Darkest Before Dawn - 127

Chapter 127

“Can I try?” Kota asked and Kazuki almost physically recoiled.

The idea of giving his violin to someone else was just… no, absolutely not going to happen. Over his cold, dead body. Call him dramatic, but that one instrument meant a lot to him, more than he could put into words. It was more than just a gift, which was already greatly important as far as he was concerned. It represented a lot in his life, new hopes, new dreams and remaking his life from the ground up without needing to throw everything he’d once been out the window.

And that was just starting.

Hina would never know, but she’d given him something precious in the shape of that one violin.

So, no offense to Kota, but if he wanted to play violin, he’d need one that wasn’t Kazuki’s.

“Nope,” he answered, directly, but trying to play it off a little. Just because there was no way in hell he’d do that didn’t mean he had to be rude, especially to a kid. “I’m sure Shino wouldn’t mind you using her piano,” he commented and Kota’s mood seemed to plummet a little. Not as badly as it could have, but mentioning his aunt was definitely not something that’d cheer him up.

Which was all sorts of depressing, because the woman loved him to bits. Kazuki could tell, after observing them for a few days by then. Whatever problem Kota had with heroes, it seemed to extend to his aunt. He almost wished he could give the kid a smack or two, because God knew Kazuki would have done anything to have someone like that in his life before the Rampage.

Alas, different people, different situations, different grievances.

“It’s fine,” the kid replied, pouting and looking away. “So… what?” he started before stopping. Kazuki was just staring at him, but that seemed to give the kid pause.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked, taking a deep breath in and deciding that he might as well try. Setting his violin’s case on a table in the small library, he moved to sit beside the kid. He leaned back against the rest of his chair and regarded the boy, hoping he was making a good choice. “Whatever your problem is,” he clarified when the boy just looked confused.

Immediately, the emotions spiked rather aggressively, but Kazuki did his best to keep his calm. He was used to dealing with worse and he’d seen that coming. It helped him to stand his ground. Even then, he’d be a liar if he said he wasn’t tempted to take it back.

“I don’t,” Kota growled and Kazuki nodded.

“Understandable,” he replied, running his fingers through his hair and wondering if to press. Ultimately, he decided not to. Forcing Kota to speak wasn’t going to help, he imagined. If anything, it was likely to make him more angry.

Offering was enough for the moment, he guessed.

“So, piano?” he asked and most of the bad emotions were immediately replaced by confusion. He raised an eyebrow at the boy. “Unless you were thinking about another instrument. Guitar is always nice, even if it’s a little… basic, in my opinion.”

“... Everyone plays guitar,” Kota grumbled, glaring down at the table in front of him like it’d personally offended him. “Flute is lame.”

“I mean, it depends. Recorder is lame. Transverse flute’s alright,” Kazuki corrected, but he could see the boy didn’t agree. “Battery? Bass?”

“Nah,” the boy dismissed, but Kazuki was pretty sure he was doing it to vent his anger rather than because he was giving it any thought. “What else even is there?”

“Not a great fan of music, are you?” he asked with a chuckle. “I’d suggest you try a few things and see what you like. Listening to them might do the trick too,” he suggested and this time he was greeted with silence.

“Why didn’t you impress your mother?” Kota asked and Kazuki had to hold himself back from reacting at the sudden shift and the topic itself. That was not what he’d expected. Kid seemed to have decided two could play the same game and to throw his own curve ball at him. “You’re really good.”

“... Because my mother hates me,” he answered after a moment, deciding to be truthful. That got a reaction out of the boy, who turned to look at him with wide eyes. “So, no matter what I do, she’ll never be happy,” he explained with a shrug and a sad smile. “I don’t live with her anymore, so I don’t have to care about that.”

“... What happened?” Kota asked, looking down, this time sounding like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

“I did something bad,” Kazuki answered, deciding that maybe going into detail about the Rampage wasn’t going to help the kid and it wasn’t really the time. Maybe in the future, if they even kept in touch. “I was taken away and now… I’m at UA and she’s off doing her own thing,” he explained rather simply. “I don’t bother her and she doesn’t bother me.” That wasn’t precisely true, the accursed interview still in his mind, but at least he hadn’t heard much about her in a while.

