Do As You Like Chapter Eleven
DISCLAIMER: Psshhh, would Amano Akira have a self-manifested male alter ego? (Oh yeah, I still don't have a beta, so if anyone catches any mistakes, please point them out to me!)
{KHR18KHR}
"Come here, Kyouya! Come here, boy!" Leo cooed, his amber eyes crinkled in blithe arcs before widening as he yelped loudly. "Ow! SkRshHhhH, he bit me!"
I rolled my eyes and swatted his head with my book, a smirk playing at my lips even as my brow furrowed in confusion. Odd; had I heard wrongly, or had that been static? "That's because he's not stupid. Don't treat him like an animal, Leo."
"But he's a bunny!" My brother wailed, clutching his throbbing finger to his chest. My eyes softened at his tearing face, and I planted a hand on his smooth brunet head. "Hmph! Last time I'll ever try to play with him!"
The chuckle that slipped from my lips felt almost bizarre, almost foreign. What? But didn't I usually laugh? "Here, I'll show you what to do," I advised. His five-year-old hands looked swamped in mine, soft and pudgy where my fingers curled like talons. "You have to be gentle; cautious. He may be a herbivore, but Kyouya has a nasty temper. He's a bit shrewd, so you have to give him respect."
Like someone I know, I thought absently. But who?
Our hands slowly reached out for the rabbit, and Leo's face lit up like he'd gotten a lifetime's supply of chocolate for his birthday. "That's makes no sense at all, but he's so soft! Ooh, his ears are like marshmallows!"
"Don't go trying to eat him now, you hear me?" I mock-lectured, teasing him and helping the boy cradle the animal so that its nose brushed his collarbone. "He's poisonous."
"What? Really?" He gaped at the rabbit before catching sight of my grin, and pouted adorably (weakly). "Man, sKrsHhHhhH, you always hafta tease me!"
(Wait, what was that?)
"I can't help it," I chortled, ruffling his hair. "It's because I love you."
"Wow, sap!"
"Geez, you cheeky brat, get back here!"
I leapt to my feet and chased after him, catching him in my grasp before I—
—blinked up at the ceiling, one hand coming up to shade my eyes before dropping by my side. Huh. When was the last time I had had a dream about my past life? Nearly a decade had passed since my death, I noted belatedly. Leo would be thirteen now.
I wondered how everyone else was. Nika would be twenty-six, an unaffiliated abstract artist. Had she given up or succeeded? My parents probably still ran their bakery. Did anyone remember me like I remembered them? Like they had all been frozen in time? I felt somewhat bitter at the thought, because they had all probably moved on in life whereas I was stuck reliving mine.
As I sat up, I was struck by how tiny my body now felt compared to the one in my dream. I didn't feel wrong, no, but… disoriented. Dizzy. By now, the sun hadn't yet fully risen to its peak, but a fair amount of light streamed through my window. My legs worked like oiled machines, so different compared to my formerly knobby-kneed self, and I set off to do my daily ablutions. Shower. Brush teeth. Throw on some clothes.
Done.
When I walked into the kitchen to make a bento, I halted and glared at the intruder in my home.
"Good morning, Kyouya-kun!"
"…Lichen."
"E-Eh? I'm still Lichen?"
"Get. Out."
Wase-hakase laughed loftily, handing me a cup of tea—chamomile, made in my personal cup, the fuck?—and pulled me over to the entry way. "Well, whatever. Come now, Kyouya-kun, or we'll be late."
I stared at him blankly. "Late for what?" Had I missed something?
"I told you before, Kyouya-kun, you can't get emancipated at this age, so I scheduled an appointment with—"
"You didn't," I hissed. If looks could kill, then Wase-hakase would have died ten times over.
"Well, guess what, I did! So let's get going, Kyouya-kun, or we'll be late!"
"I'm not going with you, you lunatic!"
"Ah, that's not very nice, Kyouya-kun!"
I slammed my cup on the table and pulled my tonfa out from their holsters. Gripping them tightly, feeling gravity pull them toward the ground, I dropped into a ready stance—
(feet shoulder width apart, knees bent, right arm over chest, left ready to strike)
—and glared at him murderously. "Get out of my house, Lichen. I'm not saying it again."
