A/N: Hello :) There are definitely not enough Akamura fics out there :P This series will revolve around those two and will cover several aspects of their live, this is how they met in my mind when they were younger :)
Maybe you think one of them or both are a bit OC, but i think they weren't always the same, life changes people.
And also, yes, this is going to be a fic with hinted and definite shounen ai, but nothing explicit, so if you don't like it, don't read :)
This chapter has no shounen ai, though.

Read, enjoy and maybe review? :)

Disclaimer: i don't own anything :(

„Come on, baby, don't make me drag you out here."

Sighing, a middle aged woman looked over her shoulder, watching a boy dragging his feet and head hanging low.
The boy wore an elementary school uniform, complete with a cute little blue tie, but something looked a bit off.
It wasn't his violet hair or the sad, insecure frown, it wasn't the way he was fidgeting with his white shirt either, but he was way too tall for a student that was about to leave for his first day at the elementary school!

"Atsushi, honey – " his mother said, turning around and kneeling down in front of him, gently cupping his face and placing a kiss on his forehead.

" – you'll be fine. You just be a good boy and I am sure you'll find friends right away!"

But all of her efforts to calm the poor boy down seemed to be useless.

"They'll laugh at me…"

His mother shrugged and grinned.

"So what? Laugh right back at them! None of them are nearly as cute or as strong as you are, they're just jealous."

The boy sighed and averted his eyes.

"That won't get me any friends…"

"Oh baby, friends that don't respect you for who you are, are no friends."

Small hands wrapped around hers and the little Atsushi shook his head.

"I don't want to be alone again… the kids here don't like me…"

Chuckling, his mother got up.

"Well that's because you broke one of the kid's nose, just don't do that and you'll be having no trouble finding friends."

Still not convinced, Atsushi shook his head and took a step back, but was caught by the hand.

"Nope, you are going, and you are going now! If you are a good boy and behave, I'll buy you any candy you want to afterwards, okay?"

Instantly, the boy's gaze shot up and his eyes began to shine.

"Really?"

His mother nodded and crossed her heart.

"Promise."

"Goodbye Mother, I'm leaving."

A little boy, dressed in an elementary school uniform and with bright red hair glanced over his shoulder, hand on the doorknob.
He listened for any noises or sounds, his mismatched eyes searching for a sign.
But nothing came.
Face blank, he picked up his little red backpack, glancing at the name that was written on it in a neat, pretty font.

'Akashi Seijuro'

His mother had given her all when she wrote it, Akashi remembered.
She had been so happy that he had gotten into the school of her choice, and that day they had both gone out for ice cream and to buy his school stuff…
It had been a good day, but today was a bad day.

"Like I said, Mother, I'm leaving."

Still no answer.
This time, Akashi didn't hesitate to open the door and lock it up after leaving the house.
He caught himself grinding his teeth, and commanded himself to stop immediately, that was no way to behave.

With little but determined steps, little Akashi made his way to the school, which was rather close by.

Right now, Murasakibara Atsushi would do practically anything to be a tiny little mouse.
The whole class sat in a circle and children got up, one at a time, to introduce themselves, and he knew that the time for him to stand up came closer and closer…
All the other children sat comfortably on their little chairs, where "little" Atsushi had troubles finding a comfortable position for his legs that didn't seem to be willing to obey.
He let out a frustrated sigh and imagined what it would be like to be a cute little mouse…
Well, he'd probably get eaten, by a cat, or if he was a chocolate mouse, filled with delicious cream…
Hmm, what would it be like to be candy? And what kind of candy was he supposed to get later that day?
While thinking about delicious treats, Atsushi's eyes grew distant and a goofy smile appeared on his face.
In his mind, he was going through all the options he had, maybe he could get something salty? Or that jumbo lollipop his mother kept refusing to buy?

"Murasakibara-kun?"

But then again, would she buy it today?

"Murasakibara-kun, it's your turn now."

Atsushi was ripped out of his thoughts, the moment the boy next to him snapped his fingers, right in front of Atsushi's eyes.
The tall boy let out an annoyed growl and scowled.
He didn't like to be treated like a dog, and he hated to be distracted from thinking about candy!

