Weighty Matters
Disclaimer: don't own
Notes: Day 18 of the 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge by ghiraher on tumblr: orphan au
When had he stopped running? It seems like hours ago, days even, when he'd bolted out the open orphanage door, hopped the fence and charged down the sidewalk, no one at his heels but running like a gambler from the debt collector or a mailman from the fiercest dog, until his lungs are burning down to ashes and he's seeing spots in front of him and his body shudders and sweats like he's got a high fever. He feels feverish, delirious, done—he's out of there; it was foolish of him but he's miles away now, at the other end of the city crouched in an alleyway waiting for the vertigo to fade and his head to clear.
It was never clear back there, at the orphanage; he never had time to let it clear. They always assigned him to the chores and made him stand before prospective parents and have their eyes swoop over the funny-looking kid with the bruises and grey hair and they tried to make him presentable but it just didn't work. And then as he got older they treated him like a fucking slave, worked him in the kitchen all day and made him watch after the younger children who shrieked at him and spat in his face but were calm for the other bigger kids and all the adults, made him look like a liar when he said what little shits they were being.
Maybe it's payback for being a little shit himself, but he'd always had Nijimura to beat him up for it, Nijimura whose name is probably something else now, who'd been adopted by an elderly couple looking for an older kid to take care of them in their old age. They'd swooped down one day and taken him all in an afternoon; when Haizaki had gotten back from playing basketball on the street he and all his worldly possessions (not that he'd had much; not that any of them had had much; not that Haizaki has anything now except the clothes on his back) had vanished into thin air, and Haizaki had nothing to remember him by but his faulty brain, has suffered head hits since then that make him doubt his own memory even more.
Not that Nijimura was Haizaki's any more than he was anyone else's. Nijimura was everyone's dependable older kid, the one who helped with a soft voice and easy grin but kicked the shit out of you if you were slacking off or doing things you weren't supposed to be doing. And yet no one else had paid Haizaki any mind at all—Nijimura kicked and punched him, yelled at him, but it's a damn sight more than anyone else had ever done for him, so it felt like Nijimura was more his, and he couldn't let go. He had to keep coming back, make Nijimura notice him, and when Nijimura vanished so did his reason for existing. Well, that sounds lame and overdrawn like some TV drama that all the middle school girls coo and cry over, but maybe his life is some lame kind of shitty drama because he's an orphan who ran away from the group home and he's lost and alone in the city but then again this is real life. No one's going to save him and he's never been good at saving himself. Maybe he'll end up dead in the gutter, throat slit by a crazy homeless person or some serial killer or a vigilante who wants to enforce strict curfews. That'll show those assholes who run the orphanage then; they'll be sorry he's gone.
Maybe they're happy that they finally got rid of him, the kid they just couldn't unload on some unfortunate couple. He's heard them speak of him behind closed doors and thin walls when they think he's sleeping, of what a problem he is. It's not like he couldn't figure it out anyway, from the looks of disgust they give him that they don't even try to disguise.
"You'd better not be feeling sorry for yourself."
Haizaki blinks the spots out of his eyes. Did he run so hard he started to hallucinate? Or is that really him?
"Nijimura?"
"Use proper honorifics when you're speaking to me," he says, flicking Haizaki on the forehead.
It hurts like a bitch but at least it's shocking the vertigo and a little bit of the self-pity from his mind, replacing them with other things he doesn't really want to name right now.
"Where the fuck have you been? Showing up to just play guardian angel, huh? Or did they hire you to come after me?"
"Who? As if I'd chase you for money. Get your head out of your ass. I just saw you and thought you were a sick dog, but I should be so lucky."
"Shut the fuck up. I know you hate me just as much as everyone hates me. So just leave me the fuck alone, damn it! If you came here to taunt me I don't give a shit. I don't need you. I don't need anyone. I'd rather starve than accept your—"
Nijimura slams him against the wall, knocks the wind out of him; Haizaki chokes on air and struggles to breathe.
"I don't know what your problem is or why you're here but if you'd have let me finish I'd offer you a place to stay. You're lucky I'm forgiving and that I know you and how much you fuck things up for yourself because you mess up all your chances before they're even given to you. You haven't grown up at all in the last three years. Not one bit."
Haizaki stares at his face, wide-eyed, still trying to regain his breath. Nijimura stares back, a certain wildness in his expression. Finally, his fingers uncurl from around Haizaki's shoulders and Haizaki knows there will be fresh bruises tomorrow, greenish-blackish-purple, four streaks on each side. Nijimura grabs his hand and pulls.
"Let's go. I need to get home and cook dinner."
Haizaki still can't breathe properly.
"You're helping."