Summary: Yuichiro has lost and found a family twice now. He's not going to lose it again.

Understanding

Mika lunged at Yuichiro in a frenzy, blue eyes sharp, voice shrill and hoarse. "It hurts! It hurts so bad! I can't take it anymore! Let me suck your blood!"

Yuu could barely comprehend what was happening as Mika cried out in agony, having been knocked over by him. Such a mutilated sound and haggard movements came from Yuu's childhood friend, his hands over his face, nothing like the soothing image Yuu had had in his mind all these years. Mika's shrieks rang through the abandoned storehouse Yuu had awoken in, surprised to be off of the battlefield and in the presence of the one he had been searching for.

Mika was in front of him, though he was not the Mika that Yuu remembered. Yet he couldn't be more like him.

It wasn't how Yuu pictured their second meeting. He'd thought they would find each other by accident on the battlefield once again, and Yuu would demand Mika come back with him to Shinjuku. Mika would likely protest but Yuu would persist.

That was what he'd expected.

Instead, he'd wound up alone with Mika, who was in pain and not himself.

Mika was a vampire. Yuu knew Mika would never want to subject him to the same kind of treatment they received in Sanguinem when they were kids, so he resisted drinking Yuu's blood. Underneath the innate vampiric thirst for blood and his pained cries, Yuu heard nothing more than his childhood friend screaming at what he had become.

Yuu didn't hold it against Mika for attacking him. If anything, he was washed over by a calming sense of relief. It was his fault Mika was a vampire. It was Yuu who had left him to die to save himself when Mika saved him from the same fate that had befallen the Hyakuya orphans. It was Mika who had taught him how to live, Mika who had helped him understand the importance of family; Mika who, through that understanding, helped him gain the friends he had now... So maybe, just maybe – finally – after all this time, he would be able to pay Mika back. For something that was Yuu's fault in the first place.

"Just drink," Yuu mumbled, silencing Mika's blood-curdling screams. He reached up and unbuttoned the clips on the neck of his uniform, exposing his bare neck. "If it... really hurts..."

Mika, eyes wide, taken by surprise, lifted his face from his hands immediately. His trembling, gloved fingers took hold of Yuu's shoulders immediately, and he pushed Yuichiro to the floor without holding back, pinning him to the ground with all his body weight. Yuu shivered at the sudden movements but he felt no physical pain. "Sorry... Mika..." he whispered, throat clogging with the emotion that rushed through him. Fingers in his hair, Yuu pulled Mika closer as he bared his fangs, ready to sink in to Yuu's warm skin.

"I'm sorry for leaving you alone."

If nothing else, Yuu could at least do this one thing for Mika...

~Shades of the past~

"Pl-please... please stop... please stop...! Please stop...!"

Yuu lurched up in bed as he always did after a dream about his parents, trembling and dry-heaving – though he still felt as if he wasn't getting enough air. Yuu pulled his legs close to his chest and wrapped his arms wrapped around them, eyes fixed to a gash on the dank walls around the top of the bunkbed. Surrounded by the other children murmuring to themselves in their sleep, he rocked himself back and forth, reminding himself, It was just a dream. Yuu repeated, Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, until eventually he started whispering it to himself aloud, "just a dream, just a dream." Doing all he could to believe it.

Yuu bit his lip and shook his head as tears pooled into his eyes, rolling down his face, and he crumbled into his blankets, still holding himself, pressing his forehead into the wood beneath him. He couldn't do it. He couldn't get their voices out of his head, their kindness that had turned to anger in the blink of an eye. He'd gotten out of the apartment without a scratch, only for the one they left in his mind that he could no longer trust anyone – not even his "family." That he no longer had anyone to rely on, only himself.

Relying on himself wasn't good enough.

Could he do this forever? Could he continue to pretend that it didn't bother him enough for the others not to notice?

He didn't know.

"Yuu...?"

