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It was happening all over again, just like the last time she was relentless, “Why can’t you ever fucking listen!? Is it that hard!? Are you deaf!?” it was never something they could understand, why was she always so mean? What did they ever do wrong? What was her problem? “You fucking idiot!! You Fucking IDIOT!! I can’t believe you’d decide to do that to me, everyone was staring at me when I came into work, people called ME a bad person because of YOU!!” she continued her selfish rants, intermediately delivering slaps and punches to the 11-year-old’s face, as if it was their fault that their friend was fucking dead as if it was their fault they got no support from anyone that it was their fault they wanted to die, their fault that life had no purpose anymore after losing the one person that genuinely loved them without conditions, without expecting anything in return or for them to pretend to be anything but themself, why was that so hard for her to fucking understand!? She began yelling and hitting again, and all they could do was sob and try to protect their face, “Are you even listening to me!? ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING!??” there was nothing they could do except listen, they didn’t want to, they felt a pit in their stomach form, their breathing was irregular and their face was red from tears, their arms soaked in all the slamming, repeatedly apologizing for something that needed no apologies, “You aren’t sorry for shit!! You only jumped out of that window to harm my reputation!!” they made the mistake of replying to the banshee’s shrieks, “Why is it always about you!? I lost the only person that loved me and you didn’t even try to console me!! What the fuck was I supposed to do, I’m only a fucking child!!!”
She froze in place staring into the redheaded ball of suffering that was curled up in front of her, “Did you just talk back to me? you ungrateful little bitch… I cared enough to raise you, I fed you, I gave you a warm house to come home to and yet I get NOTHING in return for MY selfless deeds!!”
“Just shut the fuck up!! Shut the fuck up!! You say that every fucking time EVERY FUCKING TIME but you don’t understand!! I don’t feel safe here!! I never fucking have and it’s because of you!!!! You’re so violent and aggressive, how could anyone feel safe here!?”
“I’ve done so much for you and th-”
“YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING!! YOU DON’T EVEN DO THE BARE MINIMUM!!!!”
She stared at them, offended, as if she had the right to be offended about it, about the truth.
“I loved you-”
“If you love ‘me’ then why say it in the past tense!?”
The setting began to warp and push into something violent and warn down, she began to shape and twist violently as she got closer to their face
“Because, who in their right mind would love such a disgusting freak?”
Gakupo was jolted awake by the violent sound of screaming, this had been happening repeatedly for the past month now, he knew exactly what had happened as he slipped out of bed and put his slippers on, he smacked his mouth open and shut, then rubbed his eyes tiredly before he made his way towards his newly adopted son’s room.
It had been a month or so since Kaito and Gakupo met Fukase, they were shown to their aunt and uncle at the time as potential foster parents after they had been anonymously reported to child protective services. when Gakupo met those two she actually tried to initiate a fight with him. Not her brightest moment considering Gakupo’s status as a samurai, he stretched his arms casually as he approached the bedroom door and slid it open, it was the same as last time, they were curled into a ball crying violently, muttering pleading words under their breath, Gakupo’s face expressed a pain that emulated pity and dug a deep hole in his stomach, he mentally readied himself and sat down on top of the crinkled-up blankets, Gakupo sighed in a kind tone, “More nightmares?” he asked as he adjusted himself to sit closer, “It’s okay if you don’t wanna talk about it.” he continued in a soft and gentle voice, Fukase continued sobbing into their pajamas in severe emotional anguish, inconsolable, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Fukase barely looked up at him, their bangs were damp from excess tears and their eyes were pained and awake, like an animal that just survived an attack barely hanging onto its life. “I just want it to go away” they barely managed to sob out, their words were stuttered and the pitch of their voice was all fucked up from their emotions, “I- I just.. I just want it to go away”
Gakupo looked down at the carpet solemnly, “I’m gonna get you some water, is that okay?” he asked as he began to stand up from the bed, but he couldn’t. “please stay” the young child whispered as they clung onto him, they softly repeated it again, “please stay” , “It’s okay, you can come with me if you-”
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
Gakupo could barely choke back tears at that statement, the day that he and Kaito were allowed to meet Fukase during the pre-adoption process he felt terrible, they were still in pretty bad shape from what they went through, their arms were covered in bruises and their lower leg was still in a cast, at first he assumed it was just injuries from when Fukase tried to commit suicide via 3rd-floor window, but then their uncle told him what really happened to cause the bruising and for the next two nights he would lay awake for hours and hours on end with a pit in his stomach, those nights, he wanted to scream in anguish, in anger, in pain, pain that he wasn’t even the person who went through it, pain that he had only heard about from ONE MAN at that time, pain he had no idea how downplayed it was until he began to hear it from the mouth of a crying, scared child sitting in his arms. It was a pain you don’t feel for yourself, but for others, for loved ones, for friends, a pain felt secondhand and yet still so fucking raw that it burns in your mind like a rage, an unruly rage that knocked everything down, that had an urge, an urge for justice and cathartic vengeance, the idea of revenge, of hatred, of how on that day Gakupo doubted the words that uncle said not because he didn’t believe them but because he could feel a lack of the full story just from seeing how she really acted.
