Chapter Text
The front door slid open softly, the evening air drifting inside with Koujaku as he entered. Listening out, he noted the quiet of the house and the dim light coming from the lounge and he couldn't help but release a sigh. He was not surprised to find the house mostly empty and he could not bring himself to be disappointed anymore. But there was always that hope that he might come home and find a certain scrawny young boy waiting for him, just once more.
A small whimper and the flail of tiny arms drew his attention and an unrelated set of curious yellow eyes looked up toward their carer unperturbed.
Koujaku smiled and knelt beside the two infants lying quietly within their bed reaching out to stroke the eldest’s soft black hair.
"Shinri. Has he be gone long?"
The question he asked was mostly rhetorical as Shinri's only concern was to reach up toward the large and scarred hands with playful fingers and grasp them
That, and Koujaku already knew the answer.
He spotted a half drunk mug of tea on the coffee table and reached out to touch it knowing, as he did most nights, that he would find it still lukewarm to the touch. He was perhaps only ten minutes gone.
Aoba had managed to get his timing before Koujaku got home down to an art. Koujaku had tried, in the beginning, to get home to Aoba and the children just before 7pm most days. In the beginning when Aoba had been less than healthy, this had been so important.
As Aoba had realised that Koujaku made sure to achieve this each night, and once his strength has more or less retured, he had started to resume his nightly escapades with the knowledge that someone would be there to watch the little ones soon enough.
It irked Koujaku, but in the end he could not bring himself to be mad at Aoba. It wasn't entirely his fault that he behaved that way after all.
It was also perhaps not a well hidden secret that he honestly adored Aoba's children. Brave Shinri, perhaps almost two years old now though he wasn't sure, and little six month old Aiji.
Shinri was a curious one. He would stare down what he didn't quite understand with those hauntingly familiar golden eyes. A sudden noise would more likely draw his attention, rather than startle him.
And little Aiji with his wisps of blonde hair and eyes of a more natural colour. He was currently asleep beside his brother, breathing softly yet fidgeting as he dreamt.
They were both beautiful little souls, both from uncertain beginnings. But Koujaku felt some comfort in the knowledge that perhaps from now on they would always have a safe and warm place to sleep, and a far less uncertain future.
Aoba on the other hand...
Koujaku gave another tired huff, placing his hands beneath Shinri's arms to lift him into his chest.The little boy gave a whine but snuggled into the warm embrace, closing his eyes with tiredness.
To the boys credit, he and his children had come impossibly far considering the hardships they had been forced to endure.
Aoba had struggled through the terrible beginnings of his own young life without knowledge of his origins nor a reason as to how the existence of these children could be possible. For all Aoba had known, it had been something perfectly normal.
The church he had once resided at did nothing to enlighten him to that fact, seeing only that that he was an abomination and acting out to the need of being rid of Aoba as soon as possible. With scarcely an explanation besides that, they forced Aoba out onto the street, pregnant and alone at only 13 years old.
After Aoba had birthed his second child in a back alley somewhere near the northern district, Koujaku had found him. Or at least, he had finally been able to get close enough to the boy to speak with him.
He had sighted him around town, this scrawny boy who was often in trouble from stealing food. But he had been good at it, and though people had chased him, no one had yet caught him. Koujaku had not in fact known his hair was even blue until he’d spotted him slipping a hood on before disappearing into the market crowd.
Aoba had been suspicious and so very timid for such a long time.
It had taken a lot of coaxing and trust and a terrible thunderstorm to convince Aoba to come home with him. To simply accept his help. That was perhaps four months past.
Aoba had recovered from his mild malnourished, since all of his health and energy had gone into keeping his children fed and safe. Since then, he had discovered something else during his time resting at Koujaku's, now that he knew for sure leaving his babies behind was not a risk.
Aoba had simply discovered freedom.
Koujaku guessed he was happy for that, but at the same time he worried deeply for the young teenager, and most nights he could not sleep until he heard the sound of his front door sliding open and staggered footsteps.
It was not a healthy kind of freedom. It was more destructive than anything else.
Aoba had spent so much of his time with the homeless that populated Midorijima, had experienced the violence that sometimes came from those that had nothing to lose. He had come into contact with gangs and thugs, had occasionally needed to fight with those who were like him to prevent being forced out of territory by the many gangs that surrounded their gatherings.
Aoba was now 15 years old, still so young, yet he already bore scars across his body. A large part of him wore those scars with pride. That part of Aoba could name the fights that had inflicted the worst of them.
Fighting was a big part of his life now, further encouraged by the islands obsession with Ribsteez.
Koujaku worried constantly for Aoba because of that.
