Ten minutes finds me on the way to Kyoto despite my aching wallet, and about three hours earns me a place walking up the steps to Akashi Seijuurou's residence. It's a nice house, all in all. I wish I had one like it. It's bigger than the one I left in the States. I press the intercom. "Who is this?" A voice asks rather unceremoniously. I scratch the back of my head.
"Ah, my name's Alex Heights. I'm here to see Se- Akashi-kun." I reply, stumbling over my words.
"Please wait a moment." I nod despite knowing that the disembodied voice probably can't see me and wait outside the walled yard. My weight shifts from foot to foot anxiously before the intercom releases a static-like noise that scares the living daylights out of me. "I'll let you in. Please wait a moment." The voice says as it speaks again.
I hear hurried footsteps before the rather foreboding door opens for me and slip inside. Beside me is a rather petite woman who likely works for the Akashis. "Sorry for the trouble." I say, wringing my hands together. "I know it's late." The woman looks at me silently before turning and leading me to the door.
"Akashi-kun is waiting in the living room." She says as I follow her in and walk down the hall. Akashi's living room is surprisingly normal. Two couches and a couple armchairs, some pictures of him and a couple who appear to be his parents. I can hear some people moving around upstairs.
"Alex." Akashi says as I enter the living room hesitantly. "I hope your trip was pleasant." Akashi really isn't much for small talk.
"Aside from my wallet screaming in agony, it was fine, thank you." I say, still miffed that Akashi demanded I come to Kyoto. "I hope you realize that I have school tomorrow..." Akashi studies me.
"Yes. I am aware. The school has been informed that you will not be attending tomorrow due to a family matter." I raise an eyebrow.
"I see." I reply. Akashi continues to study me.
"Sit." I do so, although my movements let my anxiety show. "Explain to me what your sister said."
It takes me five minutes to give him the gist of our conversation. Akashi listens silently, taking everything in without comment and waiting patiently for me to finish. Throughout the one-sided story, Akashi remains still, his eyes never leaving mine despite my nervous hand gestures and constant fidgeting. When I'm done, Akashi remains silent so long that I wonder if I've done something I need to apologize for. "I understand the situation now." Akashi says after a few minutes. "Your birth certificate is something that we need with you. It seems you'll have no choice but to house her." I grimace.
"Daiki is staying with me right now." I comment. "I won't have any place for her to stay. Two's plenty. Three will be very hard to fit..." Akashi raises an eyebrow.
"You will need to house her. Do you understand that, Alex? It isn't a suggestion. I am telling you that you must accept housing her in return for the certificate." I sigh roughly.
"I know." I mutter unhappily. "She... she wanted me to talk to my mother. Apparently she had something to say to me?"
"Did you speak with her?" Akashi's question is a dangerous one. Thankfully, this time the truth is the answer he's looking for.
"No. You told me not to, so I told Janine I would not be talking with my mother." I return, my hands clasped tightly in my lap. Akashi nods.
"Good." My chest feels lighter when I have Akashi's approval.
"Akashi-san..." Heterochromatic eyes look at me curiously. At Teiko, I always called everyone by their first name after joining the first string. Nobody seemed to mind, but Satsuki told me off about it once during the last practices, so I stopped.
"It's fine if you call the six of us by our first names, Alex. Nobody minded." Heat rises to my cheeks.
"I-I see." I reply. "In that case... Seijuurou, what should I do about the citizenship thing? I'm worried. What if the school finds out? Or the government? Sei, I'm scared." Red and gold, looking at me calmly.
"That's the second reason why I wanted you to come. My parents will be down shortly. Allow me to do all the explaining, to both you and them. They will have questions for you. Do your best to answer them. If you do not understand something, I will translate it." Ak- Seijuurou states with what seems like practiced ease. I nod, showing I'll accept and follow his orders.
Three pairs of footsteps sound from the stairs, two belonging to people with long strides, and a third to someone with short strides, possibly the woman who opened the door for me earlier. "Mother, Father," Seijuurou says calmly, "I would like you to meet Alex Heights, the person about whom I talked to you earlier."
The relatively average height couple are silent as I turn, stand, and bow to them. "Pleased to meet you." I say politely, glancing to Seijuurou for approval. His eyes state that I have met his expectations. I don't sit until his parents do. Sei's mother has bright locks of flame-colored hair and gold eyes. She's really a beautiful woman. His father is as handsome as his mother, with shorter red hair and red-orange eyes. Three pairs of fire-colored eyes watch me as I try not to fidget anxiously on the edge of my seat.
"I believe it would be best to discuss this fully with Alex present. Do you agree?" Sei says, turning to his parents.
