The Mark of Loveless

THE MARK OF LOVELESS



by lordoberon





Chapter Three





_______________________________________SPYER\'S POV______________________________





Yayoi could not help it. He was curious! And he was also angry. He hated it, oh how he hated it, when that look came into Yuiko\'s eyes. It was a look of immense sadness, and of anger at the very self. And it was all Ritsuka-kun\'s fault!



So Yayoi followed Ritsuka, to see what he was up to. Ritsuka-kun was his friend, but something was definitely up this time. He could tell by the way Ritsuka held himself, that this was no family emergency. This was something else. It was something secret.



Yayoi had to find out. For Yuiko-san\'s sake, he had to find out what Ritsuka-kun was hiding, so that Yayoi could end Yuiko\'s pain. He did not want to see her eyes tear up again. He did not want that at all. He knew that there was not much he could do about Yuiko liking Ritsuka-kun. He could not force her to like him, and knew that insulting Ritsuka-kun or anything petty like that would not make Yuiko like him. So Yayoi decided that all he could do was try to make Yuiko happy, and that, right now, meant finding out Ritsuka\'s secret.



He watched as something strange went on in the room. He could not understand it. The four people were standing on opposite sides of the room...and something was happening. What Yayoi noticed was that that man, the college-aged friend of Ritsuka, Agatsuma Soubi, was there. He noticed how closely the two stood together, and how Agatsuma and Ritsuka seemed very close.



Yayoi\'s eyes widened when he saw Agatsuma kiss Ritsuka-kun. And Ritsuka did not mind! He smiled at the man, and turning to the boy his age with the red hair, said, "So you knew? I\'ve lost my ears. Just yesterday."



And with that said, Ritsuka slid off the pair of fake ears, and the fake tail as well. Yayoi stared in shock at the earless Ritsuka. EARLESS! RITSUKA WAS EARLESS! He felt ready to faint at the sight. What would he tell Yuiko? He wouldn\'t tell her. But he had to tell someone! This was bad! This was...oh, what to do what to do? Someone should know. This could not be kept secret; it was too important, too frightening!



So he got Ritsuka\'s phone number from Yuiko. He tried calling the house himself, but the sound of Ritsuka\'s mother\'s voice frightened him. So intead, he confided in Shinonome-sensei, and had her call the house. She told Ritsuka\'s mother.



Yayoi did not understand what consequences this telling of the news would bring about.



________Ritsuka\'s POV___________________________________________________________



"Mom? Isn\'t it time for dinner?"



Ritsuka was frightened. He felt extremely nervous wearing the fake ears and tail in his own house. His mother had not been out of her room yet tonight. She had not greeted him when he came home. She had not stopped by his room to knock, or anything.



He had not thought there would ever be a day where he would WISH to hear the cry of, "Ritsuka, dinner time!" Usually hearing that made his stomach clench in nervousness. What if she planned to test him? Would the food be good? Would "Ritsuka" like this food, or not? What if he did something wrong and liked or dislike something differently than mom\'s "Ritsuka"??



But now Ritsuka missed it. Something was wrong. He leaned forward until his forehead scraped the rough wood of the door.



"Mom? Mom, are you OK?"



No answer. Ritsuka felt his palms sweating, and he began to worry that something was terribly wrong with his mother.



"MOM?"



He twisted the door knob. Unlocked. Ritsuka took a deep breath and stepped into his mother\'s room.



She sat in an awkard position on the floor by her bed, her face covered by her long hair. She was sobbing.



Ritsuka remembered something Seimei had said to him once - "Remember, Ritsuka, she doesn\'t mean this. She is our mother, after all. I promise you, and she would tell you if she were feeling well - Ritsuka, mother will always love you. Remember that."



She loved him. She loved him. She loved him. This became a chant in Ritsuka\'s mind, and this was part of why he was able to forgive her each time she hurt him. He got the courage to stand behind his mother and put his hand on her shoulder.



"Mom? I was hoping...we could eat dinner soon."



The woman turned around so fast, Ritsuka stepped back in fear. He stumbled backward, tripping on the rug and falling down. His mother was looking at him with that familiar mad look in her eyes. It was a wild, consuming rage. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. "RITSUKA! YOU ARE NOT MY RITSUKA! MY RITSUKA WOULD NOT DO SUCH A TERRIBLE THING!!"



Ritsuka swallowed hard.



"M-mom?"



