New Father

Prologue: Oga

It took far longer than I remembered to walk here from the station... probably wouldn't have taken as long if I'd gotten off at the right one. Ah well, you live and learn, right?

Not in my family I guess. Damn it, I thought I was done with this.

In my 16 years I have lost pretty much every member of my family, one way or another.

My mother set the trend by dying giving birth to me; at that point nobody knew that fate hadn't finished messing with our family.

After she died it was down to my dad, by himself, to look after me and Misaki (my sister). She's was 10 when I was born; so she ended up taking care of me until dad got off work, in an evening and during the holidays. It wasn't easy but we were all happy in our 3-person family... at least until I was 6.

I was laying on the sofa watching some anime on the TV, Misaki let me watch it while she was cooking dinner, when I heard the phone ring. I remember shouting through to the kitchen.

"Misaki, the phone!"

"I've got something frying so could you get it for me? I don't want it to burn." Misaki replied over her shoulder before turning back to the pan in front of her.

"Sure." I called back as I walked over to grab the phone; as I walked over to have my world fall apart.

The call had been from the police to let us know that dad had bled out after being stabbed in a mugging gone wrong.

After that, at only sixteen, Misaki became the sole guardian of 6 year old boy. She later told me that I had cried for days till I was eventually dry of tears and only then did she send me back to school.

So then our, now, family of 2 began our life together. To help me get over dad's death, my sister signed me up at the local karate dojo. Turned out I was a natural. At age 14 I even got into the national championship... didn't place, but off the back of that I got offered a scholarship to join this sports school where they would let me move up through both their middle and high schools.

I knew that Misaki and her new husband were looking to start a family, and the school was offering me to let me live in their boarding house for free, so I decided to get out of their hair.

Misaki didn't wait long. A few months later she told me she was pregnant and ended up giving birth to green haired (none of us had any idea how that happened) baby boy a year after I left the house.

They named the brat Bando Leo (Leo was the name of the guy who ran the orphanage that her husband was raised at). It didn't take long, however, for me to give him his nickname.

Beel.

You wouldn't have believed it to look at him, but the little guy could scream. Having come back to stay with them over winter break I learned the migraine inducing potential of the kid first hand. Not only that but he just didn't sleep. By that point I was calling him a devil-child whenever my sister wasn't in the room but a word from the wise... always check behind you.

After one smack on the top of your head from a freshly washed frying pan (wielded by a very sleep deprived new-mother) you learn to be a bit smarter.

I did some research looking for the worst dudes in mythology till I stumbled upon Beelzebub. Apparently he was some big bad demon dude in Christianity who was also known as the Lord of Flies (if you ever changed one of his diapers you would see how fitting the name was). The genius of the name was if I shortened it to the first 2 syllables it sounded like the start of the kid's name in romaji. It was perfect; Misaki even praised me for getting close enough to use a pet name.

I was coming back to spend winter break, with Misaki and her new family, when fate played its final card.

Snow had been falling hard for the last few days so my sister and her husband said they would pick me up from the train station rather than make me walk through it. After I got off the train I sat around for over half an hour, waiting for them to arrive. I would have called them but my phone had died on the train so I had no way to contact them so I just decided I would walk to their house and either berate them for forgetting about me or call from their home phone to tell them to come back.

After trudging through the snow for half an hour I finally reached their home and, realising none of the nights were on, collected a sleeping Beel from the old lady next door (they usually left him with her when they needed to go out past his bedtime). After laying him down in his crib I decided to pilfer their kitchen rather than call them right away... recompense for leaving late to collect me. Just as I finally found something the phone started to ring.

Croquette in mouth, I sauntered over to the phone wholly expecting my sister to be on the other end; so much so that I was already preparing my smarmy reply to her "Why the hell didn't you wait for us".

So, reply firmly fixed in my head, I picked up the phone, smirk plastered on my face.

"Hello. Is this the Bando residence? I am calling on behalf of the police department, with whom am I speaking?" this deep voice was definitely not Misaki's. Deja-vu froze me for several moments as I recalled a call from almost 10 years ago.

"Excuse me, but with whom am I speaking?" the resonating voice of the police officer at the other end of the repeated.

"Oga", my throat was dry but I dutifully cleared it "Oga Tatsumi, I'm Mr Bando's brother in law."

"Ah, I'm very sorry to inform you there has been an accident involving Mr Bando's car. Unfortunately, neither of the occupants of the car survived the collision."

The call lasted for several more minutes as the policeman gently told more details of the crash. Apparently they had slipped on the icy roads and made contact with... something. I'm sure he told me but all I hear was the buzzing in my ears. As I looked over at the baby, sleeping blissfully in the corner, all I could think was that he would never see his parents again.

Several days later I realised I had to make a decision. With no other family members to speak of, on either side, I had to choose whether to take him to an orphanage or whether to raise him myself.

Misaki had left almost no savings behind. This house was rented with the proceeds from renting out the house I'd grown up in. We had left there when I was 12, after Misaki got married, so that they could live closer to where he worked. For some reason she had never sold it (maybe she had planned on giving it to me some day) so that mean I would have a place to live. I had already contacted my school to ask if the scholarship would extend to a dependant; but they refused saying that they couldn't have a baby in the dormitory and couldn't make my scholarship any larger.

With no financial aid there was no way I could afford day-care for Beel and still attend school. I'd promised Misaki, years before, that I would attend college and do her proud; that meant dropping out was not an option.

Misaki had, when she was the same age as I am now, become my guardian when we were left with nobody else. As a last resort I decided to contact the school near to where our family home was if they could give me money to put Beel in day-care while I was attending their school.

"Ha! I can't afford to put new doors on my classrooms but you think we can afford to care for your kid every day? Ha!" The principal cracked up while shooting down my last hope.

"Isn't there anything you can do? I'm this kid's only living relative and this is our very last option." I begged as my guilt at failing my sister started to overwhelm me.

"Well I guess you could bring him with you..." the principal said, voice laden with trepidation.

"Done! See you on Monday." Clicking off before he had the chance to take the offer back.

I'd done it. I'd found a place for Beel and me. When I discovered that the family home had recently been vacated I figured it must have been divine providence.

So I packed up mine and Beel's lives into boxes and set off for the family home. Me and Beel on the train and all the boxes in a removal van coming tomorrow.

So here I am, a 16 year old guy with baby on his back (in a carrier of course you don't expect a 1 year old to hang on by himself right?). Standing in front of a house that is full of memories of a now dead family; with a weird looking kid that I can barely stand; and to top it off I have to try and get into a college based on the education of a place that can't afford to replace the classroom doors...

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Screw it, what's done is done. Tomorrow I'll go and see if Furuichi is still around, he was always good to mooch things from.

So this is my first go at writing anything like this. I wanted to the prologue quite a bit shorter than this but realised I needed this much to make it believable that someone would bring a 1 year old to school with him.

Hilda is going to be half-German and a member of the red tails. Not a leader but a reluctant member. Oga and her will meet in the next chapter.

So do you think I should continue writing this? Please review to let me know that you read it and what your opinion is. Good or bad I don't mind, I just want feedback.

Thanks for reading this long and hope to talk to you again.