He knew the boy would come home that night, scuffed up and sometimes limping. Sometimes, he would smell of cologne and smoke, a thing that turned Koujaku's stomach when he thought too hard about it. That was another problem entirely that he fought to ignore.
In the first couple of weeks, a month after he had arrived at the traditional looking household, Aoba had started disappearing each day to god knows where. It used to scare Koujaku witless. He would nag at the boy when he would return in the early mornings, would plead with him to stop being so reckless.
Honey brown eyes would look away sadly, shrugging a little.
"I can't just stop, Koujaku." He would say, “It’s not that easy…”
Koujaku would ask in a quiet, tired voice, "Why not, Aoba? Why?"
After the third time of asking this Aoba had looked up, his eyes suddenly cold and yellow. His lips had pulled back in a sneer, his demeanor shifting from the closed off, submissive stance to something more defensive. Something defiant.
"Because I don't want to. And you won't stop me."
It had come out like a hiss, smooth and challenging.
Koujaku had stared in confusion and shock as Aoba had turned on his heel and walked out of the house once more.
The boy didn't return until the next morning, thankfully with no more cuts or bruises than he had left with. But it had taught Koujaku to keep his mouth shut. Lest he force him further into the dangerous nightlife.
He had worried himself sick about the boy, keeping a close eye on his little ones. Little Aiji had cried so miserably when he had grown hungry in the night, and Koujaku had been forced to mash up a little banana for him to eat in the absence of milk.
Aoba had shown koujaku that night the possible reason for his survival. The kind hearted and timid soul that cared for his children was only the surface. Beneath lay another person entirely.
Sort of.
They called him Blue, for a lack of anything else. He was Aoba, and Aoba was him. Two sides of a coin, separated for whatever reason but still tightly bound to the other. Perhaps such a terrible life had forced Aoba to concentrate all his violent strength into one persona, else he might not have survived that first year living alone. Who could know the reason?
That side of Aoba, the side that gave him those unmistakable golden eyes and oceans of confidence, could simply not be controlled. Not even Aoba himself could control him.
He loved to fight, loved to look for trouble just to vent his anger, loved to roam the town for something or someone who could occupy his time absolutely.
Aoba would not tell koujaku who Shinri's father was. It filled him with too many memories and too much sadness.
But he had told Koujaku that Aiji was the result of a man Blue had chased willingly. Aoba could scarcely picture the man, he only knew that he guy was blonde and that was obvious from Aiji’s own hair. At the time, Aoba had been desperate for money and with no other choice, they had turned to only thing that Aoba could offer.
It was an ironic thing and Aoba was not blind to it, that they had gone out looking for money to make sure that Shinri wouldn't starve.
In the end, they had only ended up with yet another mouth to feed.
But not at all did Aoba regret it.
"They give me a reason to keep going..."
Aoba had once said to Koujaku, "Before Shinri was born, I was so depressed... I thought about ending it a few times. There wasn't much point to anything. But one day there he was, so dependant on me, it took all of my time and attention just to work out what I was doing. It was terrifying that I was alone doing it but I don't regret him. He forced me to take care of myself and to try and be better.
It's mad how much I love them both. They're only tiny but they act so different from each other. I would do anything for them."
Koujaku admired Aoba. And in some ways, he admired Blue as well.
He hated what Blue often forced Aoba into, as it was never Aoba that willingly slept around. But they had kept each other and their children alive till this point. It was a feat that could not be ignored.
So Koujaku would suck it up, come home to an empty house, take care of Aoba's sweet children and wait until the boy he tried to care for came home too.
He would clean up his wounds, and perhaps they would get a little closer.
Koujaku was a little ashamed of himself. He wouldn't lie and say that he hadn't slept with Aoba. He had done, and more than once. Both sides of Aoba had insisted that it was what they wanted. That didn't necessarily make it okay. They were four years apart in age and Aoba was not even legal. But what is legal when you've already had two kids and experienced things beyond your years?
Aoba had been denied a lot of comfort and affection in his life. Koujaku had resisted their advances somewhat at first, but he realised that perhaps a stable relationship was something that Aoba could probably do with. Something quite tender had grown out of it, and something a little more the opposite when Blue got involved.
At the very least, Aoba was faithful to him. Blue could do whatever the hell he wanted as long as it didn't harm Aoba too much, and their little dynamic would not stress koujaku out too much...
Koujaku shook himself from his wandering thoughts, bringing himself back to the now. To the child in his arms and to the rest of the evening he would be spending in wait.
He moved slowly toward the kitchen, rubbing Shinri's back with a loving nuzzle into his hair. Something tasty for the little ones would probably be in order. It was likely that Aoba had fed them before he’d left but it didn't hurt to make sure, especially in Aiji's case. He was still a little on the small side, and he tended to get hungry a lot quicker because of that.
