AN: This is not based in any of my AU's and is a soulmate fic where the name of your soulmate is written on your wrist. Rated M for implied domestic abuse, please be aware that it is a very far cry from my usual cute and fluffy. I was just in a mood today and this happened :x
Cold. It was so cold. His tiny body was wracked with shivers. The threadbare shirt that fell past his knees did nothing to keep away the cold seeping into his bones. The hard concrete beneath him felt like ice. Usually he would curl up with his mother and together they could manage some semblance of warmth and comfort. But he hadn't seen her since that morning.
She had been crying, tears tracked down her sunken face but she never made a sound. He had wanted to go to her, hug her, but he knew he had to wait until night to do that. Or she would get hit again. And they would hit him too.
So he was quiet, like a little mouse. Just like he promised her. He would always be a good boy for her.
The man had kept hitting and kicking and yelling so loud it hurt his ears. He kept going until she crumbled to the ground. No sound left her lips. When the man finally left, he crawled out of his hiding spot under the stairs and went to wake her up. She was just sleeping right? She always said you had to sleep to get better and take the hurt away.
He had been surprised when he had approached and his little toes squelched into something warm and wet and slightly sticky. It was red he realised. She would be so proud that he remembered the colours she taught him. He reached out to her shoulder to wake her up. It wouldn't be good to sleep here and get in trouble for not doing the chores. They would have a good big sleep later instead and he would tell her all about the colours he remembered. He liked this red. It was a pretty colour.
It wasn't until much later that he learned that it was blood. It meant that she would never be coming back. And that beautiful colour that had surrounded her was called blood red. That colour stained his dreams ever since. She haunted him too, a silent spectator. White face dripping with tears of red.
VF
Useless.
Stupid.
Waste of space.
The words sliced through him and left him hollow. Years beyond count had made him certain that his name was one of those things. No one called him anything else. He couldn't even remember the name of the one that chased him through his nights. And that was an important person. He knew that although he couldn't remember why he knew. But if he couldn't remember such an important person's name, why should he get one?
He was nothing.
It had been repeated over and over until it was the only certainty in his life.
The house he resided in was cold and dilapidated. Mice nibbled on the food in the pantry and cockroaches skittered through the halls. His place was out in the back yard in summer. The concrete of the back step his bed and the darkened sky his ceiling. In winter he was allowed to settle in the little space under the stairs. But only if he was very good.
He did try to be good. That person whose face chased him in his sleep had always told him to be good. He wanted to please her. He remembered her voice, faintly whispering. Be good… Quiet as a mouse.
The mice weren't very quiet though. Squeaking and scuttling. But he tried. He really did.
But it seemed he could never do anything right.
He always missed things. Lost things. Broke things.
Got in the way.
Cost money.
Cost food.
Existed.
Sometimes he would be let off with just yelling. His names thrown at him along with curses.
Fucking good for nothing.
Useless piece of shit.
And sometimes the pain would bloom along the skin where he was struck. An open palm, a fist, a foot.
Black and blue and yellow would litter his skin for days; weeks. They created a mottled pattern over grey skin stretched taught. The lines of his bones showed through the patterns and highlighted the ugly colours.
Sometimes red would join them though and create a delicate pattern across his already marred skin.
He always had thought that blood red was pretty.
VF
He hated her.
But it was okay because she hated him back.
She hated him because she had to look after him but he was not hers. Unlike her son. So brilliant and smart. So well behaved. A good boy.
Perfect.
Apparently good boys got to go to school. The got the learn how to read and write and speak other languages. They got new clothes that fit them and enough food that their cheeks were fat and shiny.
They also got to boss him around.
He still had to do all the chores. But now he had to do his as well. Or the perfect son would lash out with his fists and words.
A fist would connect with his stomach and he would choke and retch from the force.
I don't know why they didn't just kill you too.
He didn't know either. It would be nice, he mused while he lay under the night sky, to end the pain in such a pretty coloured pool of red. One last masterpiece to match the colours that decorated his skin.
VF
Loneliness was what he was feeling although he didn't know the word for it.
He grew up inside. Never able to leave except for being put outside on the step to sleep. That old house was all he knew. He never even thought to look beyond it. To the sights and sounds out of its boundaries.
He was never good enough. Such things were not for those who were nothing.
But the woman needed something from the store and had kicked him out of the house with instructions to buy it. Coins were put into his hands and he was shoved out the door.
He didn't know where the store was but he didn't get a chance to ask. She was busy. Too busy to go herself. Doing that thing with the man where they made a lot of noise and their bodies rutted together.
It sounded painful. Screams and groans and wet cries would sound out from their lips.
So he walked away, aimless and scared.
