Chapter Text
A little while after An's texts, Akito departed from the Tenma household, bidding Touya's siblings farewell at the door.
"Hey, Akito, wait." Saki hovered at the door, staring at her brother's boyfriend. He had one earphone in, but she had his full attention. "Please take of Touya for me and my onii-chan. We'll keep an eye out, of course, but he's usually with you a lot of the time. Keep him safe if we can't." Her voice small, she spoke softly and genuinely as the concern laced itself in her every word. Although she hadn't seen Touya's phone, she knew what the subject was due to his distressed reaction.
It mirrored the night he burst into her arms, sobbing in a way she'd never thought she'd see.
While she had hoped he'd never cry like that again, for she wanted to make him smile like he had for her, ultimately his father had more control than any of them liked to consider.
It stung a little, in truth. Touya had always wanted to make things at least a little better, even as children. Flooding vivid memories of Touya practicing little speeches to try and stand up to his father, as he sat at the foot of Saki's hospital bed, only to sigh in defeat and give her a teary hug as he quietly thanked her for listening… Saki always remembered Touya as a lonely kid who she saw as family, and she saw herself in his pain although it was not the exact same.
He knew his father's behaviour wasn't right and he knew he was in utter agony due to his father, but a small part of him longed to just be treated as a normal son for once.
However, when the father in question never saw Touya as human, let alone a son , it was hard to change his ways.
"It's okay, Saki-san. I'll continue to look after him." Akito gave a soft smile, more genuine than the 'nice guy' she'd initially met. "Take care of him for me too, okay? I know I don't have the same authority you do to make such a request, but… I really love him. That's my partner and he deserves a loving family."
"I can tell you love him a lot, and I hope you know we love him too." Saki leaned against the doorframe and yawned, her eyelids low as she offered Akito a reciprocative smile. "Our Touya, he's really brave, isn't he?"
"The bravest and strongest guy I've ever met." Upon saying that, Akito gave a small laugh, quickly cut short by his ringtone blaring through his headphones. "Crap, I forgot about Ena…"
"That's your older sister, right?" Saki laughed as he frantically unplugged his headphones and attempted to compose himself enough to pick up.
"Yep… I forgot to text her, so I'll answer this and head off. See ya." Giving an awkward wave, Akito headed off towards his home as Ena's angered screeches echoed through the streets. As Saki watched him leave, Tsukasa peered from behind her. A hand fell upon her shoulder as the two shared a knowing look.
“Is he… alright…?” Saki mumbled, still staring at Akito as he wandered off. Though she knew he’d be fine, especially considering the late nights that Vivid Bad Squad grew accustomed to, part of her still thought to watch out for him. Partially for her brother, but also partially to ease her own fears about it; Vivid Bad Squad may be acquainted with the night, but the night could also offer a home to those they’d rather not encounter. The moon serves as both a guide but also an accomplice to some of the late night crimes… a witness who doesn’t speak, who wouldn’t say a word if Touya’s ‘family’ got to Akito before he got home.
“He went to bed early, though he was still shaking…” Tsukasa heaved a deep sigh before speaking once more, “I don’t know what to do.” Offering a ‘hm’ in high intonation, Saki managed to claw her eyes away from Akito as she shut the door gently. Although her focus was on her older brother, her eyes instinctively turned towards the staircase that separated her from the younger brother that indirectly tore her heart into shreds. “We took him in… to protect him… what if they still get him back? What if we lose our Touya?”
Throughout their childhood, as if he were the protagonist of a children’s tale of hope and fantasy, Tsukasa had always protected his siblings. Whether it involved scaring away nightmares with a magical spell of peace and wonder, placed upon their foreheads in the form of a kiss, or if it were for something more serious, like the dread of losing him… he’d always speak to them with a puffed out chest, broad smile, and a booming voice that scared all the horrible monsters looming in their heads again. Surely, they believed, he could scare away the horrible monsters in the real world too, the ones that infiltrated their homes and shackled them to things they didn’t want to do, places they didn’t want to be. All they wanted to do was be held by their dearest family, without a fear of it being the last time. As such, he promised. He promised to protect them - a knight in shining armour, unsheathing his blade and getting into a fighting stance for all who needed it. A smile equivalent to a shield, lowering the enemies defenses as he boosted the morale of the allies he fought for, the ones he loved.
So, to see this knight crumble in premature defeat at an enemy he’d always sworn to demolish… to see his smile - his shield - fall flat in favour of a quivering lip and teary eyes…
Without thinking, Saki wrapped her arms around her brother, who weakly returned the embrace as he allowed himself to cry just that little bit.
