"

"That depends: does it involve getting attacked by more demons?" Rin said nothing. Kazuki huffed. "I'm surprised this place hasn't gotten sued yet for cruel and unusual treatment of students... Not that I could do that even if it was an option. Like Kuroba said: I'm property. I don't have rights so I can't sue—just complain."

"But you complain so well!" Kuroba added.

Rin shook his head, but held back whatever contradictory comment was beginning to form in his mind. "Look, you're gonna be forced to take part in the promotion exam whether you want to or not. The least you can do is take part in the training camp so you don't get seriously hurt."

Kazuki looked over his shoulder and grimaced. "Fukui-sensei told you I didn't want to do it, didn't she?"

"What makes you think that?"

"She's the only teacher obsessed with helping this year's 'problem student'."

"Look, you're more likely to be left alone if you show that you've got control of your power while also showing how you aren't fit for the job."

"I can also be left alone if I'm dead or you people literally leave me alone."

"Just take part in the training camp, do the test and…make it look like you're trying, would ya?" They both fell silent and Kazuki went back to glaring at the candle sitting in front of him. Rin sighed and crouched down next to his son. "Did I tell you how proud I am of you?"

"That won't make me want to join the training camp," Kazuki spoke flatly.

"I'm serious. I know how much you hate all of this and that you've practically been forced to do this, but I'm glad that you're being cooperative. And if you continue the hard work, I'm sure you'll get the hang of things soon." Rin patted Kazuki on the back and gave him a smile that, as expected, wasn't returned. They spent the rest of the training session in silence.

X-X-X

The next day, Kazuki started off his anti-demon pharmacology class by slamming the form Shiemi had been forcing on him all week down on her podium. "There. Satisfied?" He muttered before slinking off to the very back of the classroom, where he usually sat with Kuroba, without a word to his teacher. The moment the class officially began—yet another lecture on how to cure a wound from a particular kind of demon—Kazuki tuned it out in favor of doing some homework for his normal classes. If he was asked to answer a question or to do something, "I don't know" and "I can't" were Kazuki's automatic responses to every cram school teacher. Initially, he listened to learn anything that might kill a demon such as himself, but since he knew being more human than demon nerfed the killing power of anything he was taught to make, there was no point in listening to any of the cram school lectures. That entire section of his school day was practically study hall.

Kazuki only snapped back to attention when Shiemi spoke up, "Before we get ready to leave, I have a special announcement to make!" He really only cared about the first part of that sentence and began to pack away his things to move on to his next class. "As you know, our training camp in preparation for the exwire promotion exam will begin this evening. We'll be spending our time in a building on campus that is restricted to those affiliated with the cram school. Since not all of you will likely know this location, please take one of these map printouts of the academy that has it marked," Shiemi explained as she walked down the aisle of desks, giving campus maps with a spot circled in red.

"Ah! No way!" One of the girls—who was memorable for her faux tan and bleached blonde hair—raised a hand to get the teacher's attention. "Like, Fukui-sensei! The thing marked up on the map…that's that dilapidated dorm building, right?"

"She knows what dilapidated means?" Kuroba whispered more to himself than to Kazuki. "…Hm? Dilapidated dorm building?" He stared down at the map he had been given. "…This is our dorm!" The brunette hissed. "This is the sort of thing you should be told ahead of schedule!"

Kazuki glared down at the paper. "…Of course. Once again, they lie to get me to do something. These people are just the worst…!"

The roommates' complaints went unheard by the rest of the class. "Fukui-sensei! That sounds dangerous! Who's going to take the blame if my big brother gets hurt?!" Another girl exclaimed—short and delicate-looking with straight black hair. Sitting next to her was a young man roughly the same height with short dark hair and an apathetic expression, who didn't seem the least bit flustered by the news of where they'd been spending the next few days.

"Everybody says it's haunted and that they refuse to tear it down because all the construction workers who go to demolish it wind up dead!" Cried the blonde.

"You're an exorcist-in-training. You shouldn't be worried about a building that's haunted by demons," said a girl who was sitting alone at the other desk to the front and whose only distinguishing traits were her pair of thick-lensed glasses and the white streak that went down the middle of her black hair and made her look like a skunk.

