Archive of Our Own

Ketsu was looking past the fence to a beautiful house. It was a nice place, not that wellkept since the garden and walls seemed to show slight hints of not being taken care of a whole lot, but definitely pricey. Since she had been apartment hunting with Hitoshi to move out of her dad's place she suddenly had developed a respect for different accommodations and how expensive they got, especially this close to the public transport network. 

If what Tsukauchi had told her was true, the man must definitely live with a very wealthy woman. 

She couldn’t bring herself to believe him that it was actually Hatsume Mei, a celebrity really, but the price tag of their place definitely spoke volumes and yes, going from that woman's networth this was definitely in her price range. Maybe he himself just got a stable job? But she just couldn’t imagine it, her dad had spoken so ill of him and his family.

She shook her head, some hair strands escaping her small ponytail. Focus Ketsueki! This was important!

A glance back down the street made her feel a little calmer. Hitoshi was waiting inside some café a few blocks further down; he had promised her that he wouldn’t be disappointed no matter when she came back so… if they rejected her at the door he surely would try to lift up her mood!

With that (more or less?) positive thought she rang the bell at the gate. She did know that he most likely wasn’t living alone. Actually, the place apparently didn’t even belong to him but to a woman called ‘Hatsume Mei’. Someone who was not only rich but also independent and influential. Allegedly. If it was actually the Hatsume Mei... Ketsu was a little curious how the two of them met.

Ketsu supposed that they might be friends? She couldn’t figure out the woman's age but her uncle should be around twenty-nine or something, maybe thirty-one, so maybe they were friends from school and he crashed with her? Or they were… a thing.

Her dad said that the Akaguro name wasn’t that… wealthy. But maybe he managed to get big? Good education perhaps? It would be nice to have an uncle who appreciated her academic achievements…

Her thoughts were interrupted by the speaker going off. She didn’t catch what the voice said but she figured it asked who just rang the bell.

“U-uhm, hello? My name is Akaguro Ketsueki. Uhm…” Suddenly her throat constricted. What if she got the wrong door? What if Tsukauchi messed up and that’s not him? She could feel her whole body suddenly drop a few degrees Celsius. Legs shaking as they turned into gummy and her good hand getting clammy were her usual red flags, but right now it was horrible to agree that she couldn’t form a single clear thought. But before she could have a full blown collapse the speaker crackled again with a “the gate is open” and she pushed past the entrance just to slowly tap towards the actual front door.

The bag around her shoulder was suddenly a lot heavier. There wasn’t much in it, just some papers to prove who she was and… stuff… stuff that she was proud of. Like her graduation papers. Or her exam results. Or her first-aid certificate. She… was a little excited to share all of this with someone out of her family who might actually care.

At the door wasn’t the man with black hair that she might have expected. It was a woman with bubblegum pink hair and… were those dreadlocks? Her yellow eyes must be contact lenses, but that sure was an odd choice… Maybe she got an op for that, if she was rich she could probably afford that. Thinking about that... She must be Hatsume Mei then. 

She eyed Ketsu’s entire appearance, and with her piercing gaze came a wave of self consciousness. Ketsu’s body was flawed. Missing her right arm and leg was only the tip of the iceberg; she looked unhealthy, hair sporting a horrible cut and her eyes were a sharp red (maybe she shouldn’t judge the other woman then…).

“And you are?” she wondered aloud, obviously not letting Ketsu in just like that.

It’s okay! Take a breather! You have gone through this a hundred times! Just repeat what you have rephrased a thousand times by now.

“Hello, good day. M-my name is Akaguro Ketsueki, I am the daughter of Akaguro Chizuro and the nephew of Akaguro Chizome… Is he perhaps...?”

Hatsume eyed her for a moment. A moment too long, maybe? Her eyes obviously hung longer on her right arm and leg than on everything else. Ketsu didn’t really have any hard feelings about that thought, most people looked at her like that.

“Yes, I guess he lives here. Why, you want to talk to him?” the woman asked and wow. She was kinda scary… Just the way she looked seemed dangerous. What if she thought of her as pathetic? Hatsume was an accomplished woman and even if Ketsu wasn’t half bad herself… That meant nothing.

“I um… Truth be told we never talked. My mom, I mean his sister she… died giving birth to me. And… Since his family pushed us out… My dad isn’t that good of a judge in character so I believed that maybe my uncle might be a nice person and… I… I felt obligated to visit him. Or at least try my best to visit him.”

This was weird. Telling her life story to a stranger. At some point she had stopped looking at Hatsume, staring at the floor in front of her feet. Maybe the woman didn’t even listen to her words, it wouldn’t surprise her. But… She really wanted to at least meet him before she left!

“Why don’t you come inside?” the woman suddenly asked. When Ketsu’s head shot up she saw a wide smile, no, a grin, spreading across the woman's face.

“I’ll show you the way to the living room and then I’ll look if he is ready to wake up. He works late shifts.”