It’s okay, it’s okay, you can cry. You’ve been so brave, so wonderful. So please, let me protect you for once, my wonderful knight.
Unspoken thoughts from his dear younger sister resonated within Tsukasa’s chest, as an implausible telepathy rendered him weakened; sometimes weakness is not inherently a flaw, rather a sign to rely on others and to allow yourself time to grow, for we as people had always been destined to work in communities. So, the star lowered himself from the sky a little, as he held his younger sister with the same clinging grip as a child.
He had always been afraid to lose both of his siblings, albeit in youth he struggled to realise why he felt the same towards Touya. Hugs became a way of casting a magical spell - please don’t go, please stay with me.
Please stay strong so I can hold you like this once more.
Sometimes, childhood fears haunt us well into our growth, and this proved true for the brother always living in fear of loss, even when he had no understanding of why this loss would even happen. Things had been improving - Saki had been well, although monitoring of her state was natural, and he’d finally been able to take in Touya. He saw Touya and Saki smile so brightly under his care! They laughed at his jokes, his poses, they even began to introduce their loved ones to him as their loved ones!
So why did fate have to be so cruel and reopen a healed wound?
“We won’t lose him, onii-chan. So many people are going to look out for him, so nothing will happen.” Saki mumbled into his chest as she gently rubbed his back, the same rhythmic motion her mother had always done for her before they left for the day. In return, Tsukasa sniffled and squeezed her a little hard. Just as he had always done when they were children.
Akito <3: Touya my love, is everything ok ?
Ding, ding.
Another unanswered text.
This time, it wasn’t deliberate ignorance; rather, a feeling of inability. A numbing sensation throughout Touya’s body made it so all he could do was cry, staring up at the ceiling that seemed to want to fall down upon him. Trap him further. Caged, as if he wasn’t allowed to grow beyond the cage of classical music and the surname that bled into his skin, redefining him as everything but a Tenma.
He was a prodigy. A talented musician who could manipulate the frameworks of music itself to appeal to whichever genre he wished to pursue. He was intelligent in studies. Excelling in everything he put his mind to. He was everything you’d ever want a perfect child to be, especially as he befit the ‘seen not heard’ talk of generations long ago, something his father still upheld despite how these views had long since become obsolete.
So why, if he could be all these things that everyone deemed so good - if he was this amazing prodigy with talents galore - why couldn’t he be the things he wanted to be?
Why couldn’t he be normal? Happy? A Tenma, a member of a family that loved him? Why couldn’t he be the perfect son, why did he have to defy everything about a ‘perfect son’ from the moment he was born?
What led to these imperfections, what prevented him from being who he wanted to be rather than the hollow shell filled with the ambitions of his blood relatives?
Why did everything go back to what his fucking father wanted, even when he finally had a chance to begin anew?
Shallow, irregular breaths escaped his chest as he gasped for some sense of stability, even when everything closed in and drowned him. If he wasn’t drowning in expectations, or in reputational damage, he drowned in a sense of disappointment.
The truth was, he was disappointed in himself. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that, and he tried to remember everything Tsukasa and Saki and Akito had told him. But, when blinded with tears that stung him and blinded him of sense, all that he could do was succumb to the echo of failure ringing in his ears.
Between gasps for air, a desperation to regain the stability and to regain his cool head that he was often credited for, Touya gripped onto his phone, shining above him in a blinding light as he tried to read the numerous dinging notifications that Akito bombarded him with.
Blinding light…
Without a thought, something uncharacteristic of Touya, he shot up and swiped away Akito’s notifications. He’d reply later, when emotions weren’t clouding his every sense of logic - while Akito had long encouraged Touya to be more expressionate, when the expressions started to form without Touya’s permission or awareness as to why , it was too overwhelming to work with. Since arriving on the Tenma’s doorstep, if there was one emotion Touya had become better at expressing, it was a suffocating sadness that rendered all his senses useless in favour of weeping like a child.
Maybe he was just appeasing the child that would be punished for crying.
Or maybe he had gotten incredibly sidetracked in his own thoughts once again, allowing a potential spiral to grasp onto him before he could really stop himself.
That blinding light… he needed to visit them, maybe only for a little while. They said their doors were open whenever they were needed, so surely a seat would be open for him to take it?
Who knows.
Such was the wonder of the mystifying sekai, the one that drew him in as his pressed play on the ‘Untitled’ song he pinned to his files.
And, as he felt blinded by that familiar light once more, he silently prayed that the little ones would be there to greet him, as they often were at unannounced moments in time.
They often wanted his company, so naturally, the feeling became reciprocated. Right now, he needed as much ‘family’ as he could get… although, he had his doubts about whether that was reciprocated.