"Shut it, Four-Eyes!"

Sitting at the other desk in the back row on the opposite side of Kazuki and Kuroba was a boy with short brown hair whose bangs hid his eyes. He quietly muttered something that sounded like, "This school will be the death of me…"

"Now, now! The dorm isn't unsafe at all! We always hold these training camps there. In fact, your classmates Okumura-kun and Tachibana-kun have been living there since the beginning of the term, so you can rest assured that it's safe!" Shiemi explained.

The other students began to stare at the roommates. After a moment of silence, the brother-lover mumbled, "Is that where the poor boys stay?" loud enough for everyone to hear. Kazuki and Kuroba glared at Shiemi, as if blaming her for the unwanted attention.

"Anyway…please remember be respectful to Okumura-kun and Tachibana-kun while you're staying there this week." The shrill ringing of the bell alerted the students to start heading to their next class. All of them but Kazuki and Kuroba, who continued to glare at Shiemi from their seats. "I hope you boys don't mind the minor intrusion," the blonde woman spoke softly to them, looking as apologetic as she could.

"My one sanctuary in this entire school is being invaded by the part of it I hate the most. Of course I mind," Kazuki grumbled before he got up and stormed out of the classroom.

X-X-X

"I just learned that my dorm is where it's taking place! You HAD to get me to join, didn't you?! You people are awful!" was the text message the fuming Kazuki sent his father on his way back to the dorm from cram school. He spent most of his time in his room seething over what had happened and what was going to happen, and what he ought to do about it. But he wound up being unable to think of anything that didn't involve just locking them out and siccing Ouji on them, so he wasted time on his non-cram school homework. While he was in the middle of it, he got a response from Rin.

"At least you won't feel left out of the fun." And he added a smiley face at the end, as if trying to make reviewing for an exorcist exam seem fun.

"Your definition of fun is why you're more of a freak than I am."

Rin's next message came seconds after Kazuki sent his own. "You could make friends with your classmates if you tried."

"No way in hell. I know my classmates. There's not a single one I like out of that bunch and they don't like me. It's a dumb review for a dumb exam for a dumb job I don't even want. I could've just stayed up here and do nothing, but you forced me to join."

"How do you know they don't like you? And it's better to show that you're actually trying. Or at least pretend to try." Kazuki snorted at the message. His dad's idea was too stupid to work. Common sense said that showing how capable he was would only make the exorcists more eager to keep him. As he was thinking about that, another message from Rin came. "Just be nice to your classmates and Shiemi-san. And try your best at your review. Be good.' The message ended with a heart symbol.

"What does he think this is, a sleepover?" Kazuki muttered to himself.

"Hey!" Kuroba shouted as he walked into the room. "We've got guests incoming. If I have to endure the torture of being a good host to those people, so do you." He grabbed Kazuki in a headlock and pulled him out from behind the desk.

"If you're gonna force me to do something, at least do it in a way that doesn't hurt my neck…!" Kazuki grumbled as he was pulled out of the room and down the stairs to the front door.

The brunette smirked. "Pain is one of the best motivators." A knock on the door made him sigh and frown. "Time to face the music." He opened the door to see the smiling face of Shiemi and the less than ecstatic expressions of their classmates. "Good evening, Fukui-sensei." He put the squeeze on Kazuki's neck to prompt him to answer.

"Good evening," the quarter-demon muttered before Kuroba allowed him to stand upright.

"Good evening, boys," Shiemi greeted as she stepped inside along with her students. "You see, everyone? It isn't as bad as it seems."

"Well, at least the interior isn't as bad as the exterior," said the dark-haired sister.

"This place, like, reeks of the destitute," said the blonde girl. "So, uh…where's everybody else?"

"First of all," Kuroba began, "we're not destitute. We're frugal. Secondly, we are everyone."

"You've got an entire building to yourselves?! If this place didn't look like a haunted house, I'd be envious of you two!"

"Alright, everyone. Why don't you get settled into some empty rooms first? Then you can come downstairs and do your review sheets," said Shiemi.