"What?" he asked, glaring at the boy.

The boy's face grew pale and he pointed at the teacher.
Atsushi looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

"It's your turn to tell us about yourself, Murasakibara-kun, or can I call you Atsushi-kun?"

Atsushi blushed, suddenly aware that he must have looked like an idiot and shrugged.
Reluctantly, he got up and immediately began fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

"My name is Murasakibara Atsushi, and, uh… I like playing and, uh, I really like, uhm… candy, I guess."

He didn't really know what else to tell these children…
Their eyes on him made him rather nervous and he was scared to be judged right away, especially because all of them had to strain their necks to look up at him anyway…

One of the girls raised her hand.

"Yes, Mio-chan?"

The girl smiled and gave Atsushi a curious look.

"Why are you so tall?"

The class began to giggle and began to whisper.

"Well – " Atsushi began, staring at the ground.

" – My mummy said I started growing early and I just grew so tall."

The teacher motioned him to sit down and smiled at the kids.

"What Atsushi is trying to explain is that he has a growth disorder.
There are many people who have that, and he just grows taller than most people, but I am sure it's nothing to make a deal of, right?"

The class agreed, but Atsushi heard the snickers and saw the grins.
There would be something to deal with, he thought grimly.

When Akashi stepped outside into the big playground during the recess, he took a deep breath.
The class was actually better than he had expected, granted, there were some stupid childish idiots, but then again, they were only children, he thought.
Most had already accepted him as a kind of leader of the class, but as always, the kids didn't want to play with him.
He looked down on them and they disliked it, but feared him enough to respect him as someone superior, clever of them.

But as he stood out here, in the shade of a tree, it felt kind of lonely.
Well, not that he'd ever complain, but he would have preferred to have someone here to talk instead of thinking it all out in his head.

Sighing, he sat down and unpacked his snack, observing the other kids playing, laughing, simply enjoying the spring sun…
There were three classes per grade at this school, so there were quite a lot of children running about, but one of them stuck out immediately, in fact, Akashi's first thought was that this was no student from an elementary school at all.

It was a tall boy, dressed in the uniform and all, violet hair falling over his ears.
He was surrounded by shorter boys, and at first glance, Akashi felt a spark of jealousy that a weird guy like that had so many friends on the first day, but upon looking harder, he noticed that the boy wasn't happy, but looked close to tears.
For a moment, Akashi considered waving it off and turning away from the picture of the utterly pathetic boy, when he noticed something with his extremely sharp eyes.
The boy wasn't close to tears because he was hurt by the taunts and attempts of bullying by the short brats, it was rather the opposite actually.
His hands were clenched into shaking fists, and Akashi saw rage in the eyes, when he looked hard enough.
The tall boy was about to beat the crap out of the brats, but something seemed to keep him from doing it.
Somehow, that boy was suddenly no longer pathetic in the eyes of Akashi, but rather interesting…

Smiling, Akashi got up and brushed the dirt off his pants, making his way over to the group.

"Hey, what's going on here?"

The bullies and the tall boy turned their head and stared at Akashi, surprised and taken aback.

"Nothing " one of the kids said, probably their "leader".

"Just talking to our big friend here" he continued sarcastically, probably expecting Akashi to join in on the fun of bullying the poor boy.

"You didn't seem too friendly" Akashi said, his voice ice cold and eyes even colder.

The tall boy gave him a confused look and cocked his head.

"It's okay, I can handle them…"

Akashi chuckled.

"I know, you were about to beat them up, right?"

The boy's eyes widened in surprise and the bullies took a step back.

"N – no way, he's too much of a coward to beat us up."

A grin spread on Akashi's face and he raised his chin, managing to look down on the boys, despite looking up at them.

"Do you really want to stay and find out? Your heads fit into his hands, and I know for a fact that he could snap your tiny little fingers like carrots."

In an instant, all of the colour vanished from the boys' face and the slowly backed away.

Akashi stared after them with a calm grin, while he was silently stared at by the tall boy.
When the smaller boy looked up at him, he couldn't help but smile at the goofy look on his face.

