Often left to his own devices with his parents out for work for weeks and months at a time, Akira was like a cat. He came went from the house as he pleased, laid in all day on weekends and read comics or the odd book, played video games, banished Shirogane from the room on Saturdays from the moment he woke until he called Master and said he could come back.
To this day, almost a year after Shirogane had come to know Akira, he still hadn't figured out what he did on those Saturdays away from prying eyes. And no, he wasn't masturbating, Shirogane had asked one day and the response he got was not one of embarrassment but a simple 'Why would I do that?'
Akira was a bad liar to say the least so Shirogane was left with the mystery of the empty Saturday.
But the Saturday was beside the point, part of the bigger picture but not a large part of it. There were no lazy days just toiling around in bed all day, no comics, no games, not even the odd book and the banished Saturdays were no more. They were out of the house from six thirty in the morning to eight o'clock sharp on weekdays, no exception, no deviation.
Akira got up, made quick work of his morning routine and was out before anyone was awake. He came home, rushed through his evening routine and locked himself in his room and Shirogane meant he physically locked himself in. Every night. Without fail. Akira would hurry into his room, quietly close his door and dig a key out from behind a poster on his wall to lock his door before switching out his light, returning the key to its place and crawling into bed. On those nights he even went without supper.
Shirogane couldn't figure out why though. He didn't want to ask, as there was something fundamentally different about Akira in these moments, something tumultuous and dark. He couldn't ask, but no matter how hard he tried he could not figure what was driving Akira to be so... paranoid?
These times when others were in the house with them Akira withdrew from everything around him. He went to fewer classes than he hadn't ever before, retreated to the school roof and blocked the door with an old cinder block he brought up as a shin. Didn't speak to anyone, ignored even Kengo and no matter how many times the school councillor tried to corner him, he weaselled his way out and went to dwell in the old factory where he and Kengo used to play as kids. Until, at 7:37pm on the dot, he decided that it was time to go home and they'd be back by 8:00pm.
Why though?
They were polite to each other when interacting. Shirogane wasn't didn't know much about human parent-child relationships but distance and politeness at Akira's age was a good thing right? He often heard Kengo complain about his sister being too uncouth and over protective, even Aya had the occasional rant about her strict father being a little too overbearing. Akira's parents were not around all that often, but they were what humans considered nice when within each other's company.
Significantly stranger, however, was that Akira was far more uncomfortable around the woman than he'd ever been around the man.
He'd always wondered, always wanted to find out why, how, when, where. Always wanted to know everything that made Ryuuko's reincarnation tick, what made Akira tick. This time, unlike those mysterious empty Saturdays, he was able to find out.
#
Akira had been in bed for an hour now, curled up in his blanket with Shirogane watching over him as he did every night. The TV was on downstairs, its noise floating up to the silent room along with the occasional quick thudding of one loosing their balance and a high tinkle as yet another glass broke. He wondered why they didn't switch to plastic cups with how clumsy the woman was. The noise stopped, a light was flicked up and she was stomping up the stairs like an elephant stampede, less the trumpeting screech until she stood a top the landing at Akira's door and banged on it hard enough to rattle it in its door frame.
"Hey! You hear me in there bastard? Open this door!" She demanded.
Shirogane moved to the end of Akira's bed and faced the door as she wrenched the doorknob down, or, tried to, at least. The lock had it jerking to a halt before it could move down a centimetre. She tried again, slammed the door with her fist and a frustrated little scream and shook the door violently before banging on it again.
"Unlock this door you fucking brat! You hear me? I said unlock this door immediately!.. Hey!"
The door jumped in but didn't give way from her hit.
"Hey!"
Shirogane felt rather than heard Akira move, curling in on himself subtly, probably in the hopes that Shirogane wouldn't notice.
"Don't you ignore me Akira. Open this door or I'll beat your ass for disobeying me!"
Shirogane raised an eyebrow at the rattling door.
"Fucking brat, don't even respect your own mother! Don't go to classes, doesn't have a job, you're a fucking embarrassment to me! Unbelievable that something so selfish, useless and pathetic could be bore from me. Should have died along side your beloved grand papi in that accident."
The door was hit one more time before she went away and Shirogane let out a small sigh, of relief or sadness he couldn't quite tell with both feelings swirling away within him along with a healthy dose of fury. The door at the end of the hallway slammed shut, and once more, as it was every night, silence reigned thought his time with heavy toxicity. He looked down at Akira's form under the dooner cover but said nothing, knowing he'd get nothing in return for his troubles but hostility at this moment or worse, neutrality. He had to approach this at a later date when the woman was not in the vicinity and hadn't been for a long while or Akira would never speak to him.
Shirogane flopped back over Akira's feet and closed his eyes, oddly comfortable laying on the bony little feet Akira did not deign to move from under him. He could feel their coldness seeping through the dooner and into his back.
Calm swept over the night outside but failed to permeate the room. Akira's anxiety could be physically felt in the room, exuding from his ball in the middle of his bed and Shirogane could not think of a single way to calm him down until that woman was gone. Every shift from the outside world filled the room, every cricket, every ruffle of the wind through leafy trees, every odd passing car or stone falling from the window sill outside Akira's bedroom.