In that moment, as I swung at him, the oddest thing happened. Perhaps I would have missed it had I not been mentally setting him on fire, locking our eyes, but the moment I said those words, something inside of the doctor… shifted. Slid a little, just the slightest bit. In an instant, the blue eyes that I'd seen everyday for all that I had known the man… frosted over.
He looked angry. No, furious. No, not furious, he looked—cold. My stance faltered, the metal weapon meeting his block with enough force to break a normal man's bone, and yet nothing happened. No crack. No cry of pain.
Oh, fuck.
Wait a second—I was Hibari Kyouya! I wasn't afraid of anything! So why, why did his face look so…
Terrifying?
And then the moment passed, and Wase-hakase smiled herbivorously again, looking for all the world as if he hadn't just appeared the slightest bit unhinged, the slightest bit deadly. Carnivorous. Feeling the vestiges of adrenaline leave my system (I'd call it fight-or-flight, but then again I could only fight), I gaped at him.
"You," I demanded shakily, raising my other tonfa and pointing it at him, "What was that?"
"Ara? What was what, Kyouya-kun?"
I couldn't move, as if his gaze had paralyzed me, and he took the opportunity to drag me out of the house.
{KHR18KHR}
All throughout the process, I couldn't do anything but gaze ahead. I felt unnerved; out of my element. I didn't like it—the feeling grated at my very core, and I shook my head vehemently, rubbing my hands together.
"You," I began disconcertedly, disbelief seeping into my skin, "You…
"You're a fucking trap," I decided staunchly.
Because he had been driving us back to my house at that moment, the car swerved acutely to the side before righting on the correct path. "I'm sorry, what?" The doctor choked out.
With a suspicious expression on my face, I explained, "You're not a herbivore, no matter how plant-like you act. You're a—a bloodthirsty carnivore!" My marvel could be heard in my tone. He was a carnivore! This guy, the one who laughed at his own stupid jokes, who always got beat up by me, who always whined about my behavior, was a carnivore.
All right, I decided. Nothing makes sense anymore.
Wase-hakase looked disturbed as he pushed some black fringe from his face to tuck it neatly behind his ear. "You know, sometimes I wonder how your brain works."
My brain? I wanted to retort, How about your brain? "You're not my psychiatrist," I settled on saying instead. I snorted.
"Oi, just because I don't specialize in psychology doesn't mean I don't know anything about it," he groused, pouting slightly and squinting at me. Ugh; he was already a grown man, so why did he act so childishly?
Growing uncomfortable with the underlying scrutiny he gave me, I nudged him with the end of my tonfa. "Eyes on the road, Hakase."
I had no idea how he'd convinced the government officials that it'd be okay for him to claim custody over me, but since the "adults" had locked me out of the room while they went over the technical jargon, I'd probably never know. Not even ten minutes had passed when the doctor had waltzed back out, whistled a jaunty tune as he grabbed me, and manhandled me back into the car.
…For some reason that sentence doesn't sound right.
Anyway, no matter what I said—death threats, blackmail, death threats involving blackmail —the social workers wouldn't budge. They just watched fearfully as the man to my left (who, at this point, was making funny faces at the other drivers like the idiot he was) grinned at them sharply.
(I give up. I'm pretty sure there's a conspiracy going on here, but I'm too tired to figure it out.)
"I don't like you," I huffed, kicking the interior of the car. "You're like a fucking puzzle."
"Language, Kyouya-kun," admonished the driver, not stopping to tear his eyes away from the road. Granted, that didn't stop him from releasing a hand to bat at my head, but at least he wasn't a terrible driver.
I ducked away from his reach and smacked him gently (not) with my tonfa. "Don't get uppity with me, Lichen. I don't acknowledge you as my guardian."
"…Yet."
The tiny whimper (hn, but that wasn't real, was it?) elicited a smug, pain-free expression on my face.
After that, a brief lapse in the conversation allowed me to turn my head and look out the window so that I could watch the surroundings melt by second by second. The car hummed beneath my fingertips, and I pressed my forehead against the glass panel so that my skin could register the vibrations coursing down from that focal point. It had been so long since I'd ridden in a car—Kisuke and Tsubame had preferred walking as a main mode of transportation—so long that, as I sat there, I felt childish anticipation from just being in the metal deathtrap.
