-Luka-
Under my propped-up book, I was furiously typing away at my tablet. The teacher's voice had turned into background noise, with how hard I was focusing.
"So their stocks will probably crash...soon." I concluded my research soon after, before letting out a satisfied sigh. Looking up, I noticed nearly half the class falling asleep while the teacher turned a blind eye.
So this was high school. How serene.
It'd been a week or two after I gifted a promise ring to Blaine, and I'd gone on an assigned mission afterwards, so this was practically my first day back at school since then.
Well, a lot of things happened there. If Blaine was there, then he'd realise that whenever I told him I was insane, I truly wasn't lying.
__________
I stood panting, suit covered in blood. I tapped at my ear. "Echo — Advance. Lima — Clean up."
I turned away, only to be stopped by an older member of the family. "Lima. You okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" I laughed a little. Everything I could see was yellow. My electric sight betrayed my inner state of mind to be frazzled and unstable, because my eyes were uncontrollably glowing and turned into slits.
"Well, maybe because you've been repressing yourself for the boy?" Echo— or Mabel, the leader of Team Echo, patted at my shoulder. She had turned off her earpiece, and so did I.
"Repressing? Not repressing. Just afraid." I laughed easily. It was easy to talk to her because I wasn't in the right frame of mind then.
"Afraid of?"
"Scaring him away, of course. Look at me right now and tell me someone like him wouldn't be scared." I was prone to major emotional fluctuations whenever I was in this situation, and started finding her rather annoying.
"Sorry, Lima. I get it now. But as a woman, I think you should be truthful. All ladies love a man who's open to convo." Mabel was good at deducing tones and in extension, deriving the emotional state of the other person, and hence knew how to steer the conversation well.
"I get it, I know." I sighed, trying to keep calm. "I haven't been restricting myself just because of him. I just haven't had the need to tell him I kill people now, too."
"When will that need arise, then? When he catches you bludgeoning a man to death with the back of a gun?" She gestured to the gun I was holding, its back covered in blood amongst other unsavoury components. I blinked.
"It'll be alright, but so what if it isn't? I have my ways of making him stay." I smiled. Mabel narrowed her eyes. "Lima, honey, please calm down. Just because you're our leader doesn't mean you get to imprison innocent people."
"Sure, whatever you say."
"Lima." Her tone held a warning. "Maybe it's the adrenaline talking, but I'll stop you if I have to."
I breathed in, closing my eyes.
Should I kill her?
No— the rational part of my brain finally surfaced after my attempts to repress it. Mabel was saying this for my good. She'd protect Blaine, then. If she could say such words.
Blaine...
Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, Blaine—
I suddenly burst into laughter. Mabel watched me silently, frowning. Her hand tightened around her weapon, and her foot shifted. She was really preparing to fight me.
"I'm sorry. It's really the adrenaline talking. I'm just surprised..." I said. "Blaine seems to have everyone in the family wrapped around his pinky finger. You haven't even met him and you'd kill me for him."
Mabel's body relaxed, her shoulders sinking and her stance crumbling. "Well, I mean, I'm sure whoever he is, he's a sweet kid to have even gotten you to fall for him, and Father to take him as his own, huh?"
"Well, I'll introduce you all one day. He's rather shy."
"Well, I heard the stories from the boys, that time you got them to raid a house with you. They saw a boy, but they didn't dare to look too long, apparently. Your anger was making their eyelids freeze shut and nobody dared to take a second glance." Mabel commented. "Please don't accidentally freeze everyone to death. You're young. You still have a lot to learn."
"Yes. I know. Thank you, senior."
She smiled, and left the area, having successfully cleaned out a rebelling group.
I stared down at my palm, watching silently as drops of blood oozed from the 5 indents caused by my nails. My anger was palpable, still simmering from within me. If anyone talked to me right now I'd probably lop off their heads. Mabel was lucky she left when she did. Fucking bitch.
I swung my gun in a loop, letting it circle my finger before clasping it again.
Since our mission was unofficially over, I gave all the corpses on the floor a bullet each. I had no use for spares now that none of our enemies were alive to die.
"Lima!" A guy from Leon's group rushed in. "You'll want to see this."
The gunshots from the corpse shooting let me vent my anger by a little, so I smiled again, vision still blindingly golden. "See what?"
I followed him out, only to see a knocked out man trussed up on the ground, reminding me of a chicken.
Leon silently slipped beside me. "I found him stuck in the basements. Saw the hair. Wanted you to check."
The man had white hair.
If he was old, it'd be excusable, but he seemed to be around 40 years old.
Ignoring all decorum or sanitation, I squatted down and peeled open the man's eyelids, inspecting his eye colour. He was too knocked out for me to see anything other than the whites of his eyes, so I sighed and let go.
