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— 𝓜𝓾𝓽𝓾𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓑𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓯𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭
Akaashi Keiji wasn't the type to give in to peer pressure, not by his friends at least. He would, without a doubt, always give in to anything his mom said however. Her demands were always extreme, sometimes even impossible, but he did try his best to please her, a habit he tried desperately to break but never could. He loved his family, truly he did, but he never seemed to be good enough for any of them, and he knew how he felt, just choosing to ignore it.
Here he sat, in his universities library, studying for an upcoming exam that he had. His mother had gotten off of the phone with him only hours earlier begging and pleading the boy to finally have someone to bring to their annual family get together next week to save herself the embarrassment of having her only child be so disappointing. His mom was the worst of his parents by a landslide, even if his dad had left him at a young age. She had a future planned for him the minute he had been born: go to school, graduate top of his class, go to a good university, be married by twenty with a good job by then to, get married, have kids, etcetera. Her abrasive and controlling nature only getting worse when her husband had decided he finally had enough of her.
Akaashi sat at the library table, head in his hands sighing. His family only wanted the best for him, and he knew that, but it was always so overwhelming. What was he supposed to do? To him, he felt like they thought he could do everything at once without putting immense strain on himself. Taking his hands away from his face he peared down at the table, notebooks and pages of paper strewn about, deciding that he had done enough studying for now and would do what anyone else in a library does, read. He put his things away, neatly organizing them into his school bag, before getting up to walk to a section he was all too familiar with, romance.
He thought it was funny the way the library was set up, certain aisles having two completely different genres on either side, like the current one he was in. It had romance on the left, horror on the right. It was always the complete opposite genres in these situations, although a horror romance novel did sound good to him about now. Scanning through the rows of books, he tried to find something decently entertaining before feeling a tap on his shoulder. Turning around he was met with, in his opinion, quite a beautiful girl. He smiled at her before questioning her intent.
"Did you need something?" The girl seemed to hesitate for a second, running a hand through her hair before smiling.
"Could you.. Could you reach a book for me?" Akaashi nodded.
She pointed to a book which had caught Akaashi's attention. It was golden in color, a pentagram etched into the front cover, labeled 'The Merciless II'. Akaashi had remembered reading the first one, cringing at the thought. It was definitely not a book for the feint of heart, given the scenes depicted in it. He handed it to the girl, a slight look of disgust dawning his face. She seemed like the type to be in that aisle for a romance book but apparently he guessed wrong.
