Work Text:
During the winter, brand new coats of snow cover the premature grass as they settle beneath the clouds of the long nights finally raising its darkness away. Taking short shifts, the sun rose steadily each morning, sometimes hidden in the sky while other times blinking sleepily among the passing clouds. The transition from the darkness of night to the light of morning came early amidst the busy snow, but Kaiser woke up in time for it everyday.
For the moment where the town, always bustling with people brushing by one another and filled with countless sounds, lay dormant and alone. Rather than being harsh and violent, the silence provided comfort. He’d sneak inside the abandoned buildings he became familiar with, like close friends he’d perhaps have in another life, stepping up to the rooftop high enough for the grounds to appear small and insignificant beneath him.
For a loveless being like himself, this was a form of love for him. He had even come to appreciate the painful freezing cold that bit and pricked his skin.
On a particularly cold day, Kaiser did this as usual. He sat on top of a building a few streets away from home, barely at sunrise, with his legs hanging off the edge.
His father wouldn’t be awake for another few hours. But once he did, he needed to have food ready for him. Kaiser knew he was wasting the precious moments of the morning he had to work by appreciating the scene of the desolate town but in all honesty, he couldn’t find the will to care. The ache of the bruises on his arms and legs were wearing off and the bandages he clumsily wrapped were coming undone. Yet another routine he had each day, just like that of the sun, rising and falling with the passing night.
In the sea of numbness across his body, he rubbed his neck, wincing slightly at the pain. Only his neck had remained painful.
His hand fell to the side, grazing the snow settling on the rooftop. He brushed some of it off while taking other clumps to squeeze in his hand, until he felt the painful freeze against his palm. He winced again, but kept going nonetheless. Until he could no longer feel the cold in his hand at all.
Kaiser sighed and laid completely on his back. His legs remained hanging off the building but his thighs, torso, and head buried itself in the blanket of snow. He stared up at the sun, and the beautiful light blue of the winter. If he squinted, it appeared as if it were softly smiling down upon him and the falling snow was its long hair brushing against his face.
“I’m off to work again,” he said to the sky. “Wait for me here.”
Kaiser couldn’t have been older than 9 years old.
He stuffed his body into the hoodie he wore everyday, the one he stole from the department shop around the corner. Fuzzy on the inside, he buried his head in it and wrapped the sleeves over his hand. With his hands in hoodie’s pocket, he left the rooftop and out of the building.
He coughed into his hand, then watched his breath make little white puffs in the air. A prickling pain cut into his throat. Sniffling, he rubbed his nose and pushed the neckline of his hoodie above his mouth.
Kaiser snuck into his usual convenience stores. The ones where the sole employee laid sleeping on the counter or down at their phone. They’d sneak a peak at Kaiser at times coming in, but it wouldn’t interest them for long. Their boredom gave him enough time to sneak the food he needed into his pocket and slip out once they were distracted.
By the time he finished collecting everything he needed, the sun, too, had made a considerable portion of the way up. The lonely streets filled with people once again, mostly tired adults coming in for their early morning shift. Many didn’t spare a glance down, at the boy quietly walking by, his nose and mouth buried in his hoodie, his forehead flushed and his breathing sporadic.
Instead of worrying about his hot face, he clutched the items he stole in his pocket closer against his stomach. During times like these, he always felt the ache of his bruises stronger than before.
But as a result of hiding his face and looking closely at the ground, Kaiser did not look at his surroundings. For that reason, before he could prevent it, he struck someone head-on, and he fell back hard on the ground.
His arms instinctively went behind him to catch his fall, causing him to wince at the resulting pain striking up to his shoulders. The fall also caused the hoodie to be released away from his face. The cold air entered his throat and struck it. He began to cough violently.
“Oh dear god, are you okay?”
Kaiser covered his mouth and looked up. In front of him was a young woman with long dark hair and downturned eyes. Her voice was sweet, like the sounds of birds chirping in the spring. Her mouth was slightly open and her hand was raised in front of her, attempting to run between the lines of comforting the child and being defensive. Her expression twisted as her eyes laid upon him.
“You’re not hurt are you?” By this point, the woman abandoned her defensive position and crouched down in front of him. She was far too close for comfort.
What is she doing? Kaiser thought. He inched away from her, but this pulled his hand away from his mouth. The cold drew out another tear-inducing cough while his forehead and cheeks remained flushed and hot. He belatedly realized how heavily he had been breathing. How desperate he was to just breathe.
The woman was doing something strange. She mumbled something, turned, then shuffled around in her bag. Among her words to herself was “fever,” something Kaiser knew had to do with being “sick.”
In the movies his father watched, the ones he snuck a peek at behind the door of his room, a child became sick and their mother nursed them to health, sitting by their bed with a sad expression on their face.
Kaiser looked up at the woman. She was making the same expression. And it was directed at him.
The woman grabbed something and clutched it. “Here, let me help you.”
