Chapter Text
Akira glares balefully at the badly-dressed man as he smiles graciously at the suits who’d dropped him off. He’s faking it. It’s painfully obvious, and painfully annoying.
He’s eleven, and his mother just died, and here he is being made to move in with the man who paid his father to ruin people’s lives.
“Thank you so much for helping the poor boy here. I’m sure he’s had a tough time. I’ll take good care of him. His parents were good people.” Akira almost scoffs out loud, but settles for doing it in his head. Madarame hardly knew his parents. He probably didn’t even know their names.
He waits until the door is closed, and they’re alone. Madarame turns to him, still smiling that fake smile. He opens his mouth to talk, but Akira beats him to it.
“You’re a fraud.” It’s a word he learned very early into his internet adventures, but he learned it because of the man in front of him. Madarame blinks, raising his eyebrows in an unbelieving way that Akira’s seen too many times from his parents, and tries to say something. Akira cuts him off again.
“I’ve seen it all. You steal your students’ paintings and say they’re yours. You pay people to make it so the other artists aren’t as popular. Your students hate you and you hurt them.” He’d seen much more online, where he’d found it all, but those were the most important things. “You pay people to ruin other people’s art.”
His father had done that for Madarame, a curator for an art museum who ruined other people’s paintings for the new car that had sat in their driveway for a month before he died.
Madarame has given up the fake smile to furrow his eyebrows darkly. Good, Akira thinks.
“Did your father tell you that, boy? People never know when to shut up.” He shakes his head meanly, and Akira shakes his head right back.
“You’re a terrible person. I didn’t need my dad to tell me that.” Then he adds, because he’s been planning this ever since he heard the news, “I’m not going to stay with you.”
He’s not going to stay with the man that has hurt so many people just to get more money.
Madarame starts laughing suddenly, stopping Akira in his tracks. “Didn’t you hear me!? I’m not going to stay with you!” What was wrong with him? Why was he laughing? Akira’s face flushes hot with confusion as his face scrunches up.
“Boy, I wish I could get rid of you. You’re not a student of mine and you’re useless to me. But out of the goodness of my heart—”
“You don’t have any goodness!”
“—Out of the goodness of my heart, I have decided to allow you to stay with me.”
“I’m not staying with you!”
“Oh you are, Akira-kun,” and Akira recoils at the way he says his name, too familiar, too mocking, too harsh, like Madarame just grabbed him by the collar and picked him up. “You are here because it is your parents’ final wish, and because the government has honoured that wish. And now, you can’t leave.” There’s a growing feeling of understanding in him, and Akira doesn’t like it. He wants to run away from this man, but his feet won’t move.
“Legally, you have to stay here until I either agree to send you somewhere else, or until you turn eighteen. If you try to leave before then, the police will bring you back. Do you understand?” Akira swallows. It hurts.
“Send me back then!”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t. You see, I couldn’t bear to trust anyone else with your safety, after all. And the government would never let me send to you to a facility when you could just stay here.”
“Then—then—but—”
“Oh, stop whining. It’s useless. Now grab your bags and come with me.” Madarame turns and starts climbing a staircase, not turning back as Akira’s whole world collapses. His knees are shaking. His hands have forgotten how to form fists. His eyes have narrowed in on the terrible, horrible man he’s supposed to spend the next seven years of his life with, and he’s not really sure if he wants to exist anymore.
His mother has been gone for months, his father for years, but it feels like he’s just lost them all over again.
“Akira! Hurry up!” Akira fuzzily watches Madarame storm back down the steps and reach out to him. He’s never looked this tall in photos. Maybe he’s gotten taller since then? He looms stories over him, and Akira jerks back away from him, stumbling.
Madarame scowls, and the room gets darker, but the lights are still on.
“Boy. I am in charge of you now. I decide when you eat, where you sleep, and what you get to do. You have no choice. You will listen to me, or you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?”
Akira doesn’t want to stay here.
“Yes.”
Akira’s not sure what’s happening, but there are too many flashing lights and too much shouting. The only thing keeping him from slipping away like he usually had at his dad’s events is the heavy hand on his shoulder. Madarame’s pushing him into the ground and holding him there, grinning his fake smile at the lights like someone had just told him he was getting a hundred thousand yen for free.
“Madarame-san, why did you decide to take in another child, alongside all of your many students?”
Oh, they’re reporters. They’re all wearing suits like the men that had come to take him to Madarame’s, too. But why did they need so many photos? Akira’s just standing here.
Why is Akira here?
“Ah, I must admit that while it was a difficult decision to make, considering all of the other children that need my guidance, I couldn’t just leave the poor boy. His late parents trusted that I would take care of him, and I owe them that much.”
“Is Kurusu-kun going to become a student of yours?”
“I’m afraid not; it seems as if he isn’t the artistic type. However, he is still a young boy that needs help, and I will fulfill that to the best of my abilities.” Akira doesn’t want to be here. The lights are still flashing, and they hurt his eyes. He never wanted to go to Madarame’s in the first place. He can get help somewhere else. But Madarame’s hand is holding him down, and he can’t move.
“How long will Kurusu-kun be staying with you?”
Why won’t Madarame let him go? He wants to leave. He doesn’t like being here, it’s crowded and scary and too bright and too dark. He’s tired and thirsty and bored when he’s not scared. He tries to squirm away from Madarame’s grip.
Madarame’s hand pushes down harder until it hurts, and Akira stops.
“Until he is legally an adult, of course.”
Akira wants to scream.