Before anyone asks, yes the title came from that one Vocaloid song.
Warning/s: Modern AU, emotional neglect/abuse, parental hate towards own child, absent father, mention abortion, mpreg, this is not genderbend but Hakata still refers to Hasebe as mother.
"Your mother isn't picking you up today either?"
Hakata looks over at Sadamune, his classmate and fellow track and field club member.
"No, but it's fine, I live not far from school." He replied shouldering his backpack.
The bell had finished ringing 5 minutes ago, and all the other kids are getting ready to go home, including Hakata and Sadamune.
"Are you sure? You could hitch a ride with me and my mom." Sadamune asked again.
"Don't worry I already told you i'm used to it." He tried to reassure him.
'Well, have a safe trip then." Sadamune bid him goodbye.
Hakata smiles. "You too."
What he said earlier to Sadamune wasn't a complete lie, taking a public bus everyday actually makes the trip shorter.
He finally arrived at his apartment home. He takes out the spare key. As usual, it's always quite a hassle to unlock the door with his height. He really wish he would have grown taller already.
He steps inside, takes off his shoes, and re- locked the door behind him.
The locked door usually means two things:
1. His mother is still at work, leaving him alone in the small apartment as usual, or
2. His mother came home from work early but still has some work to finish and he didn't want to be disturb.
The light coming from the living room indicates the latter.
He walk slowly towards the living room.
His mom is hunch over his laptop, a lit cigarette sits between his lips. "Oh Hakata you're home, there is leftover curry in the fridge if you're hungry, you could just heat it up."
Yeah, that is usually how it goes, no cheerful "Welcome home!" or "How was your day at school?" just a simple nod of acknowledgement that came from his mom.
"Yes mother."
Hakata takes one last glance at his mother before leaving the living room.
His mother doesn't like Hakata bothering him while he was working, so the sooner he leaves the better.
The leftover curry wasn't that bad. He decided to eat in his room instead of the kitchen, he just feels more comfortable—safer—in his room, also the kitchen is just several walks away from the living room, better safe than sorry, he doesn't want to be noisy.
His mother hates it when he is noisy. In fact, his mother hates his entire existence, he has heard his mother told him multiple times about how every thing would have been so much better if he never conceived him.
When he was younger, his mother often berate him for every little thing. He says he was being too noisy, interrupting him with his work, or just being in his general vicinity. And then, as soon as he got old enough to be left alone all by himself, he just started ignoring him.
He started leaving for work earlier and coming home late, it's almost as if he is purposefully trying to avoid his existence. And when he does come home early, he always just shrugs him off before going back to his work papers, just like today.
To be honest, Hakata kind of missed the scoldings, at least back then his mother payed attention to him.
"Everything was fine until you came along. I didn't even want to take care of a brat like you, but I had no choice." His mother had said to him one day.
The story goes that his mother used to date a guy, that suddenly left him as soon as he found out his mother was pr with his child. Then his family disowns him after they learned about what happenned. His mother couldn't afford an abortion, so he was forced to raise Hakata all on his own.
"By the way, do you know why your name is Hakata?" His mother continued. "It was the place where your father originates from. It was to remind myself of the man who ruined my life."
After he finished his meal, he decided to kill time by doing homework, then read a book and plays a game on his phone.
Night falls, he checks the time on his phone.
21:00 PM.
He immediately takes out his usual quilt from the closet.
His mother often overworks himself till he fall asleep, during those times Hkt would go out to the living room with a blanket and puts it over his mother to keep him warm.
He goes outside to the living room. His mother is slumped over his lp with his eyes closed, sound asleep.
Hakata adjusts his mother to lie down on the couch, then as he puts the blanket over him, he heard his mother mutter something in his sleep.
"... I should have got rid of that kid."
Hakata is smart enough to know that his mother is talking about him.
In the end, he sighs. "I think I would have preferred it that way too."
He walks over to the light switch to turn off the lights, but before that he looks back towards his sleeping mother, "Good night mother."
He then goes back to his room and gets ready for bed.