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Comforting others had never been Soubi’s specialty, try as he might.
Especially not when “others” was a shaking, sobbing twelve-year old girl he only knew through Ritsuka, slumped down on the latter’s doorstep, clutching a paper plate and covered in paint. It was on her hands and wrists, a mark rubbed into her cheek, unmoved even by her tears—mainly soft shades of white and blue, the same sky blue as the jacket Ritsuka often wore to school.
Yes, he’d spoken to Yuiko before, over the phone and at the theme park, and just before he’d seen a pile of tramped-over flowers just past Ritsuka's door the time his mother tied him up and locked him in the house. He’d seen her trudging along the street, covering her wet eyes. And for Ritsuka’s sake, the Ritsuka they’d both been aching to see, he took her out for ice cream and listened to her troubles. He knew it would make Ritsuka happy, after all.
But he couldn’t take her out for ice cream now, not with the oncoming rain, and moreover, just what had happened for her to end up here in the first place?
He walked over, knelt down, and took a peek at what was in her hands. He saw beige, a warm pink, titanium white and blue on the paper plate, but there was a thick smudge through the middle, so whatever had been painted on it before was unintelligible now. She looked up, at first frightful, until she recognized him and her shoulders relaxed. “Yui—I just came to wait for him,” she defended. “He told me he had…somewhere to go after school, but…” Her eyes drifted down to the paper plate, then flickered back up, desperate. “What if he doesn’t like it anymore?”
“You painted that for him?”
She nodded. “But it looked better before, until…” She held it against herself. “In art class, my friends…I told them it was for him, so they…” Her lips pursed up; she clenched the paper plate tighter.
“Your friends?”
“They said they're my friends…”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, having very few friends himself—Kio was his only real friend, the Zeroes were more of beloved pests, and Ritsuka...was something the word “friend” could not even begin to cover.
But when he saw the painting, he noticed the blue and white made up Ritsuka’s jacket, the pink was Yuiko’s hair, and there was smudge of beige between them, attaching their arms. Or, there would have been; there could have been. Kio wouldn’t ruin one of his paintings, no matter what, even the pinned-down butterflies he painted when his thoughts drifted to Seimei, and Kio hated Seimei. He didn’t want to hear about Ritsuka for the longest time, either, yet still encouraged Soubi to paint him.
“Friends shouldn’t ruin each other’s art.” It felt foreign to say such a thing, but his recent observations hadn’t lent him any other information, simply put.
Still, she only looked at him, surprised.
Yuiko had come over once, for Ritsuka’s birthday, he remembered. There was a way to handle this. It wouldn’t be a problem to have her over again.
“Why don’t you come over to my place? I have plenty of art supplies.” Gently, he pried one of her hands from the plate and held it. “It’ll be like nothing ever happened to it.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
"Sure!"
Even though he'd only approached Ritsuka on orders from Seimei, Soubi knew his whispers of "I love you," his lingering hands, they had purpose and meaning. Ritsuka's smile, his flushed cheeks, the way he pouted and squirmed in Soubi's arms but stayed frozen just long enough for them to kiss, they meant everything to him.
For that reason, having Yuiko finish her painting meant everything to him as well.
So, when he arrived home and let her inside, folding up his umbrella while she took in the room and then made a beeline for his easel, he watched and smiled tenderly.
“Hey, look! It’s all the colors we have in school!” She picked up a bottle of acrylic paint, hurriedly opened it. “I can use these?”
His smile chipped when he realized that bottle had been left behind by Kio, but didn’t press it. “To your heart’s content.” This was more important.
She sat down and begun her work while Soubi leaned over her shoulder from behind. Her eyes flickered across the paper plate, face scrunching a bit in confusion, then dread, then determination, then dread again. “I’ll have to paint a new layer over everything, won’t I?”
Comfort her, Soubi reminded himself, placing a hand on her shoulder, almost tugging her back. “I’m sure he won’t mind. You might even learn from your mistakes from before and paint something better.”
“Really?” She turned around.
Ritsuka’s face would light up at just the sight of her covered in all that dry paint, he wanted to say, but it didn’t feel like enough. He just smiled back at her placidly.
After a long moment, he moved his hand away and watched her begin to paint faster, felt the thread between them thicken with Ritsuka at the center. That, and the sense of responsibility he felt was unexpectedly soothing. In a way, it felt like becoming the sort of big brother figure Kio had suggested he be in order to meet Ritsuka, and that was pure, so pure he found himself reaching for a blank canvas and dreaming up something to paint himself. He wasn’t sure what, but at least he could rule out butterflies.
Then, his thoughts were cut off when he heard a heavy knock at the door, then another as he began to stand up. “Impatient, aren’t we?”
He was speechless for a moment when he saw Ritsuka, Natsuo and Youji staring up at him, all sopping wet from the rain. “I was wondering where you two were.” He let them in. “And, Ritsuka…” He glanced back at Yuiko, who was transfixed on her painting. “…you didn’t want me picking you up from school, yet you came by anyway? That’s cute.”
“It’s not like that. I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. Mom’s been in a bad mood lately, and…” He cut himself off. “Yuiko?”
His shoes made a wet clonk as he ran across the room before kicking them off haphazardly. “Yuiko, what are you…”
He knelt down and touched her shoulder. “Oh!” She turned around, her paper plate resting on her thighs and a brush woven between her fingers. Sky blue paint covered the tip. “Ritsuka, you’re here!” First, she smiled, but after a second she begun to frown. “I thought you were gonna go home. I was waiting for you.”
“I didn’t say that. But what are you doing here ?” He made an effort to shoot an accusatory glare at Soubi, who pretended not to notice.
“He found me by your house and let me come here to finish my art project…” She gestured vaguely to her painting. “But it looks like you got here first, didn’t you?” she asked with an awkward laugh.
“Can I see?” He took it from her hands and held it up. “That's…kind of cool. Wait, is that us?”
Her face reddened. “It is…”
“It’s not bad,” he said, smiling. “Oh, but you can finish it. Here.” He tried to hand it back to her.
“No, no! If you like it, then it’s done!”
“Really? I’ll probably like it more once you add everything else you want.”
They shared a smile, while Soubi watched from the door, amidst snickering and shifty glances from the Zeroes beside him. “Soubi’s getting jealous, I’ll bet!” Youji exclaimed.
“Oh, for sure. Hey, Soubi!” Natsuo looked up at him expectantly, but was only met with calm silence. He raised an eyebrow.
“Hm? What is it?”
“Never mind,” Natsuo muttered, then leaned over to whisper in Youji’s ear, “He looks fine to me.”
“What? No way!”
Truth be told, Soubi’s eyes were, as always, on Ritsuka, but they wandered around the room on occasion, too, took in the odd sense of love he felt all around himself, because sometimes, affection was interlocked hands and heavy petting, fear and bloodshed and endless devotion, and other times it was something as simple as painting with your sacrifice’s best friend.