Warning: AU; no mafia. Also, the characters are somewhat OOC. And expect much, much vagueness.
AN: Written for my school magazine. Thus the reason for the ambiguity of it all (and because the vagueness felt suitable). And the no mafia thing. I didn't really want to weird out my fellow schoolkids with crazy hitman tutor babies.
Dull brown eyes glance at the bigger boys' backs. His body aches and his ankle screams with pain despite his lack of movement. Pieces of fish and grains of rice are scattered on the ground beside him, his lunch box thrown haphazardly as well. Children's laughter comes from the other side of the park, but here it is quiet—secluded.
The boys take one last glance at him and laugh.
He is nine and he thinks that life is not worth it.
He looks down at the blonde man snoring on the floor. He kicks the bottle of alcohol next to the man and watches it roll away with contempt. He glances back at the man and sneers at the stupid grin on his bearded face.
He hates this man who is always working and who is never there, who never cares when he is there. He hates this man who leaves his wife and his son behind for his ambitions.
He is eleven and he learns to hate his father.
He bows his face. A bright red '15' glares mockingly at him from the paper. His hair is long enough and shields his face from the sneers of his classmates. The teacher's lecture does not drown out their mocking whispers and derisive laughter. A failure as always, the whispers say. He grips the paper tighter but he is far too used to this to let the tears fall.
He hates the world, this ugly world and its selfish occupants with their twisted smiles. The world does not accept failures like him, and so he returns the favour.
He is twelve and he learns to hate the world.
He leaves school early that day. There is no need for him to continue the day. He is a failure, clumsy and stupid. It is not like anyone will care. His teachers will probably be glad that a failure like him is absent, and his classmates will only mourn for the loss of someone to bully.
He turns the knob and halts in surprise when he finds his mother on the doorstep. She is still in her work clothes, meaning she has probably just come home from work.
He feels like someone has punched his gut when her face fell. His mother, who has stood strong for him, who has comforted him time and time again, who is never without smiles for her failure of a son, who is always there for him; his mother, who he has taken her smile from.
He stands frozen in front of his mother who he loves so very much and for the first time in his life, he truly feels as if he is worse than trash.
He is thirteen and he learns to hate himself.
"W-what? Tutor?" He is shocked and he gapes at the man standing in front of him, a confident smirk that makes him want to hate the man on the man's tanned face.
The man does not deign to reply and instead exploits his moment of surprise to grip the neck of his sweater and drag him up the stairs.
He is too shocked by the treatment—isn't this against the law or something?—to protest when the man drops him in front of his study desk in his room and pulls out a large stack of papers. The papers turn out to be worksheets and the man tells him to do one. He follows the man's instructions with a muffled grumble.
He does it half-heartedly, already knowing that he would not get anything right. He almost regrets it when he soon learns that he will be whapped with a paper fan for every answer he gets wrong.
He gets almost all the questions wrong. The man shows him how to do them, and tells him to do the worksheet again. The man checks it when he is finished and he is still whapped numerous times, but the man also gives him an approving nod and he wonders why his chest feels warm.
The man turns out to be a friend of his mother. The man does not stop at his academics; the man trains him every morning and evening until his muscles aches and his body is down from fatigue. The man pushes him into talking to different people, even going so far as to introduce the man's own nephews and colleagues to him.
The man takes his life by storm, turning it upside down and he struggles to adapt to every new turn his life suddenly takes.
He is thirteen years and nine months old and he is tired and confused and he forgets to hate.
"Don't do it!" he shouts at the teen on the edge of the rooftop. His breaths come in ragged pants. Behind him, the others' hurried footsteps thundered in the stairwell. "Don't do it," he pleads. "Please."
The boy looks back with hollow green eyes. "Why?"
He bites his lip but it fails to keep his rage, his worry contained. "Why? You are our friend, that's why!" Tears were streaming down his cheeks, wetting them, but he does not care. His voice carries over the blaring horns of the traffic below. "You are our precious friend. S-so," he says through the lump in his throat, "let's go back, okay?"
He trudges through the snow, his legs long ago numb from the cold, and reaches out. He struggles for words, for anythingto say; anything to wash away the apathy of the other. Memories flash in his mind; memories of laughter and warmth and smiles and promises. "We promised, didn't we? We promised to watch the fireworks again, together with everyone, next year."
"You're not alone anymore, you know."
A step. Relief chokes his soul and makes it hard to breathe, but that's fine because the other's hand is in his now and he smiles through the tears because there is finally life back in those green eyes. The adrenaline leaves his veins and he falls onto the other, clutching the other to him and relishing in the heat of the other's body beneath the cold of the jacket.
The other's body is warm and not cold (not dead).
It is not until later, when they are warm in his house and the teen has been chastised and everyone is laughing and joking again that he realises with a surprised blink that he has called the boy his friend and implied that the others are his friends as well.
Behind his mug of hot chocolate, he smiles.
He is fifteen and he realises he is truly happy.
He turns to look at his two suns, his mother and his tutor, and warmth pooled in his chest when he sees the bright smile on the former's face and the upwards quirk of lips of the latter's. He waves goodbye to them and joins his friends with a content smile.
As they walk to the amusement park, he thinks that maybe the world is not so ugly, that maybe he can find in himself forgiveness for his father, and that maybe he is not such a failure after all.
He is fifteen years and seven months old and he thinks that maybe life is worth it.
AN: Don't ask me why Gokudera tried that. I don't know either. I do that a lot; writing random things without thinking much. orz
I wasn't going to post it here due to the OOCness (I feel rather chagrined at my perfectionist attitude), but I figured since a certain someone that read it didn't say anything about it, I'd take the risk and put it here.
Also, I looked back at my drabbles and found them severely lacking. Especially in the emotion part. Daaaamn. I need to improve.