A/N: Okay, before we get too far into things, I feel it's my duty to remind you of TPS's abuse warning. Such is the fate of a Naoi-centric story. Be sure to read this chapter first and, if you're following HC, read that update next as a pick-me-up if things get too dreary.

Am I giving too much away? Onwards!

[Chapter 13]: Obliteration

His bedroom ceiling was gone. Now a broken tree branch swayed back and forth far above his head. Its rhythm was hypnotic and he faintly liked that it blocked the sun every few seconds, covering him in shade.

His eyes hurt. Everything hurt. It even hurt to breathe. He didn't want to try moving his arm again.

Hayato wasn't moving either. It must hurt him to breathe too, since he didn't sound like he was doing very much of it. Everything was quiet after the ringing in his ears had died down. Just the wind through the trees and soft bird sounds.

He was dead. That bit of knowledge hit him very suddenly, not as hard as the ground had. Hayato was dead and he wasn't. It occurred to him that Father would be angry about it. That maybe he should just close his eyes, and then Hayato would open his. He would die instead. Maybe that would work. So he did just that.

When he opened them again, not at all by choice, he was in a hospital room surrounded by doctors and nurses. Some people from town were talking to Father, paying their respects. Telling him how much they loved his son's work and hoped he would get well soon. Ayato stared at them, confused. Did they not know yet? Didn't Father tell them, or did he not know either?

Father walked around to the side of Ayato's hospital bed and squeezed his hand… hard. If it was a comforting gesture, it didn't feel right at all.

"Hayato just needs time to recuperate. After he rests up, he'll be back to business very soon." Father smiled at him, but it looked weird and distorted, just like how his voice sounded right now. So funny-sounding and garbled that he wasn't sure he'd heard him right.

Was Hayato really okay–?

The hand squeezed a little harder. "Isn't that right, Hayato?"

Ayato frowned up at him. "I'm not Hayato," he tried to say, but the words came out in a pathetic breath that even he couldn't hear.

The more he forced his voice, the more it felt like he was struggling to breathe. He got tired. The world faded around him.

Then he woke up and he was home, and his body didn't ache but he felt lost. Like he'd done something very wrong, and there was something dark and terrible that was trying to swallow him up for it.

Towering above him, Father was holding a deformed clay pot in his hand. He was white-faced and furious, standing out like a blinding light in the shadowy room, and he was shaking the pot at him like it was a tambourine.

"What the hell is this trash?!" he snarled, raising his voice. "Hayato, what's wrong with you?!"

"I'm—not—Hayato," Ayato repeated, but getting each word out was like pushing a boulder up a hill, and his father heard nothing. "It's me." Still nothing. Just a breathy, hoarse whisper.

His father, on the other hand, was able to yell just fine.

"You should be ashamed!" the man in front of him exploded. "This garbage is BENEATH you, Hayato!" The pot in his hands did the same; he'd tossed it out of the room in a fury and it hit a beam.

"I'm—" He was trying so hard. So hard to appease him. So hard to get the words out.

"I'm not—"

He was relieved to hear his voice this time, but puzzled too, when his words broke the silence of his room. When Ayato opened his eyes, his bedroom ceiling was there but his father wasn't. As awkward as it was to wake himself up talking, he was soothed by it.

It was Sunday, anyway, and his father – Kimito, he was still in a dreamy childlike mindset – might be pleased that he'd woken up without his help.

Wait a minute, Kimito? Pleased? He really was still dreaming.

While Ayato dressed, he couldn't help but linger over the scenes his subconscious had conjured up. Must have been from the other day, when he had that hallucination with his name. The "switching identities" thing was just a depressing joke, but that dream… It just showed how easily Kimito could have done that to him. He could have even convinced himself it was true. Could have convinced everyone, even Ayato.

Not that he would need to work very hard to do that, since it felt like the entire population of Akuma had mistaken him for his brother at least once. Except Yuri. The thought made him kind of wistful. Maybe Hayato's funeral wasn't huge, but one would think that people would get the memo when a child prodigy fell off a cliff and died. Maybe it slipped their minds sometimes. Maybe they really did think it had been Ayato.

He didn't want to think about that. Shaking off the thoughts, he swiped a comb off his desk and tried (uselessly) to tidy his hair. Once he gave that up, he glanced in the mirror to see if anything was wrong with his neck and throat. No bruises, no swelling. He pressed two fingers to his throat and hummed. Yes, he felt stupid doing it, but it was worth making sure he really could speak. Kimito expected to be acknowledged.

