Behind the Mask

Chapter 1

"This is for the pain you caused me, and this is for leaving me! Hahaha!" A broken beer bottle was dragged across scarred flesh. The woman looked down to the body prone on the floor in front of her. "Aahhhh!" Her high-pitched screech rang throughout the house as she snapped out of it. "Get out, get out, get out!"

"Get out of my sight!"

Kuroko scrambled from his heap on the floor and ran away from his mother—glass bottles of empty alcohol crashing against the floor and walls as they were thrown across the house. He escaped the household and ran out into the streets, no passerby noticing anything out of place. Kuroko didn't get the chance to drop his stuff off or change before his mother noticed him. He just hoped that his mother would be better soon. Kuroko's vision blurred, he felt the lump in his throat hurt more as he held back his tears.

She will be better once dad comes back home. She will...

With a shuddering sigh, he was beginning to feel that his hopes were in vain, and with that, the tears began to fall.

And so, he learned not to hope for the best—he learned to accept things for what they were.

Hopeless.

After moving to Konoha, they lived happily as a family—the peaceful days of training with his father and mother, the occasional outing they would go on. That changed after their clan tracked them down. His father became distant, and the tension in the household rose up to its breaking point. The clan needed a new leader, Kuroko's father.

He would have to take the role of clan head, and in order to do that, he would have to leave.

His mother was enraged and Kuroko could clearly remember the argument they had.

"Jun... You can't just leave us now! You either choose your clan or your family, in this case, you can't have both."

"The clan needs me to take back the title of clan head, Hana! My brother was assassinated! I need to straighten things out, he corrupted the system."

"Then leave. Just leave! I don't care anymore—all those years were for nothing, wasted! We're through!"

His mother fell into depression and barely left the house, only leaving to go to the bar and get alcohol. Over time, she slowly went out more and more to do who knows what—but whatever she was doing caused her to spiral further into the black pit.

It consumed her—the cracks breaking her mind slowly spreading.

Until it shattered.

One day, Kuroko returned from school earlier than usual and witnessed her first major break down. The catalyst. Utterly despising the face that looked exactly like her husbands, despising the very person who had been causing her misery since he came into existence...

She vented.

Hana lifted her hand to strike at her child.

Kuroko took to wearing his mask at all times, hiding the face that she hated. It was on twenty-four-seven. It helped him feel safe, secluded from everyone else.

It was his shield.

Kuroko opted to find a job to support himself and his mother. He was a delivery boy, he would take food and parcels, bringing them to the specified destinations within Konoha. The owners were reluctant to hire him at first, finding him suspicious with his white mask, but gave in as he was persistent and they were understaffed at that point in time. His training helped him with the deliveries since he sealed the parcels and food in scrolls for easier travel. Kuroko gave two-thirds of the hourly pay to his mother while he kept the rest along with the tips he received from the kind customers. His workplace was both a restaurant and a mailing service. The owners used to be in the trade business since moving to Konoha, but they still had their connections to the trade, so they made a new business.