That she was Chisato. Chisato was Fukase’s biological aunt, she got custody after the early death of their mother, and she was a violent witch.
Selfish, power-tripping, arrogant, condescending, and neglectful, she lacked empathy for anyone who wasn’t herself and begged for it, she loved the attention and was always given it. She took Fukase in not because she cared about her dead sister’s child but because she wanted someone to force an ideal life on, someone she could tote around as an achievement, a trophy, she’d make them perfect, bought toys she wanted them to like, clothes she wanted them to like, everything they had was something she wanted them to and never something they did, the more they ‘disobeyed’ from this view the more hellish she would act, like a banshee unable to handle even the slightest criticism, and when they fully departed into their own person and made it clear there was no coming back? She got as close to totalitarian as physically possible without startling her husband. The first time Gakupo interacted with her was that day at the foster care office, he’d had pretty good interactions with Fukase and Ayato so far and was, somehow, expecting some kind of decency, wrong expectation. The first word she got in was violent judgment, she continued spewing about how she did nothing wrong and how she was the victim, then she started talking about how Gakupo would clearly be an unsafe father for.. Race-related reasons, that’s when he told her to shut up, and then she threatened to fight him, and then he won in under 30 seconds and she was embarrassed as shit, at that point she just let them take Fukase from her, she could barely look in their direction.
“Dad..?”
Gakupo came back from deep thought and realized he had been sitting there silent for like,, a whole ass minute, he turned his eyes to his child, “Do you want to come to the kitchen with me to get some water?” he asked again, hoping for an answer. “I’ll turn the lights on, it’ll be okay”, Fukase unfolded their arms and wiped their reddened face, “ok…” they stammered out quietly, Gakupo stood up from the bed and held out his hand, “it’ll be okay, everything will be okay,” he said. Fukase barely managed to echo his words silently, mouthing them to themself.
“It’ll be okay, everything will be okay.”
“It’ll be okay, everything will be okay.”
But will it? Was anything ever okay? All the waking up screaming and suffering, all the breakdowns, fear, pain? Would anything ever be okay?
“I know you doubt that things will get better right now, but trust me, it will, it just takes time..”
Gakupo put his hand into Fukase’s bright red hair and ruffled it in his fingers, smiling as he looked down at them, “why does everyone always say that, that things get better… it’s only gotten worse…”
“Well you’re here now, that’s a good thing.”
“My friend is still dead…”
“Things may turn around.”
“Dead people don’t come back.”
“Well.. that may be one thing we can’t turn around.”
Tears began to roll down Fukase’s face, they didn’t even react, they just stood still as their hand slipped out of their father’s grasp, “I fucking need it to be.”
Gakupo stood in silence for a second, as this was the first time Fukase ever openly swore in that way, in that tone, he took in a deep breath, “Sometimes in life, you lose things, and they don’t come ba-” Fukase turned around with a sharp movement and cut him off
“STOP IT!! JUST STOP IT!! EVERYONE KEEPS SAYING THAT AND I FUCKING HATE IT!!!” they screamed as they crumpled to the floor in pure anguish, everyone keeps telling they that stupid bile every single time they try to vent about how painful it is, but people never listen, and get defensive about it when told, claiming to be innocent and that they’re just trying to help them get over it , and get self-defensive and walk away from them behaving like they just didn’t know they were suffering from extreme grief, that’s what everyone does, they walk away.
But Gakupo refused to walk away. That wasn’t what he did, that’s the actions of a coward.
“I’m sorry.”
It took Fukase a minute to process what was just said to him.
“Y- you’re-- y-”
“I hope you’re able to forgive me, I genuinely care about you and I understand that grieving can be hard.”
