Reverie and Nightmares

11

"I can't... I believe he's dead. I still can't." Mikan cried as she stared at his grave. "He... H-he was important to me. He was a parent to me. He treated me like his own daughter. And now... I won't ever get to see him again... I... I was never expecting to walk in... To see him headless."

"I know. I know he did." Ryuga sighed. His pockets were dug tightly into his pea-coat, legs firm in case Mikan hoped to embrace him out of sadness. "I know. He was a fighter till the end. I didn't want to have to let you know. I knew that it would hurt you... For a long time. I'm not praying that you recover quickly. No, that would be sour. I'm not like that. But... Stag wanted this for himself. I tried to help him as much as possible until the end."

Mikan reached out her hands, holding Ryuga's shoulders with each and staring him clean in the eye, not with the look of hate, but with the look of, 'You've been hiding something from me.'

"I understand that it's only been a day. No, it's been two. But... The most I was able to do was to set up a fundraiser and get the proper funeral that Stag deserved. Demon or not. I wanted him to rest as he should." Ryuga said. "Even with him buried without his head here." He patted the cross lightly. Rubbing is a better word. "He wanted to protect me and Sister Nay. He'd hurt the Pumpkin. Or Pumpkin, whatever the fuck he's called. He hurt him badly, but to do that. He had to give up his humanity. I'm unsure how long he's been one, but he was evil. But... That won't change my view on him."

Mikan bit her tongue, breathing hard to let out frustration from her heart into the snowy air.

"W-was he... A d-demon?"

Ryuga nodded, bringing Mikan's crying, wet eyes into his chest, drying the wetness immediately. The feeling of her butterfly headpiece instantly attacked his eyes, forcing him to move his head around until he felt positive that she was the most comfortable she could be on his chest.

"Yeah... The Sister said something to me earlier, but honestly. I don't want to say this, but I couldn't hear her quite right. I may have misheard her because I couldn't believe much about what she'd said."

"I'm... I'm probably not going to be able to sleep knowing that... Ryuga, sleeping was hurt yesterday. Not even my sister could help me... She read me my favorite book... She's family, too. You and she are all the family I have... L-left."

"Mikan..."

They weren't lovers, but this form of the act was also respectable for siblings, and although Ryuga was most scared that Mikan only viewed him as an elder brother (or even a baby brother), he wanted to be there as a family.

"Family," Ryuga said. "It means a lot to you, huh? You would do everything in your power, in your world, for it, huh? You remind me of me. I had a little project back when I was in middle school, and. In that project, we had to be very descriptive with a topic I didn't think we'd ever need to discuss because it's so taboo."

"What was it?"

"Our fears and the things we love the most. I was the only one in the class that was able to make an assignment using both my greatest fear and my greatest love. Everyone else, well. They either wrote their papers on 'spiders' or 'monsters' or something as realistic as a car crash or an elevator dysfunction. I don't know, that's just what you reminded me of. Right now, at least."

Ryuga sighed, kicking the floor with his heel.

"That's an interesting project. I've never done anything like it. I don't know if I would've been able to get through... With it... And, now, the way life is... And the things we know about now that... The world can't know about..."

Mikan, wiping the tears with her dominant hand, avoided eye contact and sniffled. "Of course. I cared so much about him. And now... I feel fatherless... Again. Fatherless, all over again."