And simple as that, Ketsu was seated on a nice coach, of course with a glass of water (thankfully! She was parched ). 

While she waited for the lady and her uncle to come back, she at first stubbornly looked at her feet. But eventually pulled out her phone to notify her boyfriend that she actually got inside and that it might take quite some time. He might want to look around the city close by. He had immediately shot that down, texting her that the café was closest and that he wanted to be there if she needed him. She… appreciated that and with a smile she sent him all her best cat stickers.

After some brainless sticker banter she heard steps and immediately let her phone slip back into her bag. Did they think badly of mobiles? Hitoshi’s parents always snapped at him when he pulled his own out. Maybe Chizome was like that too...

But when Ketsu looked up there was still only Mei and her wide smile, but the woman promised her that Chizome would be here any moment and again Ketsu felt her insecurities flaring up, scratching a little at her prosthetic arm’s elbow joint.

Mei suddenly plopped down right in front of Ketsu. She had a beautiful set of furniture for her living room and somehow with her sitting in the armchair it felt even more complete.

“So? How did you find out? That he lives here,” she asked as she crossed a leg. Was this a test? It was probably a bit creepy for Ketsu to just show up like this, huh...

“Ah I… I had some leads since… When I turned 18 a year ago I inherited all the photos of my mom… It was hard to find someone who would take the case but… I found a detective that agreed on tracking him down. He uhm… found my uncle almost by chance actually. Apparently the name Akaguro Chizome popped up at some Starbucks and well… The rest is history?” Ketsu prattled on, curling her unruly hair strands between her fingers, trying to not grip too hard. She stopped pulling out her hair about a few months ago and didn’t want to disappoint Hitoshi by breaking her streak.

He always would uncurl her hands and hold them instead when she was very close to ripping them out, trying to combat her bad habits with good ones, but right now he wasn’t here.

“Oh wow, sounds exciting!” Hatsume exclaimed, clapping her hands in ‘excitement’. Her neon eyes were curved a little, finally matching the smile on her lips. So that’s what had been off.

“Th-thank you for letting me into your home. I understand that you could’ve just sent me home…” Ketsu mumbled, looking at her knees. Usually when sitting down she would pull off her prosthetic, sitting with it over a long period of time hurt and it wasn’t that healthy for her hip and spine either. But she didn’t know if Hatsume minded a leg just laying around , so she refrained from doing so.

“So your arm and leg. Where did you get it made?”

That… was a weird question, right? Usually people either tried to not talk about it, or started off with how inspiring it was, that they were sorry or… Well, there were meaner comments as well.

Ketsu looked up for a second and eyed the woman in front of her before looking down again. Hatsume didn’t even look at her, only staring at the prosthetics. Was she a weirdo about it? “I… don’t exactly know to be honest… the leg is kind of the standard you get from the hospital and the arm…” Her heart fluttered a little at that. 

“It had been a gift. Obviously I had been there for the fitting and stuff but my boyfriend took care of everything else,” she explained, feeling a small smile on her own lips. “I uhm… can look it up for you? Not right now but maybe some other d—”

Before Ketsu could finish her sentence she looked up again and suddenly Hatsume stood in front of her, pulling up her prosthetic arm and inspecting it. That was- rude? How hadn’t she noticed the other woman standing up? 

It took Ketsu some seconds to compose herself, since she had never seen someone touch her prosthetic with such intent and suddenly she remembered who was standing in front of her. 

“C-can you perhaps let go?” she mumbled, a little flustered, and after some more inspection the woman dropped the arm. “This… this arm is probably very bad compared to whatever you could construct,” Ketsu mumbled, feeling her cheeks heat up a little. “It’s very helpful though,” she added, as if to defend Hitoshi’s gift. She loved it, it was a lot better than what she used to have.

“It seems alright, you take good care of it!” Hatsume just supplied, her eyes now scanning the leg and, just as she was reaching out, she suddenly froze, turning around. 

“Oh good! You’re here! That’s the girl!” she said, hopping back to the armchair.

Looking up at who Hatsume had talked to there was a man, long black hair in a half-hearted ponytail, eyes looking bored and dressed in all black, revealing nothing but his hands and maybe a little of his neck.

Suddenly all the anxiety from the past month washed over Ketsu and she felt nausea hit her. Was he mad? Maybe he didn’t want to see her, maybe he felt like she should leave him alone since they barely qualified as family. 

He just stared back at her, and she tried to not cry because all of this was too real.

“H-hello, my name i-is… Akaguro Ketsueki… I am your sister's only daughter p-please call me Ketsu…” she stammered. She didn’t stand up, afraid that she might lose balance and fall. Looking him in the eyes was already hard enough!

He had red eyes though, and somehow that was comforting again.

“Hm…” he simply responded, slowly finding his way on a seat next to Hatsume, equally in front of Ketsu.

As he made no other noise, Ketsu looked back to her knees. 

