Hello everyone!

I started this fanfic around 2016 till 2018 and it went on hiatus for like 5 years, which I deeply regretted. I picked it up recently due to that guilt and decided to finish it.

While doing so, I had to of course reread the story and found out that I majorly dislike and cringe at the things I wrote as a teenager. Therefore, I will be rewriting some parts and reuploading them. I can't change much of the plot (no matter how ridiculous it may seem to me by now) but I'll at least try to make it more... digestable.

That being said, this is my last fanfic on this website. I'm now more active on archive of our own under the name Ms_lovepoem. Be sure to follow me there if you like my stuff :)

This fanfic is kind of an AU because Asano and Karma are brothers due to certain reasons (which you are going to find out) they must keep it a secret.

It's mostly fluff and angst, has lots to do with family, of course with some humour too. It loosely follows the storyline of the original anime/manga.

Just to make sure no one's confused: The first few chapters are flashbacks from one year ago when our main characters were in second years. So Karma's not in the E class yet.

Hope you enjoy it!

Karma is late.

Gakushuu glances at the phone, the time 15:07 staring back at him in bold letters and yet the redhead is nowhere to be found. They were supposed to meet seven minutes ago at the usual place, though now that he thinks about it, he didn't exactly specify he meant the usual place. Maybe Karma misunderstood? No, it's not like they ever went anywhere else than this secluded part of the mountain.

Could he be having some trouble? Or was he being followed? Maybe sending him a quick text wasn't a bad idea.

However, as the strawberry blond starts typing, he gets a glimpse of red and immediately puts the gadget back into his pocket. There, from the green emerges the major thorn in his side - with a cut on his cheek and a bruise on his arm. Gakushuu didn't see the bruise as much as he intuitively guessed, from the way Karma lightly held onto the limb instead of resting it in his pocket as usual. Must have hurt like bitch then.

"Karma," he walks forth, discreetly searching the boy's body with his eyes for other injuries. "What the hell did you do? Another fight?"

The redhead just clicks his tongue and wipes the blood stain on his cheek away: "They were picking on an upperclassman so I just stood up for him."

Gakushuu stills in shock. He doesn't like the sound of this.

"Who 'they'? What upperclassman?" he frowns. "Did you really need to get violent again? I told you many times not to get involved in these stupidities," he sighs, taking a few band-aids. It has become a habit by now to have them packed in his school bag since this little idiot liked to get himself hurt all the damn time.

"I saw some assholes bullying a third year from class E so I went there and beat the shit out of them."

"Watch your language, you kid," Gakushuu scolds him while putting the band-aid on the side of his face.

"I am not a kid," his brother tries to grunt. Unfortunately, that fails miserably, because the strawberry blond held his face firmly in place and effectively prevented him from moving any facial muscles.

"You are one year younger than me," Gakushuu states, a matter of fact.

"Technically not since I am in the same school year as you."

"Skipping grades doesn't make you older, " he patted his head to emphasize the height difference. The boy sure was growing fast as of late, but there was still a difference of a few centimetres, which gave Gakushuu an upper hand.

Sensing that he won't win this argument, Karma gives up: "Touché,"

Having finished treating the wound, Gakushuu rolls his eyes and flicks the latter on the forehead. His victim whines and starts rubbing the spot which is now turning red.

"Who were the bullies? I mean, which class?" he asks further, the unease inside of him growing. Just the very fact that his little brother fought for a member of class E made me icky already. His reply, however, made me feel something close to terror:

"Class A," the redhead mumbled, for once more subdued due to being aware of how the strawberry blond would react.

Right.

Fucking peachy.

Closing his eyes, Gakushuu takes a deep breath. Stay calm, he tells himself. No killing. That's illegal in this country. Even if it was an insolent, unruly child he would be beating to death, it was still illegal.

"Speaking of shit, you just got into some," he settles on.

"Wow, how did you figure that out, mister Know-it-all?" the boy retorts sarcastically.

Yep, the lack of adult supervision turned Karma into a brat and it took all self-control to not strangle him.

