Whoever had said that Shizuo could not feel pain was terribly wrong.

A screech that curdles his own blood tears like a knife to the skull, violently protesting against his eardrums until the blond realizes that the tremendous, agonizing sound has come from his own rasping throat. His mind is screaming for relief, but he knows voice alone would do no good.

What's been done has been done, and there's no going back.

s e v e n y e a r s e a r l i e r

Midnight. A warm chill rises from the sidewalk and descends in the form of an evening mist. Stars freckle the night sky as if to speak for droplets of dew on newly frosted glass, as if to watch with another; overhead, while pale moonlight trickles down from a familiar, graceful sliver, witching-hour indigo grows deeper and deeper the longer he stares, as if the indigo could infect his own mahogany irises like the permanence of ink or paint.

Though Kasuka always did like watercolors more, he thinks.

In no time at all, Shizuo finds himself running once more. The concrete lifting away beneath his feet as he starts to gain momentum and hover barely, the sweat cooling on his neck and temples, the rush of the wind in his hair— he can't get enough. The muscles in his wings are beginning to tighten up, tensing and arching for the potential of flight. The burning sensation in his lungs and calves is wholly tuned out, and Shizuo takes the next tall curb as an opportunity to leap off the ground. It's an exhilarating feeling, just those few moments of freedom and majesty, because there is only one problem.

Shizuo cannot fly.

Kasuka is waiting patiently in the den when the blond staggers in, the heavy force of exhaustion beginning to finally take its toll on his slumped shoulders. Without a word the shorter teen stands, wings folded neatly at his back, and slips an arm under Shizuo's. The blond tries not to lean on his brother with the worry that he might somehow crush him beneath his weight, but soon enough he's close to falling asleep on his feet as they approach his bedroom. This is a normal ritual between the two of them: Shizuo's nightly runs, and the many hours Kasuka would stay up, reading and waiting for him to come home. If Shizuo was ever awake enough to notice small details, he might have been able to pick up the front cover of those books — titles different, every night, because the brunette has gone through the entire Heiwajima family library. Twice.

Once, on one of these runs, Shizuo plucked a large paperback from the shelf of a bookstore. Kasuka had smiled a little at the gift, glancing up in reassurance even though it's one they already own, and placed it far away from the first copy so Shizuo wouldn't know of his mistake.

Kasuka knows how sensitive Shizuo has become.

While Shizuo may possess a strength unrivaled by most other angels, his emotional state is like that of a rose petal — fragile, soft, and easily torn despite its sweetness. Kasuka is unable to defend Shizuo from the teasing and snide comments simply because the blond does not want him to. And after a time Kasuka realizes that it's a sort of contradicting need for pity. Shizuo's desire for acceptance stems from his own inability to cope with the reality of his strange sensibility of being.

There is little that Kasuka can do for him except to calm his anger; Shizuo must learn to fly on his own.