Chapter Text
fifteen — seeking solace
Kise decides when he’s thirteen that he dislikes his family with a strong, strong passion. He doesn’t use the word hate because he had been grown up to believe that it was such a strong word and as much as he despises his family, they had taught him to not just throw it around—like they do nowadays—so he tries to refrain from using it.
He despises his family, the petty arguments, the pointless yelling and just about everything else. He doesn’t mind his sisters, he actually gets along with them sometimes—it’s just his parents, he hates the constant lying and sneaking around and when they finally decide that they’re considering a divorce, he shouldn’t be glad but he kind of is.
Kise decides when he’s thirteen that he’s never going to settle down, he’s never going to have a serious relationship, never going to consider marriage, nothing of the such. He’s not reliving his parents life.
Kise decides when he’s fifteen and has his first serious girlfriend after two years of messing around with girls and guys, dating them on and off, switching between them, that maybe, just maybe, this won’t be like his parents, maybe he was wrong before and maybe things will be okay, he’s not his parents after all—
—they break up when he’s sixteen after his ex girlfriend loses interest in him.
Kise decides when he’s sixteen that he’s never, ever, ever going to let himself get hurt like that again. He’d been so stupid, he’d actually believed they could last, he’d actually believed she liked him, he’d actually thought things might work out and they just—
—didn’t.
Kise meets Kasamatsu when he’s seventeen with heavy eyes and clenched fists, stuck in some stuffy suit that his sisters had picked out for his mom’s wedding to his new step father—he feels sick to his stomach when he even thinks about it.
Kasamatsu approaches him and Kise recognizes him briefly, remembering him from high school and his automatic question is why is he here.
Kasamatsu answers him, explaining that he was a friend of Kise’s now step-brother and that he had gotten dragged into this.
Kise almost laughs for the first time that night.
He spends a long time with Kasamatsu, both of them just sitting on the floor and talking and it’s kind of weird, Kise thinks, there’s so many people around them dancing, drinking, hell, even singing, and they’re just sitting there—
—talking.
Kise isn’t really used to it, he’s barely asked for his opinion or input on things nowadays but Kasamatsu seems interested, he seems to care, even if it’s just a little bit—and Kise feels himself wanting to trust and get to know Kasamatsu.
He hates it. He’d always vowed to himself that he’d never let anyone close enough to hurt him, that it’d always be him doing the hurting as much as he hated it, that he’d always be the one to let others down.
Kise stops thinking when Kasamatsu gets up and stands directly in front of him.
Kasamatsu stares at him for a few seconds before offering his hand out to Kise, a small grin across his face.
“Come on, idiot,” he begins, biting down on his bottom lip to try to stop his grin. “Get up.”
And Kise realizes when he’s seventeen that maybe, just maybe, things won’t be so bad this time.
(They’re not.)