Ah.
Right. I'd died because of a school bus. A wrinkle found its way on my nose as I thought about that. Hibari Kyouya definitely would not have such a stupid death. Not like… Not like…
…What? I blinked and jerked away from the cool glass, one hand reaching up to rub at the cold spot on my skin. Wait a second, why…? From the corner of my eye, I saw Wase-hakase shoot me a curious glance, but ignored it in favor of nervously licking my dry lips. I stared down at my seat-belted lap.
Why couldn't I remember my name? I asked myself the question almost fearfully, shaking my head and pressing my hands to my eyes. The point of the thought wasn't that I particularly wanted to know my name; after all, I had no use for it now. Yet, despite that, I wanted to know. I had to know.
It'd only been eight years. How could I have forgotten my own identity? Myself? If I had forgotten who I was, how much had I forgotten of Leo, or Nika, or anyone else? I'd never been the social butterfly, not like Nika was—
(had been)
—so why couldn't I remember anything?
"Kyouya-kun?" A voice called out to me, snapping my mind back to reality. For a moment I blinked owlishly, looking around for the source, before a hand clamped down on my shoulder. I stiffened at the touch.
Oh. It was just Wase-hakase. Immediately stamping down my thoughts, I broke off the thin man's hold. "What?" I grunted, not meeting his eyes. I could already feel the worry in them, and angled my body so that I couldn't see his face.
"Are you okay?" Of course he'd ask that question. Everyone asked that question.
("Are you okay? Hey, you're not feeling too down, about Leo, are you? Ah, hey, I'm sure if I tell you about Hibari you'll feel all better!"
"I'm not sad and go away, Nika. I'm not playing your games today; look, we have midterms tomorrow, and I need to study."
"But—but! He's totally cool and awesome and hot and—!"
"Fangirling again? Geez, If it makes you stop ranting about hot guys… I guess I was ready to take a break anyway.")
"I'm fine." Oh, look, a squirrel. I glared at it and willed it to burst into flames. Stupid species… Last time I tried to pet one it tried to bite me. Kisuke, of course, had killed it before its teeth could so much as graze my skin. Hmph, wasn't like it was cute or anything, damn it…
"You don't look fine," the doctor countered dubiously. Way to state the obvious, Sherlock, I mentally snarked. "Kyouya-kun, you can tell me what's on your mind, you know. I'm your guardian now, after all."
"Hn." When in doubt, always grunt. The grunting didn't endear one to most people, but I didn't care much for people anyway.
"Kyouya-kun!" He snapped.
So he couldn't be a herbivore forever, it seemed. Deriving great satisfaction from the bead of annoyance bleed into his tone, I dismissed the doctor. As we neared the Hibari estate, I unclipped my seatbelt and pushed the car door away. The summer afternoon air brushed past me, carding sticky little fingers through my hair. Already I missed the spring breezes that always danced with tiny flower petals in the air. I didn't like summer—the festivals always made it hard to concentrate at night when I went on raids, and everyday was just too hot. Ugh.
"You leaving now?" It was only because I wasn't entirely mannerless (actually, I pretty much was) that I waited for the man to say his farewell. As our eyes met, however, I figured that he didn't want to go, and yet didn't want to say anything either. I broke the silence with a huff.
Like always, I was equal parts blunt and curious. "It's been nearly a year since my parents' deaths," I said with some reluctance. "Why have you decided now to become my guardian? I thought the social workers had given up on me, or passed the case on for fear of traumatizing a foster family."
A beat passed. Then another.
He didn't appear astonished by my question. If anything, Wase-hakase looked resigned. He sighed and, with finality, twisted the keys out of the ignition. "Do you want the truth, or do you want me to lie?"
My eyes narrowed. "If you lie to me, I'll sneak into your apartment and dismember you in the middle of the night."
"Ahaha… Scary, Kyouya." Kyouya? Where was the '-kun'? "Truth it is, then," he began flippantly, also getting out of the car. His wrinkled medical coat billowed in the wind, making him look bigger than he really was. "Hmm. To the first question, it's because the government's been pushing me for quite some time now."
I stayed silent, a suspicion dawning on me.