"I hope the rooms are at least clean," said the skunk-haired girl as the students climbed the stairs.

"Oh, Kazuki-kun!" Kazuki stopped on the stairs as Shiemi called his name. He turned around to look at his teacher as the other teens disappeared upstairs. "I wanted to tell you how happy I am that you changed your mind about participating in the review," the blonde woman said with a smile.

"I was forced to. Because you told my dad I didn't wanna do the review."

"I told him because I'm concerned about your grades. You can't pass your exwire exam with just brute force. You're required to know things if you want to be an exorcist."

"But I don't want to be an exorcist."

Shiemi sighed and folded her hands together. "I understand, but you—"

"No, you don't understand. I want nothing to do with demons or exorcists or anything related to them. I really don't care if I pass or not, so I don't need your concern." He didn't wait long enough for Shiemi to respond before he went upstairs to get his things.

X-X-X

The following day at cram school, Shiemi stood before her class holding up the several sheets of paper. "Alright, everyone! Before we begin class, I'd like to turn over the sheets for last night's review. When I call your name, I'd like you to come up and take your review," All of the students couldn't help groaning at the mention of the review. "Now, now… The review isn't a graded assignment, so even if you happened to get a grade you didn't like, take it as a sign that this is something you need to study more. Besides, most of you did very well." As if wanting to insinuate something, Shiemi looked in Kazuki's direction before she started to call out names. "Noriko Amano." The dark-haired sister got up and headed to the front of the class to take her sheet. "Kojiro Amano…" Her brother followed in suit. "Todo… Honda… Shima…" The skunk-haired girl, the tanned blonde and the barely noticeable brunette went up one at a time, their expressions at their grade ranging from satisfied to apathetic to disheartened. "Hanamura… Okumura…" Kazuki passed by Kuroba on his way to the front of the class. He grabbed the paper Shiemi held, but she wouldn't let it go. She leaned forward and whispered, "I want to talk to you tonight." The quarter-demon scoffed. "I'm serious." She then let the paper go and allowed Kazuki to go back to his desk. "Now then, to continue the lecture we had yesterday that was cut short…"

Kazuki plopped down in his seat and began answering questions for his math homework, his review sheet sitting off to the side. Kuroba looked down at it and snickered. "Oh, wow. A zero. You didn't even try to pretend like you knew this stuff, did you?" Kazuki didn't respond and kept doing his homework. "She wouldn't accept a blank sheet, so you just wrote down 'I don't know' for every answer. You're so awful…" The brunette stared at the message next to Kazuki's grade that said 'I'd like to have a word with you at some point.' "Oooh, you actually managed to piss her off! I knew she had a limit. No one can be so nice all the time."

"Obviously," Kazuki muttered before he succeeded in tuning everything out for the rest of the cram school period.

X-X-X

The moment cram school was over for the day, Kazuki made a beeline for the old boys' dorm so he could gather provisions and spend the night locked in his room. To his disappointment, he bumped into Shiemi when he was partway there—quite literally bumped into her and almost made her drop her things. "Sorry, Fukui-sensei," he spoke quickly and tried to escape potential lecturing, but Shiemi seemed to purposely step into his path in her attempt to steady herself.

"Oh, Kazuki-kun! You don't have to call me that. It's not like we're in cram school right now." True, she wasn't dressed in her usual exorcist uniform or casual kimono, but the sort of outfit an ordinary woman would wear. She looked like a typical housewife coming home from grocery shopping. The bags she was carrying were bulging with foodstuffs. "You're just in time to help me with these!"

"Um… Okay?" He answered, sounding unsure. They weren't on good terms, so was there a big chance that this was a trap? "Lead the way to your house, then."

"Oh, these aren't for home. They're for the students!" Shiemi's response made Kazuki give her a look of confusion. "I figured that they would feel better and do better on their reviews if they had a good meal. You would know that if you actually stayed to listen to what I had to say instead of running out at the sound of the bell." Shiemi was smiling, but there was an edge to that last sentence the teacher said. Kazuki didn't look the least bit ashamed or afraid, though. "But really, I'm mostly doing this for you and Kuroba-kun. When was the last time you had a nice home-cooked meal?"

