Chapter Text
Haruno Shiobana is thirteen years old when he meets Pannacotta Fugo. It’s his third week working at the airport, looking for tourists who will tip him for dragging their luggage out to a cab. It doesn’t get him a lot of money, but it gets him something. One day, when he leaves home, every lira will count.
Just as Haruno’s accepting a few shiny American coins from a young woman, there’s an odd thud coming from somewhere nearby. It doesn’t sound like dropped luggage, more like the all-too-familiar sound of flesh hitting flesh. He closes the door of her cab, feeling sick. The noise came from around the corner.
It’s stupid to get involved. He’s a scrawny thirteen-year-old who still hasn’t quite lost his accent and doesn’t really understand the acceptable way to talk to people. An easy target, that’s what he is.
And yet, he can’t stop his feet from moving, can’t stop himself from ducking around the corner to see what’s going on. Haruno can’t help it, can’t help wanting to help. He’s learned firsthand that the world is cruel - cruelest to those who cannot defend themselves - and he wants to change that. Maybe breaking up a fight at the airport is small, but it’s something.
There’s a boy, bleeding from his nose, pressed against the wall. Two men loom over him, one holding the boy down.
“Hey!” Haruno says, before he can stop himself. One of the men turns to look at him with a sneer.
“Get lost, kid,” he says, eyes narrowed. “Get out of here.”
“No.” His voice does not waver, miraculously. He resists the urge to look behind him for potential witnesses.
The other man turns slightly, loosening his grip on the boy. “Davide, that kid has to-”
Before he can finish, the boy wiggles himself free and kicks, hard, right between the man’s legs. With a pained groan he falls to the ground, curling in on himself.
Briefly, Haruno and the boy make eye contact. He seems to be around Haruno’s age, and he’s got a crazed look in his eyes. It’s not fear, like Haruno would expect, but fury.
The boy looks away and turns his attention to the body kneeling in front of him. With a great swing he punches the man so hard that he falls to the ground with a thump. Haruno winces, and the man standing closer to him turns around.
“The fuck are you doing?” he asks, rushing towards the other boy.
An odd jolt of energy surges through Haruno, and suddenly the man is falling, tripping over a root that most definitely was not there seconds ago. But there’s no time to wonder about that, not when he’s darting forward, grabbing the boy’s wrist, and yanking him away. This is not a fight the two of them can win, and these men don’t seem like they’d go easy on anyone.
At some point the boy wrenches his arm free of Haruno’s grasp, but he still follows. The two of them dodge clumps of people, cut through alleyways, and end up on a side street that’s mostly unpopulated.
The boy leans against a building with shuttered windows and glares at Haruno. “What in Christ’s name is wrong with you?” he asks, voice sharp.
Haruno shrugs. “You seemed like you needed help?” He doesn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but he feels oddly uncertain under that irate glare. It’s not furious like before, thankfully, but it looks well on its way to getting there.
“I didn’t.”
“It’s hard to fight off two grown men at our size,” he says, although the boy’s a few centimeters taller than him. “The situation seemed bad.”
“And why do you care?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
The boy looks away, crosses his arms, frowns deeper. “Maybe I did something awful. Maybe I stole from them. Wouldn’t I have deserved it, then? Maybe you just stopped a criminal from being punished.”
Haruno tilts his head, studies this boy. That frenzied look in his eyes is gone, and a wall has been put up in its place. The suit he’s wearing looked worn down, but well-made. His posture is odd, almost unnaturally hunched, like he was raised to stand up straight and is trying to undo those teachings now. It seems like the boy was once upper-class, and is trying to do whatever he can to remove himself from that lifestyle.
“Why did you steal?” he asks, finally. The boy looks back at him, brow furrowed.
“Who says I did?”
So it’s going to be like that, then. “Okay. Why would you steal, if you were going to?”
“Why does anyone steal? Desperation, thrill, to get back at someone? The lines between criminal motivations are often blurred, aren’t they?”
He stares at the boy. “Uh-huh. Anyway, what’s your name?”
“Pannacotta Fugo.”
“I’m Shiobana Haruno.” He’s spent more time in Italy than Japan, but a few habits from that time still cling to him. One of them is his name. He can’t help but to address himself the way he was first taught to. It’s something that his stepfather’s always hated, and maybe that’s why he keeps going with it.
Pannacotta finally seems to notice the drying blood on his face and wipes it with his sleeve, frowns at the stain it will probably leave.
“I appreciate your help,” he says quietly, reluctantly. “I need to leave now.”
“Wait,” Haruno says. “Why? Do you have somewhere to be?”
“No,” he says immediately. Haruno frowns. “It’s not personal, I can assure you. I’ve made up my mind to live on my own.”
