Breathing

A K Project story.

Summary: It hurt, breathing did; breathing while his brother and his king lay dead in a mess he believes he could've stopped. Misaki Yata wasn't handling their deaths well, and it wouldn't take long before he got stupid ideas, and Saruhiko Fushimi would be left to deal with the mess.

Warning: Rated T for language and suicide. If you do not like, do not read, and I urge anyone that is contemplating suicide to NEVER result to ANY of these actions.

It hurt.

Breathing.

The simplicity of inhaling from the nose and exhaling from the mouth. It is causing a bitter taste to fill his orifice, an ugly sound to dance in his ears, a horrible image for his eyes to see. He tries to bat away the thoughts, but they already spun their webs. They would be here to stay.

"Shit, where do you think Totsuka went?"

Even laying on his side, his chest wheezing weakly, he could imagine the scene as if he was staring at it correctly. The way Kusanagi loosely flicked his arms up, shaking his head. "I wouldn't know Yata. But we need to find that out pretty quickly."

A breath hitches in his throat as a beast stirred in the corner of the room, a glint of red through the shadows that cloaked him. His eyes were almost the only thing visible.

"Anna," he spoke low, brash. Kingly. "He went to get a birthday present." Trails of red began to string from the shoulders of his jacket, causing more of his person to light up in the fire's glint. "Find him. He shouldn't be out there alone."

"On it!" he knew that voice. That voice was him, full of excitement and youth as the memory him snatched his skateboard up and tossed it on the floor. Kusanagi swallowed his protest, setting the cloth down, and followed after the vanguard. He planted one foot into the board, and enhancing his speed with a silk of flames, pushed off.

Misaki Yata could remember that the ride took forever. He did no tricks; didn't feel like flicking the board between his feet. He focused on speed alone, the wheels nearly sparking from the inflection of fire. Kusanagi did well to keep up with the youth on foot, dialing numbers as he went to have the whole clan on alert for Tatara Totsuka.

"Dammit…" Image-him grumbled, planting his foot into the ground and launching himself with such force that he was nearly on pace with passing cars. "If he would have just listened! Mikoto-san wanted him to stay put for a reason…"

If he would have just listened.

Or if Misaki Yata would've been faster.

He isn't sure which it is at this point, whether it is one reason or the other or a combination of both that lead him sprinting up those flights of stairs only to find a bleeding, dying body on the other side of the door.

"TOTSUKA!"

Presently, he is trembling. It is a soft short of shake, as if the memories have jumped into his body and are running beneath the skin. The empty bar seems to rattle with him. He closes his eyes and counts to three, like he always had to do, but it doesn't help now. Each breath he takes is full of pain. He tastes blood and feels like he would throw up any second.

Surely if he had pushed himself faster, he would have gotten there to save him, right? Surely if he had taken off sooner, realized that he was gone earlier, he would have been able to stop his fate.

His fingers ball up the upholstery underneath him as he mutters one bitter word. "Dammit…"

If only. If only.

"If I was there faster…" He curls up, his fingers moving to dig into his shoulders. "Dammit… If I had saved Totsuka, Mikoto-san…"

No, he couldn't say the words Fushimi would carelessly throw at him at their encounters on the street. Mikoto is dead, Misaki. Mikoto is dead. Mikoto is dead.

Mikoto is dead.

"Agh…" he fumbles with his hair, trying to block the words from entering his head, but they are already trapped in the jar, whirling around, making him swallow each fiery breath.

Mikoto is dead. Tatara is dead. Mikoto is dead. Tatara is dead.

MikotoisdeadTataraisdeadMikotoisdeadTataraisdead.

He kicks the arm of the couch. "Dammit!"

Why is he breathing? Why is Misaki Yata, the vanguard who most definitely failed, why is he still alive while Mikoto and Tatara rotted in their early graves?

"Why the hell do I even exist…" he asks the air, which could not answer, only continue to force feed him the lead-like oxygen. "I don't deserve to…Totsuka and Mikoto…" Licking his lips doesn't dismiss the dryness that has settled.

"Why?" he questions again, pushing himself up, cursing his lungs for breathing a little easier. "Why am I alive?" The empty bar echoes his question, as if throwing it back at his face. Yeah Yata. Why are you alive?