"Every day my dad comes to visit. Which is practically almost every day." Speaking of his dad, even though Rin said he wouldn't be coming around during the whole review camp affair, he still left more than enough food for Kazuki and Kuroba to survive a week without him. At this point, Kazuki wasn't sure if his dad was still unconvinced that he'd long given up on death by starvation or if this was another dumb attempt at bonding with food.

"Oh." Shiemi looked a bit disappointed, but she soon brightened up. "Well! No matter! I can still cook for you to make up for invading your personal privacy!"

"I'm used to you people not caring about my rights by now." And what was it with her and his dad thinking that giving food made everything okay?

"Anyway, eating dinner together is one of the fastest ways to become friends. Comradery is also a necessity in the field of exorcism. That's why I'd like all of my students to get along with each other better than they do now. That includes you, too."

"That's kind, but unnecessary, Fukui-sensei," Kazuki spoke flatly. "I don't—"

"Please, don't call me that outside of class," Shiemi interrupted him. "Anyway, if you could please help me…?"

And so, Kazuki wound up helping Shiemi carry her groceries to the dorm—because it felt like she wouldn't leave him alone until he did. Along the way, it was mostly her talking about dinner: what she was thinking of making, what she decided not to make, her hopes that she would make something everyone would like. The whole way back, Kazuki thought about how he really didn't want to eat at the same table as any of them.

"I was thinking of making a hotpot for dinner. Would you eat that?" The blonde woman asked as Kazuki opened the doors of the dorm and stepped aside to let her go in first.

"Do I have a choice to not eat anything at all?"

Shiemi frowned. "No."

"Knew it… Fine, I'll eat it."

"Really?!" Shiemi's eyes lit up in an almost childish way before he beamed. "Oh, I'm so happy you're agreeing to this! I'm sure everyone will get along just fine!"

Kazuki followed her to the kitchen, wondering if she forgot about the little talk she'd been so adamant about having with him. Once Shiemi's back had been turned, he ran out of the mess hall and headed upstairs to his room, locking the door behind him. He agreed to a review, not a dinner party.

X-X-X

Kazuki preoccupied himself with studying for about two hours before his stomach began to growl. He was so focused on getting away from Shiemi that he forgot to grab some food to hold him over for the night. The people downstairs, though, posed a problem. He didn't want to risk getting involved in another monstrous review or getting dragged into their company. The quarter-demon glared out of the window in thought for a few seconds before he remembered the inugami sitting on his bed. "Ouji! Listen up!" Kazuki barked, getting his dog's attention. "I need you to get some food for me from the kitchen downstairs. Can you do that?" Ouji cocked his head to the side before jumping off of the bed and phasing through the front door. Kazuki smiled. "If there's one trustworthy person in this world, it's my dog."

Within minutes, Kazuki heard a scratching at his door. He answered it and stared in utter confusion at who was standing out in the hall: that little sister from his class. What was her name? Damn it, now he'd have to remember the names for these people… Noriko Something-or-other? She was holding a box of crackers out to him, but the pair of transparent dog ears on her head held the quarter-demon's attention.

"Ouji! You had to possess somebody just to get me crackers?! You may as well have gotten me some butter to spread on these!" Ouji made to turn around—probably to get the butter Kazuki mentioned—but the boy grabbed Noriko's arm and stopped him. "Hold it! Crackers alone are fine…" He took out a rice cracker and munched on it. Ouji appeared to be looking hungrily at him—which made Noriko Amano look a bit foolish. "You want some? Get outta her then." Kazuki supposed he would have to apologize for Ouji suddenly forcing himself into her.

Black smoke flew out of Noriko's mouth and formed into the inugami, who sat at Kazuki's feet. The short girl seemed to be in a bit of a daze at first, but she recovered quickly enough. "Huh? What?" Her expression of confusion became one of anger when she saw Kazuki. "You!"

"Sorry. My dog thought the best way to get food was to highjack someone's body. No harm done." He didn't really sound apologetic with his flat tone, though.

