A/N: First off... I'd like to point out that today is the 7th anniversary of Angel Beats' last episode ("Graduation") and the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book being published. Interesting how exactly 13 years after HP begins, Angel Beats ends. A Potter and a Lily die, then a potter and a lily choose to begin life anew. (Insert something about "I open at the close" here). So happy June 26th. :)

Second, this is a prequel to Heartbreak Cure. I'm posting it now for the sake of Angel Beats anniversaries. It won't update as regularly since I'm invested in furthering HC, neither are finished, and there are spoilers for certain future HC chapters in TPS chapter 6. Still, I think this'll give you a better grasp of Naoi and the life he lived post-graduation.

Disclaimer: All Angel Beats characters belong to Jun Maeda. Even Naoi's parents - all I did was give them names. As for the classmates, well, that's up in the air.

Hope you enjoy!

[Chapter 01]: The Potter's Son

Kimito's pottery shop was the last place Ayato Naoi wanted to be today.

He could say that about his father's shop any day, but this one—or even this week—just seemed more hellish than usual.

His brain, fried from a long first week of his second to last year of high school, was now suffering from insufficient sleep, rude awakening courtesy of his impatient and displeased father. Excuse the hell out of him if his public school and homework schedule had rendered him incapable of finishing his work in the workshop last night. His aching stomach came from skipping breakfast against his will—also Kimito's orders.

"After neglecting his duties, and having a lazy start? I'm amazed he thinks he can sit down to breakfast too." His father had scoffed, digging his fingers into Ayato's wrist and pulling him up from the table. "He'll eat after he's earned it."

His mother, who had protested at first, meekly nodded and averted her eyes to the floor. Nothing to say, as usual, but apparently his grimace of pain was as noticeable as it felt. She got up to put his bowl away for later while Kimito dragged him by the scruff to the workshop.

And there he'd spent the wee hours of the morning trying not to let the whir of the pottery wheel lull him back to sleep. Trying not to let Kimito catch him when his mind would drift off to places he would much rather be.

Like bed, for instance. Or even school, despite the fact that he hadn't made any particularly close friends in the four years since he'd started attending it full-time.

He liked to blame that on his being a Naoi. The name would give him success but never a social life. Despite the respect that most of the people of Akuma gave Kimito for his skill in pottery, he didn't have the warmest of hearts even in public. Naturally, his classmates probably assumed he was just as much of a pretentious bastard with anger issues and a stick up his ass. He knew they would the second he walked in through the classroom door, so he'd just embraced it early.

On the bright side, they never asked him about Hayato, but that might have been because a girl in his grade lost her little brother and sister in a car crash a year or so after he started attending. Now he wasn't the only classmate with a dead sibling anymore.

School was just a continuation of him being invisible, but still… every second away from his father was bliss.

It took forever for him to finish his job at the potter's wheel. He'd been shooting yearning glances out the window, and the sun had long since risen. And then there was no time to go in for breakfast before Kimito expected him at the shop with his merchandise.

Sighing, he wiped his hands with the cloth on the stool next to him. There were vases fresh out of the kiln that Kimito needed brought to the shop this morning, and he'd worked too hard on them to handle them with anything less than care. Besides, he had a pretty good idea what Kimito would do to him if his vases were covered in dirt and clay fingerprints. Namely, he'd have more of Kimito's fingerprints on his arm.

The store was only a seven minute walk from the workshop at the edge of the Naoi estate, and then the vases would go in the back room so that Kimito could get to work painting them. Or whatever he was going to do with this batch. Ayato didn't care; he'd done his part already. As long as he didn't trip over a rock or his own feet and drop any of them, he was in the clear. He'd mastered the art of walking to and from the workshop with an armful of vases impairing his vision, so that wasn't a worry.

He just had a sinking feeling the day was long from over.

Taking the vases into his arms, he used memorization and the few centimeters of vision he had to navigate his way out of the workshop and down the trail towards town. If he were more confident of his balancing skills, he'd check his wristwatch, but by the height of the sun in the sky, it was still early. Too early for the store to be busy. Maybe Kimito wouldn't need him after this.

It did in fact look rather barren from what he could see when he peered in through the front door over the top of the vases. He pushed the door open with his back, the bell jingling to signal Kimito of his arrival, and shifted the vases in his arms before stepping inside. There were noises coming from the other end of the store—Kimito was already hard at work in the back room.