Glass shattered inward, Akira jumped back in shock and fear as the woman flew in with a battle cry and took Akira down with a hand around his neck and a shard of glass in her other. They fell in a tangle off the bed, rolling until she pinned him and lunged at him with the shard. He yelped as it cut deeply into his cheek, pieces braking off with the rough treatment before it shattered against his floorboards as she slammed the shard into them. Shirogane had shot to his feet, sword out in an instant and pointed at the two before he'd even processed what had happened.
"Little cunt!" She screamed, lifting her hand to her face and staring with rage at the blood dripping from her hand.
"It's all your fault! You ruin everything; I should have aborted you when I had the chance! You ruined my life! You fucking. Queer. Little. Bastard!"
Each shout was accompanied by a vicious attack, a punch, a slap, a clawing into the gash she'd sliced into his face before.
"Get off me!"
"Don't fucking talk back to me you disrespectful brat. Why, why didn't you die when I left you in that forest?" She yelled, wrapping her hands tightly around Akira's throat.
"Why didn't you die? Die, die, die, die, die! Just fucking die!"
Akira pushed ever weakly at the woman arms but to no avail, she wouldn't let go. His vision was spotting black and he wasted energy and oxygen struggling against her, against this. It had been a long time coming anyway. He tried to gasp a breath, saliva leaked from the side of his mouth, tears welled in his closing eyes, his throat burned and his neck ached.
If only it could end.
The sounds of her screeches faded out to little more than a blurry murmur in the background as blood rushed his ears, a flood of adrenaline rushed through him as his fingers fumbled their grip on the woman arms.
It could end right? Tonight, it could all just end
Behind the woman stood a spectre. One he'd been haunted by for months, almost a year now. Tall, dressed in black head to toe, cane in hand and long, tightly braided grey hair floating by his feet.
Silver, it's sliver.
"Shiro-.. gane..." The woman was wrenched off him, her hands recoiling as an unseen force dragged her from the body of her son and over to the window. She screamed and screamed, her terror waking half the street as Shirogane held her aloft out the window, dragging her bare legs over the jagged glass left over's still lodged in the sill. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until he dropped her and she hit the ground.
He turned to Akira then, gasping, coughing and shuddering on the floor. Hyperventilating but suffocating, tears streaming down his cheeks and setting the gash alight with an unforgiving burn. Shirogane stepped over to him quickly and knelt by his back. The lightest touch of his hand on Akira's shoulder had the child flinching violently away from him, but nothing more as a raucous coughing fit over took him. Shirogane dragged Akira upright and wrapped his arms around his torso, holding him down when he began to struggle and panic.
"Akira." He said softly, as he always did. "Akira breathe, it's okay now. She is gone. You're safe, I promise you are safe here, with me."
His entire body trembled just a tiny bit less with that. Shirogane couldn't imagine Akira actually registered what he was saying given how panicked he was, but finding that his voice alone calmed him was good enough for now. He felt Akira take his first deep, sustained gulp of oxygen.
"It's just me. It's Shirogane, I'm here with you now Akira. Come on, calm down, breathe deeply, close your eyes, I'll wipe your tears." He said, using the sleeve of his coat to dab at Akira's eyes. A wet hiccup preceded another breath of life and the shaking decreased yet again as Akira began to catch up with his situation and slowly, slowly recognise who was now holding him in warm arms, against a warm body with a familiar presence, a calming presence.
"That's it. Just breathe with me, relax now. I'm here for you."
"Sh. Shirogane?" His voice was raw and rough, hoarse from the savage choking and stress and fear.
"Yes, it's me."
Akira said nothing more as he turned into Shirogane and curled up close to him, face hidden against Shirogane's chest, shivering fingers twisted in Shirogane's coat lapels. Shirogane shifted for the new position and wrapped his arm around Akira again, more gentle than the last time though still as secure. He took deep measured breaths, forcing himself to calm down. His body never stopped trembling, but finally, he could breathe again, think again.
Together, Shirogane let them sit in silence for a long time, long enough for the pat pat pat of blood hitting his coat to stop as the wound coagulated and began to heal. It would scar him forever, both in body and spirit Shirogane thought.
"Akira, we should take a look at your cheek. It is dangerous to let such a wound stagnate."
"Don't move." Was the immediate reply, demand? Akira pressed closer, his hands shook a little harder, and Shirogane didn't move a muscle.
"A little bit longer then. But we will have to take care of it soon." He said, holding on just that little bit tighter. Akira hummed and they fell into silence once again, longer than the last, long enough for Akira to lose his tenuous hold on consciousness and slump, limp, into Shirogane. It was then he decided to care for his wounds, clean the room of blood, Akira's and the woman's, and the glass. The cold body of the woman lay in the garden beneath Akira's window and though he could have wondered why the humans had not called their police force to investigate the blood curdling screams from hours ago he didn't have to, as he already knew the answer. It wasn't a rare occurrence.
But Akira's metamorphosis was.