"You…cretin!"

"Cretin?" Kazuki didn't have time to question her choice of words because Noriko punched him in the face and broke his nose in the process. "SON OF A BITCH!" He dropped the box of crackers to hold onto his bloody nose as Noriko stormed off, while blood dribbled down his face and onto his clothes and the floor. "I said I was sorry…!" He did his best to glare down at Ouji. "This is your fault. Go get me some toilet paper or napkins—something for the blood." He was more concerned with the blood staining the floor and his face since his nose would heal soon. But he didn't want to risk confronting those bastards downstairs and being accosted with questions, because he knew that brother-lover would complain about him to everyone in the damn place. As a precaution, Kazuki shut the door and locked it once more.

Ouji left the room without a word, but a minute hadn't even passed when the inugami returned without any papers. Before Kazuki could ask why he was back so soon, there came a knock at the door. "Kazuki-kun?" The muffled, but still recognizably concerned voice of Shiemi spoke. "Are you okay?" The quarter-demon didn't respond, but Shiemi continued speaking, "Amano-san said that she saw you bleeding when she left you and I feared the worst."

"It's okay. I'm gonna heal on my own anyway."

"But I'd still like to tend to you and make sure you're okay if you don't mind."

Kazuki slammed his free hand against the door. "I do mind!I'm fine, so just leave me alone!" He didn't hear a response from Shiemi, which he assumed meant that she had given up and gone back to the other students. He almost breathed a sigh of relief before his door was suddenly kicked open and he was hit in the face.

X-X-X

"Once again, I am so sorry, dear."

"Ow. Don't call me that." Kazuki had found himself sitting on his bed next to Shiemi while the teacher inspected his nose and Ouji sat at his feet. "You're worrying for no good reason."

"I am not. I could tell you about some of the times your father broke something and it healed in a wrong position. He'd always had to break them again so they could be set and heal properly. That and…I didn't like the thought of you bleeding out."

"No one dies of a broken nose."

"How do you know?"

"How do you? Mrs. Kick-The-Door-Down?"

Shiemi lightly pinched the temple of Kazuki's nose and he flinched from the minor pain. He didn't know if she did that for medical reasons or because of his rude comment. "I kicked it open for your safety because I am your teacher and you, my student, are my responsibility."

They then stared at each other in silence for what felt like a solid minute before Kazuki scooted away from her and said, "Then go be responsible for your other students. The ones who actually wanna be here."

The blonde woman gave him a look of concern. "Kazuki-kun… You don't have to hide from us, you know. We're not going to bite you."

"I'll bite you."

"No, you wouldn't. You're sweet. Like your father." The mention of him made Kazuki twitch, but it went unnoticed by Shiemi. "Anyway, you're more than welcome to come downstairs. I mean you're living here. The rest of us are only guests."

"No thanks. I'm comfortable up here. I have Ouji for company."

"A dog isn't proper company." Ouji made a low growl that reminded Shiemi of his presence. "Not that yours is a mere dog... But you need to interact with other human beings."

"I'm not human. And if I wanted to make friends with humans, it wouldn't be with any of youpeople.

"And by that you mean…?"

"People who willingly want to tangle with demons as opposed to sane and normal people who don't, and who force people to enter their job when they obviously don't want to and refuse to lis—" Kazuki was stopped in mid-rant when Shiemi grabbed his arm and began to drag him out of the room with strength unbefitting a delicate-looking woman. "Hey! Lemme go!"

"You won't learn who you can and can't get along with by staying cooped up in your room."

"I don't want to get along!"

"You also have to do tonight's review sheet. You're the only one who hasn't done it yet."

"I don't want to do the review! I want you people to leave me the hell alone!"

"It's not about what you want, Kazuki-kun. It's about what you need."

Shiemi continued to drag Kazuki along, leaving behind a whimpering Ouji.

X-X-X

Later that evening, as the students gathered to have dinner in the old dorm's mess hall…

"Oh, it's the dog pervert. Who're you gonna possess now, Akumura?" The tanned blonde—Honda—said with a smirk.