Yuu cursed as he hastily wiped the tears from his face and quieted his sobs. How did Mika always seem to wake up at the worst moments?!

"You okay...?" Mika asked sleepily. "I heard you mumbling..."

"Yeah," said Yuu, but it was almost inaudible from his earlier crying so Mika asked again.

"What?"

"I'm fine!" Yuu snapped, lifting his head to shoot Mika a glare before cowering back down in his blankets, turning the opposite direction.

Despite the darkness, Mika hadn't missed the shimmery reflection of tears sliding down Yuu's face. It woke Mika up enough to realize what was going on.

Yuu... was crying?

But Yuu never cried...

Reluctantly, Mika approached him, reaching toward him with one hand. "Yuu –"

"Don't touch me!" Yuu barked at him, slapping his hand away. Yuu shuddered at the contact, comparing it to his father's roughness, clawing at Yuu as he fled, knife in one hand, stabbing blindly at him.

Mika hesitated another moment, seeing how Yuu trembled under his blankets, before trying again. Softer than before, Mika rested a hand on Yuu's shoulder and turned him around slowly. Yuu's emerald eyes were dilated and he continued to shake even as Mika studied him with concern in his eyes. "Yuu, you remember I said it was okay if you needed help, right?"

Yuu might have been snapped back to his senses right then if not for how quietly Mika said it, how sincerely fearful he looked for Yuu's wellbeing. Yuu closed his eyes, willing the tears to say in. He always chided the others for crying over their pasts, and here he was doing the same thing. Mika didn't seem annoyed at all... Before he could stop himself, Yuu was saying something. "Mika, I..." His words became caught in his throat, and he never finished, sobs breaking through and not letting up. He felt warm arms around him. Yuu gasped and pushed at Mika who held on tightly, making it too much effort to get him off. Yuu kept struggling though, half-heartedly, until Mika whispered, "It's okay, Yuu... it was just a dream... you aren't there anymore... you're here... here with me..."

Mika had paused to say the last part, which had made the warmth sparked inside of Yuu all the more real. With Mika's warm arms around him and his soothing voice whispering... Yuu believed it, unlike when he tried to convince himself. Unlike when his parents had said they'd loved him. Yuu believed that he wasn't alone, that everything was all right, even if they were trapped in a city full of vampires that saw them only as livestock. He had someone to trust after all.

It was from that day on that Yuu knew he could rely on Mika for anything. They stayed that way until a banging on their door awoke them in the morning.

He may have denied it, ignored it, struggled against it... but Yuu knew, even four years later, there was no one who could replace Mika in his heart.

~Loss of four years~

"Mika!"

Yuu blinked back the tears that streamed down his face.

Back then, he'd resisted shedding tears in front of anyone. Now, he had no one to worry about crying in front of at all.

Yuu shook at the bloody images of the Hyakuya orphans as he sat up in bed. These dreams... they were far worse than the ones he used to have about his parents. Unlike his parents who didn't give him one iota of the attention, love, and care that he'd needed right up until they abandoned him, Mika and the others had been so kind to him. He hadn't done anything to deserve their kindness; only spew nonsense about destroying vampires – a dream that he knew was impossible from the moment he concocted the idea. And because of his own wanton disbelief, they, who had loved him and believed in him, – that he could actually defeat the vampires, – that they all could and escape out into a world free of them, had all been killed...

It was his fault.

They were dead because he'd made even Mika believe they could defeat the vampires and live somewhere peacefully. Yuu felt so stupid, so cursed and unlucky and undeserving, and yet he had no way to atone for his sin. He was only living away here, safe from the vampires, remembering that the rest of them were dead.

They'd deserved it so much more than him.

He had used Mika and the others for comfort against his own nightmares, yet he barely took the time to get to know them and help them with their own. He'd barely known anything about Mika's parents, unable to offer him any comfort in his few times of need, – like the time he'd come back from Ferid's completely exhausted, – when he'd been dying and bleeding on the ground in front of Yuu...

