[fic] not so different
Title: not so different
Pairing/Character(s): Okamoto Keito, Morimoto Ryutaro, Tanaka Juri
Rating: PG
Disclaimers: I own nothing. This work is purely fictional.
Word count: 3300~ words
Summary: [AU] he thinks running away is his only way out.
He’s running.
Keito is running in the city streets, occasionally pushing people out of the way; running to wherever his feet is capable of taking him.
Soon, his vision gradually begins to fail him as his he feel his surroundings begin to spin around him and just as he reached an alley, he falls down on the cracked pavement face down and fainted.
- - - - - - -
“Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
Keito put away the dishes in the sink before leaning against the kitchen counter, eyes looking at places other than his father.
“Is this… is this okay?” he asked finally, daring himself to look at his father.
His father raised an eyebrow, confusion coloured his face.
“This. Us. Us not being with together.”
“But we are-“
“Not without mum.” Keito cut him off mid-sentence.
His father’s stance went rigid. He wiped his mouth and stood up immediately.
“Enough of this.”
“But-“
“I SAID ENOUGH!”
- - - - - - - - -
“ENOUGH!”
He hears voices; unrecognisable voices around him. Keito chokes a little as he regains consciousness. His vision is still a little blurry so he couldn’t make out where he is currently and the darkness of the night doesn’t help either.
“Look, he’s waking up. Quickly!” says another voice, Keito could make out body shapes around him as he tries to sit up.
“Here,” a cup of water is pushed into his unsuspecting hands. He could see the person handing him the cup is barely a teenager; probably about twelve-years-old. The same goes for the others that are circling him. Just where the hell is he?!
“Can you talk?” asks one of them.
He nods weakly.
A while later, a figure comes out from the shadows and crouching down next to him. The other kids simply leaned against the walls, away from the two of them.
“You,” he says almost lazily. The new person looks up and down at his clothes before continuing. “What’s a rich kid like you doing in a place like this?”
Keito could only splutter a little before managing to come up with an answer. “What about you!” he looks at his interrogator. “You can’t be more than fifteen!” he barks out.
“Fourteen.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m fourteen. Geez, you rich kids are stupid.” He snorts before turning away.
Then, he hears footsteps from round the bend. Almost immediately he is hauled up and dragged farther away into the shadows of the alley by the guy with the others tailing closely behind them.
“What’s happening?”
The kid doesn’t even spare him a glance. “Run. If you value your life; run.”
And Keito does as he was told.
- - - - - - -
“How do you do it?”
“How do I do what?”
“Being okay with your mum running away,” he said carefully.
Keito chuckled.
“You just get used to it.”
“Pardon?”
“The pain; it stings, but you’ll get used to it over time.”
- - - - - -
“Hello?” someone waved his hand in front Keito’s face, bringing him back to reality.
“Do you always space out like that?”
“Oh, what? No, sorry.”
The group that saved (so he fainted in the middle of the road, nothing life threatening) brought him to an abandoned warehouse and led him to a small room. He could only guess this is where they live judging by the numbers of empty boxes lining the room and outside.
All of them are doing their own things; some cleaning the messed up boxes or playing around with an old baseball bat but the fourteen year old boy chose to sit next to him, glancing at him at random moments.
“What’s your name?” he suddenly asks..
“Okamoto… Keito.”
“Did you run away?” he asks again.
“Is it obvious?”
“Painfully so,” he pauses for a while, “and you, Okamoto Keito, are painfully stupid.”
He feels his anger bubbling up, his fists clenching. How dare this unknown kid easily passing off judgement to someone he just met. Before he could say anything in retaliation, the kid already stood up and walked out of the room.
“Don’t worry about him; he’s just bitter,” Someone walks up to him, taking the space that’s vacant next to him. Keito recognise the boy talking to him as the same boy that helped him up earlier.
“Tanaka Juri,” he holds out his hand and Keito accepts it cautiously. It definitely doesn’t go unnoticed by this Juri kid. “Relax, dude. We’re not bad people.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Juri chuckles lightly. “But you were thinking it, weren’t you?” he says again, stretching his legs. “We’re used to it.”