Sundays could be busy in the shop, so his being up early would quell a lot of Kimito's usual bad mood. His mother was in the kitchen making tea and breakfast when he came downstairs, and she smiled at him when he sat down. He may have even seen a wink vaguely covered up and disguised by her sip of tea. He figured she was happy that he'd trusted her with Yuri's coffee mug. Now that he thought about it, it was distinctly motherly of her. He gave in and returned her smile.

"You're up early," she noted, looking him over.

He shrugged. "Bad dream."

Setting a plate in front of him, concern flickered across her face. "Oh? What happened in it?"

The question gave him pause. Considering the dream's main theme, he would hate to ruin her inexplicable good mood. She was his mother, he couldn't just remind her of her son's death over breakfast. Not to mention the guilt trip that would ensue if he mentioned the Hayato aspect. She didn't deserve to have his troubles pile onto hers.

"It was just… I kept trying to speak." He swallowed, testing his throat again before digging into his food. "But I couldn't say anything. Every time I yelled, barely anything came out."

His mother softly hummed with sympathy.

"So you couldn't talk? I have those kinds of dreams all the time."

"You don't seem to have trouble talking when you're awake," said Kimito, not looking at her as he entered the kitchen. He sat down unapologetically and, after muttering a quick "itadakimasu," began to eat.

Ayato, although trying not to stare, was astonished that he could say that with a straight face and eat the food she made him. Did he forget he was married to the quietest woman in Akuma? She was so meek that apparently a few words was chatty and unusual behavior.

Though, well, yes it was. For her. But if he was married to her, Kimito should want to hear her voice. It didn't make sense to marry someone if their voice didn't exactly fill you with joy. Honestly, if Ayato had a chance to hear Yuri's voice, he wouldn't be complaining or even making any wisecracks.

Not that Yuri was his wife! He choked on his tea—as noiselessly as he could, and luckily managed to compose himself. His face burned. Why would he make that comparison?

"You're bright red, Ayato." When he glanced up from his plate, Kimito was watching him with furrowed brows. "You and your mother are acting strange. Is there something I should know about?"

I thought you didn't want to hear anyone's voices. "No, sir. Nothing."

Kimito squinted at both of them, but resumed eating after a dismissive grunt. An uninformed witness might think Kimito was trying to get his son to confide in him, but Ayato knew better. It wasn't like they were the type of family to have a deep, emotional discussion around the breakfast table.

Indeed, it was all business. Mother took their dishes to the sink, and Kimito sent Ayato to start his chores in the workshop. The old man trailed him there, and once he was satisfied that Ayato wasn't slacking off, he headed to the store to open up for the day.

Nothing special happened while he was doing chores, unless he counted dwelling on his dream and having a few identity and existential crises. To be honest, he'd never remembered dreams this vividly before, or for this long after waking up. Not until these last couple of months. They were just… kind of compelling. He had to give his subconscious credit for that; it created dreams that were more like stories.

He had to leave those thoughts behind once he was done cleaning up. Getting into work-mode, he fetched the box filled with yesterday's fired products and carried it down the trail to the store. Kimito had him cover stocking the shelves and tables while he handled the customers. As easy as it was to dissociate while stocking, he didn't dare embarrass Kimito when they had so many customers.

Even so, he kept an eye on the door from time to time. Kimito kept catching him and frowning suspiciously, as if he couldn't decide whether his boy was on the lookout for customers walking in or ready to make a break for it, and Ayato would contritely return to whatever task Kimito had assigned him. But then when Kimito was busy with someone and the bell jingled, Ayato would look again.

After all, it was two days until Yuri's birthday. If she had news or a scheme, he should see a sign of it soon. Shouldn't he?

Maybe not. Yuri wasn't exactly the most predictable person he'd ever met. In fact, the hope that came from that was partially what was getting him through the day. There weren't many other things to get excited about while working with Kimito.

Hayato would have liked it, of course. He actually enjoyed hanging out in the store, even though he had been too little to run it by himself. Ayato could just picture him swinging his legs back and forth on top of the stool or the counter, watching in fascination as their father did what he did best. Unless Kimito yelled, Hayato's reviews were usually glowing.

"Ayato," Kimito hissed as he passed the shelves on the way to the storage closet, "get your goddamn head out of the clouds and get back to work!"

Personally, he couldn't relate.

Honestly, though, Ayato was pleased and rather relieved by the time Kimito was about to head home and that had been one of his only reprimands of the day. Work days together were rarely conversational, but Kimito usually had more scathing comments than this. He must have been in a good mood, albeit a wary one, but in all fairness Ayato had had a few inattentive spells. Although his father wasn't outgoing, at least not in a cheerful extroverted way like Yuri, Ayato figured his good mood came from all the business they'd gotten today.

The man didn't sound overly gruff when he told Ayato to close up shop and that he'd be waiting for him at home. Ayato did as he was told, and even hummed a nameless tune while Kimito was gone. Maybe the good mood was his.

