best not to know

On the shallow, stone steps leading up to the church, Yukio and Ciao sit quietly. Ciao watches with lidded eyes as setting sun flees behind the horizon - if she were a poet, she’d write about the way it painted the concrete stretch in front of them in a cascade of orange and pink. But she was no poet: she's just a stoner sitting with a fake priest, clutching a glass pipe in one hand, lighter in the other.

See, she likes these moments, but— 

Yukio just looks up to the sky, chin tilted upward. Ciao turns to look at him every so often, waiting for him to scoff and say something about how little he wanted to be there. But he never does, his gaze set on something Ciao thinks she couldn’t see even if she wanted to. She’d never know what was going through his head when they spent their time like this.

The silence breaks with the snap of her lighter, the ragged sound of her inhale as she takes a hit from her pipe. Then, it’s quiet again as she draws the smoke down her throat with another quick breath - the rest escapes from her open lips.

“Yukio.” Ciao speaks - weed always made her want to pick his mind. “Can I ask you something?”

“My answer won’t stop you from asking.” Yukio doesn’t turn to face her, still staring up. His voice is mellow, hardly louder than a whisper.

She chuckles. “Yeah, sure. Then I’m just making sure you didn’t fall asleep. Whatever.”

The humor seems lost on Yukio, whose expression hardly changes as he stares at the sky. Ciao continues.

“Would you kill me if I let you?” Her voice is calm as she asks, like it were a question as simple as nice weather, huh, and she continues with the same lilt. “I mean - y’know. If I said screw it to my powers when we’re together.”

Then there’s that quiet again, and Ciao goes to take another hit just to fill it with some kind of sound, because right now it felt like whatever the hell Yukio was looking at seemed a lot more interesting than her question. She presses the still-warm bud down with the pad of her thumb, brings her lips to the mouthpiece, and is just about to light it before Yukio speaks.

“Yes. I would.” Ciao doesn’t know when he moved, but he’s facing her, now, and there’s a pleasant smile on his lips. “I’d love to kill you. You’re my natural enemy - I’ve always hated that about you.”

She laughs again. Yukio certainly loved his melodrama. She puts the pipe down at her side, meeting his gaze. “I don’t believe that. I think you like me too much.”

He doesn’t respond - so she leans forward, pressing her forehead against his. “I mean, you could’ve killed me a long time ago, right? It's as easy as taking one of your fancy little knives to my gut. You don’t need to shapeshift for that.”

Still, Yukio doesn’t speak, and Ciao leans in to kiss him. Their lips meet easily, like they were always as gentle as this. Ciao forced him to take things slow: as Wrath, he was ravenous, always trying to tear to shreds the things that brushed him too softly. She never let him have her like that.

But Yukio didn’t seem as keen to shrug off her question. Ciao doesn’t know why, but when she hears the grisly shred of his skin as he twists the bones of his arm into a blade, she doesn’t move to stop him. And, certainly, when he thrusts his arm clean through her chest, a violence he’d practiced countless times before, she doesn’t shift away. 

She tries to imagine his expression as she pillows her cheek on his bony shoulder, bleeding into his lap - maybe he’s smiling. 

She’d like to think, though, that his mouth is ajar, his eyes wide: for the first time in his life, this violence is shocking. Yukio Tamotsu loved the effort of massacre - but this undemanding suicide should hardly warrant a smile from him. Or, maybe..

---

“What?”

Ciao blinks, shaken from her train of thought. In her hand, she’s still clutching the pipe, and she realizes she’s been staring at the bud as it idly burns out.

“Your question.” Yukio’s eyes are on her, and his expression’s far from the peaceful thoughtfulness his view of the sky lulled him into. He’s scrunching his nose, clearly not fond of the smell. “You’ve already interrupted me. What is it?”

Damn. This shit was really strong, huh?

She brings a hand to her chest and gives herself a quick pat. Yeah. Still alive. Another laugh tumbles from her lips, loose and carefree. 

“Never mind, man. Forget about it.”

Best not to know with him, sometimes.