The doctor continued, moving into the house, and I followed him in stiffly. "You see, there are several families who want to take you in. In fact, there are quite a few that are… related to you on Tsubame-san's side."
I forcefully stilled my hand only three centimeters from my weapon. "You didn't." Somehow, the repetition of words should have been comedic. As it stood, I didn't think so. "You… kept me from my family?"
From who? My aunts and uncles? Grandparents? Someone else, more important?
"Not your uncle," he cut in, as if reading my thoughts. "Fon-san, apparently, has other business to attend to. No, he didn't even try to pass on a message. One would think the prince to a Triad would at least try to gain custody over his only nephew after not even attending the funeral of his only little sister, but then again—"
I snarled at him. "If you're trying to rile me up, you're doing a pretty fine job of it."
He laughed again. "Woah, down, boy. No need to get so fiesty!"
I didn't like this part of Wase-hakase. Everything about him was just all the more sardonic, all the more amused. The way he held himself had changed; from slightly hunched to straight-backed; from a slightly lowered head to a neutral, almost arrogant tilt. This man rubbed me the wrong way, but still I merely watched him. Observed his movements.
"Anyway," sighed the doctor, a smile curling his lips, one hand tracing a finger down a picture frame, "The reason why you haven't had contact with the government until now is because I kept them away. I'm a certified pediatrician, by the way, not just a random guy that happens to specialize in lung infections. All I had to do was tell them that you needed some space, and that I'd take care of you until you could decide whether you wanted to meet your family or not. It was so easy."
Blood roared between my ears. My teeth bit down on my lip, and the familiar, sweet taste of copper and iron flooded my mouth. For some reason the feeling of… betrayal withered on the tip of my tongue, and I gripped my tonfa so harshly that my knuckles became white. My throat felt clogged up, dry, and devoid of air.
"It's not betrayal if you never trusted me to begin with," the man assured benignly, calmly, audaciously, reaching over to pat my head.
I lunged at him and twisted my wrists, activating a sheath of thorns along the edges of my tonfa. I didn't care that he was stronger than me, that he could probably kill me—I didn't care about any of that. For the second time in my life, I gave into the bloodlust that constantly pooled in my stomach, snarling and kicking and punching and swiping at every part of him that I could.
I had to kill him. I would kill him. Despite these thoughts, however, despite my animalistic behavior, my mind was strangely calm; my gaze barely lingered on anything, and yet—yet I analyzed every second with such astounding clarity I almost couldn't believe it.
A slash caught him across the thigh, unfortunately not a lethal wound, but enough for the darkshinyredyesyesyes blood to pool and splash onto the tatami mats. Wase-hakase's eyes narrowed, and he snapped his hand out, his fingers—
Shit, were those diamond-tipped claws?
—harshly cutting a line across my temple. I hissed and twisted my body to elbow his stomach, then dropped to the ground and kick upward, hands bearing my weight, hoping to graze his neck. I didn't even touch him.
"I trusted you!" I roared, futilely wiping away curtain after curtain of blood from my right eye. "You fucking liar, I didn't like you, heck, I might have hated you, but I respected and trusted you!"
"You've only just now noticed, huh?" He huffed with a smirk on his face, dodging swing after swing after swing of my gleaming weapons. Now what they had tasted blood, they wanted more. …Or was that me?
Wase-hakase towered over me, and had both reach and the power to back up his lankiness. I was faster, but depite this, he was craftier. For every attack I succeeded in, several more lanced against my arms. In a split second, he disarmed me, wrenched my hands together, and pushed me face-first onto the ground. I felt his weight settle on my shoulders.
"Get off! Get the fuck off!" I struggled like a caged animal, attempting in vain to get him off of my back. "Stop toying with me! Take me seriously!"
The moment he got off, I was going to kill him.
I was going to kill him!
{KHR:)KHR}
Wase calmly observed the boy as he scratched his bloodied cheek. Damn. This kid was a monster—he'd seriously injured Wase's leg to the point he would need at least four stitches—and even with such a gushing head wound, the eight-year-old just wouldn't stay down. He hummed, propping his chin on his interlaced fingers, the elbows of which resting on his bent knees.
"If you would stop struggling, I'll tell you everything."
