Chapter 8
Akashi was sitting with his bond mates in their house on a pleasant Saturday morning, trying to get some work done without much success. Since Tetsuya left early this morning to return to his parent's house for a while, he couldn't get rid of the ominous feeling twisting in his guts. After staring at the same document for half an hour, he gave up any semblance of work and stood up.
Akashi headed towards Shintaro's room in hopes that maybe his bond mate would indulge him in a match of shogi. On his way there, he saw Atsushi sitting on the floor of the kitchen in the front of an assortment of snacks with a frown on his face looking like the snacks had personally offended him. The sight was so strange and unprecedented that he immediately stopped in his tracks and headed towards the sulking violet-head. Akashi walked towards Atsushi and placed a concerned hand on his hair, running his fingers tenderly through the deep violet locks. Atsushi turned around still with a frown on his face, and on a closer look Akashi could see visible creases of tension in the corners of his eyes. Atsushi's face lost some strained tension when Akashi's hand stroked his hair, and after a few minutes of silent comfort Atsushi nuzzled against the loving palm.
Akashi's voice came out in a whisper, "What's wrong, Atsushi?"
Long, large arms came around his waist in a silent embrace, and a face was pressed against his stomach. Akashi waited patiently for his bond mate to reply, and his patience paid off when there was a rumbling aching reply.
"There's something wrong...Aka-chin. I can't shake off the feeling of anxiety. Is something bad going to happen?...because the feeling is making my stomach and head hurt."
Akashi hummed in an offer of comfort and hoped that nothing bad would occur. If anything happened to any of his bond mates, he would sear the world and raze everything to the ground, and he wouldn't hesitate to destroy everything in revenge. If this cruel world ever took them away from him, he would do anything to bring them back, because they were his. There was nothing he was unwilling to do for them and he knew that all of them felt the same way about him too. So he curled himself lightly around Atsushi's head and left a kiss on the crown of his head.
They stayed there in each other's arms, and were dragged from the pliant and comforting atmosphere around them when Midorima distractedly walked into the kitchen.
Akashi's bond mate had a slightly stressed look on his face, and it was probably because of strikingly obvious absence of the Tanuki statue from his hands. Midorima froze when he saw them. The eyes that were usually so calm and serious were now visibly filled with light distress, and worried them to see.
"Mido-chin...are you alright?"
Atsushi's tone was heavy with concern. Shintaro ducked his head slightly and the glare of the light obscured his eyes from their probing gazes. He replied with a curt "I'm fine. No need to worry", but the nervous fidgeting of the tape he wrapped around his fingers belied his words. Sighing in fond exasperation, Akashi waved him over with a quirked eyebrow.
There was a slight hesitation in Shintaro's step but as soon as he reached them, he melted into Akashi' s side. He wrapped an arm around Shintaro's waist and tucked his head under Shintaro's chin, and he saw Atsushi release one arm around him to envelop Shintaro in their three-way hug.
Shintaro was silent in their embrace but they knew that his agitation seemed to also originate from the same source as their uneasiness.
"Where have you been?!", a rasping angry voice asked.
As Kuroko suspected his father was standing in front of the door leading to the kitchen. His father's tense posture rung alarm bells in his head and the hard flint in his eyes was dimmed by the effects of vodka but still sharp with the promise of danger and consuming anger.
He kept his head down in the required pose of respect of his class, and hunched his shoulders slightly in a more submissive pose. Kuroko took a small breath to prepare himself for the pain he knew was going to come, steeled his mind and softly replied.
"I-I was in school, sir. The student...council asked me to help them with some things and I accidentally for-forgot the time, sir. T-There-.."
Kuroko's voice trailed off into painful silence when a hand snapped out and grabbed a fistful of his hair. He was yanked forward and the momentum of the act propelled him forwards. His head collided unforgivably on the surface of the table and brought dark spots dancing across his vision. Biting his lip to restrain the groan of agony racing from the area where his head collided with the table, he was unaware that the control over his mind was faltering and that trickles of his own pain were permeating through his bond.
