And Without You

[what_the_factor]

Who: AU!Sanae Hanekoma lovemesomebeans and AU!Sho Minamimoto what_the_factor
When: Some generic time in November. Winter is beginning. Perfect time for some coffee.
Rating: UH. R, just in case, because Sho is crazy
Warnings: Crazy Sho is very crazy. Except vulgar language, maybe gore, maybe sexually explicit content.
Summary: Based situationally if Sho and Hanekoma met(again) in

Comments

[lovemesomebeans]

It had been a difficult decision to come here- to leave the streets of Shibuya. But the phonecall from his fanboy, and the news of this so-called abusive situation that his charge was in had been too much for the barista to handle. Joshua was as good as his son- maybe more than that. A son and a friend, and after his sweet mother had passed away, Sanae had taken him in fully. He had never liked Joshua's father much, and even now had decided to do what he could to let the boy make something of himself

[lovemesomebeans]

Curly silver hair. Mr. Hanekoma watched in mild surprise as the figure began to take form. It was angelic and yet...Twisted all at the same moment. How familiar.

"You wouldn't happen to know him, would you? Yoshiya Kiryu. He's as good as my son."

[what_the_factor]

A faint pink tinge filled Sho's cheeks. "Yes. I know him," Sho answered, moving his way up and forward along the plastic scalp.

"He's...my friend," the teen said awkwardly.

[lovemesomebeans]

"Friend, eh?" That was good. Josh needed friends. There was no real reason for him not to have them either. Out of a million people in Shibuya, Mr. H. was certain that the kid was probably the most charismatic person there was. He just didn't give himself enough credit. He was either going to be a quiet voice of reason or... Take over the world. And dress it all in pink. The latter was becoming rather... plausible.

"That's good. Phones said somebody was givin' Josh trouble. You know anything about it?"

[what_the_factor]

"I do."

Great. What a way to meet Mr. H again. What a wonderful second first impression he was making.

Sho turned his head away from Hanekoma, and rolled more wire out, cutting it to the right size. "I'm a terrible friend. I'm the one that's been hurting him," he said quietly.

[lovemesomebeans]

"Is that right?" Mr. H. didn't look angry, just concerned. He was pretty unflappable, and even now, the barista just shifted and put his hands in his pockets. He twisted his foot and kicked at his other sandal.

Sanae wanted to get to the bottom of this. He wanted to know all sides of things before he made his decision about how to intervene- or if he was even going to. It was hard to stay unbiased on this one though. Joshua was like his son, and to have anybody hurting him was something that didn't sit well with the barista.

"How have you been hurtin' him, Sho?"

[what_the_factor]

Son of a digit, Sho knew this was going to happen.

"I've been hurting people, hitting them with all I've got ever since I started getting stronger. I never did much to learn self control, so really when I hurt him, that isn't my intent. I'm too strong physically, not enough mentally, and he's the one that suffers for it. He ends up with bruises every time I touch him, if I grab him too roughly, or I..." Sho didn't finish that thought, not sure if it would be safe to finish that train of though.

"And there was also one time, where I...I raped him and carved numbers into his skin. He stopped trusting me after that, which is perfectly understandable. It hurts so much, but I can't help wanting him. He'd be far better off if he would just... leave me alone. Maybe then I could just move on and stop hurting him," he explained, stopping his work completely and lowering his head in shame.

[lovemesomebeans]

"Huh." This was worse than he thought. Though part of him was hurt, deeply by this confession, it was obvious that the kid wasn't right. There was something broken, something that hadn't been right for a while. The spark of anger was smoothed over by this.

Had anybody ever given him anything?

"You wanna take from others what was taken from you." He crossed his arms. "Are you okay? How long ago was it?" No wonder Phones was having a fucking aneurysm. Things were bad. He'd tend to Josh later.

[what_the_factor]

"Six years ago. It's the reason why I stopped going to your cafe. Something changed for the worse and I never wanted you to see or know," he answered, glancing at Hanekoma.

"But you know now anyway."

[lovemesomebeans]

"Nothin' for it now, huh, kiddo?" Hanekoma shook his head. "You didn't hafta stay away."

But he figured that that was a given. It was Sho's choice, and to some extent, he respected that.

"And- for the record- I ain't mad at ya, kid." He added, just to make sure. He was testing the waters. Sho seemed... Nervous, and that was never a good sign with a mentally unstable person. He just wanted to help- a fatal flaw of his, really.

[what_the_factor]

"You should be. I'm a murderer, and a rapist, and I've hurt people who did nothing to logically deserve it," he said, cutting more wire pieces and continuing to work. Better to finish this thing in one go than coming back tomorrow to work. His sculptures were uglier unfinished, not like a painting, where you can see it beginning to take shape and it looks nice and you wonder how it will be when it's finished

[lovemesomebeans]

"You've done some stuff that's regrettable, kid." He said quietly. But watching him and his devotion to this sculpture was almost heart-warming. Sanae had a bad taste in his mouth. It was difficult to balance the two, but also something that the barista was committed to.

"Sho." A rare use of his first name. "You're not evil if you regret it. Here's the question. Do ya? And do ya wanna be better?" He spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I won't tell a soul, kiddo. You can talk to me about it, 'kay?"

[what_the_factor]

"I...still have some regrettable things that I can't pull myself away from right now, and I don't know if they would take it easy if I walked away. They don't want me better, not yet. If I were better I wouldn't be useful to their needs," he said, glancing at Mr H before picking up the wad of steel wool and polishing some of the statue again.

"Besides, 'phones' would be pretty smug if he called on you and all of a sudden I got better, wouldn't he?"

[lovemesomebeans]

"Well, That's an interesting way of looking at it." Sanae watched him work, expression unreadable. There was a lot to deal with, and if he couldn't deal with the loose canon accordingly, he'd need to be careful in guiding both Neku and Yoshiya through this.

"Phones just wants the best for people. He's gotta bit of an anti hero complex, though." He shrugged. It was more or less true. "He's hot headed, can't afford the time to look at all the angles. Kid's a kid. You know?" He watched Sho's reaction carefully.

[what_the_factor]

"Wants the best for people? Sure." Sho laughed. "Yeah, but what about me? He just wants me out of the equation, I'm sure." He polished the metal on the face of the statue somewhat. Sho had actually wished he could make it radiant, like Yoshiya was, but that wasn't his style. He felt almost bad for capturing the boy in his twisted work but he had wanted to.

[lovemesomebeans]

"For now, he feels like that's the best thing. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not." He said simply. This was definitely getting pretty sketchy. But Mr. H. was used to sketchy.

"Maybe you can change the outcome, kiddo. What do ya think? Not sayin' you gotta up and be a saint. But it seems like you're tryin'. Like you care about J. And that's a good step." He did his best not to think about this guy brutalizing his kid. "There's more than that. And like you said: You're not ready to be better yet."