Wrath narrowed his eyes as he observed the practice.

Incidentally, it was a rare day where his parents couldn't take him to school, so he was forced to tag along with his older brother, Mitobe. He was sitting off to the side quietly, feeling no desire to take part in the practice since he still had his own team to practice with after school.

It had been almost two weeks since he had last seen Black at one of his matches. And he could tell that something was wrong.

Despite not knowing Kuroko for long, he knew Black very well.

The two of them had started at the fight club together. Since the owner had something of a moral compass, he didn't let him and Black fight the adults until they were 15. And due to the fact that they were the only children fighting, they fought together, trained together when the older members took pity on them. They fought other children from other fight clubs, and then would either rant to each other about the dirty moves the opponent pulled in the fight or they would dissect and take apart said dirty moves to figure out how it worked and how to use it for themselves.

And just recently, they got even closer due to the new tag team matches they were fighting in. Even though they were rivals, they were friends that admittingly had a weird friendship. They have a very odd relationship, where he would purposely antagonize Black until his friend was a few steps away from murdering him, but it was still a friendship.

So he knew that something was wrong.

Black had never looked so pale and exhausted, even after he had puked out his guts when he got that concussion. His movements, which were always so controlled and sharp, were sluggish and sloppy. He didn't miss the way Blacks teammates had to step in to keep him from getting nailed with a basketball more than once. It looked like he was struggling to get in a single, continuous breath.

He narrowed his eyes further.

When Black was left off to the side, practically dying, Wrath didn't miss his chance to approach him. Ignoring the weird looks he got from the team, he stood patiently next to Black.

Black looked up at him with annoyed look," Wrath," he gasped out," what do you want?" Wrath didn't say anything as he looked down at black, staring down his rival with narrowed eyes.

Without giving any warning, he ruthlessly jammed his hand into Blacks ribs, and the reaction was instantaneous.

The little color he had drained out of his face, and he let out a strangled gasp of pain as he finally collapsed onto his knees, his hands cradling the side that Wrath had just jammed his hand into.

"Well, it's no fucking wonder you're dying like some asthmatic dog," Wrath glared at Black, even as the boy was struggling to breath. Grabbing his upper arm, Wrath hauled Black to his feet and started to lead him to the coach. He knew that something was definitely wrong when Black didn't even bother struggling," Come on, let's go and wrap those ribs up, you shouldn't even be on your feet right now."

"Fuck off." Even though the words were gasped out, they didn't fail to put a smile on his face. But that smile quickly fell off when he realized that Black was starting to lean heavily onto him. That was weird.

Maybe their practice was harder than usual?

After quickly explaining the situation to the coach (where he had to repeatedly tell her that Black was fine, just that he needed to take it easy) they were on their way to the training room.

Sitting Black on the chair, he rummaged around the cabinet, letting out a small sound of victory when he found the bandages. Turning around with a smile, he happily told (ordered) Black to take off his shirt.

He had a feeling that Black was worse than he thought when he had to help the fighter take his shirt off. And his feeling was right.

His heart stopped for a second when he saw the dark purple and blue bruises that littered his side. He had learned a lot over the years and he could tell that Black didn't get his bruises in a fight.

He got his bruises from a beating.

And a bad beating at that.

"What the fuck?" he gently ran his fingertips over the bruises, tracing out the shape of the bruises. The bruises were fresh, they couldn't have been older than a day, which made no sense because he had not seen or faced Black in a match for the past two weeks.

So where did he get these bruises from?

"Black," he withdrew his hand when Black flinched away from his hand, "what happened? Who gave you these bruises?" he could pick out certain shapes from the mass of pooled blood that was in his skin, and he didn't like that he could tell that they were in the shape of a shoe.

Black tiredly shook his head, his skin looking even paler up close, and his eye bags never looked bigger. Black didn't even give him a verbal answer, that's how tired he was.

Pursing his lips, he decided to wait until after those ribs were wrapped for him to start pressing Black on some answers.

But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

More than once, he had to push Blacks arms back above his head, he was too exhausted to do it himself. And in one instance, in a rare show of vulnerability, he rested his head against Wraths shoulder, where he almost fell asleep right then and there.

He couldn't even keep his eyes open.

Deciding that it was best to let him rest, he helped Black onto the nearby bed and left him there as he went to go and tell his older brother about his teammate.

He caught up with the team as they entered the changing room. Where he patiently explained Blacks condition to him.

"His ribs are bruised pretty bad, he's going to have to take it easy for the next few days. And whatever you guys are doing is too hard, he's exhausted. He looks like he hasn't slept in days."

"What?" Hyuuga pulled on his uniform as he rose his eyebrow," Isn't he tired from his matches?"

Now he was frowning," No, he hasn't had a match in almost two weeks, I thought he was tired from your practices?"