"I don't even want to sit in the same room as this degenerate! Let alone at the same table!" The brother-lover—Noriko Amano—snapped as she pointed a finger at Kazuki.

"Fukui-sensei, don't you remember what he did last night? He should be punished, not allowed to sit with us!" Said the sister-lover—her brother Kojiro Amano.

"I agree. Anyone who misuses their familiar in such a way should be expelled from cram school," said the skunk-haired girl—Todo.

Shima—surprisingly the only other classmate whose name Kazuki could recall despite his inability to stick out—said nothing against nor in defense of Kazuki and continued to sit down at the table. Nor was Kuroba, who had already sat down at the table and was preparing to eat. Then again, Kazuki wasn't going to defend himself, so why should they?

Kazuki made to quietly leave the mess hall, but Shiemi grabbed his arm and pulled him back over to the table to face his judging classmates. "Now, class! If you can't get along with your classmates, how will you be able to get along with your future comrades in exorcism?"

"I don't want to get along with or be comrades with someone like him!" Noriko exclaimed.

"Okumura-kun said he was sorry about what his familiar did to you, Amano-kun. It was only trying to get food for him. Neither one of them intended to do anything…obscene to you."

"I was possessed! That was obscene enough!"

"Now will you just give up?" Kazuki began. "They don't have to learn to get along with me because I'm not gonna be here for long. I'll just eat alone in my room, like I wanted to all along."

The blonde teacher narrowed her eyes and began to generate an intimidating aura. "Alright! If you all refuse to try and get along the nice way, all seven of you can learn your lesson the hard way!"

X-X-X

Several minutes later in the dorm's lounge, the seven cram school students—including Kazuki—were kneeling on the floor with their faces contorted in pain. On each of their laps was a big gray rock the size of a head. They even had unpleasant-looking faces that also seemed to be contorted in pain. They were bariyon—a sort of demon that became heavier and heavier the longer they were on a person. This was their punishment: to endure the increasing weight of the baryon until Shiemi was finished making dinner and they were ready to play nice with one another.

"Y-you idiots just couldn't get along with one another. You had to push the issue. And now we're all gonna be sore tomorrow," said Honda with a frown.

"Weren't you the one who called him a dog pervert and Akumura?" Kuroba asked, sounding irritated. "By the way, that's my name for him, you idiot…!"

"Th-that was just teasing! Friendly teasing! If anyone's to blame, it's Bro and Sis and Specs!"

"Excuse me, you bimbo?!" Noriko shouted. "If anyone's to blame, it's the pervert who started this in the first place! Him and that dumb dog of his!" She leaned over the bariyon on her lap as best as she could to shoot a glare at Kazuki. "Do you hear that?! Your fault! This is your fault!"

Kazuki sat in the middle of the line of students—all the other boys were on his left while all the girls were to his right. He said nothing to Noriko and continued to glare at the ground. Take it easy on Shiemi-san, his father said. Bullshit. She obviously wasn't taking it easy on him! He didn't even want to be a part of this good-for-nothing training camp and here he was, being punished cooperating! How was something like this supposed to make them get along anyway? Seemed more like it would make them all hate each other—or rather, hate him.

"He's not gonna listen to your whining, Brother Lover," said Kuroba. "In fact, he has a good idea. If we just sit here whining, Fukui-sensei won't think we're being all thoughtful about our poor behavior. So it's probably best that we all shut up so she's satisfied."

And so, they all fell silent, but the air surrounding the teens was still very tense since most of the students were glaring at Kazuki. Even after Shiemi came to get them so they could all have dinner together, though they didn't argue, they didn't speak to each other, either. Like the saying goes, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Their resounding silence just meant they didn't want to talk to each other at all. Or maybe they were too sore from the weight of the bariyons to put effort into eating and talking. Whatever the case, Shiemi's attempt at getting her students to bond was more disaster than success and Kazuki went to bed feeling more miserable than he had been in a long time.