The taller boy hinted a bow and smiled back.

"Thank you… I'm Murasakibara Atsushi, who are you?"

"Akashi Seijuro. And no problem, all I want to know is why you didn't actually do anything, Atsushi?"

Atsushi was a bit taken aback by the way Akashi addressed him so informally, so casually, but he recovered quickly and shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"My ma told me not to get into fights."

Akashi raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I'm not always going to be there to get you out of it, this was more of a one-time thing, so maybe you should start to defend yourself."

At that, Atsushi frowned a bit sadly.

"Well, even if it was a one-time thing, do you want to spend the rest of the break together? You were alone as well, right?"

After a moment of considering the pros and cons of having the huge boy at his side, he nodded and pointed towards the tree he had sat under before.

"Let's sit there."

Smiling lazily, Atsushi nodded and followed Akashi, carefully unpacking his snack, provided by the school.
As the two sat down together, Atsushi couldn't help but feel happy in a strange way.
The short boy was actually spending time with him, just like that, and he didn't seem intimidated or scared at all, rather the opposite.
It appeared as if the boy felt superior but somehow accepted Atsushi's presence.

They sat in silence for a while, only the sound of crackers being eaten breaking the silence occasionally, when finally Atsushi spoke up.

"Do you want one of mine?" he said, holding up a cracker.

Akashi sighed and looked at him through half lidded eyes, one eyebrow cocked up.

"We have the exact same crackers, and they are disgusting, so why would I want one of yours?"

A bit hurt, Atsushi drew back his hand and stuffed the cracker between his pouting lips.
Akashi didn't seem to realise what it meant to him, sharing his snacks…

"I was just trying to be nice you know?" he said, nibbling on the dry snack.

He hadn't even finished that one, when he already grabbed for the next, but when his hand found nothing but plastic wrapping paper, his eyes widened a bit in shock.
Now he had even more reason to pout, Atsushi thought, wrapping his long arms around his slender knees.

Akashi had noticed that the boy next to him was pouting and it was beyond him as to why he was upset, but when he noticed that he didn't stuff anymore crackers into his mouth, he realized that the giant must have run out.
Sighing, he raised his hand, where three crackers were piled up, and shoved it into Atsushi's face.
Atsushi turned his head and stared at Akashi, a questioning look on his face.

"I told you, they are disgusting, and you look like you need them more than I do."

Atsushi took them without a word, staring at them in awe and then back at Akashi, smiling gently.
It was weird, but Akashi almost blushed when he saw the grateful and warm smile on the other boy's face, showing so much appreciation for a practical stranger.
He simply nodded and then looked away, hoping that no one had seen the slight blush on his face.

After Atsushi had savoured the last remaining crackers, trying not to devour them too quickly, he cleared his throat and Akashi turned his head back to look at him.

"Since you helped me not to get in trouble today, I'll bring you a snack tomorrow, okay?"

Akashi raised his eyebrows in surprise.
That had been unexpected.
No one had ever given him something for such a trivial act, they had merely been sitting together…

"Okay" he said, not sure what else to say.

Later that day, Atsushi stood in front of the candy rack, staring at the huge varieties of gumdrops and chocolate bars.
He wondered what Akashi would like, but unfortunately he hadn't asked what kind of candy the boy preferred.

Well, his mother always told him to buy others the things he liked most, because then they'd know how much thought he put into it… it didn't make sense in his mind, but he felt like buying some guimauve, covered in coconut flakes.

Smiling, he brought them to his mother to pay them, thinking of how happy Akashi would be and how they'd eat them together.

Unfortunately, not all of the candies had managed to stay unharmed until the next morning, but his mother had grown sincerely worried nonetheless, when she saw Atsushi running around with the almost full bag the next morning.

"Atsushi, are you sick?" she asked, taking his temperature.

"No" he said, sighing annoyed.

"I'm saving them for a friend" he announced, smiling happily.

Surprised but relieved, his mother nodded and let him go, watching as he rushed out of the house.

