"Everything happens for a reason."
That was one of the first memories she had of her mother, when she was too young to understand what was going on, still holding tightly to her mother's skirt and using it to hide from her father's family. It had been the day of her father's burial when her mother had said those words to her.
Those words rang hollow in her ears now as the heart monitor flatlined. Doctors and nurses swarmed around her mother's lifeless body, one of them pulling her hand from her mother's and guiding her from the room. Only minutes had passed before a doctor emerged with a solemn look saying, "I'm sorry, Miss Honda. We tried to revive your mother but…she has passed. Is your father here?"
"My dad is dead," she said, her voice cracking. "I can…I can call my grandfather."
The doctor frowned and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I am sorry for your loss, Miss Honda."
And that is the last thing she wanted to hear.
"It's all your fault, you know that?"
That simple sentence uttered to him with such loathing had something of a scarring effect on his entire childhood. It didn't matter how many times Kazuma hugged and whispered I love you and I'm proud of you because something deep within his heart told him that he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve any of it.
The feeling only grew as he entered adolescence and as he started to pick fights more and more. It buried itself in his gut and festered like a cancerous tumor, eating him away day by day. Kids in his class teased him for his unusual coloring, knowing they would get a reaction out of him, and he always took the bait. It wasn't until one of the teachers made a comment about how poorly Kazuma must have been raising him that he realized how much that feeling was hurting Kazuma as well.
"Kyo, just wait here for your father," a teacher said, exasperated as she began to leave the room.
He stood up and kicked over his chair. "Fuck you," he said. "Don't call him my father! He's not my father!"
And that hurt look in Kazuma's eyes almost made everything worse.
"So, what if you're a tool?"
Sometimes, he wondered if his destiny was to be someone only living a half-life, someone whose only purpose was to be used by others. Maybe it would be easier to accept that fate. After all, his mother had made it very clear from the very beginnings of his childhood that he was nothing without her, without Akito, and therefore he should just give up now.
Now here he was, a half functional teenager who had just hidden around the corner from his past. But he knew full well that it would find him eventually and that his cheap trick had barely bought him enough time to catch his breath. Well, it was rude to call Shigure taking him in a 'cheap trick,' maybe, but half the time he felt as if his older cousin just did it for his own amusement. That man didn't seem to have a selfless bone in his body.
"Oh Yuki, are you trying to cook dinner again?"
He sighed and glared at Shigure. "What about it?"
"You know it'll never work out kid. You should just give up."
And that was the thing he feared the most.
I'm gonna keep this short and sweet but thank you for taking the time to read! As of posting this (1/31/19) I'm still figuring out the plotline and how I want to pan this story out, but I will try to get the next chapter up as soon as I can! Thank you!