Author's Note: ...vent...

Twenty two year old Misaki stared down at the gun in his hand with a bitter smile. For the past three years, he'd thought about doing it, ending it all. He thought about putting the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger. He wouldn't have been the first of HOMRA to do so and certainly wouldn't be the last.

No, the first in HOMRA to end that half-empty feeling was Eric. Misaki remembered hating the bastard for it every day since. He remembered, even before that, how the Red Clan before them had ended their lives as well and he remembered questioning why.

He knew the answer now.

Losing a King and the power they bestowed on their vassals was like having a fragment of your soul ripped away from you and then some because the pain wasn't just that. It was the pain that came with losing someone important, the pain of mourning, on top of it. Some people recovered—an example of this would be Yatagami Kuroh—but others…

Those 'others' ended the pain because it was often too much to bear—even if they knew they weren't alone in that pain, it still hurt. It still burned like the very flames he used to control.

And he hated it.

There would be people that missed him, he knew. Anna was still adjusting to school and Bandou met up with him on the weekends for a drink at Kusanagi's bar but he couldn't bring himself to care. He didn'tcare.

No one knew where he lived—well… almost no one. That damn monkey still insisted on checking on him after work. For a fleeting moment, Misaki thought about calling the bastard so he could talk him out of it again.

But Saruhiko wouldn't have answered. He was on a case down town—something about riots. Misaki had been half drunk off his ass when Saru told him about the investigation, trying to keep him on the line while he made his way through the city to get to Misaki's small apartment to prevent him from doing something stupid.

'Why does he bother?' Misaki thought. 'He left HOMRA. He left me.'

"You betrayed me first!" Misaki blinked, rubbing his eyes. Had Saru really said that? But how? "HOMRA took you away from me and you let yourself be lead."

"You're wrong." Misaki whispered.

"Am I?"

'You know you're wrong, Saru.' Misaki thought, leaning against the wall. HOMRA had only become a place to blow off steam when hanging on the more populated streets was no longer an option—when the back-alleys that hid things from view became the place where shady exchanges and drug deals took place, Misaki and Saruhiko had to change locations. The streets became the only place they could hide—in plain sight. 'At that time… we didn't care where we went—as long as we didn't have to go home.'

Home wasn't a place they could call home, he thought, because of the changes Scepter 4 had made to the city. When the changes started, the protests started and when the protests started, Misaki and Saruhiko's families had been ripped apart. Misaki's mother and father took he and his younger siblings with them on the protests but when the riots started, his father had been killed in the riots that broke out when shortly after he made the transition from middle school to high school and Saruhiko's mother had died trying to protect her son from the backlash.

Saruhiko's father lost his job shortly after because of alcohol abuse and fell into debt while Misaki's mother lost herself in depression which left Misaki to take care of Moe and Makoto—his two younger siblings.

It hadn't been a happy life, he recalled, but he and Saru were together and that was all that mattered to them… until HOMRA, at least.

HOMRA had become a salvation of sorts—to both of them—even if he had to ditch school to hang out with them.

But then all of that changed when Saruhiko joined the very same people that made their lives hell.

Misaki never forgave him for that much. His hatred for Scepter 4 was only intensified after their King killed Mikoto.

The reminder of the loss of his King brought back a whole new wave of anguish. Misaki curled up, pulling his knees to his chest, to keep the pain from getting any worse but it did nothing to help. Mikoto's death may have been the first time he genuinely thought about ending it all but Tatara's had been the trigger that started the downward spiral.

"Don't… sweat it. It'll… all work out… in the end." He'd said.

But was this what he meant?

'No… this isn't what he meant. Mikoto losing control… the Colorless King taking command of the Silver King's ship… this… this isn't what he meant.' It couldn't have been.

But this was the reality of it all.

'Don't worry, guys.' He thought, pulling back the hammer and pressing the talco weapon against his temple. 'I'll be home soon.'

BANG!

Saruhiko felt his breathing catch in his throat. "No…" He whispered, agony already creeping up his throat and threatening to consume him whole. No one else in this complex owned a gun—legally or illegally. The bento in his hand crashed to the ground, spilling its contents, but he ignored it, yanking the door open and lurching forward.

The coppery tang of blood made him freeze. 'No.' He thought. It couldn't have been Misaki.

But it was.

The fact of the matter was that it was Misaki on the bed, hand hanging limply off the side with the gun just below it. It was Misaki that took his own life.

"Idiot…" Saruhiko whispered, brushing a messy strand of red out of his face—although who he was talking to, he had no clue. It could have been the one he would have called a lover or it could have been himself. He didn't know.

Saruhiko reached into his inner pocket and held down the middle number. It didn't even ring before he was greeted with the business like, "Munakata speaking."

"This is Fushimi. I'm calling to report another suicide."

There was a moment of hesitation on Munakata's behalf. "Name?"

"…Yata Misaki."

Owari.

I feel like, if I don't do something productive, I'm going to do something destructive...