Once upon a time, there was a child named Kiyama Tatsuya.
(He would lose his name though, and perhaps even his identity, to do what never failed to make him happy: seeing other people smile.)
Tatsuya didn't know why he was standing there, or where he even was. The policemen had explained what was happening to him briefly, but all the four year old could remember was that he would be living in a different place now.
Watching one of the policemen knock on a really big door, Tatsuya wondered where his parents were.
Did they… Did they give him up? Because he wasn't good enough? But he always listened to what they said, and he never spoke of things he wasn't supposed to. He followed their every rule, so why wouldn't it be enough? Was he really such a bad kid?
(Almost a decade later, the same child — now a middle-schooler standing in front of the remnants of a meteor, basking in its purple glow — would look back, and realise that he hadn't been a bad kid. They had been bad parents.)
The door of the — Tatsuya checked the name plate — Oh… Sama… En? What?
He squinted at the name, trying his best to make out the words, but he couldn't quite read the fancy script. His father was right. He really was stupid.
"—let's…"
Tatsuya turned, blinking at some woman who had answered the door. She stared back, green eyes wide and— were those tears? What had he done now?
"No way…" she murmured, her voice so low that Tatsuya wasn't sure if he was meant to hear it.
There was a strange thickness to her voice, something Tatsuya couldn't quite put into words back then, but even he could tell that it shouldn't be there.
(He would learn the word for it later in his life. Grief.)
Tatsuya stared at her, only blinking in response. How was he to remove something he didn't even know the name of?
Right in front of him, a tear fell. It was wiped away before it could go too far.
Before Tatsuya could move or even speak, the lady beckoned him inside, and in the same thick voice, she said, "Come on, Hiroto."
(Years afterwards, when the moment was nothing but a blurry memory, Hiroto would remember his father calling him that for the first time instead.
"Father thought I was his real son," he would say with a small, nostalgic smile. "I think even Nee-san cried.")
He was Kiyama Hiroto. He was Kiyama Hiroto.
He was Hiroto.
Hiroto. Father's dead son.
The dead son Tatsuya knew nothing about, the dead son he would give anything to be. Father had given him— no, them all everything. Father deserved happiness, and if he had to be Hiroto to make him happy, it was only a small price to pay.
(He would briefly wonder, in the distant future, if he would have been a different person without that influence, but he then would knock it off.
"What's in a name?" he would think and banish any related thoughts from his mind.)
"Tatsuya!"
Instinctively, he turned, and frowned at the culprit. Reina of all people should know better than to call him that.
"My name is Hiroto," he said, even as he walked over to the ground.
Reina rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway! Do you want to play with us or are you just going to sulk over there?"
His eyes narrowed. "I wasn't sulking. And I've told you before, don't call me that."
Before they could start a game though, the gate opened, and Hiroto ran towards that instead.
Father ruffled his hair and called him "Hiroto", and Tatsuya could see some light reach his eyes. That only happened when Father called him Hiroto, and that smile never failed to make Tatsuya happy.
Perhaps it was because only he could bring out that smile.
No, he remembered almost immediately, it wasn't him. Tatsuya would never be enough for Father; no one would ever be.
It was someone nothing could bring back, someone Tatsuya never got the chance to meet, even if he wanted to be just like him.
Regardless of the reason though, Tatsuya— no, he was Hiroto now — would do anything for that smile. Even if he had to be someone else.
Even if it meant that no one, not even he himself — would ever know or remember Tatsuya. That was fine.
(One day, he would be called Tatsuya for the last time. From then on, his name would always be Hiroto, even to Reina, who would eventually give up fighting Hiroto's stubbornness.)
One day, a green haired kid showed up at the orphanage. "I'm Midorikawa Ryuuji."
Hiroto smiled back. "My name is Kiyama Hiroto."
(Ryuuji never knew him as Tatsuya, but he would still call him that one day, saying that Reina had told him everything.
"Being someone else… Is it really worth it?" Ryuuji would ask just that once.
Hiroto would only smile back, and though he wouldn't know it, there would be a sliver of melancholy in that smile. "Yeah."
And why wouldn't it be? It made his father happy, after all. That was worth everything.)
Kiyama Hiroto didn't like soccer all that much, not at first. It was okay, but he didn't really get the appeal behind running after a ball.
But Kira Hiroto had loved soccer; he had died for it, even, in a way.
So, his namesake ran after the ball as well, wondering if he, too, would understand the joy behind it one day.
(And eventually, soccer would end up being his most beloved thing in the world, something he no longer did for someone else, but for himself.)
Father was borderline obsessed with the meteorite, but Hiroto didn't say anything. He didn't think Kira Hiroto would have, and he had no one to ask now that his sister had turned her backs on them.