What had he done wrong? She looked more furious than she ever had before. He cringed, putting his hands up in front of his face, as the woman stepped towards him. A hand whipped out and hit him a hard blow to the head. He stumbled back, and found himself sitting in a corner, by the closet.



That hand of judgement grabbed a nearby lamp, and slammed it down on Ritsuka\'s head. He groaned, sliding to lie totally flat on the floor. He had a bloody spot above one ear, he discovered when reaching his fingers to touch it. He opened his eyes, and saw only blackness, and sparkling lights. He was too weak to run away.





"M-mom! Stop! Please!"



She started throwing things at him. Then she bent down and grabbed hold of his ankles. Ritsuka screamed as his mother dragged him across the rug and into the kitchen. He tried to scramble away, while trying to dodge the objects being thrown at him - plates, knives, cutting boards, and more.



The second cutting board hit him in the back, sending the wind out of him, and Ritsuka fell. He lifted a shaking hand up to touch the blood on his neck. Then he fell to the floor again; his back ached.



"MY RITSUKA WOULD NOT DO SUCH A TERRIBLE THING!!"



She was hitting him, over and over. He felt blood flow from his mouth; skin fell from the tops of his hands; she was scraping her nails down his skin. Ritsuka cried out as something hard slammed down on his body, hitting his shoulders, his head, his torso again and again. His vision was blurring, and all he could hear were her angry screams.



He tried to move, to break away from that iron grip, but all he could do was sob and take the hits. He realized his ankle was swollen from something hitting it hard, when he tried to stand up. He managed to limp over to the counter, away from her.



She came up from behind him, and pulled him back into a crushing hug. And then she grabbed a knife, and for a few seconds it slid down his side, slicing skin off, and bruising him with her fingers of the other hand on his neck. Ritsuka raised a hand to try and squirm out of her grip.



"Mom, what have I done? Mom - AAUUAAGH! AAUUA!"



She had thrust the knife into his arm.



He felt the fake ears and tail ripped from him, as she screamed, "EARS! EARS, RITSUKA, YOUR EARS!"



He realized that she had discovered it, somehow, but he was only distantly aware of it. Instead, he looked at the shining silver blade, standing up from its position inserted a few inches above his right elbow. Ritsuka watched the blood drip down, but then his mother was hitting him again. Pain. Pain. His arm flared with pain, and it made the rest of his body shut down. He couldn\'t think, couldn\'t speak. All he could feel was the pain in his arms, in his heart, and the flow of blood and tears from his body.



Squeezing his eyes shut tight, he yanked the knife from his arm, falling down again. He tried to crawl under the table, but she wouldn\'t let him, yanking him up by his shirt collar. He turned his face away as she lifted a bottle up, and slammed it into him. He felt the shattered glass stick into him, in his cheeks, in his nose, falling down to make cuts in his chest.



"YOU WILL LEAVE THIS HOUSE! YOU ARE NOT RITSUKA! DEMON! LEAVE! GO! GO!"



"Mom, I\'m sorry, I\'m sorry, please - "



"NO! NO! GO!"



"PLEASE! Mom - "



He wrenched away from her as she tried to wrap her fingers around his neck again. He brushed glass from himself, and then she was grabbing him, and opening the door.



"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! NEVER COME BACK!"



Ritsuka felt his body fly through the air. When he landed on the cold hard stone, he felt like every bone in his body was broken. On unsteady feet he forced himself to stand up. He weakly walked out past the front gate. He stopped outside, coughing up blood. "Soubi...Soubi..."



He had to reach Soubi. Soubi. Soubi. Ritsuka forced his bleeding fingers to grab onto the stone wall, dragging himself along in that manner for miles. He managed to catch a taxi, and only convinced the man to bring him to Soubi\'s house, and not the hospital, when he yelled at the man and gave him as much money as he had in his pockets.



Ritsuka lay back and smiled. He was going to see Soubi soon.



______Soubi\'s POV_______________________________________________________________





Soubi woke up to the sun shining bright in his eyes. He stretched, yawning widely. It was early in the morning. He had woken up before his alarm even rang. Kio always slept in, and Soubi had to call him often to get him to wake up in time for classes. There was a test today, but SOubi was confident he would pass it. He got up, showered, and ate breakfast.



At 7:05, Soubi decided to leave early so that he could have a smoke before class at 8. Hefting his bag over his shoulder, he made sure he had his cell in one pocket, his smokes in the other. All set.



Soubi opened the door and stepped out, turning around to lock. He backed up, when his foot hit something.