“Why?” Haruno’s been alone his whole life, and he’d do anything not to be. Why would someone choose that kind of life?
“When I get angry, I do terrible things.” He crosses his arms, like he’s trying to shield himself. “I can’t be around people. I could kill someone, someday.”
“Sometimes I want to kill people,” Haruno says evenly. Pannacotta raises his eyebrows.
“You?” he asks incredulously.
“Yes. People who hurt other people, mostly. People who are cruel to those who can’t protect themselves.” Haruno’s stepfather’s face flashes in his mind, just for a second. Anger twists in his stomach. “Regardless, you know that what you do when you lose your temper is wrong. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you hurt someone because of anger and feel no remorse, that’s a problem. If you feel sorry after, and try to fix things, that shows that those impulsive actions aren’t how you really feel.”
Pannacotta shakes his head. “No, no, that’s not how it works. It doesn’t matter if I feel bad. I’m hurting people. You said you wanted to kill people who hurt others, right? How am I any different from those people?”
“The people I hate are those who hurt others to hold power over them. You don't strike me as the type to do that.”
“That’s a bold assumption.”
Struck with an idea, Haruno blurts, “Do you speak English?”
He blinks at the sudden topic change. “Yes… why?”
“How’s your accent?”
“Good.”
Haruno frowns. “Can you pretend it’s bad?”
“Probably. Why ?”
“I want to scam some tourists. Will you help me?” After a pause, he adds, “It’s safer than pickpocketing. Trust me.”
The indecision on Pannacotta’s face disappears, and he relaxes his shoulders. “Fine. Only for today. What do you need me to do?”
For two weeks they continue their routine. Neither of them ever say they’re going to keep things up, but it’s consistent anyway. Every day after school Haruno makes his way to the airport. WIthout fail, Pannacotta is nearby.
He usually walks Haruno home. At first the only thing they talk about is their plan, and how it could be improved on, but over time the topics drift. Eventually, more often than not they’re talking about anything but the airport. Haruno’s not sure he’s known Pannacotta long enough for them to be considered friends, but he hopes they get there soon. He’s never had a friend before.
For two weeks they continue their routine. It’s on a Tuesday night when things change.
Haruno’s parents are leaving the house as the two of them are walking up to it. That’s not unusual, except for the fact that they’re rolling suitcases behind them.
His mother smiles. “Oh, good, there you are!” she says. “I have some sad news.”
“Okay,” he says warily, glancing at the way Pannacotta has frozen at the sight of the two adults.
“Your grandfather is very sick.” Her smile disappears. “And with your grandmother gone, he needs me to take care of him. So your father and I are going back to Japan.”
“What about me?” he asks, voice small.
“You’re old enough to take care of yourself,” his stepfather says. “Plus, we need someone to keep up with the rent here.”
“I’ll call as often as I can,” his mother adds, a blatant lie. “We have to go now, our plane will be leaving soon.”
And then that’s it. They just head towards the main road, probably looking to hail a cab. Haruno watches them as they go.
“What the fuck was that?” Pannacotta asks, turning to Haruno. “Were those your parents?”
“The man was my stepfather,” he says dully, because even though it’s a minor detail he doesn’t want anyone to believe that he’s related to that man.
“Are they leaving you? How old are you?”
“Thirteen," although at this moment he does not feel it. He feels like a child again, that same sick twisting in his stomach reappearing as he watches his mother leave him, wonders what he could have done to make her hate him, doesn't understand why he wants nothing to do with him. There’s the same terror he felt for years realizing that his stepfather controls his life and is perfectly fine with ruining it.
“Who are you going to stay with?” Both of them clearly understand that Haruno will not be able to ‘keep up with the rent’ like his stepfather said, even with what they’re doing at the airport.
Haruno shrugs. His mother’s small family all reside in Japan, and for all he knows his stepfather has no family. “No one, I guess.”
Pannacotta scowls. “Fucking assholes,” he mutters. “Come with me.”
He frowns, confused. “What?”
He chews a nail and then winces, stops. An old habit, maybe, one he was expected to grow out of but never quite did. “I’ve liked working with you,” he says, reluctantly, finally. “And… I remember how scared I was when my parents shoved me out into the world alone. You don’t have to be alone, if you don’t want to be.”
Haruno stares at Pannacotta. That’s probably the nicest thing someone has said to him, ever. “Oh,” he says, hands shaking. “Thank you.”
“When is your next rent payment due?”
“Two weeks. The end of the month.”
“Until then, we’ll stay here. Then we try and figure something else out. Does that sound good?”
“Yeah.” The churning in Haruno’s stomach has calmed a bit. He’s just been abandoned by the people who should care about him no matter what, and yet he feels less lonely than he has in years.