(He would wonder for a sliver of a second, when facing the team she trained to defeat them, if they were the ones who turned on her.
He would wonder if it all could have been prevented if he hadn't been so fixated on becoming someone he never could be.
But then, purple would cloud his vision, and all he would be able to think of would be how he could make his father happy.)
"Hiroto," Father said one day, and he focused all his attention on that. There was a peculiar distance in the man's eyes, one that never failed to remind Hiroto that while he could lessen his father's burden, he could never truly replace the son he had lost. His real son.
"From now on, I want you to be Gran."
And if Father wanted him to be Gran, then Gran he would be. Because that was all he could do for the man who was still grieving, even after all those years.
(Some nights, he would wonder if Father ever thought of Hiroto as he liked to think.
When Aliea Gakuen finally would fall and Hiroto would learn what it was made for, he would no longer have to wonder. He would never manage to complete the task he had assigned to himself.
After all, it was a task only one person could ever accomplish, and that person was dead. And no amount of pretending could change that.)
Raimon lost to Epsilon. And yet, Gran found himself strangely drawn to this team he could single-handedly crush. He had never felt like this before, so he stayed to observe.
And when he met the team's captain, friendly and upbeat despite the brutal loss, Gran realised that it had never been the team that had gotten his attention. It was this person, whose eyes shone with an unbeatable willpower.
Endou Mamoru had a unique passion that made not just Gran but everyone gravitate towards him. Not even Burn's strongest flames could incinerate it nor could Gazel's coldest blizzards freeze the life out of it.
Gaia, when they managed to become the Genesis, would be able to crush it perhaps, but Gran had no intention of doing such a thing, not unless Father himself ordered him to.
Gran would even burn the world for that man.
"So, what's your name?"
No one had managed to pique Gran's interest the way Endou did, so he lied and said, "Kiyama Hiroto."
(They would meet again one day, as enemies, and there would no longer be lies between them, only betrayal. And yet, Endou and his team would be the ones to save him another day.
Him. Not Gran. Not Kira Hiroto's second coming. Not even Kiyama Hiroto.
No, Endou would do that for him, for the boy Endou could only wish he had managed to befriend that night under the stars, because he was a friend and a person.)
When all was said and done, Ulvida attacked their father, and as much as Gra— no, he was Hiroto now. Again.
Hiroto understood her. Perhaps not Ulvida, but he understood Yagami Reina. He hated that he understood, but he did.
Not just because of the Genesis Project.
No. Petty as it was, Hiroto hated that he could never be enough for the man. Even when he was trying his best, Father wasn't satisfied. His son was still gone, and Father would even burn the world itself for Kira Hiroto.
It was strange that Hiroto could hate someone he had never met.
(In a moment of vulnerability, he would say all this to Fubuki, not even a year later. Fubuki would understand though, on a level Hiroto wouldn't expect, and Hiroto would learn why Fubuki knew what being someone else was like.)
But Hiroto would do anything for his father, even after everything. So when Ulvida made the shot, Hiroto blocked it.
Any pain was worth it if it was for Father. Physical or emotional.
Hiroto is now with the police, waiting as patiently as he can while they rush to confirm everything. He wonders briefly where Ryuu— no, Reiz—
No, he's not Reize anymore. But going back to first names feels strange now. Foreign, almost, as if they were never that close to begin with. They had been best friends once. But Gaia and Gemini Storm had been on such a different level that interacting as equals was almost impossible.
So, Midorikawa it would have to be, for now at least, until they are both ready for that kind of friendship once more. But that is alright. Names are fickle anyway. You never know when they can change.
When it's time for Hiroto to be questioned, he is asked, perhaps out of formality since his name was pretty much televised to all of Japan after that final match, "Is your name really Kiyama Hiroto?" The detective then pauses and adds, "Your legal name, I mean."
Hiroto almost smiles at the question and nods, even if he isn't sure anymore.
He is Kiyama Hiroto. But he used to be Gran, too. And once upon a time, he had had another name, even if he can't remember it anymore.
For a sliver of a moment, he thinks, "What if I did?"
He shakes it off though. Surely nothing would change.
After all, what's in a name?
January 19, 2022
Word count: 1883 words
To be honest, I've always found Hiroto's backstory to be very interesting. It's kind of messed up on a level canon doesn't quite elaborate. Hiroto basically sacrificed his identity as a child so that Kira could be happy. Kira doesn't deserve him.
I've always wanted to see a fic the kind of issues that come with molding yourself to be someone else, and still knowing that it's not enough. I wanted to show how wrong that is, but since Hiroto doesn't quite acknowledge that, I didn't put it in his perspective. I hope I portrayed it well enough though.