Both of them sit in a comfortable silence before Juri being the one to break it. “So, what did you tell him that got him like that?”
“He figured I ran away; which is true,” he answers and Juri whistled. “What?”
“No wonder.”
“What?”
“If you ask me, I’d call you stupid too,” says Juri, looking down at his worn out sneakers. Keito wonders how long they have been living like this. Keito feels like he should hit Juri for calling him stupid but the wistful look he caught underneath Juri’s bangs made him think twice.
Juri pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”
“Who will?”
“Morimoto. Who else? He’s not so bad. He just has issues with brats running away from home.” He pauses before hastily adding, “No offence.”
Keito furrows his brows. “Who?”
For a moment, the look Juri is giving him makes him feel like an idiot. “You talked to the guy and even managed to make him angry; though that doesn’t take much, and you don’t even bother to ask his name?”
“Morimoto Ryutaro. That guy you just pissed off; his name is Morimoto Ryutaro.”
- - - - - -
“Dad?”
No answer.
“When’s mum coming back?”
“Err, soon, Keito, soon,” his father smiled at him though he could see he was forcing himself to. Maybe it’s better to not ask about his mum again in the future.
- - - - - - -
The warehouse is bigger than he imagined when he first arrived, which isn’t that long ago. Keito walks aimlessly inside the building, his eyes looking at the high ceilings, as if checking for holes in case of rain.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees the main door and makes his way towards it. He has no reason to stay here anyway. Before he could even get to the door, someone stopped him.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Keito turns and sees Ryutaro marching up to him.
“Leaving.”
“Oh sure, leave, just like that, in this time of night. If you want to continue your little escapade, wait for the sunlight, will you?” he yells from the middle of the room, still walking towards Keito.
His face now scrunches up in confusion. “What’s it to you?”
“Well, for one, if you want to die, then, by all mean, please do walk out of this place,” Ryutaro challenges Keito, crossing his arms.
“I thought you hate me.”
“You’re an idiot, but I’m not going to let some idiot get himself killed just because he decides to run away like an idiot in the middle of the night,” Ryutaro answers without missing a beat.
Keito is too stunned to talk for a minute. “Is it-is that why we ran before?” he asks.
“You know this is a not-so-nice place. Of course there’s going to be some not-so-nice people around here. You’re just lucky we found you first before some of the older guys do.”
“ I mean it,” Keito gulps when he sees the look in Ryutaro’s eyes. For now, he just has to trust him. “If you want to leave, wait for morning, we’ll take you out of here.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Both of them stay silent for moment. Finally, Ryutaro sighs and looks at Keito straight in the eyes, “because, I don’t abandon anyone,” he says before stalking off.
- - - - - - -
“Mum!” a young Keito shouted, being held back by his father.
He struggled a little to get out of his father’s grasp to no avail as he helplessly watch his mother gets into the cab in front of their house.
“MUM!” he yelled again, hoping she’ll turn back and wave off the cab.
But she didn’t.
- - - - - -
Keito was offered Juri’s side of the room for the night but he declined, saying he’s sleep anywhere that’s unoccupied.
When everyone else has settled on their sleeping spot, Keito is the only still standing up, looking around the room for spaces that he could crash on. The room isn’t that big to begin with and they’re trying to fit six boys in it.
Six.
Six.
He counts again and there’re only five people, including himself. Who’s missing?
“What are you doing?” says Ryutaro from behind, his hand holding a piece of cloth.
If Keito had any heart-related disease, he’s pretty sure he’d be on the floor then. “Just figuring out where to sleep. So you’re the one that’s missing.” He whispered the last part out.
“Missing?” Ryutaro keeps on turning the cloth over and over in his hand.
“No, I noticed that-never mind,” he waves it off before pacing around the room again with his jacket in his arms, rolled up into a makeshift pillow.
“You can take my spot,” says Ryutaro almost immediately. “I’m going out for a little while.”
Keito looks at him warily. “Yours?” he nods and points at a space a little farther away from Juri, next to another boy.
“Just… just don’t move too much in case you wake up my brother,” he adds quickly before moving out of the room.
When he’s out of sight, Keito turns to the spot Ryutaro pointed at earlier. Brother?