“What about your dad?” was Kota’s next question and he should really have seen that one coming. He hadn’t though, but he nodded slowly all the same. Kazuki pretended not to notice the wavering of the boy’s voice.

“He hated me just as much, but… he’s not around anymore, at all,” was the answer he gave, sticking to his simple and vague statements. Idly, he noticed that someone was apparently listening in on their conversation, but it wasn’t like he could go and point that out without ruining whatever moment he was having with the kid. Besides, he had a good guess as to who it was.

“My parents aren’t around anymore either, neither of them,” Kota said and Kazuki turned to look at him. “They were heroes,” the boy added, not looking up from his lap, where his hands were balled into fists. “They just… they went off and then they died.” With the floodgates open, the words seemed to just stumble out of the kid’s mouth, unchecked and unstoppable, except when he sobbed. “They were stupid, and selfish,” the boy hissed.

And Kazuki felt like he was finally getting a clearer picture.

[}-o-{]

[Shino Sosaki]

“Hm, were they?” she heard Kazuki reply and she forced herself to listen instead of crying, or worse, ruin everything by going in and trying to comfort Kota. She knew how that would turn out. Just like it had every other time she’d done so.

“They were!” Kota cried out and Shino took a shuddering breath in.

“Sounds like they weren’t though,” the older boy replied, and she had to wonder how he kept his calm, because she certainly couldn’t. “I mean, I don’t know about stupid, but dying being a hero is as selfless as you can get, I think,” he reasoned, but Shino could have told him Kota’s answer to that before her nephew even opened his mouth.

“Because they didn’t care about me, they just went off and died because they wanted to be heroes. How’s that… how’s that not selfish?” Kota asked. An answer he’d given before already, but she was surprised that he said all that to someone that he’d barely known for a few days. How had Kazuki gotten to him that much already?

“I guess I can get that,” was the still calm reply the older boy gave. Maybe that was it, Shino supposed, the unmovable way he spoke and acted, like everything was perfectly fine. The almost blunt straightforward way in which he addressed things that would be uncomfortable or awkward for others. Like he’d stand in front of anything and do anything while reimaining unflappable. “Do you know why I want to be a hero?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” her angry nephew hissed, half sobbing still.

“I had a very bad time when I was a kid, you know, with my parents and in general. Turns out being this creepy isn’t good for having friends and all that,” Kazuki explained and Shino peeked in to see the boy gesturing to himself with a grin. “So, when I had the chance, I decided that I’d try and make sure other kids didn’t have a bad time like I did. I decided that I’d try to help them, so that they didn’t end up like I did,” he explained.

“I still think it’s stupid,” Kota mumbled, but Shino noticed that his voice lacked the strength it had before. Instead, he sounded just… sad and defeated. That didn’t make her feel any better, not at all.

“Maybe,” Kazuki replied with a shrug. “But I think, maybe, that your parents wanted to make sure you didn’t have a bad time, you and any other kid out there,” the boy explained, but Shino knew what the response to that would be too.

“They failed,” her nephew said and she felt her heart break for what felt like the millionth time.

“But they tried,” the student continued, still unbothered. “I’m sure there are a lot of kids out there that are happy your parents were heroes, because they saved them from having a bad time,” Kazuki continued, leaning back and looking up. “... They loved you, didn’t they? And you know that.”

“They still went and died,” Kota mumbled, his whole body shaking with another bout of sobbing.

“They did… but you don’t have to hate them, Kota,” Kazuki said, turning and giving her nephew a sad smile. “You can be angry at them and blame them and any other number of things, but you don’t have to hate them. You can still love them, even with all that.”

Kota didn’t have an answer to that and it showed in the silence that followed. Shino stood outside the library for the entirety of it, listening to her nephew cry and crying alongside him. All throughout though, she wondered if that whole thing had been good for the boy or if she should have stepped in before it got too far.