He was so occupied with the raw undulated fear in the pit of his stomach and the pulsating pain overtaking his mind that he was totally unaware of the spikes of alarm that rose like tidal waves from his bond mates.
The hand on his head tightened and he felt the raw nerve endings protest, but he kept his face blank and devoid of any emotion and pain he felt. He knew that any reaction would only increase his father's rage. A voice sounded next to his ear in a growl full of unrestrained anger.
"DON'T YOU DARE LIE TO ME, Tetsuya."
From the corner of his eyes, he hazily saw his father tilting his head in a fake imitation of innocuous recognition, and with a tone dripping with scathing vitriol his father continued.
"I can see something different about you. Something more vibrant..." His father spat out.
"Is it because you have bonded? Have you...Tetsuya?"
Alarm raced through him at his father's words and his mind was in a frenzy with panic but he kept his face tightly controlled in a practiced mask of stoic neutrality, and replied in the softest and meekest tone he could muster.
"No, sir. I-I couldn't possibly bond because it is illegal for Inferiors to bond with Superiors."
His answer was devoid of any emotional inflection. It was a reply that exuded practiced repression and defeat and the tone of a person who has been completely beaten into resignation and hopelessness. His answer must have satisfied the writhing rage in his father because the unyielding hand forcing his head against the cold, hard surface of the table relaxed its painful grip minutely.
However, the next words out of his father's mouth chilled him to the core.
"Then I guess you will have no problem reporting to the Supreme council for your next assignment. There will also be no problem if you were checked for any illegal bonds by the Human segregation division too, right Tetsuya?"
His father's deliberate mocking tone became even more piercing, "Of course, since you're not bonded and all that, there will no problems right? It would be like a normal check-up."
The hand gripping his hair suddenly disappeared and before he could answer in false confirmation, a harsh grip on his arm derailed his plan. Without warning, he was hauled from his bent position on the table and thrown towards the opposite side of the room. Kuroko could feel his wrist crack as he turned his body to brace against the wall and the disorientation from his throbbing head made it worse. He ended up being unable to coordinate his body at all and his shoulder and head slammed against the wall so hard he felt something burning and unforgiving dislodged inside his shoulder. His head felt like it had been cracked open and the feeling of nauseousness doubled. He curled slightly against the wall in agony whilst supporting his likely-to-be broken wrist, dislocated shoulder and throbbing head.
His father stood a few meters in front of him with a hard glint in his eyes. Kuroko glanced at the golden wrist cover on his father's wrist and knew that it was not because of mercy that his father refrained from ripping off his silver wrist cover to check for himself, but it was because he wanted Kuroko to suffer even more. He wanted his son to be at the mercy of people who would happily use methods of torture to inflict pain on people they think deserve punishment.
Kuroko knew that the debt his father owed the Supreme council was because his mother, an Inferior, accidentally forced a permanent bond between them without his permission. Kuroko was aware that the Supreme council intervened in his sentence of the illegal bonding between a Superior and Inferior, and offered his father to work for them instead. His father took their offer but he never forgave his mother for that and hated Kuroko's very existence because it represented the life and the privileges that he had unfairly lost.
Kuroko knew that his father was repulsed by the idea that he had fathered an Inferior being. On the other hand, his existence brought a small amount of light to his mother's life, at the same time his presence was also the physical evidence of her failure and her mistakes.
He knew that between his parents, his mother was the only one he could truly say cared for him to some degree, and also knew that his mother found comfort in his presence but she also found repulsion and misery in it too. Looking up at his father he knew that his parents have never truly acknowledged him, they just tolerated his presence because he was useful to them. After living his usefulness, he knew that there was nothing stopping them from either neglecting him or abandoning him. But he kept those thoughts to himself and watched his father in mute silence, and after giving him one last look of utter disgust and contempt his father left the room.
Kuroko sat there for several long minutes in the loud silence of the kitchen before gingerly standing up. He headed out towards the front door lugging his school bag clumsily behind him and limped towards the park nearby. Hopefully, he could stay at his small hiding space there for a while before he needed to return.