"You know your teacher is going to punish you for that. Worst case, the chairman might get involved," Gakushuu warns as they sit down on the grass. Despite the seriousness in his tone, he feels more relaxed than he had the whole day.

He's glad to be finally out here in the middle of the forest, where no prying eyes could see them. It took a rather rocky and complicated route to arrive here, so no one really bothered coming all the way to this spot unless they wanted to risk getting lost and never found. Which was also the reason they chose it as their usual meeting point. For the two of them, memorizing the path here was a piece of cake.

One would think those safety measures were over the top, but Gakushuu would beg to differ. There was way too much on the line for them to take any chances. They couldn't afford to let anyone find out about our blood relation after all - not the students, the teachers and most certainly not their father. It hurts his head to even touch upon the convoluted subject, so he decides to ignore it for the time being and focus on the subject at hand.

"Suspension at worst," his younger brother shrugged. "But you know, Ono-sensei is a good person. He said that he would be on my side if I was right. And I am - bullying weaklings is ridiculous. If they want to pick a fight, why don't they choose someone strong?"

Gakushuu sighs in exasperation. What a naive way of thinking. First of all, this school didn't work that way. There was no place for the weak. Their whole system was based on the power dynamics and it proved quite effective. Besides, looking down on the failures was quite fun, wasn't it? Might as well enjoy the ride.

Either way, that Ono-sensei of his rings a bell. Gakushuu hasn't personally been taught by him before, considering the man was a D-class teacher, but he knows enough about each and every student and teacher at school. From what he remembers, there wasn't much genuinely good about him that Gakushuu could recall.

He suspects it might be yet another fake that takes advantage of gifted students to climb the ladder. It's a rather cliché but unfortunately common pattern, one he had heard of before from his senpais before.

Karma may be violent and hard to control, but he is a genius. He's in his second year of middle school, breezing through all the learning material like it's nothing and easily picking up complicated concepts from higher years as well. What however no one knows and trulz impresses Gakushuu, is that he's doing all that despite having a whole year of a disadvantage. Karma only just turned thirteen. He should have been in the first year (definitely belonged there more with his childish personality), but instead, he secretly enrolled a year earlier to stay with Gakushuu.

Karma might theoretically one day even take Gakushuu's number one rank at the school if he tried very hard. But he won't because he is an arrogant, lazy ass.

All things considered, Karma was a wonderful way for that teacher to make himself a good name - having "brought up" a student with such terrific academic success and all. He makes sure to tell his brother just as much:

"You shouldn't rely on that teacher. He doesn't sound trustworthy to me."

But the boy shook his head: "I trust him, he always supports me."

Well, that took the strawberry blond by surprise. It's a first that the boy trusts anyone apart from him, let alone an adult.

His pride rather hurt, Gakushuu queries: "Do you doubt my words?"

Rather exasperated, Karma pouts: "No, I just believe in my own opinion and feelings. That's what you taught me, wasn't it?"

"I regret teaching you that. You would be much more obedient if I didn't," Gakushuu jokes, ruffling the boy's hair.

He's still quite concerned about the situation but concludes that no matter what he says, his little brother will stubbornly dismiss it. So he thinks if it turns out that Ono-sensei is reliable and trustworthy, good. Great. If not, then Gakushuu will take care of the consequences.

He lets out the breath he's been unconsciously holding and plops down on the grass beside Karma. The sky above his head, the soft murmurs of trees and the presence of his only real family was a nice change from the everyday facade he had to keep. Not having to be the perfect council president. Not having to stay on guard. Or to pretend that he didn't see or even know his own brother.

"Hey, A-sa-no-kun," Karma called in an obnoxious manner, obviously trying to provoce him.

"Cut the surname thing. You know I hate it. We're alone now."

And there it was. That smug, plotting grin.

"Yeah, of course, you're so right, onii-chan," He sings with a sweet, playful tone. Gakushuu makes a disgusted grimace, suddenly very sick. That was most definitely not what he meant.