I'm horrible, Yuichiro's mind screamed. Not Asuramaru. No, these were his own thoughts, the ones that consumed him for over four years, safe and sound in every sense except in his own mind. I let them all die... I let them take the fall for my own stupidity... I'm the worst...

Every day he was reminded by the pistol under his pillow: my fault, my fault, my fault.

Mika's ghost followed Yuu wherever he went no matter how much he tried to avoid it. When he skipped class and laid on the roof of the school, Mika's ghost urged Yuu to follow Mika and the others into the light.

He couldn't do it. Not until he had made amends.

Yuu felt Mika in his everyday acts of selflessness and conversations when he passed others in the hallway. He thought he heard light laughter in the background. Only to be reminded it was an illusion.

Mika was gone.

They were all gone.

He was all alone. And he'd remain that way until he died himself...

The reason he charged into battle without a second thought... why, everyday, he was only motivated by the hope he could avenge his family...

He hoped that he could sacrifice himself for as noble a cause as Mika had.

To save someone else, no matter the cost.

Though Yuichiro never realized – at least not until recently – the true weight and depth of the reason Mika sacrificed everything for him.

Family was a part of it, and yet... there was something more.

~Present~

For four years, Yuu had thought Mika was dead – that it was his fault Mika had died along with everyone else. That was one death lifted from his conscience. Even when he'd gained new friends, he wouldn't let himself forget their sacrifice... their loss at his expense...

And then... Mika was alive. As a vampire, and Yuu would do anything in his power to pay him back for the love and affection he provided Yuu with in the past. He had to. He had no other choice; he could barely live with himself knowing he'd already left his family behind once; he wasn't going to do it again.

Yuu felt nothing but calmness as Mika drew closer, harsh breaths on Yuu's neck, ready to bite...

Mika stopped. He sat up with wide eyes, seeing what he'd done, fell backward and gritted his teeth. "What... did I do...? Ah... ha..."

Yuu was speaking to him but he had his own internal battle waging war in his mind. The last part of him that was still human told him not to give in to his vampiric bloodlust, that he couldn't turn his back on the only person he had left to protect in this world. "I don't want to... drink your blood..." he uttered, fighting every instinct in his mind that told him to pounce, to attack Yuu and obtain the nourishment he needed to survive.

"But Mika... it hurts when you don't drink blood, right? You don't have to explain anything!" said Yuu, grabbing Mika by the shoulders. Mika was brought back to his senses once again by Yuu's tone, shocked by the adamance in his voice and resolution of his expression. "You're on the verge of dying!" Yuu continued. "How?! How can I help your pain?! Is blood going to help you? Will it help you heal?! Then... if your blood isn't enough, drink mine!" He once again exposed his head for Mika to see. "Come on, drink my blood!"

Mika slouched where he was. "Don't be like that, Yuu... I won't... be able to resist..."

"Please tell me, Mika! Tell me how I can save you!"

Mika hid his face from view, sharply hissing, "Yuu!"

Hopelessly, Yuu clung to Mika. "What can I do...?" he wondered aloud. "To watch you die again when you're right in front of me..."

Mika was struck, hearing this, and decided it better to explain the situation rather than make Yuu suffer. "Yuu... I haven't... sucked human blood before..."

Those emerald eyes widened, then dulled. When they lit up again, his voice was normal, relaxed even. He knew exactly what he needed to do to get Mika to do what he wanted. They continued to bicker until Yuu cut his wrist, those eyes poring into Mika with such unshakable, unwavering determination that he couldn't look away. "I'll never forgive you if you die again," Yuu said, knowing there was no escape for Mika with those words.

"...You're a terrible person." Mika looked him dead in the eye as he said it, which told Yuu that he didn't mean it as seriously as one might think.

"Maybe," Yuu agreed. "But you let that terrible person into your family."