X-X-X

To say that Rin had been nervous from the day the pages' training camp began felt like an understatement. After several days of written exams in the guise of reviews, the physical exam would take place that evening. Mephisto hadn't allowed him to be in on the exam, saying they already had someone on call to take care of Kazuki should he lose control. Apparently the Vatican, eager to prevent any accidents, sent an exorcist that they believed was more than capable of restraining him for a worst-case scenario. Once again, no one seemed to care if Rin was even offended at the unspoken insinuation that he wasn't capable of handling his own kid or worried about the idea of some potential madman seriously harming him more than whatever demon Mephisto had planned.

He tried to calm himself down by asking Kazuki things about his birthday later in June. It was all via text message of course because that seemed to be the only way Kazuki was willing to communicate with his father. Of course, his son's responses were usually something like "I don't want to have a birthday ever again" or "stop talking to me", but Rin ignored it. Things would almost be the way they were last summer, before all the unfortunate events that kicked everything off happened, as soon as the promotion exam was over.

And then he received a call while he was at home that evening that pushed that happy thought out of his mind.

"Rin! Good evening!" It turned out to be Shiemi.

"Oh, Shiemi! How are you doing? Has the exam started yet? Do you know what's been planned?" The questions came out of Rin's mouth before he could stop them.

"Um… I'm fine. The exam hasn't started yet, but I don't really know what Sir Pheles has planned… A-anyway, I was wondering if Kazuki-kun was perhaps at your house."

The question made Rin arch an eyebrow in confusion. "What? No." Kazuki hadn't been there since he moved out. "Why are you asking?"

"Oh, um…he isn't here yet. I looked through the entire dorm and the campus and I haven't been able to find him or Kuroba. They didn't come to class today, either."

"WHAT?! How could you—?!"

"C-calm down! I'll start looking for them. But if I can't bring them back to the dorm before the exam begins, Kazuki-kun certainly has no chance of passing!"

"Okay. I'll call him and tell him to get his butt over to the dorm."

"Okay. Thank you, Rin."

The moment Rin hung up, he started grumbling to himself. "Stupid boy…! What the hell is he thinking?! Even if he didn't know the exam was tonight, what the hell is he doing skipping his classes?" He complained as he dialed Kazuki's phone number and waited for the ringing to stop. The moment it did, he started screaming, "WHAT ON EARTH ARE DOING SKIPPING CLASS?! YOU BETTER GET YOUR ASS BACK THERE, OR ELSE I'LL FIND YOU AND—!" The sudden beep of the beginning of a voicemail recording made Rin stop in midsentence. "…Kazuki, I know you skipped cram school, I know you're not at the dorm right now, and I know you're sure as hell gonna go back to the dorm and apologize to Shiemi-san for doing this." Just as soon as Rin hung up, he dialed Kazuki's number once again. It went to voicemail once more. He kept redialing the number, but convinced himself that Kazuki was avoiding having to listen to his voice. Rin wound up texting messages to Kazuki telling him to go back to the dorm, with more than half asking the boy to text or call or give some sign that he was alright.

Almost an hour passed and Rin's worry intensified. It got worse when Shiemi called to say the exam was starting and that she still hadn't seen Kazuki or Kuroba. Rin hoped the next person who called him would be Kazuki, so he could lay into him for scaring him so much. Instead, it turned out to be Mephisto. "I've heard that we've lost a certain someone…"

X-X-X

"…and sometimes afterschool, we'd go to this café and eat desserts before going home, even though it's the kind of thing Dad always complains about because it 'spoils your appetite'. He never knew, though. It was like a place for the two of us to enjoy. …I'm talking too much about my mom, aren't I?"

"Well, it has almost been a half-hour since you started and I regret asking about her."

Kazuki and Kuroba sat on a pair of swings that were side by side in a children's park. It was dark, but their slightly red faces and the pair of cans bearing the trademark logo of True Cross Town's local beer showed what their condition was. The only person around to see all of this was Ouji, who somehow managed to look disappointed despite his dog-faced features.

"You're the one who stole beer and said drinking it would make me feel better!" Kazuki suddenly snapped. "All it did was make me sick and remember just how much better things used to be for me!" He then took another sip of beer, which got him a look of skepticism from his handler.