“I am here because… I mean… It probably sounds super weird but I turned 18 about a year ago,” she pressed out, throat dry like the desert and technically she could drink water, but she might choke on it and that would ruin everything…

“A-and I found all those photos from mom and you and… I thought maybe if I tracked you down… Dad said you barely knew me so I am not sure if you even knew I existed. I am not mad if you didn’t!” 

Silence… He just… looked at her…

He looked tired. Not like Hitoshi, Hitoshi was just incapable of sleep. But he… Chizome… he looked exhausted. Somehow she could sympathise with that.

“I… You don’t seem very talkative,” she mumbled. “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk, but uhm please just… If I should shut up please tell me because… I wanted to tell you some things for quite some time now…”

She glanced up and he made a noise that she just decided to interpret as positive.

“I graduated last year,” she immediately whispered and went on. With how she recently got accepted to her dream college, Yuuei, how she was currently searching for a place in Tokyo so she could finally move out, about her boyfriend with whom she would move in. Their two cats, his dads and sister, her accident and how she got that…with her arm and her leg. She didn’t keep to her outline at all, remembering things in the middle that she wanted to say in the beginning, adding things she didn’t think she would talk about.

“I… I study law. I want to become a lawyer,” she mumbled, pausing at that for a moment. He didn’t react, but he seemed to listen, if his expression was anything to go by. 

“I used to aim for professional ballet but… since I am a rather sickly person and with my prosthetics… It kind of fell through. Uhm… I suffer from diabetes and epilepsy… a bad combo… Especially with… y’know.” She lifted her arm for a second but immediately put it back on her lap. 

Yeah, it sucked. Her medication was annoying and she always had to look out for what she was eating. But… She was figuring it out.

“I also… I also suffer mental instability,” she explained, and at this point she was shuffling in her seat. Both of them just listened, and while she didn’t mind talking, she didn’t want to… She didn’t want them to just listen, pat her on her back and push her out again. What if they wanted to get rid of her and were just waiting it out because she looked kinda sad? She eyed him for a moment, trying to find anything in his eyes. They looked a lot like her own eyes and… She hoped that maybe he too saw a resemblance in her own.

“I used to visit a Psychologist and then I… stopped… because it felt useless?” He shifted at that, and even though Ketsu didn’t know how to interpret that, she clung to it as the only sign of life from this man. 

“B-but I am visiting again!” she suddenly reassured. “Hitoshi had been easing me back into it and… and with him it’s a lot nicer. Obviously he isn’t with me when I talk to the professional but…! It’s nice nonetheless. I might even stop seeing them, I got really good at handling my… my past.”

With every word she talked a little faster since he seemed to actually react.

“I… I don’t know if you care since you’re not related to them but I also have half siblings, two actually, since dad remarried, but I don’t talk to them much they’re… they’re not really family to me. And dad is… dad. He said you aren't on good terms and to be honest, I am not on good terms with him either.”

With that she… stopped. She didn’t want to… annoy him. Maybe he was mute? But then Hatsume probably would have informed her, right? Ketsu shot her a glance and… well, that weird grin-smile didn’t belong to a woman who just disclosed information. Maybe she thought this was amusing? That was… a bit weird right?

“You talk a lot,” a male voice suddenly drawled, and it took Ketsu a moment to whip around her head and realize it was Chizome’s voice .

“I am sorry!” she immediatly squeaked, feeling her throat tighten and eyes water. He must be so annoyed, how dumb dumb dumbdumbdumb!

He eyed her, and Ketsu isn’t sure if he even registered her apology. Slumping a little in her seat, she sighed. Was that… all he was going to say? ‘You talk a lot’.  She never wanted to speak a word again…

“I talk a lot too!” Hatsume suddenly spoke up, elbowing Chizome, still sporting that weird grin. He side-eyed her and suddenly his eyes looked more present. A needle of envy pricked Ketsu’s heart, but she simply gritted her teeth and sucked it up. This woman was his girlfriend or something, not the daughter of his long dead sister that he never heard a single thing of. Did he blame Ketsu? For the death of his sister?

“I… I just thought you might care,” Ketsu mumbled, looking back on her knees. “It’s okay though. If you don’t. I just thought since we’re kinda related by blood—”

“I don’t care about such things,” he suddenly cut into her mumbling and wow. That.

“A-ah, oka—” 

“If you feel like caring, do that,” he added, interrupting her again. 

Ketsu was probably imagining it but he sounded softer. She felt her body going limp and all of the sudden she felt very exhausted. 

“Th-thank you,” she just responded, stammering a little.

And with that Chizome stood up, mumbling that he would go to sleep. Mei nodded him off and before she could make Ketsu stay for a tea, she had to nervously decline. She was tired herself. To be honest, right now the only thing she craved for was to go back to Hitoshi and hug him and just… hear his voice. Being proud of herself was one thing, but she was sure he would be even happier.

When she thanked Hatsume once more and left, it felt like she was a thousand tons lighter.

With a pep in her step, she pulled out her phone, texting Hitoshi and smiling at her screen and his sticker spam.