Disclaimer: Shiki and all its affiliations (including, but not limited to: its characters, objects, places and events) are owned by Ono Fuyumi (novelist), Ryu Fujisaki (mangaka), and Daume (studio).

A/N: The setting takes place immediately following episode 10 (chapter 13 of the manga), with a hint at an event in chapter 16 of the manga that was not covered in the anime. I'm also going with the notion it's written "Tohru."

Tatsumi was not a kind person. Everyone knew that. Behind the friendly exterior with which he gained people's trust there dwelled something vicious, loyal, and mean. He followed Sunako's words and desires like a well-trained servant, or a respecting companion. The exact way he went about executing each task, however, was something to be feared. Twisting it and manipulating whomever he chose, he made certain everyone stood a step beneath him.

A super-sadist, Megumi described. A sly super-sadist who obtained personal pleasure at another's pain while simultaneously achieving what plans the Shiki had in store for the town of Sotoba and its inhabitants. All of its inhabitants. Including him. Including the older teenager with a mess of blond hair.

Including Natsuno.

Tears fell with ease from once hazel eyes. They stung with a bitter cold, but he could barely feel them. His ice-cold skin could not catch the chill they and the breeze produced. Save for their wetness running down his cheeks, the chocking (if he could breathe) lump in his throat, and drops collecting on a fuller face as he kneeled, hunched, over an unconscious form—to him, there was little to no indication of their presence.

"Megumi-kun," Tatsumi called. "You can leave now." It was not a suggestion; it was an order. The pink-haired girl eyed the pair a second, her painted lips parted to retort. Tohru sat collapsed on the roadside, one hand nursing a quickly healing bite-wound while Tatsumi loomed over, still jeering with his gaze. A punishment for mercy. Cruelty for kindness. Though in itself, such kindness reeked of a death sentence.

She made no reply.

"Megumi-kun."

She started. Dark eyes ventured to the boy still collected beside the small spring. Defiance flickered a moment then hid itself behind lowered lids. With a certain defeat, the girl agreed. In passing the two her eyes again landed on her motionless love, and a twinge of guilt, adoration, and fear struck her.

Tatsumi watched after, hands on his hips, until the translucent radiance of her tresses disappeared from sight. Then his attention turned to the boy straightening into a stance. "You should be able to carry him, right?"

Tohru's eyelids pulled back, his brow furrowing, a foreboding edging its way into his chest and quiet heart. A slight narrowing of gaze greeted the reaction; he knew exactly what the boy was thinking, what he dreaded to hear uttered from the other's stained lips.

When the words crawled out and attacked his ears, all his innards vanished. Strength went with them. Perhaps that was why he fell so easily. When he stood over Natsuno's form, he just collapsed. Crumbled to his knees and sat there, trembling and quaking.

Take him home.

They had permission to enter the atelier, and, like most homes in this small country town, the doors stood unlocked night or day. There was no excuse, no escape, from following this order. Nothing save for the personal desire not to do it. And that, surely, Tatsumi would never listen to.

Carry him back, drop him in his bed, and say farewell.

A true sadist.

Even with the man gone, off to do whatever remained, Tohru still felt those sharp pupils cutting into his bent back. Delighting in his pain, drinking it up like he drank what blood the starving "monster" possessed. And a monster he was. No matter what logic the blond or others of his kind spouted or repeated to deny it, to refute the claim, the issue still gnawed at his insides. Shiki, Okiagari, vampires—whatever the name, it was still the same. They were creatures who fed on the blood of the innocent. They killed to live, with little to no regard for whom they sunk their teeth into. Be it a stranger, family, or—Tohru winced from a sharp pain.

"Natsuno," slipped with a sob from trembling lips.

He wiped at the tears with his sleeve, clearing his vision for a moment. The fresh sight before him—limp limbs strewn across the ground, hair curled around feeble countenance and over weary eyes, two dots bleeding crimson—brought them right back. With stiff arms he cradled Natsuno like a child in a strange embrace. One arm supported his friend's back, the other wrapped around his front, and chest and shoulder became a makeshift pillow for Natsuno's dark head. Body encircling him, it made for a meager defense against those yellow eyes he still felt watching. Natsuno's warmth seeped into his skin, and he could feel an alien heartbeat pounding through every inch of his friend he touched.

Despite how close he held Natsuno, how near, despite this connection in the blood they now shared, there loomed a great detachment. A separation reminding him of their positions and gradually lessening distance (one dead, the other soon to die but still alive), and the bloodlust tearing him apart with every beat of Natsuno's heart hammering into his how much of a monster he had become. There was the chasm, the divide. He, Tohru Mutou, was a monster now. A monster who lived to create other monsters. As Chizuru had done to Megumi. As Megumi had done to him. As he would do to Natsuno.

As he would do to Natsuno.

Again the boy's name escaped him in a twist of pain and guilt and remorse and hate. He hugged Natsuno close to him and mopped up the tears with Natsuno's front until the stabs at his abdomen subsided.

He fought it, this hunger that consumed him, filling his stomach with a painful emptiness—with what strength remained he fought it. Through sheer will he managed to abate it and keep from satisfying the blooming starvation. He had already bitten Natsuno once tonight; that was enough.

The boy forced himself not to dwell on it. The clock was ticking. Hours remained until sunrise. Plenty of time better spent doing as ordered instead of mulling over selfish self-hatred and guilt.

He slipped an arm under Natsuno's thin legs, shifted the arm on his back, and lifted the younger. It hit him before he fully realized. Knees buckled, arms failed, chest constricted—all at a sudden realization. A second passed before his mind understood what his body inherently knew.

Why this felt so odd.

A human was in his arms. This was Natsuno. This was a human being. This was his friend. This was a living, breathing human. A human weight—Natsuno's weight—a human life—Natsuno's life—lay silent in his grasp.

And gradually, in a matter of days, that weight would decrease, that life would fade. But he would still feel it.

He would know that weight—carry it—forever.

The burden which had felt strangely light at first—from blood loss, from his species?—grew ten times greater, Natsuno's body, dreams, desires, whole life added to the mass.

Tohru struggled and succeeded and remained upright with Natsuno barely jostled. It was not from the sharp twinge in his chest, nor the effort to keep from falling again that his muscles tensed and whole body went stiff. It was from the force it took not to clutch the unconscious boy any tighter, any closer. A predator had no right bestowing affection to its prey, or receiving any comfort in its warmth, its soft breath, or the feel of its skin. Only that crushing weight.

All he had was that crushing weight.

To carry and to leave.

And despite his best efforts not to, to leave as little taint on pure skin as possible, when Natsuno awoke, alone, back home, in bed, the imprint of those strained arms remained. Natsuno could still feel it, though he never experienced it. The ghost of an embrace devoid of all warmth. A dead friend's embrace.

Tohru's weight. Surrounding him, and begging for forgiveness.