"These nails in my hands
Erasing all the lines in the sand
I've got no regret
'Cause if I could I'd do it over again, again"
- "Even If It Hurts" by Sam Tinnesz
Prologue
Iemitsu doesn't give a damn about him until he finds out about his flames.
Touya spends his first six years of life blissfully unaware of the man beyond the fact that he exists. His mother, Coretta, and their shithole apartment are his entire world.
Touya loves her with all the simplicity of a child, one who is completely dependent on her. She is often distant and distracted, only spares him the barest amount of attention when she's home. When she isn't, she leaves him with their neighbor, an elderly woman who is paid in Touya's labor. He sweeps and scrubs places where Signora D'Arco can't otherwise reach, dries dishes, feeds and plays with her two cats.
Between two and four every afternoon, they settle in for a nap. He eats all three meals with her. She enjoys cooking, and she's good at it. He tells her so, which kicks off lessons alongside his chores, and he begins to enjoy cooking, too. His mother usually picks him up after dinner, late at night. She puts him to bed as he babbles about his day, and he falls asleep to her low humming, to fingers in his hair, to the knowledge that he is not alone.
It's a simple life. It's a good one. Signora D'Arco is brusque but good-natured. She doesn't mind if he doesn't talk much. She talks enough for the both of them. She's probably the only reason he's any good at Italian, or why he understands anything at all about the world beyond their apartment building. His mother makes sure he's taken care of, works so hard for the both of them. She didn't abandon him even if it would have made things easier for her. She never complains or has an unkind word for him.
Touya knows nothing of pain or fear, those short six years. He does not remember another life or an agonizing death. He does not remember rage or hate or the desperate need to be loved or the merciless sting of rejection. He does not remember that the world can be cruel and unfair. He does not remember that a parent can look at the child they created and find them wanting. He does not remember that a parent can treat their child like a commodity. He does not remember that a parent can love their child and still harm them.
He is reminded.
When he is six and some months, he slips, literally and figuratively. It's a rare day spent with his mother. There is milled vegetable soup simmering on the stove, filling the air with a savory scent that makes his mouth water. His mother is swaying lightly as she hums along to the song on the radio, always a pretty sound. The warm rays of the midday sun are making him sleepy, but he stifles a yawn by shoving another piece of watermelon in his mouth. He doesn't want his time with his mom interrupted by a nap, of all things.
Then, it happens.
He drops his next chunk of melon and unthinkingly leans after it. He falls. Though the height of the counter he was sitting on is hardly anything to write home about, he is very small, and the floor seems so very far away. He has not learned that there are worse things than death. He is falling, and he is six years old, and he genuinely believes he is about to die.
He doesn't want to die. (Again?) Something answers that determination inside him, and it rises up, floods his entire body, fills in gaps he hadn't known were even there. He hits the ground, but it doesn't hurt at all. Even if it did, he's far too preoccupied with the fact that he is on fire.
It feels right. It feels wrong. It feels like warmth and coming home and like bitterness and disappointment. It's purple, and it's perfect, and it feels like it should be blue. It's pretty, and it doesn't burn him, and this fact more than any other stumps him. Memories slam into him with all the force of a freight train, and he loses consciousness almost immediately, missing his mother's reaction entirely.
He doesn't know it, but this is the last time he will ever see his mother. His last chance at a normal life. She calls Iemitsu while he sleeps, seals his fate with damning words. He said to call him if the kid ever displayed unusual abilities, casually, as if it were a joke. They both knew it wasn't.
She sells him out without hesitation, choosing her own life over his. Touya can't bring himself to hate her for it, when he finds out. Resent her, maybe. Wish she had chosen differently. Want someone, anyone to protect him and put him first, for once. But just like Rei never had a choice, neither did Coretta. Iemitsu is just as formidable and untouchable as Endeavor was. Just as shitty. He doesn't even need to meet the man to know that much.
Touya remembers, now. The world is cruel and unfair. A parent can look at a child they created and find them wanting. A parent can treat their child like a commodity. A parent can love their child and still harm them. He won't ever let himself forget.
Iemitsu doesn't give a damn about him until he finds out about his flames. As soon as he does, he sends men out to pick up Touya the very next day. Blank faced men in crisp suits who reek of villainy.
Coretta is not there to see him off. When he wakes, his bags are packed, and the apartment is empty. Signora D'Arco doesn't answer the door when Touya knocks, even though it's a Tuesday, and she's always up at this time. He tells himself he doesn't care, and as he is forcibly taken away from the only home he has ever known in this world, stubbornly refusing to look back or wonder why, he almost manages to make himself believe it.
End Notes: Just wanted to get this idea out there, see if anyone was interested in me continuing? If so, chapters will likely be 2-3k. Let me know. :)