When Ayato appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat, his father looked up briefly from the ceramic he was chiseling away at but didn't pause.

"Well, you certainly took your time, didn't you?" Kimito nodded toward the spot where Ayato could set the vases down, and he did so promptly. "Are you this lazy when you're at school?"

This was a trick question, one he was all too familiar with. He could already hear the conversation playing out in his head.

"No, sir."

"So you're just lazy with me, then. Maybe I should work you harder."

Unfortunately, there were only two other options. One was sass, which would get him hit, but the other one never failed to bruise his pride.

If he still had any of that, he swallowed it down along with his sass. "Sorry for the delay."

Kimito squinted at him, then harrumphed and turned his attention back to his current project. His hair was already tied back into a ponytail, and his apron crumpled as he leaned over the ceramic to blow the shavings off of it. But then he stood up, untied his apron, and lifted it over his head.

"I'm going to be out for an hour," he said gruffly, setting it on a nearby stool.

"…What?"

Moving to the sink, Kimito washed off his hands and shook them dry. "I have to get some new tools and clay. And possibly run another errand or two after that." He wiped the remaining wetness off on his maroon work robe. "You'll run the store while I'm gone."

"But—" Ayato cut himself off, inwardly cursing himself for letting the word slip out.

If Kimito had heard it, he was surprisingly merciful. "Don't fool yourself into thinking you have anything better to do," he said with a scowl. "This is your job! One even you are competent enough to handle. There are hardly any customers this early anyway, but you need to get your head out of the clouds so I've got half a mind—"

Half a mind indeed.

Ayato snickered, then flinched as Kimito cuffed him over the head.

"—to leave you in charge for a few more hours," he finished, his eyes flashing with harsh golden disapproval. "You're sixteen. Act your age and do some damned work like a man instead of playing your stupid games." Lifting Ayato's chin in his hand, he frowned as if inspecting him closely. "Your mother coddles you too much."

Biting his tongue, Ayato merely stared back at him. If "coddling" meant "making her child breakfast, which he hasn't even eaten," then sure…

If "coddling" meant glancing away in pain because he resembled the ghost of her superior son? Then yes, fine, he was coddled.

Kimito grunted, his eyes falling on the vases in the corner of the room.

"Move those to the storage closet for me. After you've washed your hands and cleaned up around here first."

Ayato waited until the back door closed behind Kimito, then, when he was sure he was gone, he released a long breath in an irritated huff.

So this was his punishment. This was what he got for putting effort into his studies.

Then again, he strongly suspected that Kimito only let him start regularly attending high school to keep up appearances. If Kimito had his way, most days would be dedicated to training in the pottery studio instead of going to school. Which, despite his admitted enjoyment of pottery, sounded pretty awful to Ayato.

He washed his hands again and got out the broom. For someone who worked with a mud-like substance all the time, his father was somewhat of a neat freak. Sighing, he ran his free hand through his untidy hair. If only a broom could be put to better use. Like flying him somewhere else, for example. Anywhere else.

Kimito was right, though. He didn't have anything else to do. The only other place he could think of was his room, where at one point in his life he had been free to play games by himself. That part of his life was over now—had been since he was ten—and he had nowhere else to go. Or at least, nowhere else he really belonged.

This was going to be his shop someday, after all. Or so Kimito liked to remind him every chance he got. Familiarizing him with every inch of the store, leaving him in charge for random intervals, keeping him on his feet with menial and meaningless tasks…

Seriously, what the hell was the point of telling him to bring in the pottery, then making him set them down in the back room, if he was just going to back out on a random errand trip and have them stored away?

Was it the power fix? Was that what he wanted?

He swept the floor more aggressively. He could never question Kimito like this out loud, but it would be nice to have the courage. As it was, as usual, he'd pretty much resigned himself to this kind of day. But that didn't mean he couldn't silently fume about it while his father was gone.

Of course, that would have to go right out the door if a customer walked in. Chances were, word would get around to Kimito that his son and apprentice was a bitter, brooding teenager with terrible customer service skills. And Kimito didn't respond well to getting bad reviews.

He set the broom against the wall; then, rubbing his arm, he gave the main room a once-over.

Clear and spotless, just the way the dictator wanted it. And still no customers to be served or to track dirt inside. No customers to interrupt a hypothetical nap he could take in the other room. No customers to be left waiting if he snuck out into town and got an early lunch to soothe his hunger pangs.

