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Kokonoi Hajime. To others, he was the fearsome money-making genius of a certain syndicate. To Inui Seishu, he was just Koko. His Koko who hates money, ball games, and wearing glasses. His Koko who loves the library, tarot cards, and earrings.
"We were just kids, Sei". Those were the last words spoken to him by the black haired fellow before they parted ways.
They say important moments flashes before a person's eyes on the brink of death. He might as well be a dead man walking, as he has already experienced that when the other left him.
Koko was never a selfish person. So Seishu understood. Understood that the shorter's departure wasn't for anything or anyone but Seishu's.
Still, it didn't make it hurt less. In fact, it did hurt more. Reminiscing the times of their childhood bickering and teenage delinquency left him with a painful tinge in the heart. Perhaps, if he had foreseen that that moment would happen, he would have played with Koko more, fought with Koko more, laughed with Koko more, loved Koko more.
As his parents would say, "Regret always comes last, never first". At that time, his juvenile mind failed to comprehend its meaning but now he had it in his grasp, although excruciatingly.
If he would be asked when it all went wrong, they would expect him to answer that it was after the fire, but the truth that only he knows, is that it all went wrong when they stopped being kids. When the burden of the adults were passed to their body, mind, and soul not even passing the boyhood days. And if they followed with the question of when that happened, he would not have the answer. After all, his sister, Akane, would have told him that he never really grew up.
To him, humans are colors. Each with their own shades and hues. Each with their own tints and tones. When one color touches another, they marry and give birth to another. Their own shades and hues, and tints and tones, decrees those of which the combination that they've created would have. Some colors merged and made another more beautiful than others.
Such is the existence of one Akane Inui. A magnificence in the body of a teenage girl. A heavenly soul in an angelic face. In spite of Seishu's uncaring expression and outright disagreement of his sister's antics, he has never loved another human being more than his sister, that is, until a certain slanted-eyed, tongue-sticking, black haired boy made his mark on Seishu's life.
As one does, Koko fell for Akane. It was a childhood crush. But to Seishu's juvenescence, it was the biggest problem that he encountered.
In his mind, he should have been happy. He should have rooted for them. He should have extinguished the fire that the other's match struck. He should have done all that. But he didn't, he couldn't, and deep inside he knows, he wouldn't.
When the fire happened, a scar was left in Seishu's face, but it was not the worse of scars as the other that was formed in the survivor and rescuers' life. A scar so big that it drew them apart. Koko took it upon himself to atone for the sin of not being able to save Akane, even though the other outcome would mean that the Inui siblings would trade places; Seishu critical on the hospital bed with burn marks for skin, and Akane on a state of self-hatred and lost of hope with a mark on her left eye that seemed to remind her that she should not have been saved.
Koko's clever brain which Seishu admired no longer aimed for straight A's. Instead, it worked for money. For Akane. And Seishu, overcome with grief and guilt, could not turn to his equally-miserable parents. So he sought the warmth of family in others. In Sano Shinichiro. When that warmth was extinguished by some thieving kids whose identities were unbeknownst to him and Akane finally succumbed to her demise, something inside him that used to hang on to the thread of Shinichiro and Akane's affection completely snapped.
He became a shell whose only purpose is to revive the Black Dragons, Shinichiro's greatest legacy. With this, he and Koko developed a similarity. And their goals fused and blurred until they themselves no longer recognize which is which. This would later become the catalyst of their separation. In the pursuit of their own goals, they forgot themselves and in forgetting themselves, they forgot each other.
Koko's selflessness made him surrender himself to Tenjiku in order to prevent any harm to come to Seishu's way but Seishu's stubbornness made him attempt to retrieve his best friend, the only one he has, from Tenjiku's clutches. However, choices have been made. Seishu couldn't save Koko who didn't seek salvation.
After multiple attempts of talking Koko out of his choice in joining Tenjiku, Seishu became desperate and brought his sister up. To that, Koko rightfully got angry and poured his heart out. In the midst of warring teenagers, "We were just kids, Sei", declared Koko as he cupped the other's scarred face.
To him, Inui Seishu was his forbidden fruit. His escape in paradise. His first breath to freedom. His fall to doom. He was everything and nothing Koko ever wanted. He was the sweet nectar of immortality and demise. He was with Seishu at the blonde's worst but with him, Koko was at his best. His touch burns the shorter's skin but it illuminates his soul. His lips sully the noirette's tongue still he quenches his thirst. His voice tarnishes the older's ear even so he makes peace in his haywired mind. His image haunts Koko's nights though he is his wildest dream. His scent lingers and fades, all the same. Koko wants more of Seishu, but none of them.
Koko left so that Seishu could live, could live the life that he imagined for the both of them. Alone or with another; and Koko will watch.