Homra is disbanded, Kusanagi gone, the crew no longer coming to an empty bar, and the vanguard who sat there waiting. What the hell is he doing, acting as if he deserves to even live in the place they call home?

Who is he, to believe he should live too?

What does he have left? Nothing.

Nothing at all.

"Some vanguard..." He wants to hit himself, so he does; he slams his fist into his thigh. "Some clansmen." Again, harder, his strength still present in those brittle bones. "Some human!" Again, again, again. He pounds against the bruise that would surely be left behind, but he doesn't feel it. No pulse of pain, no rush of agony, nothing; he feels absolutely nothing.

Who is he, to feel no pain, while they both suffered?

It doesn't take long for his mind to start weaving, tossing ideas he has never contemplated until now, all of which seem like grand ideas to remedy the problem.

Slowly, he gets to his feet. His body creaks from laying there so long, deprived of nutrients Yata still refuses to feed it after two weeks since Totsuka died. What was the point? No one is here to remind him to take care of himself.

Tracing his footsteps behind the bar, he finds something hidden beneath the counter. Izumo Kusanagi, on the account of their powers being nearly all but not, kept a knife hidden as defense before he left on some grand voyage now that his best friends were dead. Misaki Yata shakes his head, unable to comprehend his true intentions. Whatever they are, they aren't worth it, he thinks, turning the blade over in his hands.

He catches a glimpse of his reflection in that blade, a gaunt skeleton dressed in tight skin and highlighted with a sickly greyish tint. There is no life in those eyes. They died two weeks ago.

It still hurts to breathe. It is the only thing he is aware of, the fact that his mouth opens and swallows oxygen willingly, as if it knows it deserves to live.

"I don't…" His grip on the hilt tightens as he stares at that person in the reflection. Whoever it is, it is not Misaki Yata. "I don't deserve to live."

He doesn't really think about it much. There is nothing to figure about it; so there is no hesitation as the blade fits perfectly into the crease of his wrist.

Because Tatara is dead. Mikoto is dead.

There is nothing left for Misaki Yata anymore.

With a rapid jerk, the skin splits apart and spilled it's essence from the wound. A sharp cry leaves his throat on instinct, and he feels the burn of his life running from his body. It feels good. It is just as he rightful deserved. Shaking, he trades hands with the blade, pressing it to the other wrist until identical wounds multiply the rate of diffusion.

It doesn't take long for Yata to wobble and grab onto the counter for support; but that seems to sink from his fingers and throw him unforgiving to the floor as he writhes. The burn is nothing he's ever experienced, even as a vanguard in the clan of fire. It is sickly sort of burn that pillages each nerve as it carefully sails up his arms, abusing his obscured sense of pain.

His vision wobbles and so does his breath, wondering if the next one will be his last. He hopes it would be. He hopes it would be. He swallows another breath, but still his mouth demands more, still capable of consuming the oxygen.

A cold feeling washes over his fingers and his palms. They are too numb to feel the floor or the blood pooling underneath them. He can't tell if they are even moving as he inhales again. It feels like he is spinning ceaselessly, the countertop cartwheeling senselessly around him.

"Totsuka... Mikoto-san…" his voice is barely there, drowning in the lack of oxygenated blood. "Will you… meet me when I die?"

His ears are practically ringing bells. If there is a response, he couldn't hear it; but it doesn't prevent a bitter chuckle from escaping his lips.

"Still selfish… to the core…"

Misaki Yata takes another breath, satisfied to feel his throat beginning to tighten. Gloves of blackness start to address his vision, slowly swallowing it up like a black fire. The vanguard feels like he could fly like the stupid Silver King, fly away from the empty bar and the kingless clan back to better times.

Back when Fushimi was still around.

Heh.

Why the hell is he thinking of that monkey now?

"If I... wouldn't have joined Homra…" He closes his eyes slowly, stuttering to take another breath. "Then Totsuka... and Mikoto…"

If he would've stayed with Fushimi, would have listened to him, he wouldn't have been there to screw up. Their deaths wouldn't have even happened, because someone much more capable than him would have become the vanguard in his place.

If only. If only.

While he is dying, Misaki Yata fails to hear the door open.

"Oh Misaki~? Still sulking in here?"

The vanguard has no response. He is gasping now, his windpipe growing thinner and thinner by the minute. Death is firmly upon him now. In the next few seconds or so…

"Oi, Misaki. I know you're in here." He hears a tch. "You can't stay in here forever. Mikoto is dead."

