Where The Children Are Free
by EstiRose
Kouta heard crying before he saw the two combatants. Despite everything, he hoped that neither of the two had managed to kill the other. No matter how Micchy had hurt him, he stilll hoped against hope that the other would snap out of it, and he and Takatora had somehow managed to form an odd friendship that was still there despite everything.
Skidding onto the dock, he saw Takatora kneeling in front of a prone body. He knew it was Takatora because he could see the man’s belt through his shreded suit jacket, and he didn’t think Micchy would cry for his brother.
“Takatora….” He walked slowly over to the two of them and knelt by Micchy’s prone body. There was blood on the royal blue shirt, adhering it to Micchy’s body. His eyes were closed, though Kouta didn’t know whether it was because Takatora had closed them or Michi had done so reflexively in his last moments.
The man didn’t seem to hear him. He was too busy holding his brother’s hand.
“Takatora.” Kouta took the man’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Takatora looked at him for the first time, and his eyes were red-rimed and bloodshot. “I never wanted to do this.”
“I never could.” He could never have killed Micchy. He wasn’t ruthless enough; Kaito and Takatora could have, but he was too gentle.
“I know.” There was a small, bitter smile spreading across Takatora’s features. “I don’t know what to do with him.”
There was nobody to pick up Micchy’s body, nobody to take it away so that they didn’t have to look at it. Nobody to bury the teenager they’d both known.
“Neither do I,” he admitted. “I guess… we bury him?” Probably in Helheim, where he belonged at this point.
“I can’t do that,” Takatora said. “Can you do that for me?”
He spoke as a man used to having people do the dirty things for him, probably shipping into shock. Kouta wished he could reassure him that everything would be okay, but he couldn’t. “Yeah.”
Circling around, he picked up Micchy’s body. It was surprisingly heavy in his arms; Micchy had built up quite a bit of muscle in his time as an Armored Rider, apparently. “We’ll need a shovel.”
“There’s a construction site nearby. I’ll get one for you. Where are you planning in burying him?”
“Helheim,” Kouta said, and he thought he saw Takatora flinch. He wanted to cuddle into Takatora, reassure the man that everything would be all right even if he couldn’t truly reassure him of that. “I… I think that it would be best.”
After a moment, Takatora nodded. “I’d rather not risk going to Helheim right now.” He breathed in, and then out again. In, and then out. “We… is there anyone you know who would want to be at his burial?”
“What’s left of us at Team Gaim.” Everybody else hated Micchy, and no matter how upset he was at what his former friend had done, he deserved to be buried with dignity.
“We’ll get the others,” Takatora said, nodding at Micchy’s body. “And then we’ll bury him… well, at the Kureshima estate. That way, I don’t have to worry about someone doing something to his body. My car’s nearby. We can put him in the trunk.”
It seemed so rude to do so, and Kouta knew Takatora had to be feeling the same way. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like for his sister to have to bury him.
Takatora ran to a nearby construction site, leaving Kouta to guard Micchy’s body. He came back a few minutes later with a tarp and a shovel. Kouta wordlessly picked the body up so that Takatora could lay out the tarp, and then he put it back down. Takatora knelt down and wrapped the tarp around the form. “I’ll lead you to the car.”
Kouta picked up Micchy’s wrapped body in his arms, and let Takatora lead him to the car with the opened trunk. He gently put Micchy down in the trunk and let Takatora close it.
Mai was the only one at the Garage at the moment, so he asked her to come, without explaining why, He was glad that she took him at his word; it would be hard to explain otherwise. It was only until they were on their way that he told her that Micchy was dead and they were going to bury him.
Takatora drove them to a walled estate, and soon they were inspecting the grounds. “Here,” Takatora said, pointing to an area with flowerbeds.
“I-I’ll dig the grave.” Mai took the shovel from Takatora, though they ended up digging the soil deep enough to bury Micchy. Fortunately, the soil was very loose, almost sandy - something that Takatora mentioned with a half-smile, that the gardeners complained about it.
Finally, they lowered Micchy down into the ground, though it was more clumsy than graceful. Mai had gotten a chance to see the body by that point, and Kouta knew she was crying just as he was and Takatora had been.
They were about the only ones who would now.
“I wish we could have saved him,” Mai said, and all that Kouta could do was wrap his arm around her. It surprised him when Takatora wrapped his arm around Mai as well, even as he doesn’t know Mai.
“I know. Thank you for being there for him when I couldn’t.” He was trying to smile, Kouta saw, and only half-managing. “Both of you.”
The filling-in was done in silence, the dirt padded when they were done. Takatora offered them rooms in his ruined home.
They ended up taking them, just so that they could grieve, together. Ate food in the kitchen and tried talking about Micchy, the boy they had known.
And the next day, they stepped out of the house, let Takatora drive them back to the Garage, and only hoped that they could move on.