Hmm. If Kimito was going to keep making Ayato close up, maybe he really should have kept Yuri's mug in the cabinet hiding place. That way it would be ready and available if a Nakamura happened to drop by in the next few days. On the other hand, he kind of liked trusting his mother with it. He liked that she'd asked to be trusted with it. Coming from her, it was a charmingly rebellious way of being maternal. He suspected part of that was because she liked Yuri so much.

All he could say to that was, well, his mother had very good taste. Which was a peculiar thing to think about the woman who fell in love with Kimito Naoi.

After tidying up and closing shop, Ayato took his time walking home. The only light left in the sky came from the moon and the stars, but somehow the sight of the full moon gave him an odd sense of comfort. Connection. To what or whom, he wasn't sure, but he liked the feeling of it as he trotted down the path through the dark forest. It was like spiritual company in a forbidden sense. He should be moving along, or he might jinx Kimito's mood. A gentle hooting in the distance soothed that worry back into the darkness. He continued his walk at a leisurely pace until he reached the edge of the estate.

The house looked darker than usual, with only a few lights on in a handful of rooms. His father must be trying to conserve energy again. It was energy that would be better served fueling the kiln, he'd always insisted. Ayato moved at a brisker pace as he made his way up the walk, finding that the darkness seeped into the mood of his home. He had a strange foreboding about the silence that enveloped the estate. It felt prickly, an intensity in the air that usually lingered after a fight.

If his parents had argued, that didn't surprise him. Maybe a little, considering he didn't seem surly the last time Ayato saw him. Or did he? He may not have been paying attention. But perhaps a lack of surliness just meant Kimito was overdue for a fight.

Strangely, that didn't ease his spirits.

One of the lights still on belonged to the spare room they had downstairs. It wasn't a good sign. The sliding door was shut, which was very rare – he didn't even close it when he was a kid and hiding out in there to play games – but he could see the light glowing from behind the walls.

As he came closer, the faint glow illuminated a figure kneeling on the engawa. His mother. Even in the dark, he could recognize her with her head bowed that deeply. At this point he could pick her out in a crowd by the roots of her hair. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she didn't look up at him even as he stepped onto the wood of the corridor.

"Your father wants to speak to you inside," she said quietly.

He'd heard this phrase, or variations of it, a thousand times, but constant exposure never dulled the nerves. What had he done this time? Did she know? Advanced warning might unravel the knot twisting in his stomach.

"Mother…?" he tried.

Nothing. She shook her head but kept it bent down, eyes closed like she was praying. The door opened, casting even more light on the engawa, and he caught a glimpse of a bloodied lip before he heard Kimito clear his throat. He would already have points docked for keeping Kimito waiting.

"Ayato." His voice was low and dangerous. "Inside, now."

Taking off his shoes, Ayato obeyed. The door stayed open behind them.

Kimito strode to the left corner of the room and picked something up off the table. He stood there for a moment, his back facing his son. The room was still and quiet; there was no sound except their breathing and the screeching of the cicadas somewhere out in the yard.

"I trust you remember," Kimito said, very quietly, "why I had to run to the store the other night."

Ayato's heart started thudding. This was not off to a good start. "For… for paint."

"Speak up!" Kimito barked.

"We ran low on a certain color of paint," Ayato repeated, trying not to picture it in his head. There was a very real chance the man was a mind-reader.

"What color?"

He tried to quiet his breathing; the cicadas weren't muffling him as much. "Green?"

"Green?" Kimito echoed. He paced to the other corner, his back still turned to him. "You sound uncertain, Ayato. Are you sure you don't know anything about this?"

Ayato stared straight at the wall, refusing to let his eyes dart nervously. His father would stop pacing and notice; it would give him away. After all, Kimito had nothing else to go on. He couldn't prove Ayato had done anything, just like he couldn't prove he wasn't getting forgetful in his old age.

"I don't know, sir," he said. Kimito passed behind him, walking back to the table, and set something back down. Then the footsteps resumed. "Maybe since it's summer break, we're just going through it faster—"

Kimito sent a stinging slap across his face.

The force of the slap knocked Ayato's head to the side, but his father grabbed his chin and angled it towards him. Under the glow of the single ceiling light, he looked ghostly pale with anger, making his gold eyes even more piercing.

"Don't take me for a fool, Ayato." He released his grip on his face, only to wrap his fingers tightly around his arm and squeeze. "Tell me the truth. Right now."

