Dlbn: Hey everyone! So chapter nineteen was a TOTALLY DIFFERENT FIC I somehow updated with instead of a new chapter.

Nbld: But we fixed it. However, I don't know if it sent out alerts, so I'm gonna rush right onto this one. GO ahead and read chapter nineteen. I'll reply to all reviews for that and this one next chapter. Chapter nineteen reviews for the mistake are still there and were replied to last chapter.

Dlbn: Without further ado, let's begin!

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING but plot. All canon people, places, things, terms, etc. in this fic belong to Yun Kouga. I make NO money off writing in this category.

000

Ritsuka stared at boxes upon boxes of his family's personal items were systematically put into a white moving truck alongside all the house's furniture that hadn't been sold to make money for the move. He held all his memories in albums in a backpack slung over his shoulder. He didn't trust the movers with something so precious to him. The rest of his stuff he didn't care about since he wasn't as emotionally attached to things he owned before he lost his memory as the memories he had made with Seimei afterwards. His father was ordering the movers around while his mother checked to make certain they weren't forgetting anything or leaving anything behind.

His throat tightened and his mouth ran dry as movers carried boxes past him labeled 'Seimei's room' in sloppy handwriting that his mother had started and he had finished when it became too much for her. There were so many new memories in this house-his only memories of the house-and he was certain he'd miss living here. But the memories of Seimei were getting to be too much for his mother's already fragile mind, and there was far too much room for a woman, her son, and the husband that came home once or twice a month. He could do without the memories of his mother beating and chasing him, and the ones of hiding in his and Seimei's bedroom closets and crying and praying to whatever could hear him that he would get his memories back or die before his mother could get to him inside. He'd tried to talk to his father about it, but Aidien had simply brushed him off and attributed his mother's mood swings to her new medicines, and that was that. They were moving to a smaller house in Tokyo, meaning he wouldn't be going to his school in Kyoto with Osamu anymore. The commute was too far for him to make it to and from school every day with time to sleep and eat in between travels. He didn't want to leave, but he knew that he had to.

Seimei was everywhere in that home. From the wall where markings stated how tall the boys were growing to a stain on the hallway carpet where Seimei had spilt some juice he'd been bringing to Ritsuka when he was sick, there wasn't a space in the home that didn't have some memory or mark of Seimei attached. Not including the mantle over the fireplace where the urn containing his ashes had been sitting since the funeral a month and a half ago. His remains had already been all but completely destroyed by the fire, so cremation was a more logical decision for the family. Though there was still a small burial plot marked for him where he would have laid had they put the body in the ground.

Kyoto itself was full of Seimei. Ritsuka couldn't go back to the ice cream parlor again or take the long route home, or go to the adult library or even go near Seimei's old high school. There was always someone to offer words of sympathy and memories of Seimei to flood back and haunt him in his sleep wherever he went. Perhaps leaving town was for the best. It would be painful to tell Osamu on his last day of school the next day, but it had to be done. For the night, they'd stay at a hotel so the new owners of the home could move in and get comfortable. His parents felt it best that he ended his days in Kyoto Elementary School on a Friday so he could be in the new school at the start of a new week. Personally, he wanted to have a couple days to himself in the new house before going to school, but the sooner he was in a new school, the sooner he was away from his mother and her abuse.

The moving truck started up and drove off into the sunset to deliver the Aoyagis' stuff to their new home.

"Ritsuka?" His father wondered. "Come on, get in the car. We have to check in within the hour or we're sleeping in the car for tonight."

"Okay…" Ritsuka replied, joining his father.

He slung his backpack into the backseat before joining it. His father shut the trunk of the car, albeit with some difficulty due to the bags of clothing and other small items they'd need in the room for the night. Ritsuka was hoping his father wouldn't leave him alone with his mother, but knowing his father's 'work', that was likely to happen. As the car pulled out of the driveway and started down the road, Ritsuka tuned out the arguing of his parents and focused on looking for the memories of Seimei along the way that he'd never be reminded of in person again.