Chapter Text
From the second they discovered his gift, Fugo stopped being treated as human. At age 6 he'd been removed from normal school and placed into accelerated learning programs, and from then on his life became a non-stop loop of tests, studying, and routine IQ checks. He barely got to interact with his peers, and when he did, they weren't kind; calling him names or flat out avoiding or refusing to talk to him. To them, he was strange. Like a creature with a vocabulary too large for his age, and odd mannerisms. He was different, and children can be so cruel to those unlike them. It didn't matter to Fugo though, he was above them and their childish games anyways. (At least, that’s what was drilled into his head).
Life wasn't much better at home; he was constantly being paraded about and shown off to his parent's friends, like some kind of trophy. It infuriated him. They hadn't even done any work, it was all him. They acted like the fact that he was their son, their blood, somehow made them as impressive as him. As if his achievements were theirs. It made his blood boil. And oftentimes, his anger ended up boiling over behind closed doors. He'd rush to excuse himself to his room or the bathroom when it got too overwhelming, too hard to contain in his small body. He'd have to pull at his hair and grind his teeth to contain the screams that wanted to rip themselves from his throat, scratching his arms raw. If he was lucky, at home he could go to the garage and actually scream, let it all out without the fear of someone hearing him.
The only thing that made these hours of endless small talk over lunch bareable were Trish and Giorno. The three of them met when they were 7. Their parents were having a get together, all being friends since university. At first, Fugo could care less about them, thinking them to be the same as every other child his age that he'd met so far. He was wrong.
Giorno was like him, quiet and preferring to keep to himself while also becoming totally immersed in his interests. The two barely spoke a word when they first met, being too awkward and reserved to do so. Only when they spotted a ladybug crawling along the floor did Giorno begin enthusiastically listing every fact he could about the bug, and Fugo happily soaked it in (back when learning was something he enjoyed rather than a chore). Fugo learned a lot about entomology over the course of their friendship.
And while Trish's loud personality took more time to adjust to, she was the first person Fugo had met to actually match his attitude, which, although frustrating at times, was a pleasant surprise. They had silly arguments about dumb kid things, - Was cereal a soup? It wasn't. Were tacos a sandwich? No, and neither were hotdogs. Was pizza a sandwich? Fugo had gotten violent at this point and had to be removed from the play area - which was something Fugo never got to experience up until this point. They were his only real connection to the “normal” world, and he was glad.
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He grew older, the tests became harder, the hours he spent studying grew longer and later into the night, and the frustration inside of him grew. Festering. It grew and grew like some sort of horrible infection in his heart, manifesting as hatred. Hatred of his parents, of academics, of everything. Even the time he spent with Giorno and Trish, his tastes of normalcy, weren't enough to satisfy him anymore. His inner feelings even formed as envy of his friends, how they got to go to normal school and hang out with friends and play video games and eat junk food, like how kids his age should be doing. He felt awful for feeling this way, but some days he could hardly stand to hear Trish happily go on about her trip to the mall with her mom.
Which is why at the end of his freshman year, when he first received a letter from some college asking him to attend, he snapped. His parents were ecstatic - of course they were - overjoyed by that stupid piece of paper. They didn't even stop to consider how Fugo felt about it. He'd had enough.
“No.”
“Pardon?” His mother looked up from the letter.
“No. I don't want to go.” In all honesty, college could've been an escape for him, a chance of freedom, but it would come at the cost of being even more ostracized than he already was at his current private school. Besides, he was sick of studying.
“Excuse me young man, do you not see how big of an opportunity this is?”
“This school has one of the top law programs in the state, I thought you'd love that!” His father chimed in.
And he felt all hell break loose inside.
“Love that? Love that???” His voice grew louder with each word. “No, I wouldn't love that.” The words spilled from his mouth, no longer caring for what the consequences might be. “I don’t even like law! You just forced me to choose it! I could care less for it!” His fists balled, and he felt his nails digging into his palms.
“What's gotten into you-” His father had stood up from the table at this point, his own anger evident.
