Prologue - Holes
It's supposed to be one way, the selfless knight sacrifices and the selfish girl mourns. Simple. It's a simple children's fable, that ends with a somewhat happy ending.
It's not simple and now it's unhappy.
Ten-year-old Kamishiro Yuugo watches his little sister sleep and his head hurts.
Papa why won't she wake up eventually becomes papa, why won't you look at me over the years.
But right now it's just why is she so very still and why can't I remember and isn't she supposed to wake up?
The first month or two he bounds to his sister's bed and finds it empty. But Yuugo is an optimist and he hopes and prays that if she is not responding to the alarm of her bed then she is responding to the one in her head and he will go to the hospital and she will wake up and cry about a nightmare.
But she doesn't.
Four months later, he gives up on seeing her smiling face, her bedhead stuck to her cheeks and sprouting like weeds and resolves to wake her up himself.
He resolves, he resolves but turning eleven tells him he doesn't actually know how to do it. His father's no help either. He's more of a phantom, constantly working and surrounded by cameras.
The woman at his shadow, however, she is a hindrance. And they both know it. She takes pride in her status. So she goes ignored. She pretends to go ignored. Her ambition will be her undoing.
Yuugo had to make certain of that. He just wished he knew how.
Growing up was hard.
Kamishiro Yuugo went back to school after winter break alone when he was thirteen, the same as summer break. It was the exact same way. No one paid it any mind any more, of course, but still. At the time it had been needed, because he was raw and confused and grieving. Definitely grieving even though she wasn't dead.
He passed through his classes and people stared like he had done something wrong. Like he was supposed to talk to certain people now and he just-
His head lurched. His stomach roiled.
- He couldn't remember who it was.
Then a boy sat next to him at lunch. Lanky, messy hair, a video game system lodged under one armpit. "Yo." Grey eyes, bright but strange. Desperate to keep his cool. Desperate to not… do what? What, exactly? Screw up? "Why are they staring at you like that? What did you do?"
Yuugo could do the same, really. He shrugged his shoulders, brushing his hair out of his face and focusing on his carefully prepared lunch. "Why are you sitting here?"
"Everyone's whining. I can't concentrate." He put his food down and mashed the buttons again. "I figured you wouldn't do that though."
"Hm." It would be easier to ignore the guy, focus on his reading and his food. "I should annoy you now, because you said that."
The boy laughed. "Like you have any reason to! You're all by yourself!"
The words stung likely more than they meant to, but Yuugo appreciated the honesty anyway.
"Kamishiro Yuugo," he finally said because if this was going to happen a lot they at least needed to know each other's names.
The taller boy gave a forced, awkward laugh. "I'm in the presence of royalty! Someone shoulda told me." Yuugo let out a snort and when he opened his eyes again, a smooth and pale hand set in front of him. "I'm Sanada Arata, little princeling. Let's get along."
"Don't call me that," Yuugo grumbled, but shook his hand anyway.
Their palms stung, and neither boy knew why.
He made a new friend and of course he had to tell Yuuko about it. Most of what he said about Arata wasn't good but it was something and he was happy and he needed to share his happiness with her, give her something.
Not that her hands moved. Not that her breathing changed. But surely, in the bottom of her heart, she could hear him.
"You look awfully depressed, chatting at her like that~!"
Yuugo refused to look up, refused to acknowledge this woman just barging in without knocking. She did this a lot of course, but it was more often than not when he was with his father, when his father was happy for the distraction. He wasn't sure why his father wouldn't want him around. It wasn't like he worked personally on projects anymore with EDEN up and running as of two weeks from now. Or maybe that's where he was: running that opening day, running everything but his life.
That was a bitter thought. Miss Rie brought out lots of bitter thoughts.
So he had to ignore her. "You won't have much to catch up on," he told her. "You're smarter than almost the whole class, and either way, the teacher goes slow. It's like if we don't get a high score, there goes their money. Come to think of it… that's exactly what happens I bet…"
She left eventually, more out of boredom than satisfaction and he counted that as a victory. If he didn't, he knew he would go crazy.
It didn't change that he was alone in the room. Nothing could. No one even wanted to try. Except him. And he was going to do it too.
Three years of this, and his resolve never wavered.
No one appeared on the building. No one looked upon the walls and imagined Hypnos in its prime, during the rise of the red from this spot. No one remembered battle after battle, cloaked in blood and goop and despair.
No one hovered in the air, a small light aglow from their hands. No one eventually touched the road of an alley and went about their way.
No one looked at the sky to watch it warp.
No one smiled at the moon.