Her hand reached towards him.
In a split second, Kaiser lost all ability to breathe and think. The hand was no longer that of the woman, but of his father, ready to grab him for another hit.
He jolted back. He immediately covered his head with his arms in a defensive position. His throat fought back, coughing up saliva and phlegm.
He stumbled onto his feet and bolted past her. Her yells after him grew evermore distant with every second he ran, until her voice and that hand had long disappeared behind him. But even so, he kept running, covering his mouth with his sleeve. Until he arrived at an empty street, where the wind whipped around him and the cars screeched in his ears. He felt his pockets once again.
Nearly all the food was there. However, he had dropped a piece of bread. His breaths came out fast and short.
“Shit…” He mumbled to himself. He collapsed to his knees and covered his head with his arms. The scene of his father’s hand with the woman played in his mind, then again, and again.
“Piece of shit. You ran away. It’s not like it’ll be any different.” Tears pricked his eyes. He saw the woman’s expression again, her sad expression. Just like those he saw in the movies filled with loved children.
He angrily wiped his eyes and grabbed his neck. It pulsed in pain beneath his fingertips. The sleeves dropped down and the rough material of the cheap bandages scraped his face. Every movement taunted him now. Every sensation was torture.
“Stupid piece of shit.”
He moved his hand to grasp the food beneath the fabric. In the distance, a bell rang nine times. The snow tickled and kissed his hands. Kaiser wiped it off and got back on his feet. With another breath, these feelings and sensations would be gone.
And so it goes.
He started on his journey back, clutching the food he stole.
He wondered how his father would hit him today.
~
Kaiser opened his eyes. Instead of the sun peering through the window in its daily sunrise, he was staring at a wall made of metal panels nailed together. Instead of the bruises that were more of a nuisance than anything, the ache of a previous day’s training was plastered all over his body. He didn’t hear his father’s snoring, but instead the shuffling of the other Bastard Munchen members, readying themselves for another day of training in the Neo Egoist League.
A sense of annoyance crept up on him. He had another dream about that bastard again, even though he was long over that period of his life.
He blinked at the fuzziness encapsulating his vision. When he shifted to be more comfortable, resting his cheek on a colder side of the pillow, he belatedly realized how hot his face was. His breathing was going mainly through his mouth. When he took a breath in through his nose, he sniffled at his own congestion. An itchy prick buried itself in his throat.
He was sick. How annoying.
Kaiser closed his eyes again and moved the blanket up over his shoulders, against his mouth. Distantly, whispers circulated in the room until footsteps washed it away, going into and out the hall. Then, the room remained silent once again.
Shitty body, he thought to himself.
The silence tapped the walls. It was cold like winter’s air but brushed against him like a soothing hand. It knew not to get too close, but it grazed him just enough to hurt. Kaiser breathed into the fabric of the blanket.
However, just before the silence could begin to blare in ears, it was shattered by footsteps approaching the door. The sound was behind him, but he recognized it all the same. The door slid open and it entered the room.
“Kaiser?”
Just like a sad puppy, Kaiser thought. He knew this, he always does, but it never makes him stop hating it. The pain of the silence lifted completely away from him.
“What do you want,” he said. He didn’t say it like a question, but rather a demand.
Ness stepped closer to his bed, clearly attempting to be as quiet as he could without disturbing him. When he spoke, a sickening sweetness dripped in his voice.
“Are you alright? The others said that you were sick...”
“They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ll be up in an hour. Let me sleep.” Kaiser’s eyes were wide open now, but he stood by what he said. He buried his head in his arm, scraping the rough texture of his shirt against his face rather than the softness of the pillow. He breathed in deeper, hitting that painful itch once again at the back of his throat. All of the feelings and sensations of these pains soothed him once again.
From behind him, Ness stepped slightly closer. He stopped, then took another step, disrupting the silence with every one. Until finally, Kaiser felt the bed dip at its end and a weight pressing against his feet. Before he could say anything, Ness spoke instead.
“It’s lonely being here by yourself. So I thought I might keep you company.”
“Don’t you have anyone else to be with?” Kaiser mumbled, filling his voice with as much spite and malice as he could. Anything to drive him away and leave him to suffer alone.
“You’re the only one I need,” Ness said. He had a smile in his voice. “I’m happy as long as I can be with you.”
Kaiser did not say anything. Instead, he opened his eyes, and kept his gaze steady on the gray metal wall in front of him. He tried to focus on the painful sensation in his throat or the sickness’s heat flushing his face, but he couldn’t. Instead, he listened to Ness’s steady breathing.
“I’ll go get some food from the cafeteria.”
Kaiser simply grunted.
The door slid open and closed and the footsteps disappeared into the hall. Kaiser, once again left alone, only had the company of the silence now. The silence, dead as winter.
The feeling of human warmth by his feet lingered.
His body was so cold by comparison.