Atsushi hummed the whole way, lazily swinging his arms and hugging the plastic bag to his chest when he turned into the schoolyard.
He listened to the many children running back and forth, laughing, yelling, cheering… cheering?

Confused, Atsushi blinked several times, when he noticed a crowd near the back of the yard.
Curious as he was, he walked over, having no trouble to peer over the heads of the smaller kids.
But when he saw who was standing inside the crowd, he almost dropped his bag.

The leader of the group of boys that had bullied him yesterday was standing close to Akashi, trying to upset the calm redhead.
Atsushi couldn't hear what they were saying over the noise of the crowd, but if it came to a brawl, Akashi wouldn't stand a chance, he was way too short and fragile.
Slowly, he felt anger rise inside.
No one was to touch Akashi-kun! This was his friend!

So when Akashi said something, and the other boy took a step forward, drawing back his fist, Atsushi dropped the bag and shoved one of the kids in front of him away.
For a split second, Akashi looked away from the bully and looked into Atsushi's eyes, surprised, but that second was enough for the bully.
He punched Akashi in the face, hard enough to throw him off his feet, and for a moment, the bully grinned down at the smaller boy, when suddenly he was picked up by the collar from behind and slammed into the ground.
Most of the kids were now running away, some crying, causing a ruckus.

The bully had only a short moment to realize that it was Atsushi looming over him, his huge hand waiting, slowly forming a fist, and his eyes for once not kind and lazy but wide open and full of rage.

"I'M GOING TO CRUSH YOU!" he growled, bringing down his fist.

Akashi, who was still sitting on the floor shook his head, trying to shake the stinging pain in his cheek away.
That's when he saw Atsushi sitting on the bully, working on remodelling the boy's face.

"Atsushi!" he yelled, getting up quickly.

If he kept going, he'd get into serious trouble…

"ATSUSHI!" he shouted again, pulling at the tall boy's shoulders.

Suddenly, Atsushi stopped and looked at Akashi over his shoulder.

"You're okay?" he asked, ignoring the whimpering and sobbing boy underneath him.

Akashi nodded and stood up, pulling Atsushi along.

"Stop now, I think he learned his lesson."

Slowly, Atsushi nodded, but threw one last hateful look at the boy on the ground before turning around and walking towards the bag he had dropped.
It was completely ruined…
Atsushi frowned and picked up the bag that had been victim to the stampede of students, sniffling.

"What's that?" Akashi asked, rubbing his cheek.

Quickly, Atsushi hid the bag behind his back, not wanting Akashi to see it.

"Nothing."

Akashi nodded, not convinced at all, but kept silent.

Of course, they got into trouble after that, and it wasn't long until they had to show up at the principal's office.
While they were being scolded, Akashi kept a blank face, only occasionally glancing over at the devastated and sniffling Atsushi.

After leaving the office again, he turned to Atsushi, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"What are you crying about? The scolding wasn't that bad…"

Atsushi shook his head.

"It's not that…" he said, pulling the squished bag out of his pocket and showed it to Akashi.

"My mum bought candy for me yesterday and I wanted us to share it!"

Surprised, Akashi noticed that he was seriously close to tears… why would he be so affected by such an unimportant matter?

"I had to keep myself from eating it! Can you imagine?!" Atsushi whined.

"And I was so looking forward to eating it with Aka-chin too!" he continued, sniffling loudly.

Akashi sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Apparantly snacks seemed to have an important place in that boy's heart, and it had problably taken all of his determination not to eat them the day before.

"Okay, okay, let's buy some snacks after school, okay?"

Immediately, Atsushi's eyes lit up and he nodded, following Akashi who had turned to walk back to the staircase.

"Oh, and Atsushi?"

"Yes?"

"What did you just call me?"

Atsushi cocked his head.

"Aka-chin?"

"Yes that, don't do that please."

There was a moment of silence.

"I had to keep myself from eating it for a whooole night…"

Akashi let out a defeated sigh, and turned his head to keep Atsushi from seeing his barely visible smile.

Hope you liked it and maybe review? it's my first KNB fic :)
Also, the part about Akashi's mum is going to be rather important ;)