Summary:
Sawada Atsuko is an angry child, bitter and resentful. Atsuko is an angry teen, curling inward and lashing out. Tsuko is a young woman, given up on anger, who finds that when you've been through a ton of shit, then stuff just stops bothering you so much. And it certainly feels nice not to be bothered for once. [Gendbend!All]
Disclaimer:
I don't own KHR!, or the cover picture.
Sawada Atsuko is an angry child.
Who gets, well, angry.
A lot.
It seems like most of her days are spent in an annoyed, irritated haze, until it builds up and up and up and up until it's too high and everything spills over and she's just-
Angry.
To be fair, there's a lot for her to be angry at, rightfully angry at, throughout her childhood.
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Age 0 -
That man, that man who does not deserve to be called her father, her dad, her 'Tou-san' or whatever other cutesy nickname Nana probably insisted on cooing into her infant ears.
That man just leaves.
Like, what the hell?
You just leave your new-born daughter and tired-out wife in a hospital after a day?
Nana tries 'explaining', of course, later, when Atsuko's older and demands to know why her male parent is never around.
(Atsuko has to ask, bluntly, if he'd dead before Nana finally gives in and consents to tell her about him.)
'Explaining' with fancy words and soothing euphemisms and dreamy sighs and earnest vouches for his loyalty, love, faith, strength, blah-blah-blabbity-blah.
Hah.
Atsuko may have been slower on the uptake than she'd like in her younger years, but what Nana spouts is a familiar spiel that she's heard many times before, in many different variations, all boiling down to the same label.
"Excuses."
She hates excuses.
And they're far from being the only thing she hates.
Learning to detest something, to be so utterly disgusted and outraged by it's presence…
Once Atsuko got her first taste of bitter, powerful hatred, she's loathe to let it be.
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Age 1-
That man has the nerve to show up at her house.
To invade her territory.
Atsuko toddles steadily to the door, clambers carefully up on the footstool Nana had foolishly left out unattended again, and twists open the doorknob and pulls, with a grunt of effort and a glimmer of pride.
A blond, foreign stranger is standing on her doorstep.
Carrying a fluffy, garish bouquet of so many roses they threaten to spill onto the floor.
Grinning a stupid grin that sparkled with obliviousness.
Atsuko frowns suspiciously at the stranger, and prepares to unleash a warning growl.
Or warning bite, in case the growl isn't enough.
"Hey, my little Tuna-fish! Hahaha, you look just like your mother and me, eh? Taking after the old man?"
Okay, straight to the bite, then, because:
Her name is not any fish. Much less that yucky pink slop Nana always has stored in the cabinets.
She did not belong to anyone. He had no right to call her 'my'.
Insult her height, and you're dead.
Then she pauses, and rewinds what the stranger says.
'Mother and me'.
'Taking after the old man'.
Ah.
So this was the trash that had unfortunately been her sperm donor?
[In Italy, another being that reeked, survived, and thrived on hatred sneezed. "Tch, stupid trashes, can't do anything right," Xanxus muttered, for lack of anyone else to blame.]
Well, the sparkles and obliviousness certainly explains how they could've hitched up.
Atsuko says, with complete seriousness that nearly looked comical on her angelic features, her first sentences.
"Hate you. Go away, stupid."
Then she promptly lets go of the door.
It slams shut, right in his idiotic face.
Good.
She fervently hoped that his ugly roses dropped dead as well.
(Nana finds out, and lets in the 'deadbeat bum'.
"Your tou-san is called Iemitsu," Nana scolds.
Nothing can sway Atsuko from persistently calling him 'that deadbeat bum'.
It's the only way that she'll even acknowledge his existence for the two weeks that he stays with them, so they let it slide.)
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Age 2-
Nana goes shopping with friends, again.
She drops Atsuko off at the park, again.
"Be a good girl and play here while kaa-san goes shopping, okay, Tsu-chan? Kaa-san will be back in three hours. You'll be fine, right?"
A pat on the back, an absent-minded one-armed hug, a shining beam, and she's off, humming a little nonsense tune.
Leaving an unattended two-year-old child alone in a park for hours, again.
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.
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Sometimes Atsuko wonders if Nana is any better than that man.
But while she's fond of stoking hatred's fires, she supposes that Nana, at the very least, is a secure anchor in her life, (usually) providing food, (almost always) providing shelter, (mostly) providing clothing.
Nana occasionally forgets she has a daughter, has a responsibility, and forgets to cook for two.
That's okay; Atsuko rummages through the pantries, cranks on the stove, and self-teaches herself basic cooking skills by age 2.
Nana occasionally forgets to check on her daughter, to make sure she's actually inside, and forgets to call her in.
That's okay; Atsuko burrows under the roots of her backyard tree, buries herself amid a nest of leaves, and falls asleep outside dreaming dreams of hating locked doors and hating cold chills and hating humid heat.
Nana occasionally forgets to buy new clothes for her daughter, what her daughter's sizes (age) are, and forgets to mend the rips.
That's okay; Atsuko wears what she has, cultivates an image of ratty rebellion, and glares with a promise at anyone who looks at her the wrong way.
She'll never change.
For better, or for worse, even though her current treatment of Atsuko is that of a particularly airheaded owner caring for a beloved pet when she remembers too.
(Emotional treatment is bordering on outright neglect.
Atsuko learns to not expect anything other than a smile and pat when she runs to Nana with a new scrape from bullies.
Atsuko learns to fight back, to get angry and rage and hate, until she stops getting scraped, because Nana doesn't care, doesn't notice.
It must be nice, Atsuko thinks enviously, to live in a world of your own perfection.
Where nothing else matters.)
So while Atsuko won't hate Nana like she hates that man…
Well, there's still a reason why she's never called Nana 'kaa-san' after she learned what her name was.
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It takes five hours before Nana comes to pick her up.
Atsuko's tired and hungry and a bit cold, so she lets Nana carry her home.
She's glad it's a night when Nana didn't forget to cook.
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In which Fem!Tsuna's Hyper Intuition activates early, she hears how many excuses and lies people tell each day, and basically hates the world while acting somewhat like Hibari.
Or maybe it's just her ingrained bullshit-detector manifesting very strongly.
(Inspiration from Discoabc's gloriously au-what-au-what-is-this-canon-you-speaketh-of 'Kyoko.')
Atsuko = 'Honest Child'
And when I write Gendbend!All, I actually mean Gendbend!All-Decimo-Guardians-and-General-Generation. Kinda? I dunno.
Will update sporadically in segment of 3.
So, next update is ages 3-4-5, and luckily I have 5 written out, and I know how I want 3 and 4 to go.
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-Review. Please. I NEED REVIEWS. Like, rawr.-