"Agk…" Yata couldn't form the words to scream monkey. It hurts to breathe.

Better stop.

"Misaki…?"

Soft footsteps tremble beneath his screaming nerves, but Yata couldn't take another breath. His eyes could only open to the size of slits, but he still sees the familiar head peeking over the bar, looking for him in the wrong direction.

What oxygen lay conserved in his lungs, Misaki Yata pulls together until he could manage the quietest thing he's ever spoken. "Goodbye...Saru…"

It doesn't hurt to breath anymore; because he could do it no longer.

Saruhiko Fushimi's acute senses hears the noise, and planting a hand on the counter, he leans over and sees red, more red than he should see in Homra.

"Dammit Misaki!" He curses, pushing himself over the counter, uncaring that he kicks over a few bottles, only feeling his hairs stand on end when they shatter against the ground. The vanguard is limp and doesn't respond to the familiar name he despises.

Fushimi has to swallow his tongue to keep from clicking it. He reaches down to feel for a pulse. He knows Misaki Yata is stupid, but this stupid…? Not even he could have sensed it. Or… did he? He knows there was something different boiling inside the vanguard after the incident at the school. But suicide?

It couldn't have been.

"I know a pulse should be here." He is pressed right against the correct place, just as he learned in all those books he read; but there is only a stilled silence.

"You always have to be a problem child don't you Misaki." He isn't dead. Misaki Yata, Homra's vanguard, dead? It was only a week ago that they had fought at the school, satisfied to see his knife make a nice home in his shoulder. He wouldn't be dead, now after everything.

The blue scoops up the vanguard in haste, stepping through the blood to make it out the back door.

What had even compelled him to go there anyway? Oh yeah. Saruhiko Fushimi had never seen the lights extinguished in Homra. Kusanagi always kept it lit up, even when it was dark, either with electricity or their fire; but as he walked by on his way home from work, it was dark. Eerie. Broken.

Dead.

Sometimes, he likes to tap phones for fun so it is obvious that he would tap someone from Homra. He has to admit, he likes to keep tabs on the clan, saving the cards in his back pocket so he could toss them in Misaki's face later. As he finds his way to a hospital following the GPS on his phone, he couldn't help but think of a particular conversation he overheard not too long ago.

"Kusanagi-san, when are you coming home?" The voice wasn't as wheezy as it usually was, but it was the same person. Rikio Kamamoto. The idiot that never heard of a password.

"When I'm finished here in Germany," was the curt reply, from the other idiot that didn't know that the phone call was being tapped. "I still need to find some answers."

"But…"

There was a pause between the two, before Kusanagi finally asked. "What's wrong?"

"It's Yata…" Fushimi had almost snorted, imagining him sitting there twiddling his thumbs, dumbly calling his mother for answers. "He hasn't come out of the bar since…" The words went unnoted, much to the blue's burning hatred. "And I can't even get him to open the blinds. He won't eat... he looks… bad."

Silence. Kusanagi didn't have the words to address the problem. Fushimi had stopped the call of theirs, knowing his reason for abandoning those idiots was still as crystal clear as ever; but still, it lingered, what Kamamoto had said.

He looks... bad.

That had been his warning.

And he didn't take it.

"Now I'm going to start blaming myself for this…?" He mutters, adjusting the vanguard in his arms. "It wasn't my fault. It was stupid Misaki's."

Following the GPS feels like a pointless journey. Even the latest technology couldn't account for roadblocks, like the one Scepter 4 put up that very morning to stop the Green Clan's activity. Backroads and alleyways seem to go on forever, until Fushimi could feel the chill seeping from the vanguard's body.

A body that never should be cold.

He stops abruptly at that moment, Yata's limp body following the momentum. Fushimi is smart enough to process the information.

"Don't tell me you went and died… you idiot…" But he did. There is no more blood to fall from his wrists. The front of Fushimi's shirt is stained as a result, soaked so far that he feels the stick of it against his stomach.

Misaki Yata is dead. There is not a doctor that could bring him back.

So what is this feeling?

Fushimi clicks his tongue. Why is his chest constricting, why did it hurt to breath? Yata has left him, abandoned him, so in return he abandoned him just the same. Even his burn at his collarbone screams to be itched, as if saying 'yes your reason was justified'.