“You've never even asked me what I wanted to do! All my life you've decided everything for me!” His voice shook with anger, and he hated how he wanted to cry. He hated crying, it was for babies; and he especially hated crying out of frustration.
“I hate law, I hate studying, I hate that stupid school you send me to and it's stupid stuffy uniforms-”
“Watch your tone.” His mother stated sternly.
Fugo took a second to look at her, really look at her, with all the contempt he'd stored away for so long. His icy glare made her jaw shut.
“And I hate you.”
He flinched as his father stepped away from the table, his chair screeching along the floor. He wanted to run as the man stormed up to him, but he held his ground. His parents had never hit him before, appearances mattered too much for that. Any bruises or scars would give people the wrong idea about their “perfect” family. Logically, he had no reason to be afraid.
…
Fugo barely registered the slap that echoed through the barren walls of his much too large house, only feeling the stinging in cheek a second later. His mother gasped, having now stood as well.
He blinked slowly, then a few times more. His hand rose to his cheek, gently brushing against the tingling skin. And he glared. Glared up into his father's eyes. Breathing slowly and heavily, it took every ounce of restraint left in his body to not lunge at him and strangle him.
“You're going there whether you like it or not Pannacotta.”
Fugo clenched his jaw, and like a dog with its tail between its legs, turned and stormed up to his room.
His ear rung on the side where he'd been hit, but even then he could hardly hear his father yelling his name and demanding he “Get back down there this instant”. It was like static filled his brain, blinded by pure rage.
"They don't care. Of course they don't care."
Once he reached his room, he slammed his door.
“I'm an idiot for thinking this would change anything.”
He practically threw his heavy laundry hamper in front of the door to barricade it (he wasn't allowed to have a lock).
“They don't care about me. They only care about my intellect. They don't love me.”
…
“They don't love me.”
Fugo exploded.
It was all a blur to him. He finally understood what all those books he'd read meant when they said the character “saw red”. He vaguely remembered yelling, screaming, grabbing things, and ripping papers to shreds. It was all too much. He'd never had any freedom, so now all he was free to do was destroy. And so he did. 9 years of pressure, expectations, frustration, and built up rage all fueling his mindless destruction he wrought with his hands.
By the time he came out of his blind rage, his room was a wreck. Essays and documents, torn to the tiniest of pieces. His bed sheets and blanket strewn across the floor. The pencils and pens he'd kept in his little pencil holder, neat on his desk, now all over (were there bits of lead in his arm?). He could barely breathe, heaving like he just ran a mile. Fugo finally snapped out of it completely when his father managed to push open the door and he heard his mother shriek as they saw what he'd done to his room. It hit him all at once, the realization of what he'd done. He'd ruined his room, yes, but on a deeper level he'd ruined any chance of his parents taking him seriously for once. He'd done this to himself, by acting like a child. He felt sick with guilt and shame, but he wouldn't add vomit to the mess.
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He spent all of that summer cooped up in his room on house arrest (the teenage way of saying ultra grounded). No visiting friends, no going out without parents, no phone, and no laptop (unless to study while being monitored). But Fugo could live with all that. The worst part of all was not being able to spend a month at his grandmother's like he did every year.
What happened after he destroyed his room was fuzzy, trauma blocking or whatever he'd read about (its not like he actively tried to remember it, he was too numb to do so), but what he did know for sure is that his parents decided that they'd had the final straw of dealing with his “attitude” and were sending him to public school. They claimed that it was to show Fugo how good he had it (he already knew he was privileged and had a cushy life, unfortunately he didn't care) and how even if it was what he thought he wanted (it wasn't, he just wanted to treated normally), that it would be worse for him to learn in that environment (he didn't care about learning).
He guessed this was some sort of attempt at a punishment, but he could rationally assume that by the middle of the year they'd send him back to private school, and it would all go back to how it was before. That this was all just some plan to get Fugo back on track.
Thank God at least it was the same school Giorno and Trish went to.