"What's there to say?!" Spat Kyouya-kun, his gray eyes full of spite and menace. Ouch. Wase hummed some more and began to stroke his charge's blood-soaked head.
"Stop it! Don't touch me!"
Wase ignored him, feeling around for any other wounds, and deemed Kyouya-kun's head perfectly fine aside from the one temple wound. Okay, he could begin without fear of having to repeat himself due to a concussion.
"The families that I mentioned before aren't really your blood relatives."
Kyouya-kun stopped, but still growled faintly. That was good, though. Progress.
"Your mother was a Triad princess, if you already don't know. She was the daughter of the most influential man in China. Thing is, a couple of months before your birth, that guy died. The Triad shuffled around. Fon, your uncle, declined leadership. That role passed onto your mother."
Wase wanted to be sick just thinking about this. Hibari-san had always been so kind and gentle—when she got her way, that is. "She also declined, by the way. Instead the leader became someone else. Everyone was happy. Look, I don't know much about the Chinese underground aside from the basics, so that's as much as I can tell you about that."
Wase waited for Kyouya-kun's answer. He counted in his head exactly ten seconds before the boy responded.
"Continue." Ah, how curt. Demanding. All Hibari were like that, Wase mused to himself wryly.
"In short," he acquiesced, "upon hearing of the death of both your father and your mother, they wanted to formally induct you into their group. You've made quite the name for yourself, you know. Kyouya-kun, for a kid that's not even a decade old yet, that's pretty damn terrifying."
Aaaand the kid was smirking. Smirking!
…But then the smirk fell away, replaced by a darkly thoughtful look. Wase wasn't sure if he liked that or not.
"Hn." There was the grunt again. Wase rolled his eyes and patted the kid's head with a gaunt hand.
"I just want you to know," he added softly, shifting his left cheek to one palm, "that I care about you, Kyouya-kun. You're a good kid; I don't want you to end up in some shady business doing something you'll hate."
Kyouya-kun scoffed and pinched the doctor's (thankfully) uninjured thigh. Following his rather sharp yelp, the boy asked, no, demanded, "What makes you think I'll hate it?"
"Kyouya-kun. You're considered in your lonesome an entire branch of the Namimori police force. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but your sense of justice and justification really won't meld very well with the Triads."
A pause. "…Hmm. I can live with that answer. But why do you care so much?" A thin length of suspicion lined his words. "You're just a doctor. You're a stranger."
"Kyouya-kun, I've known you for nearly a year now," murmured Wase with patient exasperation. "I think I've at least advanced to an acquaintance after how many times I've been in this house."
"You always sneak in," the boy complained snidely, tch'ing and bucking once before resigning himself to bearing the man on his back. "Not once have I opened the door to invite you inside."
"Good thing I'm not a vampire, then," Wase sniped. "In any case, Hibari-san told me where the key to the gate was before… well. It's not my fault your house is ridiculously easy to break into."
"That shouldn't be the issue here!"
Wase opened his mouth. Closed it. "No," he agreed, "it isn't."
They both halted and fell silent. In the background, Kyouya-kun's clock ticked by with little click click clicks that kind of grated on Wase's nerves, but he didn't comment on it. He'd been whining to get rid of it for the past few months or so—ahaha, subtly of course—but Kyouya-kun was always adamant to keep it, no matter how ugly and annoying they both thought the thing to be.
"You screw up my pace, okay?" Grumbled Kyouya-kun at last, his head pillowed by his thin, wiry arms. Wase rather thought that those arms looked entirely out of place on an eight-year-old body. "See this from my perspective, okay? You're this weird guy that came out of nowhere, someone who'd apparently been caring for my mother for a while, and when she died you decided you wanted to care for me. What the fuck? Didn't you have any ulterior motives? What were they? Money? Connections? But all you did was sneak into my house like a creepy stalker—"
"I do not!" He interjected.
"And you made me tea! Got me breakfast! Nagged about my health! I thought you were pretty okay!" The boy pinched the bridge of his nose. "And now you've suddenly decided to become my guardian after showing me you've lied about being weak all this time, but noooooo, you've been planning this out for forever! I thought you didn't want anything, but now I'm suspicious, damn it! See this this face? I shouldn't be giving a fuck, bit here I am giving two!"
