#boyexorcist

It was overcast, today. The sun had been hidden away behind the clouds, a low grey cast over the expanses of the city. The city, that was real -- and the boy wandering the streets, real, still so amazed by every reflection of himself he saw, knowing that everyone else could see him, too.

A lonely boy will always crave company no matter how far he tries to lock it away. A lonely boy will always crave the sun.

Maybe that was why, among the grey and the snow and the monotone, Mitsuba’s eyes found themselves so quickly drawn away to sudden brightness. It was funny, wasn’t it? There was no shift in the light, and yet something seemed so -- so --

A head of bright blond and an earring that Mitsuba couldn’t mistake for anything else.

“Mi--”

He had turned before he could stop himself, instinct more than anything else driving him forward, and Mitsuba ran. It was sloppy -- he stumbled over his own feet more than a couple of times in his haste -- and he got it, now, why Nene had come charging when she’d spotted him.

“--Minomoto-kun--!”

Every part of Mitsuba ached. Any impulse to insult the boy in front of him was gone; Mitsuba’s heart was pounding, and he stared and he stared and he stared, and slowly he brought his hand forward to clap it down on Kou’s shoulder.

“You’re here,” he breathed. “I’m -- this place -- I’m real! I’m real, people can see me! And you’re...” The only thing that had been missing. The one thing he had wanted most. “Now you’re...”

  “ booooo~ooy! ”

  now, like before, tsukasa could have easily taken kou by surprise and thrown him into the nearest pile of rubble that was willing to house a body. where’s the fun in that, though? tsukasa knows without a shadow of a doubt that he has more power in this situation; there’s no reason to hide his identity.

  he doubts the kid would’ve made enemies anyhow.

  tsukasa drops in front of a nearby hole, craning his neck to gaze down and stare at the uncut wires before his attention goes back to kou. the edges of his eyes crinkle with the wide smile on his lips as he steps forward.

  “ i can’t let you cut these wires, you know? ” he starts, reaching out his arm as kokujoudai wraps around it and rests gently in his palm. “ if you want to do anything... you’ll have to get past me somehow. ”

  a beat of silence before his arm draws back and launches forward, sending the orb flying directly at kou’s stomach.

  Y’know, maybe he should go on one of those morning jogs that Sara tried to do once. It would definitely save him from how poorly he’s doing at keeping up with the kid that managed to lose his earring while wandering around.

  ( Seriously, how does someone lose something this big without noticing?

  ... Scratch that, his own earrings have managed to fall off only to be pointed out by Ryoko or Sara and they’re pretty flashy too. )

  Finally, after what feels like hours of chasing after the boy, Joe manages to grab a hold of his arm and gently pulls back. He’s out of breath, certainly, but he raises his other hand to show off the earring hanging off his thumb.

For the past week, Mitsuba had felt like he’d failed. He’d failed Kou, he’d failed to do anything about the -- the him that was stumbling around the island, he’d -- he’d managed to not do anything. What good was it being able to pretend he was being useful, actually doing something to help people, if he couldn’t do anything about the things most important to him?

... it hurt.

He just wanted one moment where he felt like everything was okay again, but there had been a weight hanging over his head the entire time and he didn’t know what to do to get rid of it.

Even with their powers returned, Mitsuba had hoped Kou would try to stay out of the thick of it. He needed time to recover. He needed to -- he needed to be okay. Mitsuba wanted to make sure Kou never got hurt ever again. It wasn’t a case of if he could help it -- it was a case of ever. He refused. He refused to...

...to--

--there he was. Why was he out and about? Was his selflessness really so bad that even now, Kou would throw himself into the thick of it? The boy with the bent neck was only ever a few minutes away from Mitsuba, and--and Mitsuba--he--

“Kou-kun!”

It was a desperate shout; no thought of the fact he should have been calling him Minamoto-kun even stayed in his head. He was worried about him, about the person he cared about most, and here he -- here he was, when -- when --

          (crrrriiiiiicckkk.)

 “Kou-kun, you can’t--we can’t--”

“What are you doing!?”

Mitsuba was humming a lot.

Maybe it was just something about the atmosphere of the Festival, maybe it was a combination of that with the way his life had been... well, really good recently, actually -- but Mitsuba was in one of the best moods he’d been in for a long time. Springtide popping up had him noticeably excited, if his spam of texts to Kou to come over and the bounce to his walk was anything to go by, and the more he hummed the more obvious that fact was.

He didn’t even care if Kou was really fully behind him, or as invested as Mitsuba was in it.

Mitsuba had set his mind to hunting eggs and he was going to hunt eggs.

But -- well. Kou seemed a bit distracted. So Mitsuba stopped in his tracks and whirled around on his heels, leaning in waaaaay too close.

The eggs could wait. Taking advantage of the situation that had been presented to him could not.

“Mi-na-mo-to-ku-n.”

(So maybe he’d called him Kou-kun once. And maybe he was too embarrassed to do it again just yet. That secret weapon could wait. Good mood or not, Mitsuba wasn’t really willing to deal with being flustered.)

“You’re not paying attention! You should be looking for eggs! You don’t know what you could find in them, y’knowww. I heard some people were even getting frogs!”

  tsukasa’s expression, one of content joy, flips instantly upon sighting kou. it isn’t as if he’s willing to offer strong emotions like hatred towards such an amateur exorcist, but there’s a certain annoyance that bubbles in his stomach. amane’s group is fun to toy with, sure, but this one’s connection to mitsuba is a nuisance most of all.

  he tails kou for a bit, doing his best to not be so obvious in his approach (such as outright avoiding running to keep up with longer strides). when he manages to have a steady pace behind him, tsukasa strikes.

  he swings his leg out, connecting with the backs of kou’s knees in hopes of toppling him.

Welcome back~!

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You will retain everything you were given during your previous stay.

Enjoy~!

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