- - - - - - -
“You will not leave this house!”
“Why the hell not? Why can’t I go and see my own mother?”
“Because I said so!”
“That’s not fair!”
“Well, nothing’s fair in this world. It’d do you good to learn that now.”
The door was slammed shut for the nth time that week.
- - - - - - -
“Wake up.”
He rolls from his spot, mumbling, ”no, s’too early, dad.”
“I said, WAKE UP!” the volume of it made him jump, effectively waking Keito up. He rubs the sleepiness from his eyes and looks up.
Ryutaro was looking down at him with a smug look on his face.
“What was that for?!”
“You wouldn’t wake up,” at the door frame, he can see Juri leaning on it, snickering loudly. He glares at him and received a smirk in return.
“Stand up,” says Ryutaro. “We’ve got to move now.”
He nods, before gathering up his jacket. He feels around his pockets and realises that something’s missing.
His wallet.
- - - - - - -
He was just cleaning around in his father’s study when he saw a letter addressed to him on top of the work desk. He turned it to see the sender. No name.
Probably inside the letter, he thought.
He opened it carefully and scanned the letter inside. He recognised the handwriting. From all the time he spent as a child, learning how to write his name properly in kanji.
It’s from his mother. Inside the letter was also a small picture of her, a recent one.
He stood there in shock, not realising his father had entered the room.
“Keito, did you see-“ the rest of sentence fell dead on his lips the second he saw the letter in his son’s hand. Immediately he snatched the letter away from Keito.
“You shouldn’t have read that.”
“Why? It’s my letter,” said Keito, trying to calm his nerves. His mother wrote to him and his father didn’t even tell him about it.
“I’m doing this for you.”
“There’s more, isn’t it? Letters from her.”
When his father didn’t give a reply, he knew his hunches were correct.
“You can’t hide my own mother from me!”
“She walked out on us, Keito. She walked out on me. She walked out on you.”
“Then why would she write to me?” everything seemed so confusing. His mother sent him letters. Letters. He didn’t know how much of it has accumulated over the years since she left.
“She feels guilty.”
“You’re wrong.” He didn’t know how long he could keep his voice from shaking.
“She doesn’t care about us, Keito! If she does, she wouldn’t have gotten into that cab years ago!”
Keito let the tears fall. “You’re WRONG!” he yelled as he grabbed the letter from his father’s hand and ran out of the room.
“Keito!” called his father, following him from behind.
He grabbed his jacket from the rack, grabbed his shoes and went out the door. The last thing Keito heard before shutting the door was his father calling out to him repeatedly.
- - - - - - - -
The alleyway seems deserted when they got out of the warehouse. Ryutaro is leading the group with a small boy next to him that Keito assumed to be his little brother. Keito, on the other hand, is walking next to Juri.
“Is that his brother?” he asks.
Juri looks at him questioningly but answers all the same. “Yeah, his name’s Shintaro.”
The walk out of the alley is a long one, Keito realises. They’re probably not taking the same route they did last night, he figures.
“So, how did you guys meet?” he asks again, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket, occasionally pulling it closer to his body due to the cool morning weather.
“I met them about a year ago,” says Juri, smiling to himself. “Ryutaro’s already like that when I met him; terribly cautious of everyone.”
Keito looks at the two brothers in front of him and back at Juri.
“They were abandoned, that’s what you were really asking about, right?” Keito could only manage a small nod. “I’m not entirely too sure of the details, but something about their parents not being able to support two child.”
“Why not just send them to an orphanage?”
“They’d be separated that way. No one really wants to adopt siblings,” reasons Juri knowingly. Which makes Keito wonders, just how much of kids like them are on the street? And Juri?
“Wait, so they ran away?”
Juri chuckles. “Technically, yes. But it’s not like they have a choice at that age. Their mother simply doesn’t want them separated.”
Keito scratches his head at the logic. “So she simply left them here?”
“Both of them are still waiting for her to come back,” he pauses, “Well, Shin-chan is. I know Ryutaro does too, but he has a little brother to take care of so he puts up that mask.”
Suddenly they stop. Keito managed to bump into Ryutaro because he stopped so abruptly. He expects some sort of tirade from the younger but he seems to ignore him and went directly to Juri.