The first thing that Wase wanted to say after that was, 'Oh, Kyouya-kun, you shouldn't curse,' but then again Wase didn't really filter his own profanity either. The second was…
"Oh, you're really betrayed." He'd only been bs'ing that part before; he'd thought the kid hadn't
actually cared—but then again, hadn't Kyouya-kun gotten angry? Angry enough to try to kill him? Shit, he'd messed up, hadn't he?
Tiredly, the only living Hibari carded a hand through his hair. He didn't say anything, but the silence only made Wase feel worse. What could he say now? Oh, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry I thought you'd be emotionless enough to not care about me? I'm sorry I thought—still think—that I'm doing what's best for you?
What could he say to that face?
"Get off of me."
The air rushed back into his lungs. "Okay," Wase exhaled. Kyouya-kun clambered back onto his feet as swiftly as he could, despite the gushing head wound, and wobbled a bit before steadying. He turned away to locate his tonfa and grip them in his hands before viewing the doctor from the corner of his eye.
"I'm not a brat," the boy intoned at after a brief repose. "Don't sell me short. I'm not angry with you."
"Y-You aren't?"
Those gray eyes narrowed like a cat's, sharpening in their scrutiny. "I take that back. I'm still angry about you lying to me about your strength this entire time, but the guardianship… I'm not happy. But I'm not mad, either."
…Huh. Why? "Why?" Wase slowly stood and clutched at his bleeding leg. The warmth slid past his fingers, and in a few minutes or so, the doctor gathered, he'd have to get some medical aid. Err, well, lest he die.
With how his gaze lingered, Kyouya-kun seemed to have come to the same conclusion about Wase's wound. "You were misguided. You wanted to pro—" Uncharacteristically, he stuttered. "—Protect me. That's not something I should fault you for. In fact, I should say tha…Thaaaaa… Damn it."
Wase stared. Kyouya-kun bristled.
"Are you—?"
"You understand English. Tell me you understand it, because I'm never saying this again. Thank you."
With that, the still bleeding, still limping boy sauntered off into the depths of the mansion, head held high.
Wase broke into guffaws upon catching sight of the luminescent brightness of Kyouya-kun's ears.
{KHR18KHR}
I take back everything. I hate Wase-hakase so, so much.
"Stop laughing!" I glowered at my door and rubbed my temples. "Shut up!"
Several corridors away in his room, Wase-hakase rolled around like a pig in the mud. Like a mad rabbit. Like a… Like a braying donkey. I couldn't see it, but I bet that was what he looked like. He wouldn't. Shut. Up.
"Hibari-sama! Please, let me in! Is that man bothering you?"
How did I get into this mess? This was the doctor's fault, wasn't it? All his fault. All his fault and more—none of mine!
(Actually, it was all my fault, but I wasn't admitting that!)
Like all of the prior incidents, the day had started normally. After a month of Wase-hakase's general eccentricity—the man sang in the shower, praised taiyaki like it was a god, and snuck into the bathing room like a creep—
("Kyouya-kun, you need a check up! You never go to the hospital anymore!"
"That doesn't give you the right to barge into my bathroom!"
"Come on, you have nothing I don't have! And you'd never let me give you a check up if I just ask!"
"That's because you sneak into eight-year-olds' bathrooms while they're naked!")
—I was about ready to claim my adaption to this new lifestyle. Or throw in the towel. Either option worked.
Living with Wase-hakase sort-of-maybe-not-a-little-bit reminded me of living with Kisuke and Tsubame. After so long of living on my own, of rejecting Nana's requests for me to stay over, it felt nice to live with another warm body again. I hadn't know that I could miss such a thing.
But I digress.
"Kyouya-kun? Can you run to the market and pick up some baking flour? We just ran out!"
I stretched inside of the meditation room before sitting up grumpily. "Go get it yourself!" I hollered back.
"Can't! I have to watch the hamburg steak, unless you want to have a burnt dinner!"
I cursed. He knew how much I lo—ador—appreciated hamburg steaks. "Fine!"
