Fuck You, Pay Me!

21. Fire Meet Gasoline

A/N: smut warning?

Hitoshi has always been a tad bit…

Different. 

Not quirky or special or even a little eccentric.

Just...different.

Or, at least, that's the sort of nonsense that his father used to feed him in his younger years—a rather piss-poor attempt at making Hitoshi feel less shitty about being made a social leper by the neighbors and their equally condescending children. He remembers how jarring it was to have them scream and run the other way whenever they saw him coming. He remembers how their parents would quickly grab their hands and shuffle back to the safety of their cars and homes. 

He remembers the distinct sound of people locking their car doors whenever he'd walk past them. 

He remembers—vividly—how he'd come limping home from grade school with a black eye and a busted lip, having to explain to his father that he'd been jumped on the way home by a group of junior high students and that he never wanted to leave his room again. 

He remembers that Shota had allowed him to cry that time—and crying was almost never allowed. 

He didn't understand it back then—the fleeting moment of compassion that his father had granted by listening to him bawl his broken heart out as he'd checked his frail and scrawny body for any injuries that may have caused him any serious damage. He didn't fuss or lecture him about being a pushover like he usually did. He didn't ignore him to tend to his stupid fucking guns. 

He listened. 

And then—for the first time—he reached out to embrace his son. 

Hitoshi will never forget the look of unbridled guilt plastered to his father's face. 

"Listen," he'd said. "You and I are different from other people, Hitoshi. We carry certain burdens that others may never understand. And because we are different, we can never be a part of their world. It's our responsibility to make sure that they can never become a part of ours. Not only to protect them, but to protect ourselves. Do you understand?" 

Hitoshi remembers nodding his head as if he did but in reality, he was devastated. Confused. Why did things have to be that way? And did they really have to be this way forever? 

It was probably the absolute most pitiful that Hitoshi had been in his entire life, though he's almost certain that it was also the strongest. He survived. And even though it landed him in the absolute shitshow that he's in right now, he's grateful that his father had the strength to tell him such wisdom while he was still young. 

Without it, he'd have given up years ago. 

Shota had only been trying to protect him in the best way that he knew how. Help him grow a tougher skin. Teach him skills that would get him into places that having friends wouldn't. He survived because his father was there. 

He's grateful. 

And, in hindsight, he could understand why all of the neighbors were so wary of him. Nobody wants their kid to be friends with the brat that killed his own mom. 

But he digresses.

The point is that he's held on to the idea that he was simply just different for as long as he could remember.