Chapter Text
A run-down bathroom deep in the old Kabasaki station is no place for a congressman’s son.
Not a good one, at least. Not a son worth bragging about to company, or the public eye.
Cold, stale air burns Saito’s lungs as he pants, shoulders heaving beneath the fabric of his blazer. He smells rust. Mold. Maybe even blood — could be his. Could be old. He hasn’t bothered to check himself yet.
… It’s probably his.
Outrunning his father’s bodyguards wasn’t easy. His ribs still ache from where he slammed against a railing on the way down, and his right sleeve is torn — a snag of chain-link fencing that’d bit him like a dog. [Reminds him of a beautiful night in his childhood.] But he’s getting faster. Smarter. Every time they chase him, it takes them longer to catch up, if they ever do.
It’s worth it . Every cut. Every bruise. Anything to get away.
His gaze drifts upward. The ceiling panel above him is stained yellow and weirdly wet in one corner, but the old fluorescent light still buzzes stubbornly overhead. It’s the kind of flickering, sterile glow that makes you look more corpse than human. He stares into it until his eyes water, until the afterimage burns behind his eyelids when he blinks.
There’s a broken mirror in here. A mosaic of grime and triangular shards of glass on the wall where a full one used to be. Most of it’s been thrown out, or taken, or left on the floor for someone to pick up.
He tugs up the hems of his shirt and blazer, shimmies his pants down a little without undoing the belt, and looks down at a mess of half-healed scrapes and old marks stretched along his left hip. One in particular — a sharp, three-inch gash from a month ago — is scabbing over, going white at the edges. There are older ones, too — faint white ghosts of lines just above the curve of his hipbone. Shiny. Raised. He traces them with a finger, expression unreadable. Flat as ever.
They don’t hurt anymore. But they used to, when he picked up this habit. One night on the floor of his bedroom, with a knife he’d swiped from the kitchen. More important than any pain, though, is the fact that they proved something.
They proved that this body is
his
. That it listens to
him
, not to his
father
. Not
Rohan
. Not the
bodyguards
. That the pain is
his
to command, and so is the silence after. It’s all
his
.
It’s all his
.
Saito presses the heel of his palm to the wall where a large chunk of the mirror had once been, hard enough that the wall creaks faintly. His fingers twitch, drum against the wall once, twice, then go still. He raises his head and watches himself through a tiny triangle of foggy glass still stuck to the wall — not the version from family portraits, or security camera footage. Just him , right now. Cornered and sweating in a bathroom no one remembers.
He tries to smile at the face looking back. It looks wrong — awkward, unfamiliar, like trying on someone else’s expression. His lips twitch at the corners, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Not even close. A sneer replaces it instead — teeth bared, one brow twitching upward. That looks better. Not quite natural , but something closer to it. Something he recognizes. The kind of expression that used to make the maids flinch. The kind that earned him quiet warnings behind closed doors. Is it the eyes? He tilts his head a little, opens them wider. Fixes himself with the look that tends to make people go quiet when they’re talking to him. Wide-eyed. Unblinking. Just a little too still.
The piece of glass doesn’t offer any answers. Just reflects the same thin slice of him back — chin, lips, part of his cheekbone, one eye, hair in his face. Not enough to see everything. Just enough to wonder what’s missing. Fine. Saito comes to his own conclusion from this little exercise.
I exist.
That thought flares up like a spark in dry grass. Saito lets it burn, he holds it in his chest like it might warm him, like it might help cauterize something inside that’s been bleeding for too long. It’s the only truth he feels tethered to — not his name, not the blood in his veins, not the empire waiting behind iron gates. Just… that . He exists. He could be anything.
He crouches slowly, blazer shifting against the grime-slick wall behind him, and reaches into the inner pocket. His fingers close around a small object — thin, cold metal wrapped in a bit of cloth, some handkerchief embroidered with his initials. Just for a little safety. He unfolds it carefully. It’s not a long blade, not fancy either. It’s actually something he’d lifted from a Kumakura safehouse months ago. Rohan hadn’t noticed it was missing when they’d stopped by before a little outing — or maybe he hadn’t cared. Either way, it was Saito’s now…
Saito turns it over in his fingers. He notices how the buzzing fluorescent light flickers across the edge. There’s still a dark stain dried at the tip from the last time, blood that had oxidized into rust. He traces a finger over it roughly, slicing without moving the blade, and only winces a little as he feels his skin break. New blood wells up, pretty and crimson. It smears on the blade as he drags it, drips down from the pad of his finger to his palm soon after. It’s so warm. So real. That matters.
It’s like his signature. Proof of authorship. No one made this happen but him. No orders, no expectations. None of his father’s voice in his ear reminding him how good boys act, how clean they should keep their sleeves.
Saito folds the cloth back over the blade, careful this time, tucking it tight like it’s something sacred. He slips it back into his pocket with one hand, while the other — still bleeding — hangs loose at his side. His fingers twitch. He rolls his wrist. What little warmth he could find in that moment is already fading, replaced by the cold sweat on his back and neck. It’s early spring, he’s been running, he’s sweaty and tired and hurt — he’ll get sick, at this rate. He really doesn’t want that.
Standing straight again, he lingers a little longer in front of the mirror shard. His face moves in and out of focus with the flicker of the light, like even the glass can’t decide if it wants to acknowledge him.
He wipes his bleeding finger across the glass before he leaves — a small, deliberate smear of red. Not a cry for help. Not a symbol, some cipher for anyone to figure out. Just a mark. Just a message. I was here.
He slips out the door, the squeal of rusted hinges swallowed quickly by the low, empty hum of distant train tunnels.
Until next time.