[Y/N] looked at her reflection as she pulled her hair back. A pale, haggard girl was staring back at her. She felt like crying, but her body refused to respond. She knew that the normal thing to do was to cry in such situations, and she didn't understand why she couldn't. It was as if her mind could not process what was happening.
She was going to attend her brother's funeral.
If a few months earlier someone had told her that things were going to change so much when she left her house that day to buy dinner, she would not have believed it. She had been chased; Ryu had disappeared and she had joined a clan, made new friends, argued, cried, and even fallen in love. Everything that had happened in the last few months now seemed far away.
“Are you ready? Everyone is already downstairs”, asked Yata, interrupting her thoughts.
“Just give me a minute. I'm almost done”, answered the young woman, putting on the last hairpins. “You know it's rude to enter someone's room without knocking first, don't you?” she added.
“S-sorry”, apologized Yata, looking down at the ground while blushing.
He had spent the last twenty minutes thinking of excuses to go upstairs to see if she was all right. He hadn't been able to talk to her since that morning, when Fushimi had gone to inform them that everything was ready for Ryunosuke's burial, and he was worried about her. So, as soon as he saw that the others were ready, he used that excuse to go looking for her.
Yata had no idea why Scepter 4 was taking care of the burial, but he preferred it. He didn't know if [Y/N] would have been able to handle the paperwork so quickly while trying to come to terms with her brother's death.
The young woman sighed. Normally she would have taken the opportunity of the redhead's irruption to embarrass him by telling him that he could have caught her changing or getting out of the shower, but at the moment, the idea didn't appeal to her at all.
“We can go now”, she declared, grabbing her purse.
Yata looked at her as she walked toward him. With each step she took, the black dress she wore swayed, captivating the red-haired man's gaze, who was quick to blush. He couldn't believe that at a moment like that, all he could think about was that, despite her red-rimmed eyes and blank stare, [Y/N] looked as beautiful as ever. «Like always?», he wondered. At what point had he stopped seeing her as a nuisance and started thinking about her like that?
“Yata”, she called, pulling him out of his thoughts.
When had she left the room? Had he been so entranced that he hadn't seen her pass by?
“Shall we go?”, [Y/N] asked from the hallway.
The redhead nodded and took her hand, squeezing it softly.
“Sure”, he mumbled. “I'm not going to leave you alone.”
Almost imperceptibly, the young woman's eyes lit up, and a faint smile curved her lips. After squeezing Yata's hand in return, she breathed in and walked down the stairs beside him.
It was time to bid farewell.
- - - - -
On the way to the cemetery, the members of HOMRA walked in silence, surrounding the young woman. Although it was impossible that anyone would try to do anything to her when she was with them, they preferred to be cautious. Who knows, maybe they could see something suspicious that could give them a clue about Ryu's killers' identities.
[Y/N] had once again sunk back into her thoughts, oblivious to everything else. She didn't even seem aware that Yata's hand was still holding hers. In an attempt to cheer her up, Anna approached her and held her free hand.
That sudden gesture momentarily brought her out of her reverie. After blinking and looking around fearfully, she gazed at the albino girl at her side.
“You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?”, she asked in a tired voice.
Anna shook her head.
“I just saw you cry, but I didn't know when or why”, she replied sadly.
[Y/N] nodded as if that was the answer she had expected. There was no way of knowing what was going to happen. There had been no way to save Ryu and, in part, that eased the pain in her chest.
“And now?”, she inquired after a few seconds. “What do you see now?”
The little girl paused before answering, hesitating. She wanted to be able to tell her friend that everything was going to be okay. However, that was not what she had seen, and she didn't want to lie to her.
“You're still crying”, she said, hoping that this time the cause of the young woman's crying was nonsense.
Yata looked at [Y/N] with worry. Her face remained impassive, as if the conversation she was having with the albino was about the weather. What was it that Anna had seen? The redhead clenched the fist of his free hand and clenched it in frustration. He wasn't about to let anyone hurt her again.
- - - - -
Fushimi turned away from the door where he had been waiting for the arrival of the reds when they entered his field of vision. Seeing that [Y/N] was holding hands with Yata, a smirk formed on his face. He was coming up with many ways to annoy the dwarf whenever he got the chance.
“Did you get lost along the way? We have better things to do than stand here all day”, he said, waiting for the skateboarder to answer.
However, before Yata could say anything and enter into the brunet's game, [Y/N] answered. The last thing she felt like doing at that moment was having to deal with an unnecessary fight.
“Saru... Not now, please. Just tell me where my brother is.”
The friendliness with which the young woman replied to Saruhiko surprised her companions, who immediately assumed that it was due to the situation. It was not the time to argue, so when Fushimi nodded and started walking, they followed without saying anything else.
- - - - -
Some members of Scepter 4 surrounded an oak coffin with its lid raised. As soon as she saw it, [Y/N] let go of Yata and Anna and ran towards it without knowing why.
When she reached her brother's corpse, she let herself fall beside him. Her legs were trembling even though it had only been a few meters, and it was hard to breathe. In front of her, Ryu seemed to be sleeping, with no trace of the wounds that had caused his death.
«Dead». That word echoed over and over in her mind. It could not be true. It was a joke; a tasteless one. She refused to accept that this was going to be the last time she saw him. He looked so peaceful that he seemed to be mocking her pain.
The young girl's eyes began to water as she reached out to touch Ryu. He was there, next to her, and she could feel him. His skin was cold, but she could almost feel how, as she ran her fingers over it, it seemed to warm up. Or maybe it was just her own imagination.
“Ryu…”, she said.
In the lack of response, she called him again.
“Ryu, answer me… Come on, Ryu! Say something! Don’t be like that”
The boys looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Little by little, [Y/N] seemed to be losing her mind, calling over and over to her brother. Demanding an answer that would never come.
“You can't do this! You can't!”, she shouted.
“[Y/N]...”, Tatara tried to reassure her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “He can't hear you…”
Oblivious to the chestnut's words, [Y/N] turned away from him and began to shake her brother's body as tears finally streamed down her face.
“Ryu, wake up! You promised to explain what’s happening!”. As the tears fell and his vision blurred, her words became more difficult to articulate. She felt a lump in her throat that prevented her from crying out. “C-Come on, please…”, she begged. “D-don't go. I need you. I miss you”.
Taking advantage of the fact that she had let her guard down, two arms wrapped tightly around her to keep her from hurting herself, imprisoning her and pulling her away from the coffin. Now the tears were falling uncontrollably as she tried in vain to break free from her captor. She wanted to scream, but her voice was muted.
“Come on, let it all out, kiddo”, demanded the Red King, forcing the young girl to look at him. “Cry. He's gone, and he's not coming back. Deal with it. Scream, kick. Burn things! Do whatever you want, but don't hold it back!”
«He’s gone». Mikoto's harsh words made their way into her brain, as if they had just struck her. Her teary eyes widened in surprise.
“He's gone”, she repeated. “He's gone.”
Once again, the tears increased as the truth was etched into her mind. Ryu could no longer hear her. Ryu could no longer answer her. Because he…
“He’s dead”, she finally accepted, burying her head in her King's arms as she wept.