Chapter Text
It’s a cold, bitter night, and in a cell in an orphanage is a malnourished and underweight boy. That boy is Nakajima Atsushi.
Atsushi is sitting on the dangerously cold floor, his back against the wall, facing the cell door. It’s dead quiet, except the growling of Atsushi’s stomach. He hasn’t eaten anything for days, he isn’t sure how many, as he kinda looses track of time when he is in his cell without food, day after day.
Suddenly he can hear the sound of footsteps approaching. At first he thinks it’s the headmaster, and he pushes himself more up against the wall. But he soon realizes that it’s not the headmaster. The headmasters footsteps are colder and harsher, the footsteps he’s hearing right now are rushed, but somewhat soft. He relaxes a bit as he realizes that, letting himself just rest against the wall again.
But soon enough he also realizes that it’s not just one person, it’s at least three. At least three people walking right towards his cell.
He freezes. The calm he felt just a few moments ago is like blown away by a cold wind. He tries to press himself against the freezing wall again, like he’s trying to become one with it.
“Hello?”
A voice suddenly says. A voice that Atsushi doesn’t recognize.
It’s getting harder to breath, and his chest feels heavy, as tears starts to flood his vision. He can hear a voice talking — to him?—, but it isn’t the same voice as before, this one is softer, like a mother talking to her baby. He tries to hear what the voice is saying, at first he doesn’t quite understand, but soon enough he is able hear something.
“Hey, cal- --wn-. Br—- wi— —. Slo—-. Brea- —th me. In -nd ou-.”
Another voice chimes in. “In an- out, d-ep br—ths. Ju-t like that. Good”
He wants to look up at the voices, but he can’t. He’s still scared, so he just keeps looking at down his slightly shaking hands.
He can hear something that sounds like a chain being ripped, the sound makes him flinch, before he looks up, curious what it was. His gaze follows the noise, from his hands, up to the sound that resembles chains. The chain that went from the wall to his ankle is somehow ripped in half, and is now being held by a boy, who doesn’t look older that 15, with blond hair, he can also make out some freckles on his face.
If he wasn’t already confused before, he definitely is now. How did that boy rip the chain in half?!
“Are you okay? You kinda look like you’ve seen a ghosts.” The freckled boy crouches down in front of him. His voice is pretty high, and somewhat cute and nice. It’s kind. Very kind. Probably the kindest voice Atsushi’s heard in a while.
“Kenji, he is probably just startled, that’s all.” Another voice, that he didn’t hear before, says. This voice is a bit stern, but it’s still kind in some way, unlike like the headmaster’s.
Atsushi goes back to staring down at his hands, and the cement floor he’s sitting on. He still doesn’t really dare to look up at any of the other voices. Then he feels himself getting pulled up, so that he is now standing. The person that pulled him up let’s go of him, but only for a few seconds, as Atsushi almost falls back down on the hard, cold floor, and the person grabs him again.
“Woah, are you okay? Do you need help walking?” The first voice says.
Atsushi just nods wordlessly, still looking down, then they start to walk out of the cell, with Atsushi getting supported by the first person that spoke. They walk out of the orphanage, to a car that’s parked a bit further away. Atsushi isn’t really paying attention to his surroundings, as he feels a wave of tiredness wash over him.
They get in the car, and Atsushi’s in the backseat of it, with the person who helped him walk. The driver starts the car, and they drive away from the orphanage. Atsushi just keeps getting more, and more tired, but he forces himself to stay awake. That is until one of the people say something.
“You can sleep if you want to, you really should.”
That is the last thing Atsushi hears, before he gives into his tiredness.