I had the idea to gouge them out, but on the off chance that this man was somehow related to Blaine, I couldn't do anything.
"So you think because of his hair, he's related to Blaine in some way?"
Leon blinked, his own eyes glowing even as his expression didn't expose anything. "We might get a lead. Maybe the reason why I couldn't find anything was because he's part of our society too."
Blaine...
My sweet, precious, Blaine.
I wonder where your real father could be.
The fake one was...hm, I wasn't too sure myself. I handed him over to some of my boys and hadn't cared enough to check up on them since.
They probably got him sent into our prison. But he wouldn't die. I wouldn't let him. I explicitly told the boys that if he died then they'd have to answer to me.
I backed away from the white haired man on the ground, and left the room without another word. Leon didn't stop me.
__________
I mean, I calmed down in due time afterwards.
But the issue with the white-haired guy had been bugging me for a really long time. Seriously, where did he come from? What the hell was I supposed to do with his presence?
I blinked, and looked over to find Blaine, who had his eyes stuck to the projector screen, occasionally looking down to jot down notes. What a busy little bee. He was probably the only one listening to the teacher right now.
..? I got a text from Leon.
__________
Leon: Luka
Luka: hello
Leon:
Leon: ?? Are you ok?
Luka: what?
Leon: who the hell says hello like that through TEXT
Leon: whatever
Leon: back to the main point
Leon: come down to the base after your classes end. we need you here.
Luka: i can go right now
Leon: no. stay in school. you won't graduate if you're skipping classes.
Leon: troublesome kid.
Luka: I don't need to..? only here to accompany Blaine.
Leon: that's a lie
Leon: stay in school
Leon: see you later
__________
What the hell? I got up from my seat, packed my things, and left the class without so much an explanation to the teacher. I guess the headmaster had told him about our arrangements already, and I guess he knew I wouldn't learn anything from his teaching anyways.
Since nearly half the class was sleeping, not many people took note of my disappearance, except for Blaine.
__________
Blaine: ?
Blaine: Why are you leaving class early?
Luka: got some stuff to do, not sure when I'll be done
Blaine: Then I'll go with the twins for lunch?
Luka: yup, don't wait up.
Luka: i'll let you know if I can't pick you up
Blaine: Okay.
__________
When I got down to the building and informed Leon, I got the lecture of a lifetime. He wasn't even that much older than me, with the three-year gap.
"...can't believe you never listen. I'll remember to factor in your class timetabling anytime I need to call you down after this." He snapped, while still leading me to our meeting room.
"So, what did you call me down for?"
"Just... some follow-up. You remember the guy we found in the basements?"
"The one with white hair, yes. Did you get the stuff I asked you for?"
I had provided a sample of Blaine's hair to check the man's identity. White hair was relatively rare, so we couldn't rule out any possibilities.
The man could just be old, but his hair held the same sheen of pale white that couldn't be found in the greyish white hairs of the elderly. Better safe than sorry.
"DNA test came back inconclusive. Apparently we need the biological mother's DNA too."
"Hmm." Blaine's mother was in jail. She definitely wasn't having a fun time. For a child abuser to be surrounded by volatile females craving for time with their own children, it was pretty obvious what would happen. I could probably get someone to tear off some of her hair to submit again for DNA testing.
Case in point, Blaine's mother was at the bottom of the ringer in jail. Anything I wanted to do, I could. A sick sense of humour filled me, and I smiled to myself.
"Nobody has come to claim him just yet. But we found a tattoo on his arm, which looks like this." He showed me a picture on his tablet.
The symbol curved around the man's bicep, reminding me of a serpent. However, there was a deep slash, indicating that he probably defected from whatever family he was previously in.
"Dad wants to talk to you about it, that's why he called you here. But," Leon stopped, opening the door and shoving me in. "Good luck. He's mad you skipped school, too."
Before I could stop the door from closing, Aiden had already rounded on me, and Leon had closed the door, leaving me to face my fate.
__________
After my earful from Aiden, Leon slipped back into the room, silently sitting down and nonchalantly starting his brief.
My head was still throbbing from Aiden's nagging, but had to listen all the same.
"He has yet to wake up, and Avery has checked him for drugs. There are some in his system. Pentobar...whatever. Drugs that induce coma. The most likely reason is because he's an enemy of the Italian family we cleaned up." Leon said monotonously. "In other words, he's lucky he's alive because of us."
"Do we kill him if he isn't related to Blaine?" Aiden asked, staring at me. It was a test. "No. If he's an enemy of an Italian mob family then he probably has a backing that we shouldn't provoke."
"Good. We'll follow your arrangements then, Lima." Aiden gave me a smug smile, the conniving guy.
I didn't really want to entertain the idea of Blaine's origins being from yet another mob family. I rubbed my forehead, feeling a horrible headache coming along.
Hopefully, he wasn't.