Taking my time, I pulled my sandals on and began my trek to the market. The closest market operated about a ten-minute walk from my house, so I could waste a few minutes catching up with rumors and gossip on my walk there. My old footwear padded softly on the bland, gray concrete streets, and I stretched my arms upward, eager to get the kinks out of my system. Wase-hakase wasn't overly energetic or a martial arts enthusiast, but he sure exercise a whole lot for a doctor.
(Then again, he hadn't always been a doctor, had he?)
Birds chirped. I tasted the hot, sticky air, feeling the wind blow past my ankles. I felt a bit nostalgic as I fingered the cuffs of my casual yukata; Tsubame had always favored this one, marveling in its simplicity. The pattern ran vertically down, and the cloth was stained a solid, strong heather. I liked it. The fabric, at the very least, came from high quality cotton.
Around me, people swept about to and fro, busy with the hustle and bustle of their daily lives. I spotted some elderly women—Tsukino-san and Hayashi-san, I reminded myself—setting up for Tanabata in a week and Obon the week after that. By nighttime I figured that the streets leading up to the shrines would be lit ablaze and awash with lanterns and foxfire. It felt nice to notice these things, considering the frequency at which my… curse would act up. I rarely got to enjoy life anymore, but then again violence was my life.
How sad, I bet many would say. Boo hoo. Whatever.
As I rounded a corner, my ears twitched and caught the tail end of a snarl. The words bypassed me, but the intonation did not. I stiffened and almost made a double-take.
There were still some idiots left within a ten kilometer radius of my home? This close to the Hibari mansion?
"Ow! Ow! I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stain your jacket, I d-didn't see you, so I—"
I head a foot meet flesh. Young flesh. The shoe had steel toes, and a resounding thump informed my instincts that the instigator was old, but not too old. Adolescent. A teenager.
"Oho? Delinquents, crowding in my territory?" I advanced into the alleyway, a smirk growing on my lips. When was the last time I had run across some delightful prey during my resting time? Fear and pain always did taste better when not needed, much in the way a snack satisfied even when one wasn't hungry.
These herbivores were small fries, I noted gleefully, but there were enough to be delightfully satisfying.
"Shit! It's that Hibari kid!"
"Holy fuck, you mean the one that—"
"Yeah, you know what, we should just get the fuck out of here—"
I jabbed the last one in the gut, barely avoiding giving him too much internal bleeding. After all, I wanted to savor this. Where would I be if he fell unconscious? "And where do you think you're going?"
One, two, three… Ten. The first one to have spoken, a high-schooler with thin, spiky hair, jerked back and growled. "Ah, what did you do to Tomozaki?! You little brat!"
'Tomozaki' groaned on the ground, and I kicked him for extra measure. My scrutiny swept over the remainders—each and every one of them seemed frozen like a bunch of deer in headlights—and a curl on my face grew into a grin. I circled them languidly, eyes flitting from one (a younger teen, barely a man), to another (older, but foolhardy) to the others in succession (they all towered over the small body curled up against the plaster wall).
"Banchou!" Cried the youngest one, worriedly glancing between my predatory form and Spiky Hair. My head cocked to the side, eyes narrowed. Boss? This guy was the one who'd been terrorizing the middle schoolers in my neighborhood?
I admit, he didn't look much. I gave him a cursory glance, up and down, before scoffing.
The leader swelled up in indignation. "What's that look supposed to mean?!"
Could he only abuse question marks?
"Banchou, I-I'm not too sure about this… He's just a kid, but a-are you sure…?" Stammered the older one.
"What can he do?" Blustered Spiky Hair, throwing his subordinates a grin full of bravado. "It's ten against one!"
Nine against one, I mentally remarked, And that's not in your favor.
Sure enough, I struck them all down with minimal movements, cracking elbows inside out and twisting their knees as they fell. I had a certain… Fixation on joints. I couldn't be blamed, though; they were simply so… reversible. After I finished with the final delinquent, my foot digging over his cerebellum and pushing his nose into the pavement, I flicked the blood from my tonfa and stood from my crouch. I no longer felt as slow and lackadaisical as before. Blood flowed through my veins.
"U-Um," stuttered a voice from behind me, hesitant and shy. I whirled around, about ready to bash the herbivore's head in because no one sneaks up on Hibari Kyouya unless he wanted his brains on the walls, before relaxing and twirling the weapons back into a ready position. The boy looked about my physical age, lankiness and knobby knees galore. "Tha-Thank you very mu—"
I walked away.