"No, we're doing the same practice as always, we've been doing it for months now." Wrath fell silent, his frown getting even deeper. The way he was acting made some, if not most of the team, pausing in pulling on their clothes to pay attention. He crossed his arms, his index finger tapping on his arm as he continued.

"…Black almost fell sleep sitting up, I had to help him keep his arms up so I could wrap up his ribs. He's exhausted. I've never seen him this tired, the last person I've seen this tired would be this girl…this girl…" he trailed off. His face growing pale as he realized something.

"What? What's wrong?"

"…I need to go ask him something."

He practically sprinted out of the room.

Please let him be wrong.

Please.

A Week Prior

He crept into his bedroom through his window.

He was honestly done with his father chasing him every time he saw him (he didn't even know if his father was home), so he decided to change it up and just avoid entering the rest of the house completely. As soon as he entered his bedroom, he quietly crept over to his door and gently closed it.

With a sigh of relief, he sat down heavily on his bed.

At least he can get some peace and silence for a little bit.

Taking out his homework, he started to work on it when he had the time.

He continued working for a little bit but froze when he heard the front door open.

Shit.

"Akira!" he was just about to run out of his room at his mother's shout, but stopped when he heard a giggle," Stop it! Tetsuya is going to be home any second! We can't let him see us like this!"

His breathe caught in his throat.

"Oh, come on Yui! Why can't we just hire someone to get rid of him? I know you have to have at least some connections!"

His mind was reeling. He left home with there being a damn near palpable tension in the air, with his father staring at his mother like they hated each other, but they were talking like nothing had happened?

Like his father didn't beat the members of their small family?

"And those connections are with the yakuza, and I'm not going to owe them any favors. We started this, we are going to finish this."

Yakuza?

"Right right, have you started giving him those diet pills yet?"

…diet pills…?

"Of course, I have dear~ they suppress his appetite and increase his heart rate with the caffeine, he should look thinner by next week."

What?

"Right, and that's supposed to help?"

"Yes, with the way you don't let him sleep, and how thin he will become, it will look like he's struggling with depression. The lack of sleep will eventually make his grades start slipping, not that they were good in the first place.""

Hold on a second.

Take a few steps back now.

"There are a lot more symptoms to depression than those two."

"I know that, but a lack of energy and weight loss are the more obvious signs of depression. And another symptom is a sudden disinterest or loss of passion in their favorite past times."

He wanted to cry.

"So…take him out of basketball?"

"Obviously."

He wanted to puke.

"What if he tells his friends?"

"He won't, you know him, he probably doesn't have much friends anyway. If anything, you can use me against him. That boy loves me too much for his own good."

His heart started to ache.

"You say that like he's not supposed to."

"Valid point, you didn't change his life insurance right?"

He's gonna be sick.

"Yeah I haven't changed it since last year, it would be suspicious if we changed his life insurance and then he died a month later, its already going to be suspicious that we returned after five years, only for him to die a month later."

Oh god.

"I love how smart you are."

"You're the one who thought about using his life insurance money to pay off our debts."

Oh god.

"we're both smart, we should have done this earlier, when he was younger."

"No, it will be easier to cover up his disappearance if it looked like he was depressed. Its surprisingly common nowadays, for depressed teenagers to disappear and show up dead months later."

"Only he wont show up right? We're just gonna look like he went missing and make it look like some 'foul play ' happened?"

"Right."

He was barely able to withhold the nervous chuckle that almost spilled past his lips

"What if he finds out what we're planning?"

"Its not like he can do anything; you took all of his money. But if he does find out, we're gonna have to tie him up until something pans out."

"Well, what if he does leave?"

"Then we can threaten his precious team, always pissed me off how much he loves basketball even though he has no talent."

Furiously, he wiped away the tears.

That hurt.

"Tell me about it, his coach is a high school girl right?"

"Yes."

"Ok, that will make it easy. She will be easier to handle than those giants on the team."

He was trapped.

If he left, they would threaten Aida.

If he revealed that he knew, they would tie him up.

But if he suddenly became complacent, they would know that he figured something out.

All while the idea of death was hovering over his head.

Scratch that, it wasn't an idea.

It was almost a promise.

His own parents were going to frame his murder so they could collect his life insurance money and use the money to pay off their debts. And it sounded like they had been planning that for a very, very long time. Most likely since he was a child.

Did they even love him?

"He should be home in a few minutes, go get high while I start dinner."

That time, he really did let out a nervous chuckle.

He didn't even have the time to have a mental breakdown.

He didn't have the time to accept the fact that his mother never really needed his help and that he was just wrapped around her dainty little finger. and that she was on the same side as his father.

Running his hand through his hair he forced himself to calm down and recollect himself before slipping on his shoes and climbing out the window.

Steeling his nerves and slipping on his poker face, he opened the door.

He wasn't going to die.

He was going to come out of this situation alive and he was going to imprison his parents, he just needed to pretend just so he could gather evidence.

Spite is a hell of a motivator.