___________
Yeah, okay. My hopes failed.
This kind of felt like deja vu.
After DNA testing, this man was definitely related to Blaine. As I stared at the 99.9999998% of paternity probability, I silently thanked myself for not digging out his eyes when we found him.
Blaine... he probably didn't remember anything about his dad. From young, he'd already been...
Ugh.
"Shit. Now what?" I asked Aiden. He was the one who ultimately decided to bring the guy back.
Now Blaine was embroiled in our stupid issues too.
Aiden frowned too. Dragging Blaine into this was never in our plan.
"We should tell him. Get him to meet... that guy. When he wakes up."
It seemed like he didn't expect this either.
__________
"Blaine?" I held his hand in mine as he watched a documentary. "Mm?"
"Blaine, listen to me for a bit. You remember how I left for Italy a month or two ago?" He paused his show, and turned to face me. His eyes were always so pretty.
"Mmhm. You brought back lots of gifts too." He smiled, cuddling into my side.
I didn't want to break this form of peace. Blaine was blissfully happy just by being here, which was what I had hoped for him when I met him too. But it was his right to know that I'd found his father, the real one that had left him to suffer for all this time.
I took him into my arms to hug, taking a deep breath. "On my mission there, we, um, found some people. We took them back with us. One of them had white hair, just like you."
I could feel him freeze.
"So," I tightened my arms around him. "I recently got back the DNA report results, and— "
"Stop." His voice was shaky. "Please, stop."
I normally would've said something, but I couldn't.
"I-I don't understand."
Truth to be told, I didn't either. Who was Blaine's father? Why was he there in the dungeons? What faction did he get ousted from?
"...Please tell me this is a joke. I've lived my life thinking that my real father died before I was born b-but... now you're telling me he's— he's alive?"
"It's not a joke. I'm sorry."
His entire body was shaking, and he gasped out a sob. "It's not possible. I...I don't..."
"Ugh..." He suddenly started clawing at his arm frantically. "L-Luka...i-it hurts..."
Shit. I pried his arm off, and his nails sunk into my back instead. "I-It hurts."
"I know. It's okay. I'm here." He suffered from what was called psychogenic pain. It wasn't actual, physical pain but it was equally as bad. His pain mostly flared up during his panic attacks, and as he shuddered in my arms, I couldn't help but wish that I was the one to suffer instead.
"It's painful..." He mumbled softly after a while, his eyes slowly blinking away his tears.
"I know. I'm sorry. The results came back out of nowhere." I replied, easing his hands off my back and kissing them. I could feel the indents of his nails on my bare skin, but that really wasn't what mattered currently.
"So... I have a dad."
"Yes."
"He's alive?"
"Yes."
"W-Would he want to know... about me?"
"...I don't know."
Blaine sighed despondently. "I, um, need to think for a bit."
"Of course. It's a lot to take in." I kissed his forehead, and he sighed, leaning into me once more. "I'm just so... confused. Where did you guys find him? In Italy?"
"Yes. We found him in the cells of one of the rebelling families. We think he must have defected from another faction or something. He has a tattoo that's scratched out."
"What? So you're saying he's part of... you know, your world?"
"If you put it that way, yes. We have reason to believe so." I brushed through his hair with my fingers, watching how his hair reflected the same colour as his prospective father's.
"Blaine. If you don't want to meet him—"
"No. I do. Um, do I? Maybe not. I don't know. I'm very confused."
"I can understand that." I cupped his cheek as he leaned into my touch, closing his eyes.
"I just need a few hours— no, a few days. Maybe weeks. It's just..."
"The fact that he was alive this entire time is just so... unexpected to me. I always knew that the one who, you know, raised me, wasn't my real father, but this is all just so... out of the blue." He sighed. "I know it's bad, but the first thought I had was just... if he didn't leave me with my mother, how different could my life have been?"
"It's not bad to think that way. It's still a fact that he left you with your mother and didn't reach out for nearly twenty years."
"Maybe he did. Maybe my mother stopped him from meeting me. Maybe he never wanted to abandon me? Maybe..." His hand tightened around mine, as he bit his lip in contemplation.
"Don't think too much into it. When he wakes, and when you're ready, you guys can meet. Is that alright?"
"M-Mmhm." I kissed his forehead, and he smiled uncertainly at me.
"You wanna get any new books? Any collections? Just say the word."
"Trying to distract me, hm?" He laughed. "It's working. Recently I've been looking at this collection... it's limited edition so I was looking at the normal collection. I liked the first book, so I was thinking of getting the others..."
__________
I was the first to receive the news that Blaine's father was awake.
"Very disoriented. Extremely." Murmured Avery, "It's unlike the effects of any drug I've seen before. And that Italian family, they've been selling this to the Slave Market?"
"Avy. Is he sane enough to talk?"