“...really?” Fukase looked up at Gakupo with watery eyes and stained cheeks, their voice quivered and shook as they asked, they could feel their entire being get lighter and begin to break into millions of pieces, Gakupo sat down on the floor in front of them, “Yes really, I’m sorry I kept pushing that narrative, that wasn’t a good idea… I remember when I first dealt with grief, the way everyone would tell me that I’d get over it someday, that loss is permanent, that I’d have to accept it, I myself pushed them away, I was angry, I was depressed, I’d yell and cry too.. That was really hard to go through and… well… to tell the truth, I’m still going through it, and that’s okay.” Gakupo paused and turned his head to the side, “That was when I was 17, lost a good friend, don’t want to get into the details but it’s similar to your situation kinda, just got disregarded, my parents barely cared for that guy anyway.”
He looked down at the carpet dejected, tired, his soul felt heavy inside his torso and it pulled down on him,
“That sounds terrible…”
“It was, it sucked, I didn’t really leave my room for a while after, struggled to muster up an appetite, sometimes had weird dreams but..”
He paused as his throat got tight, he took a deep breath and swallowed it down as if otherwise it would stay in his mouth unmoving like it needed motivation to actually go down.
His head felt like a bowl of water, it felt dense but it kept flowing and moving rapidly with memories, memories that clutched the insides of his skull and kept.. Screaming.. Screaming emotions and words that made no sense like someone grabbed paper and then scribbled on it with sharpie and then slammed it onto a wall, into the wiring that kept things together, watching it tear and clog up the system as all the cogs began turning in different directions and getting jammed, slamming into each other and screeching, screaming about that disregarded feeling he felt when he’d lay in bed for hours maybe days staring at the span of his all too controlled and perfect room as it got further disheveled with every passing day, how he’d impersonate his dad in phone calls when he’d call in sick because he did feel sick, he felt knots in his chest and his stomach would growl fiercely like a lion but nobody fucking listened when he said that, “you’re 17, you can handle this, stop being such a baby.”
The words of a snake.
A snake that never faced any obstacle in life, that treated him like a burden.
She wasn’t as bad as the absolute worm that Fukase dealt with, he acknowledged that, but damn. Damn, that didn’t make it hurt any less whenever those words echoed in his mind.
Is it really being a baby to be a fucking person to these people? To be a child? To have emotions? Well…
Yeah.
That perspective was one skewed towards a self-serving mentality that warped their paradigm so that everyone else was wrong and they were the victor, the right man, the answer to the ever-sprawling problems they knew they were the cause of but would they acknowledge that in any way other than to pin it on someone else? Someone being something like a cashier, a child, a sibling, a victim, the weak and vulnerable people that were only weak and vulnerable from their blinded biased perspective, like a buffet they’d stack their plates with whatever narratives suited their stupid asses this time, victim blame paired with guilt-tripping and a heaping pile of gaslighting, and they’d eat that shit up to the expense of everyone else, no matter who that was, even if it was a child. A defenseless child. It sickened him.
“You’re only 12, barely 12.. I don’t expect things like this to heal fast, because they truly don’t, no matter how much people console you it can linger and burn in your chest, and it hurts when the people who were, by blood and flesh, supposed to help you, decide you’re weak and dramatic, I’ll never do that to you. I promise.” As he finished he found Fukase curled around him, his shoulder felt wet and cold but he didn’t care, he smiled as he welled up, “you promise?” they asked, “I promise.”
The minute he had adopted Fukase he promised himself he’d never let them down, that he’d comfort them when they needed him to, and that no matter what he would stay by their side, he knew what it felt like to be without that support, and he refused to let that happen to another person. Never again.
“C’mon, let’s get you some water.” Gakupo said as he began to stand up, pulling the small child with him, their eyes were still watery and dripping large hot droplets that streamed down their face fast and wet, leaving shiny grease-like streaks and reddening their cheeks, and their left eye was extremely glossy from the moisture as the tears struggled to leak out of it, they latched back on even after they were put standing on their own feet, gripping extremely tightly to their dad’s chest.
Gakupo took the signal and hoisted the 12-year-old off the ground and began carrying them over his shoulder to the kitchen, “Everything’s gonna be alright.”
“I know. You keep saying it”
“You okay?”
“My eye is bugging me…”
“Yeah, I saw it was getting kind of.. Flooded?”
Fukase grumbled into Gakupo’s shoulder, upset.
“It doesn’t hurt but it’s fuckin annoying..”
“Ne, try to not swear so much, it makes Kaito sad..”
“Daddy isn’t here right now, he’s asleep.”
“Well, practicing will make you less likely to do it in front of him”
Gakupo swung Fukase off of his arm and sat them down on the table as he opened the cupboard to get a water glass, “Which cup do you want? We have a… uh.. A coffee mug??” shit uh..”
“Why can’t I swear when daddy isn’t here but you can?”
“Probably the part where I’m a grown adult man and you’re 12”
“Why am I 12?”
“....because you were born 12 years ago?”
