disclaimer: ane isn't mine.
takes place sometime after chapter 26, so possible spoilers? iunno. :) putting this out there just in case k don't be mad at me.

He's not exactly sure when he started feeling like this. It's sort of always been there, this voice gnawing on the material in the back of his brain. He lies on his bed and the voice just randomly makes itself known. It's there constantly, but there are moments where it shuts up completely and he is at peace. The voice says things like demon and disgrace, you're out of control you little fucker, you're going to kill everyone around you aren't you, what's wrong with you. They're never questions, always statements; the voice is always so sure of what it says that he's almost afraid of it.

It's what starts consuming him, what starts to ebb away at him. He hates the voice because the voice is right. Okumura Rin is just another monster in the closet.

He sees the looks on everyone's faces, but Eyebrows' incredulous look is what sticks in his mind. That day with the Leaper and Bon, his memory is almost completely diluted of facts and fiction but he remembers the look on her face.

It is pure shock, but he sort of imagines (or maybe even recalls) a look of almost-admiration. If he were anybody else watching, he might be surprised, too. But he's the son of Satan himself, and if he spirals downwards he might as well make it so that nobody else goes down with him.

Don't make yourself sound like some hero, the voice says snidely. You're just a freak who has a little control over some minions, don't blow it out of proportion.

He shakes it off and his thinking goes back on track. 'Nobody else' includes Bon, the twisted bastard. Intelligent as he is, it's all book-smarts. All book-smarts, colourful rooster hair and the undying need to prove himself. Rin's the opposite (except for the last one, on occasion. He never feels adequate standing next to Yukio, who has done so much in so little time, and without Rin's knowledge). He could give less of a shit about school but he sort of knows how it operates on the streets, in business and the outside world.

He hates himself for thinking it but he is bitterly jealous of how Bon still his temple and his family to run back to afterwards (after what? After school's finished, or after he kills Satan, or after what?) but Rin has nobody except for Yukio.

While he's on the topic of people (like Yukio and Bon and Eyebrows, whose name he still can't really remember. The most memorable part of her, after all, are her eyebrows) he might as well go over the others, too. Like Shima. Out of everybody, he imagines he likes Shima best.

Not because Shima is handsome or easy-going or even because he has pink hair, and anyone who has pink hair has to be someone special (or who has guts, at least, and he respects guts). He likes Shima the most because Shima was the first person to look past his flames and his ears and his goddamn tail, and see that he's half-human.

Konekomaru looks past it, too, but it takes him so long that Rin feels the ever-present dagger twist in his chest. To be fair it's not only Konekomaru who takes long; it's everyone. It's Shiemi and she is one of the people who's hurt him the most, because it's like she's afraid of him, despite knowing him. What's a set of ears and some fucking blue flames and a tail? It's not like having them alters who they are. It's also Bon, not because Rin is a threat because he's a demon, but because Rin started acting like they were strangers. He calls bullshit. He does. He doesn't remember a time when he wasn't trying to protect them, trying to talk to them, trying to be normal. He doesn't remember a time where he wasn't trying and that's his problem.

His problem is that he's not sure when he let all these people in.

It's scary knowing that everybody is holding onto a tiny piece of him and they can do whatever the fuck they like with it.

Nobody wants you, or any pieces of you, the voice remarks, sounding matter-of-fact. Get out of here.

It takes so much effort to push it away from his head. Not for the first time, Rin wishes he really was as simple and as single-minded as everyone thinks he is.

His musing turns to Yukio. He turns onto his side, making room for himself on the tiny, stiff single bed he's got. Yukio, Yukio, Yukio. Even though they're twins, he can't read him. He doesn't know every reason behind Yukio's every action but he can accept that Yukio is trying to help him.

Even though Rin's the type not to worry about things, he isn't the type to forget. He remembers bloody, raw knuckles and breaking ribs, and he remembers taunts and the assholes who all called him a demon and came out to be disturbingly, completely accurate. Most of all, his most recent memory is of Yukio, his dear little brother.

"Then you should just give yourself up to order headquarters, or just die please."

It doesn't cut into him, those words. In fact they're not that big of a deal and he found it easy to look past them at the time, and even now they're just words said in the heat of the moment. But the fact that for even a second, even his own little brother didn't want him around, is what hurts.

For a second the thoughts stop swimming in his head and sleepiness weighs down on his open eyes. He's been staring at the wall for the past fifteen minutes, angsting over what is his piece-of-shit life. The voice quiets, getting tired along with the rest of his body.

He listens to the clock tick, still staring at the bumps and dents on the wall. He runs his hand over them. They're calloused- his hands are- but overall smooth. The wooden sword gives him all sorts of splinters and any cuts he has are from the sword. His cooking skills are top-notch, and that's just about all he can gloat about.

You can brag about how many kids you beat up when you were four. You can talk about how you manage to take down demons three times your size, but oh wait, that's just the sword. The voice is being sarcastic.

Fuck off, he tells himself. (Because that's what the voice is, himself. He says these things to himself and he finds it so incredibly disgusting.)

His hand drags down his tired face and he sits up. He's thought about enough depressing sissy shit to choke a horse. His time is better spent practicing on that candle shit, because practice makes perfect and he might as well perfect the craft before he has to do it in front of Shura. She's lazy, but she has high expectations and a critical eye.

He sighs and gets up, and before long he is on the roof with a candle in need of lighting, and the monster in the closet is just another boy doing his best not to look like an idiot in front of his mentor. A weight on his shoulder tells him that Kuro has joined him, and he turns to acknowledge his familiar with a half-smile.

The cat rubs against his head, distressing already tousled hair, and in this one particular moment Rin relaxes and enjoys himself and pretends he really is just an idiotic simpleton with no worries for the future. For the next few minutes, maybe the next hour, he is not a monster in the closet.

He'll see when tomorrow comes.

random inspiration struck! this is sort of angsty all-over-the-place shit, but i kind of like it. kind of..
i think i'll be attacking fairy tail next. :)

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