"They say drinking just lowers your inhibitions. I wanted to see if I could get some laughs from you being truthful, but right now, I'm just jealous no one ever took me to eat dessert before dinner…" Kuroba muttered before taking another sip as well. "And you can stop drinking if you don't like it."

"The delinquency train has long been in motion! I won't stop until I violently derail or somebody stops me!" The demi-demon spoke before throwing his head back and forcing himself to drink more beer.

"If 'violently derail' is just another word for 'throw up', I ain't cleaning your puke again. You'll sleep in your vomit like most drunks…" Kuroba stared at his can for a few seconds before looking at his roommate once more, "Alright, next question: do you really hate your father?"

Kazuki choked on his beer and wound up dropping the can as he tried to regain control of himself. "Of all the dumbass things you choose to ask me, it's that?!" He coughed out as he pounded his chest.

"I'm just saying if you really hated him, you'd have given him a glass of high-concentration holy water and said it was a nice refreshing drink. That's what I'd do."

"Like that would kill him! That man's like a cockroach—he'd probably survive a nuclear war after getting his head knocked off and losing all his limbs and senses! And I hate what he is. He's a superhuman, half-human man whose job involves messing around with demons who makes fire and is the son of Satan to boot. Nothing he does will make him like a normal human being, so I can't stand when he makes it sound like he is or that I can be like him. He's a nice person and a good dad, but that doesn't make up for how much being inhuman has made my life miserable."

"Uh-huh…"

"Honestly, he'd be much better off if he had a son who was like him. A kid who was interested in this demon-and-exorcists bullcrap and wanted to associate with people like him instead of normal people. Or if he could just say, 'go ahead and kill him, I don't care what happens to him because he's an awful excuse of a human being' or something like that instead of trying to force me to fit into all of this, we'd all be much happier. I just…don't fit into the same world that he does. I don't want to. I want to be someone like Mom, who can live normally despite all of the weird stuff, not part of the weird stuff! I want…I want Mom back!" Kazuki suddenly started to bawl.

Kuroba rolled his eyes and looked away. "Geez, this is the second time you decide to break out crying like a baby. Maybe I should call you a mama's boy instead of 'Akumura'…"

"Shut up! My inhibitions are lowered! By the way, you have to tell me something embarrassing, too!"

"Why?"

"This is supposed to be bonding, damn it!" That was the excuse, but really, he just wanted to know he wasn't the only one opening up and looking like a loser. They already played hooky and spent the afternoon and evening going about True Cross Town, browsing through shops and trying to act like normal teenaged boys. If they were going to get drunk like delinquents, they may as well try to come to an understanding of one another.

"Okay. I pity you."

"How's that embarrassing?!"

"It's embarrassing because it's not something that happens often. I pity you. I sympathize with you. It sucks when you get sucked into a situation you don't like because of your family. When you're forced to do things you don't want to do because people want to use you. When no one seems to care about your opinion and assume they know what's best for you," Kuroba muttered as he glared out into space. "Adults just suck."

"Yeah, adults suck! Especially the adults that are exorcists!"

Silence fell in the park. Kazuki beckoned Ouji and began petting and stroking the inugami while Kuroba continued to drink and stare out into space. After a minute, the brunette spoke up, "I'd put you out of your misery if I could."

"Huh?" Kazuki didn't bother looking away from Ouji as he picked up the spilled can of beer. He dangled it in front of the inugami's face as if trying to entice him to get it, but all Ouji did was sniff the can. "You hate me that much, huh?"

"A logical answer would be: 'because people like you attract more demons into Assiah with your weakness'. But like I said, I pity you. If you really wanna die, I'd do it in a heartbeat so you wouldn't go through more suffering. But if I did that, Faust would literally kill me. I don't care about dying as much as I care about what's gonna happen after I die. It's…complicated."

"…I think I understand. Thank you for your mercy killing, then."

"By the way, there's a policeman coming at us right now. Should we run away now?"

"Can't run. My legs feel weak."

"Well, fuck. I guess that puts an end to being like normal teenagers…" Kuroba muttered a minute before a policeman came over and shined a ray of light into their faces with a flashlight.