Mika lowered his head, chuckling to himself in spite of the pain jolting through his entire body with every breath, every moment without blood. "This sucks..." he uttered. "It's your fault that I'm going to become a monster."

"Ha! Are you stupid? Drinking a bit of blood won't turn you into a monster." Yuu grinned at him. "No matter what you become, we'll always be a family."

Mika's gaze lowered again, to the empty space between them. He squinted, doing everything in his power to force the tears to the back of his eyes but he couldn't...

After all this time, he would become the very thing he hated... But that wasn't why he was crying. "Yuu..."

"Huh?"

"It hurts..." he choked out. With that lucid confession, the sorrow became too much to bear and overflowed in huge waves of tears that streaked his face. "It hurts so much," he said again, a little louder. "I want to drink so badly..."

Yuu smiled, extending his hand. "Sure." He spoke gently. "Go ahead."

The arms that wrapped around Yuu's shoulders shocked him not from their forcefulness that knocked him backward, because of the same warmth he had experienced all those years ago in the vampire city, with no home, no family, no peace of mind to rely on. Nothing, except the warm, soothing arms of his best friend.

As Mika sobbed against his throat, the world around Yuu softened and faded away.

This was all he'd wanted.

Mika could finally trust him enough to reveal his true emotions.

Yuu wanted to cry joyfully himself.

The reason Mika had always put Yuu first, why he'd hidden away his sorrows and only allowed Yuu to see the calm hiding the storm underneath, whether Mika acknowledged it or not, was for love.

It had always been for love.

And Yuu would do everything in his power to love Mika in return.

"Welcome home... Mika..."

Okay, so let me tell you a story – another story aside from the one I've spent these 7 chapters developing.

When I began watching Seraph of the End, after the first MikaYuu reunion I always thought it was obvious that Mika loved Yuu in a way that was more than any other relationship in the series. Yuu was Mika's everything, being trapped with the vampires for four years, while Yuu was getting new friends and moving forward. So I started this fic with that mindset. I thought only of Mika's side of the story and his isolation, never considering what Yuu must have been going through those four years as well.

However, all that time Yuu only drove himself forward with the thought of avenging the family he watched die. Before Yuu knew Mika was alive, the only reason he had to live was to sacrifice himself for another's sake, as Mika had done for him. It haunted him even after he found friends.

My original reason for writing Memento Mori was to convey this idea that Mika would do anything for Yuu, and as a result it gave him the secretive, determined personality he has both as a child and as a teenager/vampire. But as I wrote the story and read the canon chapters of the manga, I realized... it's quite the opposite, really, or mutual at the very least. Mika will do anything to save Yuu from the humans because Yuu is the only thing that's been keeping him going, but he got caught up in all that Seraph information of the war and he knew at least that Yuu was alive all that time. He had someone to live for. He had a goal, though morbid it may have been: live until he found Yuu. Yuu's only reason to live was to sacrifice himself for any other person's sake the first chance he got.

Now Yuu has more reason to live, and will do anything to save Mika because Yuu wants to atone for what he's done, for what he wasn't able to do for Mika and the others as a child. He plans to make amends by paying Mika back for the love and protection Mika provided him at that time.

I really thought that chapters 36 and 37 of the manga captured these ideas and showed their bond so well that I feel no need to write this story anymore in order to convince myself. So if you were wondering why the last few chapters haven't been as... long or developed, this is why. Canon nullified my entire reason for writing this story in the first place, and I can't say I'm sad about it.

Rest assured I have many more MikaYuu fic ideas to write. I needed to put this fic to rest before I can get started on them all! I hope that you'll consider checking any of my others out on my profile~

Once again, I want to thank all my wonderful readers for the support for this story, and I apologize if it's not the kind of ending you wanted. I hope it wasn't too abrupt. It's the ending I feel most comfortable giving, and hopefully that will be enough.

Happy New Year!

[End]