"Wait! I-I mean, uh…" Damn it, what did he want? I scowled and slowed my gait, not obeying him but showing my attention regardless.
"What."
"I just w-wanted to thank you for saving me and, uh…"
My brow inched upward, an unimpressed expression taking over my face. "Don't make assumptions. I wasn't saving you."
The boy looked taken aback. He blinked owlishly and readjusted his obnoxious, gigantic, and red eyeglasses. Kami-sama, they made my eyes burn. "Eh?" He so eloquently replied.
I started walking again.
"Wait!"
Fucking damn it, were we going to do this all day? I still had the flour to pick up.
The herbivore nervously tousled his thick dark brown hair. It was rather long, I noticed belatedly, and it barely reached his shoulder. Yet the length didn't match his facial structure at all; he had a strong chin and deep jaw. "I, uh, what's your name?"
I didn't answer and started walking again.
His voice began to panic. "Ah, no, wait! They called you Hibari! Can I call you Hibari-sama?"
…The fuck?
"No."
"I was right!" He cheered, COMPLETELY BULLDOZING MY OPINION. "Hibari-sama, how do I become strong like you?"
Strong like me? Go insane. Have your parents die. Be burdened with a curse that frays your morals the longer you live. But I said nothing of this. I just wanted the kid to go away.
The sigh that slid from my lungs felt exceptionally heavy. "Fight for justice," I bullshitted, stowing my tonfa away. "Fight for discipline. Fight for Namimori."
Which brings me back to now, two days later.
Wase-hakase chuckled as he entered the main corridor where I stood stonily, my back against the shoji door. "A new fan?" He asked.
"Don't I know it," I groaned, rubbing my temples. "Go take care of him for me. Beat him up or whatever. Just make sure he doesn't come back."
"Ehhhh? But I can't hit a defenseless eight-year-old boy!"
"…You nearly killed me due to blood loss a month ago."
"Well, you're not defenseless, Kyouya-kun!"
"What, so you're not going to hit him because of the Hippocratic Oath or something?"
"Oh, no, I never took that oath."
"How are you still a doctor."
"Oh, I mean I have connections and all, so all I had to do was—"
"Hibari-samaaaaaa!" Rang the voice again, whinier this time. "Please let me iiiiiinnnnnn!"
"This is all your fault," I deadpanned.
"Eh? How is it mine?" He complained.
"HIBARI-SAMAAAAAAAAA!"
I hate summer.
.
.
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A/N: GUESS WHO'S TOTALLY EFFING LATE AS EFFFF? ME, THAT'S WHO!
I was wondering when I'd get off schedule. I wrote in my profile ages ago that my updates would be sporadic at best, but then I started this and Kyouya wouldn't stop gnawing on my brain. So then I started updating every week or so, and now I feel bad for making ya'll wait an extra week. Flipping flippers is this chapter longer than usual.
So… Kusakabe's finally here to add a bit of comedic relief. Wase-hakase was a jerk for a moment, but he's just a well-meaning adult. Kyouya still doesn't trust him, by the way, just tolerates him in the way he does/did Fon. Damn. I meant to add him too, but this chapter got out of hand.
I need to start planning more. Seriously, all I do is wonder how many headcannons I can shove into each segment, haha. Ha.
For those who don't know, Tanabata is a summer festival on the seventh of July, and Obon is from the thirteenth to the fifteenth, meant to celebrate the dead. Obon, that is. Tanabata is about wishes and some romantic stuff involving Orihime and Hikoboshi. I think. Don't have much reference here. Halloween's coming up, by the way, and I might do an omake on that next chapter.
OH YEAH. I asked if anyone knew Kyouya's favorite sushi last chapter, and only one person got it right: Bloodstained Fantasy. So a round of applause, please~! She/He didn't request and omake, though, so that's still open, if you want, dears!
OTL I'm getting into midterms next week, with AP classes and all; not to mention my school works on an advanced course that squeezes an entire course into one semester, hence midterms in the first term. Blah, enough about my life.
QUESTION: Anything ya'll wanna complain to me about? Life, Kyouya, jerks in general?