It had been different that was for sure. After years of Kota being unable to move on, unable to change… the difference felt good, even if it was also strange and scary. At that point, she’d take it and hope, because God knew nothing else she’d tried helped. And she’d tried a lot of things.

“... I still think flute is lame,” Kota mumbled, causing Kazuki to bark out a laugh.

“I mean, your opinion is your opinion, little guy. I think it’s alright,” was the casual response. “So, are you gonna help me with this Grimm thing or do you have homework to do?”

“Homework’s boring,” Kota said, his voice barely above a whisper, but he seemed to be calming down, at least, and making an effort to return to normal. Shino just wished his normal wouldn’t be quite what he’d been before that talk. “This is more fun.”

“You’ll have to do your homework at some point,” Kazuki pointed out  with a grin. “Tell you what? You help me with this for a bit and then I’ll help you with your homework. Then we can finish off this and you’ll get to see me making the new Grimm.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

And off they went, talking about if this or that feature was better.

It healed something in Shino to hear Kota just… talking, especially when he didn’t, at any point, get back to his angry-sad self. He seemed subdued, but through the whole thing, he never growled or shouted or seemed aggressive at all. So, she listened to the two go on and on, smiling ever so slightly to herself.

At some point, Ryuko came looking for her, but Shino sent her away with a few mental words. Well, tried to, because the woman seemed just as interested in this new development as she was and decided to stay for a bit herself. She did eventually end up leaving, but Shino didn’t blame her. All of them loved Kota almost as much as she did, and she couldn’t be more grateful for that.

‘I should be going too,’ she mused, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so, no matter how much she knew she had other duties to attend to at that moment. Instead, she stayed there, listening.

“... I still love them,” she heard Kota mumble at some point, almost too low for her to pick up on, and she covered her mouth as new tears gathered in her eyes.

“And that’s fine, Kota,” Kazuki told him, planting a hand on the boy’s head before continuing as if nothing had happened.

[}-o-{]

[Kazuki Endo]

Fuck.

That had escalated way too quickly.

Even after some time had passed, Kazuki couldn’t shrug off the dread that he’d felt during that conversation. Because he could feel how much it affected Kota and he knew that it was important. So, he’d done his best, but he couldn’t shake that fear and nervousness. If he’d messed up even the smallest bit, it’d have marked Kota, scarred him, he could tell.

Not even the reassurance of what he could sense in the boy’s emotions was making that go away.

Alas, he couldn’t quite show the little guy that, could he? That risked bringing a whole other load of complications and… and he just couldn’t, so he kept to his act like his life depended on it. Thank God for his acting jig and, most importantly, Hina. Who knew how much he could have screwed that up if he’d shown how scared and unsure he was.

‘That went well though,’ he reminded himself, because that was the important part at that moment. Kota was feeling better, or, at least, his grief and other emotions weren’t quite as overwhelming as they’d been before. He wasn’t a Bakugo-level situation anymore, at least. He was now just… a sad boy who missed his parents and was angry at them.

It was a change for the better, even if he wasn’t good at the moment.

He’d get there.

Or so Kazuki thought, but maybe it was wishful thinking. He hoped it wasn’t the case though and he’d make damn sure to try and further help the kid. Out of everything he was trying, learning and improving in that training camp, he could confidently say that helping Kota was the most fulfilling.

‘This is what I want to do,’ he thought, looking at the boy beside him as he frowned at his homework, looking like a normal kid instead of… instead of what he’d been before. All the way back when he’d first thought about it, when he’d been let out of juvie and offered a spot in UA, he’d thought about it and he was now further confirming it.

He wanted to help kids avoid being like him.

Sure, Kota wasn’t quite like him, but he was a kid in a bad situation all the same. There was nothing illegal going on, for sure. Shino was great, as far as he could tell. It was just that Kota might have… needed something very specific, something that Kazuki could try to find, what with his Quirk and all. Or maybe he’d just stumbled on the solution and it was all luck, but he’d been there and he’d helped.