“We’re taking another route,” he announces. Ryutaro gives a look at Juri and he nods.
“You’re coming with me,” says Ryutaro, grabbing Keito by the arms, and walked down another path different from the one they came from.
“What about them?”
“You want to get out of here, right? Then follow me.”
Juri pats him on the shoulder, squeezing it a little before letting go. A good-bye gesture, he thinks.
“Come on!” yells Ryutaro. He seems frantic and Keito quickens his pace to fall into steps with him.
Once they’re a little farther away from the other group, they slow down, which Keito is grateful for. “Are you okay?” Ryutaro asks.
Keito looks like he’s about fall over anytime soon.
“I’m… okay. Just… let me catch my breath first,” replies Keito, using his knees for support.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Ryutaro’s voice sounds unsure, so unlike the person Keito has seen before this.
He looks up at the younger. “Sure.”
“Why’d you run away?”
Keito takes his time to digest the question. Why did he run away? Before this, he was so sure of himself, thinking that his father is wrong. Thinking back again, he was just mad at his father. Was there anything else that should’ve at least made sense to his decision to suddenly run away?
“Okamoto?”
“Oh, sorry. I spaced out again,” he gives Ryutaro a half-hearted smile. The latter just smiled back; albeit an unsure one, to him. “I don’t know.”
Ryutaro doesn’t say anything, so he continues. “It was sort of an impulsive thing to do, I guess.” He could hear Ryutaro mutters ‘impulsive is right,’ under his breath but says nothing of it. “I was mad at my dad.”
“You guys had a fight?”
His tone wasn’t that of an accusation, Keito notices. So he nods affirmatively. “He… he kept something from me. Something that I thought he shouldn’t have. Like he was messing with my life.”
“But he’s your dad though.”
“He kept my mum away from me. There was-she wrote me this letter and he hid it away from me. I guess I was pretty mad about that,” he sighs.
Ryutaro doesn’t press him for more after that. “Come on. I’m sure you have other places you have to run away to,” he says with a smirk. “Let’s get going.”
Keito smiles inwardly before following him. They walked the rest of the way with Ryutaro insisting he doesn’t want to have to carry Keito all the way out. And that he was heavy. (“I’m not fat.” “Didn’t say you were.”)
When they arrived at their destination, both of them simply stand awkwardly in front of each other.
After a long uncomfortable silence, Ryutaro breaks it by pulling out something from his pocket. “Here. It’s yours, right?”
It’s his wallet. With his mother’s photo sticking out a little from it. He reaches out to take it from Ryutaro’s hand. “How?” Ryutaro simply shrugs.
“It fell from your pocket last night when we ran,” he says nonchalantly. A small smile tugs at a corner of Keito’s lips.
“I… I’m going now,” says Keito, not knowing the right words to say.
“Okamoto, wait,” he takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I called you stupid.”
Keito tries to say something but Ryutaro cuts him off. “And I think… I really think you should go back home.”
“That will be my decision to make.”
Keito thinks Ryutaro knows more than he lets on. He didn’t tell the younger much about his family. “I looked into your wallet, okay. And I kind of put two and two together. Your mum left you, didn’t she?”
He couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at Ryutaro. Not after what Juri had told him; not after knowing about the latter’s life.
“But my father-“
“It’s only you and him now. Do you really think it is best that you leave him now… all alone?” it strikes him like lightning. “It’s good that you have a father to take care of you, you know. Not all of us are as lucky as you.” A bitter smile appears on the younger’s face and Keito decides he doesn’t like it one bit; it doesn’t suit him.
He fiddles with the wallet in his hand for a while, trying to come up with a suitable answer, but nothing came out. Finally, sighing, “I guess,” is his only answer.
Ryutaro gives him a small smile. Maybe they’ve reached some sorts of a really weird understanding of each other, Keito thought. “Yeah, I think, maybe, I’ll go back.”
- - - - - - - -
“Don’t let me see you anywhere here again.”
“You can count on that.”
- - - - - - - -
Notes: I have never written anything this long. I hope this makes sense though. Thanks for reading.