False Reality

Crossed Paths

**CW: Brief mention of self harm.**

You were not happy with how today was going.
You had tried to contact Shinsou, despite not really wanting to speak still, to try and organise something to do together to celebrate. You told him he could have complete free reign. No doubt Keigo would be happy that you were leaving the house on the weekend, and offer to give you a little money anyway.
But Shinsou had completely ghosted you. He'd opened the message nearly as soon as you'd sent it and just never replied back to you.

So it was pretty much cemented in your mind that he was definitely avoiding you now.
Which made you feel like trash.

Which made you refuse to leave your room, eyeing up the piece of glass kept safely within a chewing gum tin you'd kept from your first proper fight with Keigo.
You couldn't help but just sit in your room and dwell on everything, like a stereotypical teenager from a coming-of-age movie.

Why couldn't things ever just go right for you? Why were you so stupid, unable to control yourself or stop yourself from behaving ways you were warned against?

Keigo had knocked on your door at eleven a.m, which would have been early on your days off school back at your old home.

"If you're still not feelin' like talking could you at least give me a sign you're alive?" He'd asked gently through the door.

You'd thrown a pillow at the door in response.

"Oof. Bad time?" He asks lightheartedly through the door. "Can I come in?"

You hurriedly put the tin with the glass shard away before picking up the pillow you'd thrown at the door and opening it slowly, revealing the usual mass of red that followed with Keigo before opening it far enough to see his sun-kissed skin, freckles and messy blonde hair.

"You okay?" He asks, giving a small and concerned smile as his yellow eyes scan over you.

You shrug, going to sit on the edge of your bed, nearer to your writing tablet which is laying on the bedside table.
Keigo follows behind tentatively, as though there's a bomb in your room.

"Kid... are you sure nothing happened the day you went to the graveyard?" Keigo asks, a frown pulling his fluffy eyebrows together. "You've not spoken in days. Even when you came to me you spoke a little."

You shrug again. You just... couldn't get into this with him.
He stares at you blankly, unshaken by your attitude, and just shrugs right back.

"Well, I'm going to need you to talk soon." He says coldly, back to the Keigo you knew when you first were adopted. "The League are throwing some kind of rally and I'm assuming the kids'll be there."

You snatch your tablet up, scribbling intensely on the screen and then flipping it towards Keigo.

'I'm anxious. Going to a rally won't help.'

Keigo's expression doesn't soften or change at all, even as he leans in the doorway casually crossing his arms over his chest like he so often does.

"Too bad. We all hafta do shit we don't want to do." Keigo replies. "You think I wanna work most of the time? Think I wanted to be a dad in my early twenties? Think I don't get anxious? Get over it kid."

You stare at him in shock.

"You wanna start doin' something useful fast though, 'cause Rai's not gonna be happy when she sees your grades, and how little effort you're willing to put into this job." Keigo throws his hands up in a bigger shrug. "Tryin' to fight your corner, Hakuchō, but you're not making it easy."

You launch your writing pad at him, but he's faster than you, and blocks it from making contact with his body with one of his wings effortlessly.

"I'm not Hakuchō!" You shout, but your voice cracks mid-sentence from disuse, making it sound weaker than you want.