And that was all that he wanted.

“This sucks,” Kota grumbled and when he turned towards Kazuki, he just smiled and raised an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to be helping me!”

“Yes, helping,” he replied, chuckling as deeper thoughts went back to the back of his mind. There was something very… simple about dealing with kids. They weren’t easy, but they were simple. “Not doing it for you.”

“I’ll never be done with this at this rate,” the boy said dramatically. ‘Don’t roll your eyes,’ Kazuki told himself, almost failing all the same. He didn’t even have that much homework, really, and Kota was about halfway done already.

Idly, a corner of Kazuki’s mind whispered that the kid should be grateful. He could almost hear the screaming voices of his parents, an echo of the ones he’d gotten as a kid. He could almost feel that knot of emotion in his chest forming once more.

But he dismissed all of that.

“You’re almost there,” he said, once more thankful for his acting skills, if for completely different reasons. Maybe the kid wasn’t the only one that had been affected by their talk. “And you’re doing great. You don’t even need my help, do you? You’re just lazy.”

“Am not!” Kota protested instantly. “It’s just boring.”

“Well, not to be the bearer of bad news,” Kazuki replied, a grin on his face. “But it’ll only get worse from here. You should see some of the stuff we get as homework,” he said, because yes, his grades were good, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed studying.

“This is stupid.”

“If you’re gonna keep complaining, I’ll just get on with the Grimm work by myself,” Kazuki threatened, making the kid turn towards him again, this time with wide eyes. “I do need to get stuff done in this camp, you know?”

“But I want to see the shark!”

To that, he just silently gestured towards the homework.

With some more grumbles, Kota got back to it and Kazuki smiled. Not easy, but simple, indeed. He didn’t even mind explaining simpler things, even if it could be a little frustrating whenever he couldn’t properly get the information across. He’d gotten some practice tutoring people for exams, at least, and he’d seen some teachers struggle through similar stuff in juvie too.

Not to say that he was a perfect teacher or anything, but he managed to get Kota through his exercises without having to do the work for him… for the most part. He didn’t want to do that, since… Well, that felt like it wouldn’t be good. Besides, the kid was smart enough. He just didn’t wanna put in the work. Which Kazuki understood, really, he did. But Shino would have his head if she learned that he let the boy slack off.

So, he avoided doing that as best he could and they made some decent progress.

“Well, tomorrow, it seems,” he commented idly, checking the time on his phone. Practically the only thing it was good for over there in the middle of nowhere like they were. “Don’t look at me like that,” he added, giving the glaring boy an unimpressed expression. “It takes time to make new Grimm, and besides, I think we can put in some more work before that. It’ll make it easier. So, some more research?”

“... It better be a cool shark,” Kota grumbled.

“I mean, we’re putting it together. Of course it’ll be cool.”

The slight smile that got out of the kid made all the nerves and fears worth it, as far as Kazuki was concerned.

[}-o-{]

“Kazuki, I swear to God, it’s like you’re trying,” Minoru commented and he turned towards his friend. When he didn’t further explain himself, he just blinked. What was the guy even talking about? “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

Woah, since when was Minoru a psychic? Scary.

“No, what’s up?” he asked, glancing to the side to make sure Kota didn’t take badly to the interruption.

The kid’s mood had, predictably, taken a bit of a dive when they had to move and spend some time with the rest for their next meal. Nothing to do about that. Not only did Kota not seem like a big people person – Kazuki could relate, honestly –, but he also hadn’t really gotten over whatever hang up he had with heroes. If anything, he’d barely taken the first step down that road.

So, despite everything, Kazuki took it as a victory that he hadn’t completely reverted to his previous self. He was scowling and grumbling and all, but deep down, he noticed the shift in emotions, even if outwardly he looked the same. He was confident that it wasn’t the same as before, and that was certainly a win in his books.

“... Nothing,” Minoru said in that tone and with the feelings that translated to “I don’t think I’m gonna bother” and Kazuki just shrugged.