So why does his breath quiver? Why does he feel so weak looking at the dead face of his best friend?

"Oi Misaki… why did you decide to become an idiot…" The pale skin with the grey tint holds no life to answer with. "Are you happy now? Are you happy that you could follow that stupid King?"

He couldn't understand himself anymore, just like he couldn't under Misaki Yata and what lead him to do this. Slowly, he sinks to his knees, feeling like the vanguard is a hundred pound weight although he doesn't weigh anything anymore.

"You are so stupid… listening blindly to that king." Something bitter scratches at his throat as he takes another breath soaked in that bitter flavor. "This is why I left… because you couldn't see what you were doing yourself."

He grips the front of his shirt, shaking the body. "You were devoting yourself to a monster! Someone… that would inevitably hurt you. Why couldn't you see that attaching yourself was pointless?" Another breath, another pain. "And Tatara... he was weak. He would've died and hurt you too…"

Just like he did. They both did exactly as the blue predicted. Was Misaki Yata that blind? Or…

"Were you looking for someone to care for you?" He knows the answer. "You wanted someone to care so it felt like you had a home for once didn't you?"

Saruhiko Fushimi could remember all the nights they spent hiding from their fathers. He could remember curling up next to Misaki those cold winter nights they were forced to sleep outside to avoid a wrath that certainly would be awaiting them the next day. "Idiot…"

It stings, his throat does, the way his muscles try to swallow the oxygen but twitch in rebellion.

"Didn't you see... I cared about you. More than that stupid King… or that stupid clan." Misaki Yata would never see it, the thing Fushimi would always put off when they met together. Admitting he still cared.

If only… if only…

Even if he said something sooner, Misaki Yata would not listen. That fact causes him to laugh bitterly.

"You think you can escape me, Mi~Sa~Ki…?"

His face looks so peaceful, dead. Happy almost.

"There's not anywhere you will go that I won't follow." It is almost like he is having a conversation with the vanguard himself. He could almost hear a distinct 'bastard!' that causes him to chuckle. "You should know that Misaki… you're all I have left anyway."

The only reason he continues working for Scepter 4; the only reason why he joined Homra in the first place. It had all been for Misaki; whether it was to be on his side or to watch him from the opposing side. He still cared. He couldn't let his Misaki died without knowing that, could he?

"Come on Misaki... always making me do idiotic things because of you." Carefully, he lays Misaki Yata on the ground before placing a hand to his blade. "Fushimi, ready…"

A click snaps the air, and slowly the blade slides from it's hilt, scratching the inside of the scabbard like angry screams. He wouldn't let his Misaki stay out of reach, not again.

"Are you happy now Misaki? That while you were blind to follow your king…" He extends his arms, holding the blade in a backhand that has it hovering over his chest. "I follow blindly after you?"

His breath trembles against the blade he is bent over as he stares at the face of his dead friend.

The only thing he has left in this world, gone, fled to another life that Fushimi would have to catch him in.

Saruhiko Fushimi doesn't really think about it much. There is nothing to figure about it; so there is no hesitation as that blade fit perfectly into his chest, splitting apart his heart as the hilt snuggles against his chest. He takes one sharp breath, landing next to Misaki Yata as if it is another night out in the cold, awaiting the new dawn and a new day.

Fushimi smiles bitterly, staring at the husk that a once lively boy left behind. Why couldn't it have remained the same, spending those nights with his own and only friend?

If only Mikoto never approached them that day, maybe none of this would have never happened; but Fushimi isn't one for if only.

Painfully, his heart continues to beat around the blade. Eternal bleeding feels like a warm drizzle in his chest that speeds rapidly down to his abdomen. His breath is harsh and scrapping against his throat. The contractions his heart is making causes him to shiver across the cold arm of Yata.

He knows he doesn't have much time left. Each breath is becoming more labored then the last, but he couldn't help but reflect on the vanguard's last words.

"Goodbye… Saru…"

That wouldn't do.

Slowly, Saruhiko Fushimi lifts a hand to the cold cheek of the red and speaks the last words he would ever speak to Misaki Yata in that life.

"Hello… Misaki…"

It hurt to breathe no longer.

I watched the first episode of Return of Kings, and it brought back fond memories of my first K Project Fanfic.

-Soul Spirit-