There were so many cars and people. So much noise. There was music and laughter and yelling. It felt like he was adrift in a sea of people.
They all floated past him. It really emphasised that he was indeed nothing. No one looked at him. No one saw him. He was alone amongst the press of people. He wondered if they all had names. If they had all been good and that is why there were all allowed out.
He walked and walked until his bare feet blistered and bled. He had never walked so far in his life. He was so tired.
Lost.
Completely alone.
He felt empty. Hollow. He felt like he should never have left. Someone who was nothing surely did not deserve to walk amongst such good people. They must all be very smart and brave. That's why they were allowed to laugh and yell and walk together.
Watching the groups of people with happy faces pulled at something inside of him. It made him feel strange. Wistful.
He sat down on the edge of a water fountain and just watched the people.
He watched until a woman in a blue uniform knelt in front of him asking for his name. A man stood beside her and smiled at him. He was alarmed. Had he been bad? Maybe sitting here was bad?
She seemed confused when he said he didn't have one. Nothing, he tried to tell her. He was nothing and he was sorry is sitting here was bad. He didn't mean to be bad. He stood up and tried to move away.
She caught his hand and carefully asked who had given him the bruises that could be seen peeking out from the stretched neck of his threadbare jersey. He quickly assured her that he had been bad and the perfect son hadn't liked how slow he had been with his chores. But he promised he would be good now. So good. He didn't mean to cause her work.
The man and woman dressed in blue had looked at each other as though they were talking without words. He wondered if that was like writing. Another way to communicate without speech. Maybe that was something smart people learnt in school. He would have to be extra good and see if maybe he could go and learn too.
The woman took his other hand in hers and turned it over to look at his wrist. A little picture of black lines sat there. He often forgot about that. It had been there since he was born. Sometimes late at night in the cold dark he wondered what it meant. He thought it was words.
Maybe one day he would be good enough to learn how to read them.
He found himself being ushered into a car. He had cried out in alarm. He didn't mean to be bad. He would be good.
Please just let him return to the comfort of his cold stair outside the run down old house.
The man raised his hand towards him and he couldn't help but flinch away. He closed his eyes and waited for the strike.
The pain would be recompense for being bad. Clearly that fountain was not for sitting. At least, not for nothings.
But the pain never came. Confused, he opened his eyes to see both the man and the woman looking at him with sad eyes. They gently told him they wouldn't hit him. No one would ever hurt him again.
He was unsure, how did these people know that he would be good? He would try but he always broke things and lost things. He was stupid. He was nothing. Did they not understand?
He let himself be put into the car and they showed him how to do up the seat belt. The drive was exciting. He got to see lots of things out of the window. Lots of different people and places.
They went underground and the car stopped. He let himself be led inside an elevator and then through lots of corridors. They finally go to a busy room and they told him to sit and wait. Another woman in a blue uniform came and placed a blanket around his shoulders. It was warm and fuzzy and he happily snuggled into it.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there and watched all the people run around. Most had similar blue uniforms and walked around talking hurriedly or carrying papers. After sometime the woman from the fountain approached with a new man walking beside her. He was tall and wearing a fancy suit like people do on TV sometimes. Golden eyes stared intently at him.
The man knelt down in front of where he was sitting and looked up at him.
"Takaba Akihito?"
He blinked, confused, and looked around unsure. He turned back to the man when he spoke again.
"What's your name?"
Something about the deep voice he spoke with was comforting. Soothing. He felt like he could trust this man.
"Nothing. I don't have one. You need to be good to get a name."
Something flickered across the man's face. Pain?
The man took his hand carefully in his own and turned it over to show the writing on the inside of his wrist.
"Do you know what this is?"
He shook his head.
"This is a soulmate mark. On here is the name of the person who is your soulmate. Do you know what yours says?" He shook his head again. "Your writing says my name, Asami Ryuichi." He held out his wrist and showed him his writing. It was different to his own. "I have your name on my wrist."
He froze in shock and stared at the black patterns. "My name?"
"Yes."
"I have a name?" He could feel the tears pricking at the corner of his eyes and prayed that it wouldn't be a joke. But the man- Asami– seemed serious.
"Yes little one, you have a name. You are called Takaba Akihito."
He stared. He stared until a hand reached up to brush away the tears he didn't even realise were falling. Suddenly he was overtaken by great shuddering sobs and Asami gathered his thin frame into his arms and held him tight. It was so warm and comforting, engulfing him in the feelings. A large hand stroked through his matted hair.
"It's okay Akihito. You are my soulmate and now that I have found you, I am never going to let you go. You will never want for anything. No one will ever hurt you again."
He cried until his tears ran dry and he fell asleep from pure exhaustion in Asami's arms.
He didn't have just one name; he had two.