“So, it’s decided then. Hope the plates turn out as we planned. It’ll be kind of ruined if they don’t,” he commented, idly and Kota nodded with a frown. More directed at the group of hero students around than at the idea that their design could be ruined. Kazuki had a feeling that he was only half listening, but he kept talking. Maybe that’d distract him, at least. “I always get this giddy feeling whenever I’m about to make a new Grimm, has me wondering what’ll come next, you know?”

That seemed to do the trick a little, making Kota turn towards him.

“Do you have anything in mind?”

“Well, I had a few ideas, but I wasn’t really getting anywhere with them, you know?” he replied, continuing to eat. Last thing he wanted was to wait for the thing to be cold, after all. “There was this idea about an elephant and a horse… maybe a spider-”

“No!” a new voice cried out, making both Kota and Kazuki turn around. Of all people to be scared of spiders, somehow, he hadn’t seen that one coming. “What?” Itsuka asked with a pout from the next table over. Why had she even been listening to his conversation from all the way over there anyway?

And why were the other girls looking at him too? They weren’t scared, so it couldn’t be the spider thing…

“I wasn’t really going for any of them,” he said eventually, a little slowly, and the situation seemed to get to Itsuka because she turned bright red. From there, Kazuki decided to move on and go back to what he was talking about.

He found that it was much easier when in a big group like that, to just focus on a few people. Normally, it’d be his friend group, but now he was giving his attention to Kota. Maybe he was overthinking it, but Kazuki thought it was a good idea and nobody had called him out on it. Kota had, after all, just gotten out of a very emotionally draining moment… or so Kazuki assumed.

His perspective on things was a little skewed in regards to emotions, after all.

“I was just thinking. This one is the most serious I’ve been for a while. I had some other projects, but I didn’t even know where to begin. Maybe you can help me with those too,” he offered and while he didn’t seem as interested as he did with the shark Grimm, Kota didn’t immediately dismiss the idea or feel anything in particular that Kazuki could pick up.

That was good enough for him.

“What were they?”

“Well, Chikuchi over there,” Kazuki started, pointing to the girl, who looked up from her meal with eyes that were dead inside. Her training must have been hardcore, he figured. Good for her. “She can make and shoot spikes out of liquids, mainly water,” he explained and that seemed to make the kid perk up even further. He was noticing a trend. Maybe he was a fan of water in general. “So, I was thinking about a Grimm that could hold water for her, since she’s kind of in my club.”

“Club?”

“Agency more like,” Neito answered, joining the conversation with his usual punchable smirk. He was doing better already and it did a lot to ease Kazuki’s worries, really. He’d been afraid he might have accidentally traumatized a friend. “Boss here is the president of Pharos Club, basically an agency.”

“You have your own agency already?!” Kota asked, eyes wide as they could be and Kazuki was both shocked and a little concerned by the clear misunderstanding.

“It’s a club. We just simulate an agency,” he explained very clearly… but that didn’t seem to help much. It was a little surprising though. He’d have expected Kota to hate that idea more, but it barely seemed to nudge his emotions negatively. “And anyway, I want to try and maybe come up with support Grimm for her.”

“What about me, Boss? Do I get no privileges?” Neito asked, mock offended. “Is it because I’m not a cute girl?” the blonde added, further dramatizing. Poor Chikuchi started turning red in embarrassment almost immediately.

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Kazuki replied flatly.

Although, that gave him ideas, admittedly.

Maybe he could make something for Neito too…

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well, that escalated quickly, for Kazuki and me both, it seems.

It’s been pointed out to me that this arc with Kota has been a bit rushed and… Well, I’m sure everyone knows I’m not one to rush things. I was just minding my own business and shit happened, somehow. I know about as much as you, guys. Muse gonna Muse, I guess.

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter though.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s your favorite instrument? Mine is bass. I even got one years ago, but I was too lazy to properly learn how to play. Maybe one day… Probably not though.

See you.