Worth (KiriDeku)

Chapter Seven: Dull

The room was silent as Ash laid in his bed, not speaking or getting up.

It had been many hours since Loui had revealed that he knew the truth.

That he knew Ash was his father.

That he knew Ash was a coward who abandoned his son in fear of having to do yet another thing he'd never asked for or wanted.

Ash was maybe 18 when Loui was born. A few years after Katherine.

When Arlo had told him she was pregnant he didn't know what to do.

Neither of them wanted to be parents. Ash was already being forced to at the time.

He went by Gideon back then and was already raising Katherine, who had been dropped on his door step over a year after the last time he'd seen her mother.

Ellie was out of sight but not out of mind as he struggled to see her eyes and hair on the young girl who only wanted for live and attention.

Something he was unable to give her at the time.

Arlo had taken to raising Katherine sinse the moment she named the girl and Ash had taken to pretended she didn't exist.

Ignoring one child was easy enough. But two?

The moment Arlo and Ash were in agreement that Loui was unwanted by both of them, they turned to Ches and Lucas, who had been trying for a child until Lucas learned that he was in fact, infertile do to the testosterone overdosing he'd done as a teenager.

The four of them had agreed to never tell Loui the truth and let him believe that Arlo was nothing but a surrogate, that Ches had impregnated.

They were never supposed to tell him that Ash was his father.

But they hadn't counted on the very intelligent mind of a two year old girl, or the very talkative mouth of a 16 year old young woman.

Mina came into the room to check in Ash but he never lifted his head or acknowledged her existence as he just laid there.

Loui was at Arlos, alone with Katherine and Mae.

The boy didn't want to be anywhere near anyone that resembled a father figure to him at the moment.

And none of them could blame him.

They had lied to him for to long.

Ash tried to explain that he did love Loui, that he hadn't abandoned him, that it was complicated- but the teen wouldn't hear any of it and had stormed out of the house after not being aloud to hit the man again.

Mina stepped inside the room, kneeling before Ash and cleaning his busted cheek

"He hits hard." She smiled but Ash remained silent and still, his eyes open and looking deeply into her golden ones.

She hummed with a smile and kissed his cleaned cheek, standing up and exiting the room.

-

"Your customer wasn't satisfied."

Katsuki stood in the middle of a random empty room in the building, awkwardly with his eyes on the floor, silent.

Naki stepped closer to him, grabbing his chin and forcing the man to look up at him.

The older man only smiled gently as he looked down into Amber eyes.

Katsukis pupils dilated but he refused to give Naki the scared expression that the man was so obviously going for.

"What happened?" The man asked in an even tone and Katsuki tried to calm his temper as the face was still held harshly and he was forced to looked up at his step father.