The muscles in Ayato's cheek twitched painfully. It still burned, and his eardrums were ringing. He didn't say a word at first. Unlike the dream, he didn't want to; he could and yet he couldn't. He just stared back at Kimito with a tightened jaw, unblinking. "I'm telling you—"

Kimito backhanded him so fast his head spun. He yanked on Ayato's arm—hard—and wrenched him to the ground, forcing him to kneel reverently in the center of the room. Then he marched back to the table. While he turned his back again, Ayato blinked back the tears burning at the corners of his eyes and hurriedly wiped away the ones that escaped. Kimito was mad enough already, he couldn't let him see him like this.

"You know what," said Kimito, walking to the front of the room. He turned in front of Ayato, his arms clasped behind his back. "You are a pathetic little liar. I'll bet I know who taught you to lie like that."

Ayato's heart skipped a beat. No, he couldn't know. He couldn't possibly be talking about her.

"What do you mean?" he asked, raising his head defiantly.

Kimito pursed his mouth into a thin line, narrowing his eyes into slits. He brought his arms out from behind his back and presented the object grasped tightly in his rough hands.

Yuri's birthday mug.

The sight left a bitter taste in Ayato's mouth, not like the coppery blood on his lip that had been split by Kimito's backhand. He swallowed hard, past the lump in his throat. How had he gotten his hands on—?

He looked over his shoulder, at his mother's trembling silhouette just outside the walls. He remembered her bloody lip.

Gritting his teeth, he clutched the fabric of his pants to keep his hands from quaking.

"You look at me right now." Wincing, Ayato corrected his gaze. Kimito tapped his fingers on the mug's glossy surface, his steely glare unwavering. "Look at what I have here. What color is it?"

"Green," Ayato said dully, daring not mention the purple first.

Kimito scoffed the word under his breath.

"So at least you're not blind." He gestured roughly with the mug to the wall behind Ayato. "I found this among your mother's things. She didn't make it. You did. Why does this exist?!"

"It was a gift—"

"You thought you could waste my resources on a gift?!" he snarled, raising his voice. His right hand, the one that clenched around the mug, was shaking with rage. Ayato sucked in a breath; he couldn't take his eyes off of it. "You cost me kiln space – fuel – valuable time, you cost me my hard-earned money for a GIFT?!"

The mug gleamed green and purple each time it caught the glow of the ceiling light. A thousand panicked thoughts were racing through Ayato's head, and yet he watched, frozen, as if under a hypnotic spell.

"Goddammit, Ayato! This is useless trash!" Kimito bellowed. "She doesn't need your garbage GIFT!"

He flung Yuri's mug at the wall across the room. It flew over Ayato's head, hit a wooden beam, and obliterated into a hundred green and purple pieces.

Ayato let out a sharp breath, watching the fragments rain down on the floor like gems. He thought for a moment he'd gone deaf, the only sound in the room being the shrill echo of shattered ceramics. Then the cicadas were shrieking again, the wind rustling the grass just outside the door, and Kimito's growl cut through the thickness in the air.

"You do NOT take my materials without my permission!" he said darkly. "You do NOT make stupid, worthless presents out of perfectly good clay! And you DO NOT drag your mother into this and have her lie to my face! Do you hear me?!"

"Yes sir," Ayato muttered, his head bowed.

It must not have been loud enough, because Kimito grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head up.

"I said, do you HEAR me?!" he snapped.

"Yes sir," Ayato said, a little louder but through clenched teeth. "I'm sorry. It was a mistake."

Kimito let go of his hair and stood up straight. He looked at the corner of the room and sniffed disdainfully, forehead crinkling. After a moment, he headed outside.

"Clean this crap up and go to bed," said Kimito. He stepped off the engawa. "I don't know why you thought you could get away with this."

When he was gone, Ayato rubbed the back of his head, wincing at the sore spots. Then he stared blankly at the corner of the room, where Yuri's mug lay in pieces. Disoriented, he walked out onto the engawa and rounded the corner. His mother was there, still kneeling in that same spot. When she saw him standing in front of her, she finally raised her head.

"Ayato, I—"

"I have to go get the dustpan," he said, passing swiftly by her.

She didn't say a word in reply, only lowered her eyes again. They had nothing to say to each other now.

At the very least, he had learned one important thing from his mother tonight: there was absolutely everything wrong with hope.

A/N: I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!

For two things. 1) Writing Naoi in pain. 2) Not having a lot of material for the preview. I'll try to come back and edit them when I've made more progress on TPS. For now, it's 1791 words with a tentative title.

Christmas break will be here before I know it, which will give me time to write. Until then... so ends this half of TPS season 1!

Preview:

"What day is it?"

"July 26th."

"I'll close up tonight."

"-you sound like a villain."

"Daydream on your own time."

"Who better to ask than the potter's son?"

[Chapter 14]: Beseech.