The first lie he learned: "I love you."

He heard it first from her, oozing out with the tears as she cradled his sore body to bed. It stank of wine and made his throat clench, but it was a sign that the storm of hands had calmed, that Mom was back and the monster was gone. When she hugged him and lied into his ear, he'd hug back just as tight and wish, Please stay.

She always cried after those dark nights. Great, heaving sobs that Kano could hear from his room, shaking the quiet house like a gust. When day came her eyes were red and she'd smile at him. Whatever he wanted to do, she would let him do it. "Good boy," she'd murmur. "You're a good boy, Shuuya." And, for a while, she wouldn't drink the terrible blood red that unchained the sleeping beast.

But a while was not forever. Always, always there was something that drew her back to the cabinet. A shouting match over the telephone, bills filled with negative numbers, tests marked with 50s and 60s…

Those were the harbingers of the monster's awakening.

He let it hit him. For the first thousand blacks and blues slapped across his skin he would stay quiet, because talking back only made it angrier. Good boys didn't talk back to their mothers or cry, but one night the storm roared to a hurricane and scarlet flew from his lips and he couldn't help but scream, "Stop! I love you! Stop!"

Words, that was all they were, blind noises torn from the throat in an animal panic. But they did what his tears couldn't. He felt Mom shaking as she came back and held him close, voice hissing frantically, "Good boy, my good boy, my baby, my strong boy, I love you, my dear baby, I'm sorry, Mommy's sorry—"

In time, he would recognize those lies as well.

The second lie he learned: smile.

Something magical happened when he smiled. The kids treated him nicer. The teachers ignored him. And Mom, on the bright days, stayed Mom for a little longer. The smiles hurt his cheeks when he wore them day after day, but the adults rarely asked questions from a happy boy. When they noticed the swelling of his face, he was ready.

"I was playing baseball with my brother," he lied to them. "I fell down the stairs." He hid the colors on his skin beneath long sleeves, so they couldn't see the truth. He didn't want the stares to linger on him like a pitying slime, coating him wherever he went. He didn't want to hear their whispers, 'poor boy, sad little thing' buzzing around him like white noise. He wasn't poor or sad—Mom was. He had to smile to stay the good boy she wanted, so life would be easier for her.

He couldn't scream.

He couldn't cry.

The happy child of a happy mother never rocked in the dark with a pillow clutched close or tried to hide in the closet. If he behaved, he would never have to face storms in the kitchen, would only know gentle breezes and sunlit gestures, soft touches against bruised cheeks. If he behaved, she wouldn't have to reach for the slick bottle tucked behind the sugar…

Even as he wobbled to the bathroom, he tried to smile at the mirror, because they were a happy family and he was her good son—

I'm fine.

You pitiful boy. Even now, you're trying to lie.

His head throbbed. Everything swayed as if he were on a ship, his reflection a smudge of red and black.

I'm fine.

You'll die with a smile on your face. Is that what you want?

He tried not to cry. But every inch of his skin felt as if it'd been scraped across a blacktop and the tears dropped even as he slapped his hands over his face to muffle the ugly noise escaping his mouth.

I'm fine. I'm fine. I can't let Mom see. I can't let her see. I can't, I can't, she'll go away if she sees—

… then open your eyes. Keep on lying.

His stinging eyes began to burn.

Outside, he heard the monster scream. Glass crashed onto the floor. When the social workers found him he was slumped against the toilet. He sobbed, but all they could see was a laughing boy.

The third and final lie he learned: "It'll be okay."

That was their answer when he asked for his mother, when he opened his mouth to speak. They chanted it as they sent him to the orphanage, the workers cooed it to him. Everywhere he turned, those words were shoved at him.

He didn't hate them. He knew they meant well with their empty sympathies, but the lies they pounded into his face like a spike set his teeth on the edge. He smiled and laughed for them, but they wouldn't leave him alone. A brand flitted through their ranks, settling on Kano, burning into his core:

Broken.

They would label Seto too, and Kido would join them. They became nothing more than damaged goods, taken out only for show to soothe the egos of those better off. The world didn't care. So the three of them with hands clenched tightly together swore they wouldn't either. If the world didn't want them, they would push it away.

I hate this world.

When his eyes drunk the red of the spilled wine and bloody noses of that night he discovered this truth. He wrapped it beneath measured smiles and jokes, painted it as something pettier with a loud mouth and louder laugh. Though his resolve wavered in the bright presence of Ayano, it anchored him, a festering, dark weight.

Red could be the color of the hero for the others. But for the son of a monster, it could only be a despicable hue. For him, there was no salvation in believing the lies he parroted to the others.

And so, as he danced from story to story, juggling words with the ease of a practiced pierrot, he learned a liar's first and only rule:

Don't stop.