"Shinri, would you like some warm milk?" He asked the toddler softly.
Shinri wiggled around in his arms, nodding against his neck with a whine.
"I'll give you something nice as well before I put you back to bed. You've been so good."
Shinri gripped onto him a little tighter, looking up at him shyly. A happy response.
It filled Koujaku's heart to be able to experience these moments. For all the love and care he devoted to the two, it might have surprised anyone else to learn that they were not his own. That did not matter to him in the slightest.
Perhaps... That wouldn’t always be the case with his and Aoba’s situation.
He had some suspicions that Aoba was hiding something from him. He was a healthier shape by this point, and as such it would perhaps be harder to tell if the boy had fallen pregnant again. Even if he was, it was perhaps a longshot to presume that the baby would even have been Koujaku's. The man couldn't help but hope. He’d already sunk so much of his time and affection into children that were of no relation to him. He couldn't imagine what he would do if Aoba actually gave him a son.
So it was hard for Koujaku not to note the slightest bump in Aoba’s usually flat stomach, and to not feel both excitement and shame that his hope for a son was once more at Aoba’s expense. The boy hardly needed anymore children.
He also supposed that a child from Aoba would only result in offering him yet more stress. His mind often travelled to the future, thinking about what ifs. It was not that he was being overly optimistic about his child's gender when he imagined being given a son by Aoba. All of Aoba's children would, technically, be boys. On the outside. In reality, the entire family were intersex. So one day Shinri might have perhaps ended up in Aoba's position, if they hadn't been taken off of the streets by Koujaku.
That thought filled him with sadness and worry. That future could still happen. Aoba was deep in it already of course, and it would possibly only progress from there. Blue would continue to seek out men to satisfy his own desires, and Aoba would be left to care for all the illegitimate children this resulted in.
Koujaku had tried sneaking Aoba contraceptives to try and give the boy a chance, after speaking briefly to Tae San.
He had lied to her of course, since he wasn't entirely sure how to introduce this scenario to such a shrewd and logical person. She would have thought him mad.
But after a few days Aoba had grown ill, his hair malting just a little more than it should have, his muscles aching in ways he'd never experienced. Koujaku had stopped giving him the contraceptives in his food almost immediately, and after a few more days the symptoms had passed.
He could only assume the female hormones had upset whatever fragile balance Aoba's body had somehow managed to achieve, to still have the strength and build of a male yet possessing the reproductive abilities of both sexes. It was science fiction and beyond. But it worked, and changing that composition was a dangerous thing to do.
He had considered taking Aoba to some kind of specialist doctor to try and work out what hormones could fool his body to stop him getting pregnant again, but the fear then was that Aoba would be seen as some kind of opportunity. There could be people looking for him, the last thing they needed was for Aoba to be kidnapped because of a doctor with a big mouth.
This of course wasn't the only fear when Blue went out on the streets, but it was the one that was a visible and continuing issue. The solution for the rest would come when Koujaku could convince Aoba to go to a hospital for a simple checkup. Gods knew what the boy had picked up off the streets during his time there.
Aside from that, Koujaku had no power over this situation. He had no right to tell Aoba how to live his life, even if it were in his best interests. He had survived without Koujaku for this long, of course he wouldn't listen to anything he had to say about his health and wellbeing.
Once again his mind was drifting, going around in circles.
Koujaku opened the fridge with one hand, the other safely holding Shinri to him. He found a small fruit yogurt there and took it.
After that, he sat back on the sofa in the lounge with the young brothers, Shinri quickly growing drowsy once he was given his sippy cup of milk. Aiji had woken up during their time in the kitchen on the other hand and Koujaku now cradled him comfortably in his arms.
Aiji was dressed in a little yellow and brown onesie, warm hazel eyes staring wide up at Koujaku's face.
"Ah, you are so adorable you know." koujaku couldn't help but say, studying those shining orbs and idly wondering why they were so normal compared to his older brothers.
Aiji stuffed a tiny fist into his mouth, making a gurgling sound as Koujaku shifted him to sit more upright. He moved the spoon of smooth yogurt toward his mouth, coaxing the fist away, and Aiji took a messy bite at the spoon.
"There. Isn't it yummy?"
He cooed at the little one for a short while more as he continued to spoon feed Aiji, looking up once to find Shinri passed out in a cosy looking ball on the blankets. That was alright. Koujaku could spoil him tomorrow with a milkshake. It would be his day off afterall.
The comfortable atmosphere suffered in the moments after when the front door slid suddenly open.