“Why”
“The parenting books didn’t tell me what to do about this”
Fukase began to giggle as their face lit up and they smiled, “Why?” they continued in a joking manner, Gakupo smiled as he filled the coffee mug with cold water from the fridge, he sighed happily and tiredly, “You’re a treat to be around, kid, love ya.” he stated in a casual manner as he swung around to the small redhead, but something was wrong… Fukase began to well up, shaking almost, “y-- you.. You love me?” they asked, their voice was stuttery and they hiccupped on their words, “Well, yeah.” Gakupo responded as he set the cup down, his face switched to one of concern, “Is there something wrong with tha- ….” he caught himself before the end of his sentence was to be said as he realized that this was… this was just gonna be the norm for a while. He remembered what it felt like to never hear those words, but he didn’t know it in a way that was this god damn awful, this raw, when his first partner said those words to him it wasn’t that shocking, it felt strange but… but he never imagined what it would be like for those words to cause pain, to hear something so endearing and caring and start crying because it just hurts so fucking much to hear it because you can’t believe anyone would say it to you. “Of course I do, Fukase, I always will.” he responded, as he did the tears began to flow heavily down Fukase’s face, it hurt, but it didn’t hurt because they didn’t think their father was telling the truth but because it was just so… so… different from their previous environment, they just couldn’t remember the last time they heard someone say that to them that wasn’t
That wasn’t
That wasn’t dead...
They melted into a puddle of tears in a near instant, Gakupo’s face went white with pain, like he did something to hurt them, he felt so so so awful until he heard something.
He heard Fukase thank him
And it destroyed him inside.
That they felt the need to thank him for the bare minimum.
Gakupo choked up, his emotions unwinding the more he thought about any of it, that’s how bad that poor child’s life was before this. That this would be such a huge thing to them.
Here was this grown man, completely shattered over this, crying about this, he felt awful, not just awful, stupid, not just stupid because of what he said and the way he didn’t expect it to hurt them, but the fact he was sobbing so weakly, his inner criticisms sounded within himself, the exact same shit he was told when he was 17, to quit overreacting and ‘stealing’ other people’s pain from them but he couldn’t help it as hot, wet, bitter drops of memories he had pushed down into his conscience rolled down his cheeks. There they both were, sobbing from similar causes, similar heartaches, he tried to apologize for his sudden flood of tangled complicated emotions but Fukase just kept saying he didn’t need to be, like suddenly the maturity just swapped between the two, he collected himself, somehow, just.. Somehow, he pulled himself back together with weak emotional stitching that could barely hold, “I’m sorry about that, I didn’t realize how much of an impact that would have, you’re not in any trouble, you did nothing wrong, it’s alright.” he quietly released the words from his mouth, albeit strained and soft, they reached, but would they be listened to at all? Would that small child accept these words when they were accepting shaming and guilting and blaming for so so long?
“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong either..” Fukase muttered out, upset, the skin around their eyes was red from irritation from desperate attempts to rub away the obvious pain they were emotionally thrust into by the situation, “Because you shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of extremely mature stuff yet.” was the response gotten, Fukase grabbed the cup of water from earlier and took a sip of it, the sudden rush of cold calmed them in a sort of way, brought them back to their abilities, they took in a breath and held it for a second before allowing it to release from their chest. “Are you okay?” Gakupo asked kindly as he knelt down to meet Fukase at eye level, as they looked up at him they smiled softly, “I think so..”
“Do you wanna go back to your bedroom now?”
“Yes.”
As Gakupo lifted them from the counter they continued to smile, hanging on in a sweet manner that made things feel, well, okay. As he set them back down onto their bed and tucked them in he felt better than he was just minutes ago as the warm, joyish feeling flushed his cheeks despite the cold that crept in through the walls from the outside, “I hope you sleep better now, Fukase.” he said as he began to close the door, peeking his head through one last time, “I hope you do too, dad.” left Fukase’s mouth as they tiredly closed their eyes, their arms curled around a large bear plushie as they did, As they drifted to sleep something still felt strange, the sense of longing and yearning that would previously seek the crevices of their mind and take their ability to focus felt quelled, like someone went and satisfied its hunger, they didn’t know why but they felt a sense of future descend upon them, a sense of hope, somehow, despite the fact it seemed impossible for it to happen in any sensible reality, a sense of return, of gaining back what seemed ever lost. As more tears began to stream down their face they felt instead of the cruel snap of reality they felt earlier, a sudden comfort, comfort that pulled them into rest, comfort without an explanation.
No, there was an explanation.
An explanation that wasn’t done being brought back to life yet.
END.