Chapter Text
Prologue
There are some times where you find yourself in a place where you never thought you’d be. A lot of times, it’s a dangerous situation. One where you believe yourself to be safe, until something or someone comes along and wrecks everything.
Juuzou is having one of those times, but not in the way you might think.
He kicks his feet back and forth a little, sitting on the stool the evil police officers sat him on. At barely sixteen years old, he was taken away from home, a place he believed to be safe. The police officers wrecked that for him.
That was a couple months ago, now he is starting to get settled in.
He looks up at his guardian, Yukinori Shinohara, the one who was dumb enough to look at this troubled kid and take him in. His response is to smile at him, in a comforting way, as if aware of his concerns about being at the police station again.
“Want me to grab you some juice?” He offers, reading his mind about that too.
Juuzou nods a little. He’s always been sugar-obsessed. The nice thing is, now he’s allowed to be. At least, in a safe way.
“Can you wait here? I’ll get you some from the break room.”
Another nod. Shinohara gives him a look of concern, smile fading a little, but he nods back. Then he walks away, going toward the break room.
Despite claiming he would feel safe, Juuzou doesn’t. Ever since Mr. Shinohara took him in, he hasn’t really left the house. He started kindergarten, being homeschooled (he is not liking it, he can’t sit still long enough to write his name) and he’s too scared to go out in public. It isn’t his own fear stopping him, though, it’s his worries about how likely he is to hurt other people.
His guardian brought him here, since this is where he works and he’s finally starting to get back into it, but Juuzou isn’t amused by being back here again.
- There’s nothing to do.
- He doesn’t know anyone.
- Why would he want to get to know anyone anyway? These are the people who took him away from his home. He can barely tolerate Mr. Shinohara.
“Who are you?” Someone asks, getting Juuzou’s eyes to refocus.
The boy standing in front of him has a white shirt with a blue tie, everything on him is pristine and ironed to perfection. He has dark brown eyes, and flawless skin. Juuzou’s attention doesn’t lock onto any of those good things about him, though, he focuses on the piece of hair that’s sticking up a little where he has it parted.
“Who are you?” He responds, smiling and leaning in a little. He rests his hands on the stool, between his legs. It wiggles a little but doesn’t tip.
The boy raises an eyebrow at him. A thought crosses his mind; What a pretty girl. What is she doing here?
“I’m Officer Takizawa. Do you need something?”
“I’m-” Juuzou stops, reminding himself of his own name. His new name, “Juuzou.”
“Okay. What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for Mr. Shinohara, he’s getting me some juice~ It’s nice to meet you! Are you a real police officer? You seem young.”
Seidou gives him a suspicious look, tilting his head to go with his raised eyebrow. “I am. An officer, I mean… Well, I’m in training.”
He trails off because he realizes he sounds dumb. It isn’t usually in him to sound dumb.
“I’m in training too.”
“You are?”
“Absolutely!” Juuzou bounces, making the stoll finally tip.
Seidou catches Juuzou by his shoulder, glaring at him. “Be careful.” He warns, fixing the stoll with his other hand.
He catches Akira’s eyes on him. She is rustling through some paperwork nearby, but she isn’t looking at any of them. Her focus is on him, and the mocking smile on her face makes his cheeks red.
No doubt, she’s going to tease him about this.
Juuzou swats Seidou’s hand off of him. “I did it on purpose!” He claims, still seeming happy.
Seidou recrosses his arms as Juuzou gets settled back down on the stoll. What’s this guy’s problem? That’s pretty much what they’re both thinking.
Yukinori comes back over to them, giving Seidou a friendly smile. “Hey, Mr. Takizawa, how are you doing? You met Juuzou?”
“He’s so nice!” Juuzou says, and Seidou can’t help but to feel like this is just another pretty person here to make fun of him and make him feel like…dumb.
“Yeah, well, I just wanted to know what was going on.” He instinctively defends himself, “You don’t look like an officer, no offense…or like a criminal.”
“I am a criminal.”
Yukinori hesitantly passes the juice box to Juuzou, with the straw already punctured through. “You’re not a criminal, none of that was your fault. Here, enjoy this.”
Juuzou starts sipping it, kicking his feet again. Seidou looks down at the movement, and somehow just now processes that this kid is not wearing shoes. Just socks. He isn’t sure whether to be confused or disgusted, so he settles on both.
Something is so off-putting about this whole situation.
“I’m going to get back to work. Nice to meet you, again,” He pauses, observing Juuzou, trying to figure out his age and if his status is above him. Eh. Probably not. “Juuzou.” He lands on, since he doesn’t know his last name anyway.
“You too!”
Seidou nods to both of them and then walks away. As he leaves the room, Akira follows him, making him groan internally. She chuckles, hugging her papers against her chest.
“What are you doing?” She asks him, uncharacteristically amused.
“Working?” He responds, very cooly, as always.
She shakes her head. “That was Mr. Shinohara’s adoptive child, the one from the child-fighting-ring slash child-trafficking-ring?” She says, eying him, “Practically a toddler, intellectually.”
“So? I just asked what she was doing here.”
“I figured,” She muses, “You realize he is a boy, right?”
Seidou did not realize that.
“...” She purses her lips and watches him, waiting for a response. She doesn’t really need to though, she can tell by the look on his face that he was not just asking, and also that he did not realize Juuzou was a boy.
“Okay.” He says, still cool.
Not cool at all, very uncool. Very disgusted.
“So you’ll stop flirting with him?”
“I wasn’t! Why would you care if I was?”
“Because it would be a good opportunity to make fun of you, but I suppose if you weren’t doing that anyway, I will refrain from saying more.” She finally looks at her papers, and Seidou takes that as a win.
For the first time, Seidou Takizawa has beaten Akira Mado. And it’s something as trivial as this.
Little did he know, this was going to be one of those times for him, too. His life will be flipped upside down over time, and whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to him.
End