"Ahaha, sorry. Should I call you Gakushu-nii if you insist on me being polite and respectful to my older brother? Or Gaku-niichan to make it more affectionate?" the younger one pokes him at the lack of response. "Or should I go back to Gaku-nii like when we were kids?"

Brings back memories.

The strawberry blond jabs him in the sides and the boy recoils like the ticklish little shit he is.

"Only if you wish to be called Karma-chan from now on," he teases back.

Karma rolls his eyes: "I will throw up," he jabs back. The two of them measure each other with a glare, which then turns into a staring contest. Somehow, that turns into a full-blown tickling war.

And it takes Gakushuu back, really, to the old times. Though he supposes they've grown plenty since and learnt a lot, most notably how to take care of one another - Gakushuu being the one paying attention to the younger one's physical well-being and Karma making sure his older brother didn't go crazy from stress. After all, it was not that easy to live under pressure with a gruesome father, was it? Karma's kind of crazy and unhinged was annoying, but it was necessary in the rigid life Gakushuu was forced to lead.

It was something they could have never afforded to do if they hadn't taken all the precautions to keep their siblingship a secret. Lying to the school, friends and their parents was a low price to pay.

Mother and father got divorced when Gakushuu was six and Karma five. He doesn't remember enough to be able to recount the whole thing, only recalling flashes here and there. It's mostly the information he learnt later that completes the story, although even so it's rather plagued with blanks and missing pieces. Still, it doesn't change anything about the final verdict of the court: The chairman, their father, got full custody of Gakushuu and their mother was in charge of Karma. Now that he thinks about it, Karma's name was different back then too. It was only years later when their mother remarried and the two of them had to change their surname to "Akabane", that he requested the change of his first name too. Mother must have been quite confused, but Karma pushed for it until she approved.

And he did all of that in order to stay under the chairman's radar.

(Although honestly, good for him. Gakushuu liked "Karma" better too. He too would jump the opportunity to change his own name at any given chance, considering it was a pun for studying. How embarrassing. Asano Gakuho should be banned from picking names.)

The siblings promised each other to stay in touch. Mother moved abroad for her work and instead of going with her, Karma opted to stay behind to fulfill that promise. He had started going to the same school as Gakushuu, in other words, Kunugigaoka, where the chairman reigned.

And therein lied the problem - if the chairman knew that Karma was his second son, there'd be no telling how he'd react. Taking into account that he wasn't on speaking terms with their mother, he would probably make the boy's life a living hell. Or worse, try to control him.

Gakushuu did his best to convince the redhead to go somewhere else, but kids. Karma especially. He didn't take a 'no' for an answer and applied despite being countlessly deterred from it.

Nobody knew of this fabricated life of theirs. It's funny, really, how other teenagers their age were so reliant on their parental figures, listened when they were told to not stay out after eight and could truly trust them to take care of them. And yet here the two of them were, desperately holding on to the brittle peace they had to create themselves. With their mother mostly overseas and father being a tyrant, they have learnt fairly fast how to be self-sufficient, to lie and pretend. Karma as an undercover agent who skipped one year to be in the same class as him and Gakushuu the professional actor who constantly had to fool the demon himself, the chairman. The two of them even had to learn Latin to communicate with each other when needed (hardly anyone knows Latin so it was a perfect choice)!

Gakushuu glances at the redhead in sentiment. He loves this boy in front of him to bits and can't imagine losing him ever. God, he'd burn the whole world to the ground before letting anything happen to him.

Karma notices the stare and sticks out his tongue in a taunt.

Nevermind. He takes it back.

Gakushuu is going to burn the world along with the boy. Rude little shit that he was.

(Seriously, he actually remembers how respectfully and affectionately Karma used to look up to him?! Like he was all 'Gaku-nii! Show me this! Let's go there! You are so amazing!' And now it's like: 'Fuck yourself, I'm gonna have it my own way"

Like... What the hell?!)

Okay, that's the end of chapter one!

To be honest, lots of info dump and I'm still not that satisfied but I did my best. I swear it gets better. Soon.