Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For hours, there had been nothing but the feel of torn feet against concrete, the sting and cold of rain and wind on skin, the panting of ragged breath, the inferno of overworked muscles, the smell of sweat and rain, and the blur of dozens upon dozens of homogenous city blocks.  The nameless boy who had run from the clock tower had, after lying to the police that he killed his stepmother, run for hours, simply because he could. His feet were bloody and ruined, completely bare, and he had to stop at last. Stumbling to a halt, the boy fell to the ground on his back, gasping for breath.  Looking up, he saw a kaleidoscope of minuscule droplets, falling from a thick blanket of low-hanging clouds, heavy and grey with the delicate, crystalline droplets.

Where would he go?  He had wanted to go die somewhere, now that the old hag wasn’t around to stop him, and Shiro had rejected his offer of eternal friendship, but there was a little something telling him not to give up on life just yet.  Maybe he should give it another chance. Perhaps there was a way he could live an authentic life, rather than the dull doll’s life he’d led up until then. Glancing at his body, he wondered bitterly how he could ever live as a man with a figure like his.   Well, I can figure that out later, he thought.  Spontaneity had never been a part of his previous life, as Reiko, the girl.  So already, this was freedom. In doing what he already had, there was rebellion.  He’d flown beyond the confines of the cage the orphanage had locked him inside once upon a time.  The cage they’d given to Fujimiya Tatsu, who’d dolled it up so it appeared a palace to an outsider, rather than the oppressive prison it was.  So he appeared a perfect, happy, dainty damsel princess, rather than the broken and desperate cursed prince he was.

Despite that, it wasn’t like he didn’t feel guilty for letting her die.  Of course he did, he probably could’ve saved her, and that knowledge would haunt him forever.  Yet some horrible little voice inside him was glad she was dead, rather than just taking advantage of that fact.  The evil, malevolent, demonic miniscule part of him remembered with crystal clarity that time his stepmother may or may not have tried to kill him.  There was a chance she was just trying to scare him out of what she called a phase, but was actually just his identity. That was what he liked to believe, though either way, Fujimiya Tatsu was not a kind woman.  It was better than believing the far more likely possibility that she was trying to lock him in the catacombs beneath the house so he would die.

It was something he tried to forget, but that small part of him remembered every detail.  He could still see the darkness in the dusty tunnel, smell its mustiness, hear the dripping of water on stone within.  The air of death in there was so strong he could taste it; a vile, cloying, suffocating smell like rotting meat, sewage, and something exponentially more terrifying.  The smell and the darkness were by far the most scarring sensory details. Neither ever seemed to leave him, and everything was overlaid with the image of the black cat with the diamond collar.  He feared black cats after that incident, and diamonds were an unnatural kind of beautiful after that day; surely anything so seemingly flawless was really flawed beyond belief in a way you would least expect.  Just like how Shiro had seen him versus what he really was. The vengeful part of his mind loved to reflect on all the bad things, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, so he simply lay there, waiting for the flow of memories to cease.

Hours later, the nameless boy awoke to rain that had not ceased since before he fled from the clock tower.  He didn’t even remember falling asleep. Body sore and cold, with his soaked nightgown clinging tightly to his skin, the boy was sure he would be quite the shocking sight to anyone who might see him.  Forcing himself to unsteady feet, watching the blood pool where the wounds reopened, he began to limp forward again, slowly making his way towards an uncertain future. Everything hurt, every bone and muscle, but it couldn’t hurt more than living a lie, wearing the mask of Reiko.  Nothing in the vast expanse of the universe could ever hurt more than that, the nameless boy thought. Everything worthwhile in life was at the end of a path of pain and suffering, or at the bottom of a lake, even a sea of despair, after all. But it felt good, to fly for the first time.

Chapter Text

A few days later, the nameless boy almost thought he might regret his choice to live, take back his thought that it felt good to fly, and even the thought that nothing could hurt more than Reiko .  Almost, but not quite.  Not even his current condition could make him regret that.  It had become difficult to continue, though.  He was really beginning to wonder where he could and should go.  Where could he find work?  He’d have to find a place that didn’t ask questions.  If he didn’t, he’d be in for a whole lot of trouble.

Once again, it was raining hard, droplets pelting down on the nameless boy’s bowed head and shoulders.  Inside his body, it felt as though there was a raging inferno, and outside, the rain was nearly hail.  He shivered in the external cold and sweated in the sweltering internal heat only he could feel.  With every step, there was splintering pain embedding itself in his feet that lanced all the way up his legs into his hips.  Sweat and rain pooled in his eyes and dripped down his face.  He felt miserable, and he was sure he looked that way too.  Perhaps his miserable appearance would help him find someone who would take pity on him and not ask questions.  Either way, he would need help soon if he wanted to survive.  He had pride, but he wasn’t going to let it get in the way of his top priority.