"Yes." His father responds, looking at me carefully. Seijuurou's mother is silent a while longer before she stands, moves from the couch, and crouches in front of me. My eyes widen and I have to keep myself from leaning back. I resist the urge to run.
"Your name is Alex, right?" She asks. Her voice is gentle and sweet, unlike my own mother's. I nod my head. "How old are you, Alex?"
"S-Sixteen, ma'am." The pretty woman raises an eyebrow at my formality.
"Seijuurou, did you say something to scare her?" She asks with her eyebrow still raised curiously. Sei is silent.
"Sei didn't say anything." I tell her with notes of anxiety filling my voice. "I'm just bad with meeting new people." Gold eyes read me as intensely as they dare, and I do my best not to flinch and direct my gaze away.
"Don't be nervous. We're not going to hurt you, you know." Mrs. Akashi says pleasantly. I offer a nervous smile.
"My son seems to have explained the situation to us quite well earlier; however, I believe it would be best to hear it straight from you." Sei's father says as his wife sits beside me. I look at him calmly. "Please explain the situation as best you can." I nod and draw in a deep breath.
"It's really not that complicated a story, to be honest. Where would you like me to start?" I glance at Seijuurou this time, looking for approval to continue.
"Start at the beginning, before you came here." Sei orders. I clasp my hands together before nodding.
"Right." A sigh pushes through my nose before I continue. "I'm sure Sei's told you this, but I'm from the States. In what would be seventh grade, I qualified for a study abroad program that allowed students affiliated with my school to study at Teiko if they were proficient in Japanese. I was lucky that I could take the test, and even luckier that I actually passed.
"As soon as my results came back, my parents agreed to let me study in Japan for a year since I'd be staying with a host family and they felt I could take care of myself well enough. A month later, I began studying at Teiko. It took two months for me to adjust, and another couple weeks for the softball team to pick me up. My gear was shipped over here, and I took on odd jobs to make some spending money since my parents were more focused on my sister, Janine, who is three years younger than me, and my brother, Eric, who is two years younger than me.
"Maybe two months later, after I joined softball, I met Seijuurou. I joined basketball pretty quickly afterward. During that time, contact between my family and I became strained. The time difference and my constant club activities and jobs made it increasingly difficult for us to find time to talk to each other. We'd go weeks without sending emails, although I always responded as fast as possible.
"My second year at Teiko came around faster than we thought should be possible. We couldn't afford a ticket back for me, so my school and Teiko worked out something and I received a visa that allowed me to continue studying abroad. I got a scholarship, luckily. My parents were unhappy with my decision to stay. They thought I should be home since I'd spent my year abroad, but they also didn't do much when I asked for help. I guess they were scared that I wouldn't be their daughter anymore after I'd lived away from them for so long.
"My siblings began to forget things about me, like how I looked and spoke and acted. I became more like a cousin than a sister, and then I was considered more of a stranger. My parents stopped sending me updates. My friends no longer talked to me. I was lucky that I became friends, or at least teammates, with Seijuurou and the rest of the basketball players. It really helped." I take a deep breath, glancing at Sei. He nods for me to continue, a strange gleam in his eyes.
"It became very difficult for me to relate to things my family was going through. They were having trouble of some sort and wouldn't talk to me for months. I became increasingly estranged from them even though I made every effort to be available when they weren't busy so we could talk, so I could see how my brother and sister had changed.
"My sister no longer remembered me. I was just some far off relative living in another country. My brother became very angry at me, thinking I had run away from home and didn't want anything to do with anyone. Nobody believed a word I said. I stopped going out of my way to talk to them and became close with my host family. My third year at Teiko went by with two emails from my sister and a video call from my brother accusing me of running away and never planning to come home. My parents stopped trying to bring me home." My voice is starting to shake, and it disgusts me.
"I started to reply more and more slowly to anything that had to do with my family. My sister didn't want to talk, and my brother didn't want me home. I found out later that the four of them had visited Japan at least six times during my time at Teiko. They never once told me, even when they stayed within a few kilometers of me.
"I didn't hear from them again until two months ago, I think. My family was somehow in Japan again, despite never telling me anything. They found our old manager, Satsuki, and my brother gave her a message and an envelope to give to me." My eyes are burning, and I rub them furiously to stop the sensation. "My brother's message translates to 'You're never coming home.' I was really angry. He couldn't even say that to my face... he went out of his way to say it to someone who was completely uninvolved. The envelope had... I don't know how to say it... um..." I look to Seijuurou. "How do you say disownment papers and a notice of revoked citizenship?" Sei translates the sentence for his parents.