"Hmm?"



He turned around, and the dangly cigarette fell from his mouth. "Ritsuka!"



The boy lay in a wet huddle on the ground, his face bloodied and bruised. Finger marks were on his neck, and when Soubi gently turned him over, he saw blood soaking through the white shirt. And his right arm was bloodied, with a deep incision in it.



"Ritsuka..."



Soubi shook the boy a little, then harder when the boy did not respond. "Ritsuka!"



It was he who had done this to Ritsuka, hadn\'t he? By taking Ritsuka\'s innocence, he had doomed the boy to this terrible fate. Somehow, Ritsuka\'s mother had discovered that the boy had lost his ears, and had punished him for it; she had even thrown him out of the house, it seemed, or frightened him so much that he had run away from home. Soubi knew Ritsuka; Ritsuka would not abandon his mother, would not leave her (even though she abused him), unless he were forced to.



Now, it had reached that point. It even seemed, Soubi thought as he lay the boy on his bed, that Ritsuka had been bodily thrown out of the house. Soubi stripped the boy to search for broken bones.



He sighed in relief. No broken bones. Soubi was no doctor, but he knew enough to be able to tell that Ritsuka was bruised and battered, cut, and certainly emotionally traumatized, but not beyond Soubi\'s help.



"Kio?"



"Yes, Sou-chan? What is it? *yawn* Oh, shit! I\'m going to be late to class again! Are you going to be here in a few minutes?"



"No, Kio. I have Ritsuka here."



"What, the Aoyagi brat? Oh no, Sou-chan, don\'t tell me you\'ve taken your Lolita complex to THAT level..." The young man sighed.



"Kio...tell the teacher I\'m ill today. I have business to take care of. He\'s in trouble, and I need to be here for him."



"You and your Master, Servant thing, Sou-chan...alright then...thanks for waking me up."



"No problem, Kio. Thank you."



Soubi hung up.



He walked back inside. Ritsuka was still sleeping. The boy was tossing and turning in his sleep. "S-Soubi...uhh...h-heelp me!...Mmooom...no! No! What have I done? I\'m...I\'m not a demon..."



The boy was thrashing around. Soubi leaned over and stroked the boy\'s hair softly, whispering, "I\'m here Ritsuka, I\'m here."



"Sou...bi..." The boy curled up into a ball, tears rolling from his chin. His hands went to grip Soubi\'s coat, pulling him to sit down. The boy was still sleeping. Soubi sat beside Ritsuka for hours, letting the boy\'s hands grip onto his coat without letting go.



It hurt him to see Ritsuka so pained. But the ears had been taken. There was no going back.





__________________Ritsuka\'s POV_________________________________________________





"Ahhgh..."



Ritsuka awoke to pain. It was everywhere! He could feel it, a burning sensation in his face. When he tried to turn over, he cried out in pain. He touched his hand to the spot, pressing, and groaned in pain. When he looked at it, he realized it was a giant purple spot on his side. How had he gotten that?



Then he remembered. And he realized he was at Soubi\'s place. He brushed his hands over his face, and winced. The cuts stung. Something for healing had been put on them. All the glass pieces had been removed. He glanced over at the bedside table and saw a cloth there, with tweezers, the pieces of glass from his face, and other cloths with blood on them. Soubi had been taking care of him.



Ritsuka smiled. His head hurt, he hurt all over, but he was happy because Soubi was here.



"Ritsuka?"



Ritsuka tried to sit up, but the result was only shooting pain through his body, especially his right arm. It hurt so much. He realized he was nude beneath the sheets, and blushed. His ankle was swollen, and when he looked beneath the covers he saw that it was purplish, too. He had multiple cuts and bruises all over his body. He was immobilized by the pain.



Soubi asked what happened, and so Ritsuka told him.



---------------------



*Weeks pass by*



----------------------





Weeks later, Ritsuka was living with his father, who had successfully gotten custody over Ritsuka. Soubi would visit often; Ritsuka was still recuperating from the wounds, and emotional damage was still evident. Soubi heard him cry at night in his sleep, and the boy would wake up mumbling about nightmares, with his body coated in sweat.



One day, Ritsuka was sitting on a chair on his balcony that went from his new room. Soubi stood leaning against the glass doors, smoking absently. Suddenly, Ritsuka stood up, gasping.



_________________________________________________________________________________________





AUTHOR\'S NOTE: Thanks for reading! :D Reviews would be lovely.