That was dangerous thinking and he knew it. Kimito could very well deliberately come back earlier than he said just to catch Ayato being irresponsible. Wouldn't be the first time. On second thought, he wasn't going to risk it.

So he was trapped here. For God knows how long.

The spring sun was shining in a sky that was bluer than any paint the Naoi family had, and he was trapped inside indefinitely.

He wouldn't kid himself. Sunny days for him were usually spent inside working or playing games. It wasn't like he had a life to live. In fact, he hated sunny days. They mocked him, made promises to everyone else in this town while reminding him that Kimito's vases needed to be fired in the kiln...

Oh, right. The vases.

He rounded the aisles, turned a corner, and meandered down the short hallway to the back room. Lifting the vases from their temporary spot, he shifted their weight in his arms. For some reason, they just did not want to settle correctly so that he could hold them and actually see a few feet in front of him. He must have picked them up weird, but he really didn't feel like setting them back down and making adjustments. It wasn't worth the effort; he could navigate this store with his eyes closed, and could certainly get to the storage closet on autopilot.

Besides, this store was dead quiet. What was he going to bump into? The ghost of a spurned customer?

Rolling his eyes, Ayato turned to blindly map his way to the back room door… and the toe of his boot caught the leg of a stool, which toppled over and slammed into something loud and aluminum. The room made the clatter echo so damn loud that there was no way people from all the way across town couldn't hear it, or Kimito's "my disappointment of a son is screwing up again" senses weren't going off at this very second.

Ayato froze, trying to get the ringing and his heartbeat out of his ear. Along with the thump, slam, and echoing clatter of a disastrous symphony that had just occurred, he could have sworn he'd also heard a jingle. So either a customer had just walked in, or his clumsy little domino effect had knocked something else to the floor. Going by likelihood, he'd put his money on the latter.

Once his heart was going again at a normal rate, he released a breath, then felt around with his foot to see if there was anything else there to nudge out of the way. All clear. He was just lucky the stupid chair hadn't tripped him.

The vases wobbled and jittered precariously in his grip, but he firmly steadied them before he ambled into the hall. The edge of at least one of the vases was digging into his arm, and all of them were resting uncomfortably against his bruises. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but suddenly the weight of it all was starting to get to him. The vases felt heavier in his arms than usual.

"Or maybe your arms are just sluggish," Kimito might say. "Look at those skinny twigs. You're not working hard enough."

Maybe you're just weak.

Ayato growled lowly. If he was weak, it was from lack of sleep or food. Or from being smacked around. Or from having his arm squeezed like some chew toy clamped between a dog's jaws. Or from working his fingers to the bone since early this morning. And from the same work last night. He had the blisters to show for it, but now he had the vases as well.

Maybe he was weak. Weak by comparison. But he was trying, and at least after a grueling week of balancing school and pottery, he'd finally finished the vases so that they turned out great.

And yet, of course, Kimito had nothing to say about that. Not even an acknowledgment that they were done well and on time. Instead he was willing to have them hidden away until he felt like decorating them on his own time. Or he was just punishing him by keeping him on his feet and making sure he knew where he belonged. It wasn't clear just what went on in Kimito's head sometimes, but if there was one thing he had mastered as well as pottery, it was putting his family in their place.

If his place was here, running this shop and the studio someday, then the future looked bleak. Every day would be as bad and as isolating as this one. Nothing could be worse than living in this godforsaken town—

"Ah—!"

A sharp gasp preceded the day's next disaster.

He knew every shelf, table, and wall in this shop. He knew where he was going. The obstacle he roughly collided with was much softer than a wall, but the impact still knocked the breath out of his lungs.

And, to his numb horror, the vases out of his arms.

The haunting echo of ceramics shattering made his heart stop. When it restarted itself, the blood was racing white-hot to his head and pounding heavily in his ears. He felt dizzy, nauseated. The pottery exploded all over the floor in slow motion.

At first, he saw fuzz. An outline of someone who was thankfully too small and femininely shaped to be Kimito.

Then scenes of his soon to be very short life flashed before his eyes. Much of it at the end was mainly him slaving over those vases. When it cleared, there were only the shards lying pitifully on the floor that he'd just cleaned.

And then—then there was red.

Preview:

"What in the world is wrong with you?!"

"I didn't see you either."

"Did you hear me when I said 'don't bother'?"

"Normally I'd like to stay out of Mr. Naoi's way."

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN HERE?!"

"I think I did the most damage."

[Chapter 02]: Red.