"Afterward one of my friends called me for the first time in two years to tell me he was shocked and disgusted by my decision to abandon my right to be American, even though I had no say in the matter." My heart stutters anxiously. "Look, Mr. and Mrs. Akashi, I know you might not believe me. I know that this sounds far-fetched, but... as soon as the government and my school finds out that I'm no longer a citizen of the U.S. and that I've been disowned, they're either going to deport me to who knows where or they're going to put me into foster care. I don't know what to do, or who to tell, so I went to Sei." My face is an open book. It always has been, and it probably always will be. "I'm very sorry to disrupt your evening with something that probably doesn't concern you and has nothing to do with you, but... I'm really, really sorry. I'm at the end of my rope."
Seijuurou looks at me with approval. "You've done enough, Alex." He says kindly. "You've gotten much more fluent." I almost smile at the redhead's praise.
"Thank you, Seijuurou." I murmur. My eyes are still burning, but I do my best to rein my unruly emotions. I've always hated wearing my heart on my sleeve.
"There are two ways in which a minor can become a citizen." Sei's father says, crossing his arms. "The first is to have one of their parents become a citizen. Seeing as you technically have none-" I flinch forcefully at that. "-it will not work for you." I sigh, disappointment coating my tongue like bitter medicine. "The second method is more complicated. You've lived here four years, I'm sure your behavior has been fine, and you have an income of your own. Your lack of citizenship actually works to your advantage. It isn't impossible for you to be naturalized."
Seijuurou looks at his father in earnest, his concentration something fierce. "What can I do to become naturalized?"
"The problem actually lies with your age. You need to be twenty-one to be naturalized on your own. You will need to be adopted." I gnaw my lip anxiously.
"I see." I murmur, frowning at the floor. I nearly start when Sei's mother rubs small circles on my back. Unlike Sei's eyes, his mother's are gentler. His father's tend to be more calculating, but not in a bad way.
"This is what I wished to discuss more fully." Seijuurou states. "Technically, Alex needs to be adopted in name only. However, it will, I'm sure, require her birth certificate. That's where the problem lies." I stiffen slightly.
"My sister claims that she will send me my birth certificate if she can stay in my apartment." I say. "I don't know how sincere she was when she said it."
"Actually, it won't." Mrs. Akashi says. My eyes widen with surprise. "Because you've been both disowned and had your citizenship revoked-" My eyes sting and my heart slams against my ribs. "-your birth certificate will no longer be valid. It should actually be destroyed by now, which means that if you are adopted, a new one will be given to you." I frown slightly.
"I see. I think I understand so far." Sei and his parents talk more, but as soon as the words start to go over my head, Seijuurou and I both know I'm pretty much done for the evening. It's 10 at night, the trains have probably stopped, and Daiki will be left to fend for himself tomorrow. I don't recall much else from that night except falling asleep against Seijuurou's mom and many worried whispers that make me stir from the darkness that enclosed my consciousness.
When I wake, I don't recognize where I am. In my haziness, my heart starts to race and panic climbs up my throat until I have a strong running whimper escaping my lips. My hands cover my ears and my eyes shut tight. "You can't run now! Don't you think it's a waste? You're going to lose all your talent with just a little pressure." Undeniable pain spreads through my ankle and my shoulder, my wrist and my knee.
"Stop it! I didn't do anything to you!" Laughter echoes in my ears. The blanket around me seems suffocating, and my lungs want more and more air until I'm gasping for breath.
"Morn-" My knees are pressed against my chest and I can't seem to curl up tight enough. My head is starting to pound, and my joints ache painfully. "Alex?" I think Sei's mother is here.
"It hurts." I squeak, shuddering. "It hurts." I don't know when or how, but Seijuurou is next to me in a matter of seconds.
"Alex." I flinch away from him and try to escape from the sheets tangled around my legs. My body hits the floor with a painful thud and my head collides with the nightstand. A yelp flies past my lips despite the way I clench my jaw as tightly as possible. "Alex, look at me."
For a minute, for a few heartbeats, for several ragged breaths, I mistake the eyes unique to Seijuurou for the dark eyes of the one who terrified me in the past. Sei's eyes are light and fiery. Those eyes were dark and unfeeling. I freeze in place. "Alex, it's just me. Seijuurou. The one you thought you saw is not here anymore. We got rid of him, remember?" I want to cry. I want to apologize for mixing up Akashi with the only other player who'd ever scared me.
"I'm sorry." I say helplessly. "I'm sorry." Seijuurou looks at me with surprise hidden in his eyes as I sit up and pull myself out of what was probably a ridiculous daydream. "I'm so, so sorry. I know he isn't here. I know he's been gone a while. I don't know why I'm like this." I blubber apologies for as long as Seijuurou allows me before I start crying and tire myself out once more.
"Go back to sleep, Alex." He says quietly. "Who do you want to take you home?" I'm not sure if Sei hears me at all, but I pass along the name "Aomine" before falling asleep once more.