His legs were weak and shaky, forcing him to lean on a tree by the edge of the woods to regain his balance.  Irritatingly long, thick, and wet dark caramel hair was slicked down to his back and shoulders, almost blending in with the tree he leaned on.  Knees threatening to buckle, the nameless boy dug ragged fingernails into the softened bark of the great oak tree, knowing that if he collapsed there, he would likely never wake up again.  Instead, he would die there, and someone would find his pathetic, pathetic, disgustingly female corpse.  He could just imagine the headlines.  Fujimiya Reiko, who murdered her stepmother Fujimiya Tatsu, found dead in a forest one week later.  How absolutely, revoltingly weak would it be of him to die a week after gaining his freedom, and as nothing more than a pathetic little doll of a girl?  At that, when he wasn’t even the one who murdered his stepmother?  How could he die before even getting a chance to really live?  How cowardly would that be?  He would never be a coward, so he would survive, even in the harsh, cruel world.

Strangely, it was the resolve not to die a pathetic, weak coward that gave him the strength to keep moving forward.  He was sure he appeared like a zombie or a ragged ghost that had died of illness or starvation, shambling out of the tree line.  Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to care.  There would always be someone who wouldn’t ask questions.  Every limping step was pain, every sharp, ragged breath registering in the boy’s conscious mind.  Every squelching sound of the mud made him sick, and the overwhelming assault of waves and waves of fragrances and flavours in the air left him dizzy, even with the dilution of rain and clouds.  It was all he could do to keep moving, one foot in front of the other; a step towards a better life, but that was all he needed to do.  For now.

It wasn’t long before he came across what appeared to be a storefront.  He couldn’t make out the lettering, but if that was because of him or the sign’s state of disrepair, the boy couldn’t tell.  Either way, it appeared run down enough that whoever ran it (if it wasn’t abandoned) wouldn’t have the time to spare to mind his deviance or wanted status.  And even if they did, he could still try to make some money and move on.  Raising a pale, bony fist, he knocked on the door, lightly, too weak now to knock any harder.  At first, no one seemed to notice.  He wondered if maybe it was abandoned, although it didn’t look that way.  Deciding to wait, the simple action of knocking becoming shockingly exhausting, the boy didn’t knock again.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before someone, a man, it looked like, opened the door.  He appeared to be somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, a bit scruffy, with shaggy black hair coming down to his shoulders.  The inside of the building didn’t look nearly as run-down as the outside, but it was no palace, either.  That was perfectly fine with the nameless boy.  This way, it wouldn’t remind him of the pretty little palaces that had always been his prison.  The man in the doorway grunted, sounding mildly confused.  “Oi, what’re you doing in the doorway of our shop…”

Shockingly, where most would’ve simply said ‘miss’ without a hitch, the man trailed off.  Did he want the boy’s name, which he didn’t have?  Did he realize the boy might in fact be a boy?  Which raised another question.  Was he obvious?  Perhaps the man was always like this.  Or maybe it was because he was on the run and the guy somehow managed to put two and two together?  The boy was too shocked to answer, and he didn’t have a name regardless.  “Why did you…?”

The man scoffed, like he thought the boy was stupid or something.  “Well, I don’t know your name, and appearances can be tricky.”

A shiver passed through his body.  Could it really be possible that this man had guessed?  Or that he truly was always this way with people?  Either way, it was unusual and unnerving, albeit not in a bad way, when it provided him with a light in the dark.  Glancing nervously at the man’s eyes and then at his own feet, the boy murmured, “What do you mean by that…?”

Laughing hollowly, the sound seeming to stop dead in the air beyond the immediate area of the doorway, the man looked the boy in the eye.  “I suspect you know exactly what I mean.  Let’s just say I’ve met more than a few people like you.  So what’s your name, you scruffy little ruffian?”

Sucking in a quick breath and trying to hold back tears, the boy thought for a second.  His name sure as hell wasn’t Reiko, but he’d never had any other name that he could remember.  He’d never really thought he’d ever have a chance to be anyone but Reiko.  Laughing quietly to himself in a disbelieving happiness amongst despair, the boy felt his knees begin to buckle.  In seconds, he relied almost entirely on the doorway for support.  The man was leaning down slightly, yelling from the looks of it, but the boy couldn’t hear.  Then he made out, “Hey kid!  Are you okay?  Don’t go dying on me after you’ve survived on your own for so long!”

The man was right.  It would be rather pathetic, not to mention pointless, to die on this doorstep when help was well within reach.  Especially so after having survived a rough week on his own.  Looking up into the man’s face, the boy fought the encroaching darkness that blurred the rugged features he tried to focus on to stay conscious.  He couldn’t feel nearly a whole half of his body, and the rest was on fire, but he fought the urge to collapse and relinquish his dignity.  He would give the man his name, but he had to think of one first.  Opening his mouth, fighting the fatigue that screamed at him to relax, sleep, and never wake up again, the boy made his choice and said, just before his entire world went dark, “My name is Tetsuo.  Sawamura Tetsuo.”