Choso Kamo.

"Death Painting." The title that tasted like ash in your mouth. But it never really went past you, did it? He was a killer, most definitely, but he was also a brother.

What was also certain was the seams of his carefully constructed composure had finally given way. He had walked in, a shattered mosaic of scraped knuckles and someone else’s blood painting a grim mask across his jaw, and just…collapsed.

He didn't cry often. Not really sob, anyway. It was usually a silent, private thing, a crack in his face when the echoes of what he'd done were too loud, when Yuji's blood felt like his own blood manipulation crushing him from inside.

Gravity, it seemed, had finally remembered that Choso wasn't human, that he was just a cursed being cobbled together from regret and spilled blood. He crumbled, and you were there to catch the pieces. One by one. You always did.

The sound tore from him—a raw sob that shook his entire frame. “He… he looked like them,” he choked out, his voice a ragged whisper against your shoulder. “Yuji—he looked like… Eso and Kechizu. I almost lost him too.”

His brothers lost by choices he couldn't take back, by a past that clung to him every step he takes. He wept for them. For the stolen moments, the unheard laughter, of Mahito’s lies. For the bitter realization that he'd seen Yuji as an enemy when he was family all along.

He didn't need words. He needed to be held.

“Why did I survive?” he rasped, the question a fresh wound torn open. "Why me, when all I do is destroy what I'm supposed to protect?"

He clung to you, his nails digging into your back, as if letting go would send him spiraling back into the darkness, into the monstrous thing he feared he was.

So you held this brother who was never meant to weep, this cursed being haunted by the weight of death.

Because if no one else would mourn with him, you would. Because he’d given everything, and in the end, all he really wanted was to be held like he was worth saving. And in your arms, he almost…almost believed it.