"It" Can't be Helped (Revised) | ♾️ | Blue Exorcist

13

I had just walked out of the bathroom, smoothing the wrinkles on my uniform, when I caught sight of my twin's perplexed expression. I meandered over to my bed, checking my schoolwork to make sure I was prepared for the day. I questioned his expression and he sighed. "I appear to have lost something."

I scoffed, "if it's your sanity, I'm not helping you get it back."

He rolled his eyes, but a small smile played on his lips. "Har har, very funny, Nii-san."

"So what did you lose?"

He hummed and grabbed his exorcist bag, rifling through its contents. "It's a knife. I was going to equip it for our mission tonight, but I can't seem to find it."

A rock settled into my stomach and I became acutely aware that said knife was only a few feet from me, buried underneath my mattress. "Never seen it. I honestly didn't think you fought with something like that, don't you prefer guns?"

He huffed, "firearms are great in a lot of scenarios. But the demons we are exorcising tonight move fairly fast and come into close proximity. I'd rather not shoot anyone." I had to bite back the urge to add 'again' to the end of his sentence.

I sat down on my bed, hovering directly over the weapon in question. "Can't you just order a new one?"

My twin sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Of course, but the old one will still be floating around somewhere. As an Exorcist, I'm responsible for keeping track of my tools, and losing something like that is dangerous." He dropped his hand to his lap, his eyes searching his bag once more, hoping to find the lost item somewhere within the lining. "I'd hate for it to fall into the wrong hands and someone get hurt because of it."

"No one's going to die because you lost a knife, Yukio."

He gave me a pointed look, "You never know. All it takes is one mentally unstable individual to get their hands on it... I couldn't imagine being the one to find a dead body, still bleeding due to my carelessness."

I chewed on my lips, "Well, dead bodies can't bleed, so you're fine."

He scoffed, tearing his teal eyes away from his bag and giving me a flabbergasted expression. "What? Blood is blood, Rin. Once a vessel has been broken, blood will flow, no matter the status of the person. Unless you're talking about the long deceased, in that case, blood would coagulate." He furrowed his brows, "you're the top student in my class, you should know this."

I sighed, unsure if my rambling would cause any suspicion. "I get that. But, without a heartbeat, how can someone bleed? If you poked a hole in a water balloon, you'd call the dripping a leak. Bleeding implies that your heart is functioning. Pumping through atriums and ventricles before making the blood flow through your body and out any wounds. Dead bodies don't bleed, they leak - bleeding lets you know that you're alive."

He was silent for a few moments and concern flashed in his eyes. Great, I should've stayed quiet. "Simply questioning whether or not you're living should give you that answer..." His eyes traced my features, looking me up and down. "Have you been reading poetry lately?"

Relief flooded my system at the possible excuse. I chuckled softly, shrugging my shoulders. "Yeah, my English Lit teacher gets a little dramatic sometimes. Guess it rubbed off on me."

His eyes widened slightly and his lips quirked as if to say; no shit. "Well, it doesn't matter. I'll keep an eye out for the knife, but I'll order a new one, too. Chances are I lost it a while ago."

.oOo.

As per usual, I was the first one to arrive at Yukio's class, a plastic-wrapped platter in my hands. Upon my entrance, my twin turned from the board. His eyes landed on the platter and he dropped the chalk onto the board's ledge. I had barely placed the platter down before he was ripping off the plastic, shoving a cookie into his mouth. "Yukio," I chided, "leave some for everyone else."