"I don't know. He nearly attacked me. If Aiden wasn't there, I wouldn't have known what to do." Avery was a non-combatant member of the family, so her combat skills were not as trained as ours. She could hold her own, but her expertise mostly still laid in medicine.
He awoke when Aiden and Avery were doing their checks, and according to Avery, picked up a scalpel to attack.
"He's been awake since two days ago, but hasn't said anything. He's just been staring at the door this entire time. I'd usually sedate people like this, but I don't know if it'll kill him. And we don't want that, because, you know, Blaine."
"Two days, already? Why didn't you tell me earlier."
"Be so for real right now," Avery glared at me. "The dude's half brain-dead, and you're acting like you wanna kill him. Of course I needed him to stabilise first. He's started eating the food we give him, though. He should be well enough to speak by now."
"...I see. I'll go in."
"Um, okay, but go put on one of the vests."
She made me put on one of our stab-proof vests under my normal clothes, before entering the code to let me into the cell. As it opened, Blaine's father looked up, staring dead straight at me.
"Peculiar hair you have." I already knew what I was going to do. "You know, I caught a little rat scurrying around with the same hair as you."
His eyes widened, and his lips thinned into a straight line.
"Of course I caught him. He was fun to play with. He lasted for pretty long too." I smiled. "He looked like a teen. He had potential."
"You..." His first word. I glanced at the one way mirror, hoping Avery was watching in the monitoring room to note it down.
"...Where is that boy now?"
Safe and sound, at home. Snuggling with a cat, a dog, and a stuffed penguin.
"Who knows? I got bored. It's been a few days since I visited the dungeons, you see. Maybe he's dead. If he isn't, maybe I'll go play around again. He still has one arm left."
"You—!" He lunged at me, unveiling his previously hidden hand, holding a shard. I dodged, before kicking him in his back.
He crashed against the door, and I stepped on his knee, with not enough pressure to break it, but just enough to threaten.
"Why so riled up? Hmm?" I taunted, and watched as the man's pupils ignited in an astonishing shade of light teal.
Not as pretty as Blaine's eyes, but the same colour nonetheless. This also confirmed another thing.
He was a High Colour.
"Hey, the kid has green eyes just like you! I wouldn't forget them. They were just so pretty, I had to keep them for myself. I can bring them here if you want to see."
His eyes widened in shock again, responding to my allusion about digging out eyeballs.
"Who are you?!" He finally asked a relevant question.
"Why should I tell you that?" I mocked. "Rudely attacking my friend when you awoke was your first mistake. So stay nice while I ask you what I want to know."
He stayed silent, staring at me with hate.
"Why were you in the Moretti Family's basement?" I asked. We found him in the dungeons of the Italian mob, but nothing was set in stone.
"I'm not telling you shit. Break my knee." He hissed.
Ah, well. I knew how to deal with this too.
"I won't do that," I lifted my foot away. "But I'll tell you what. You know the kid I mentioned? When you don't answer a question, he faces the consequences. Like I said, he still has one arm left."
"What—?!" He exclaimed as I took a few steps back.
"He's already told us all we need to know from him," I smirked. "But because of you, he'll suffer more."
"I-I'll talk! I'll talk! Don't touch the kid!"
Okay, that was fast.
It was like he had nothing left to lose.
"Before you answer, what's the deal?" I frowned. "It's just a kid with your eye and hair colour."
This was my own form of testing him.
"..." He turned away silently.
If this were a real Rivielio style interrogation, I would've already left out of impatience.
So I did. I had to drive home the feeling of a real interrogation, after all. The idea that someone else would be harmed for their own indecision worked wonderfully well against most people.
Our reputation also aided in this. Nobody would expect that the Rivielio family wouldn't live up to their words, so nobody had ever suspected us about lying about this issue. It also helped our name spread, so it was a win-win.
I ignored his screams for me to come back, and closed the door.
"Luci." Avery came up to me, looking hesitant. "Isn't this still too much? He's still Blaine's dad."
"And leaving Blaine with his mother to be abused for so long isn't too much?" I mocked, feeling my anger simmer beneath my skin.
Avery lowered her head. "...Right."
She, after looking after Blaine during his period of recovery, knew more than anyone else about how much Blaine had gone through. Even if this father of his didn't intend for it to be this way, the damage was done.
"I'll go back in after an hour. I'll grab a fake blood pack too." I left to cool down, grabbing my phone along the way.
__________
"Blaine? Sweetheart?" I asked exhaustedly, leaning against the couch in the lounge.
"Hello? I'm here." Blaine responded. "Where are you?"
"At the company," I lied. "Just doing some extra. Wanted to hear your voice."
"Hehe," Blaine giggled. "I'm doing my homework. I don't really understand this chemistry question, though... so I'm planning to go for consults with the professor tomorrow. I'll be staying back, if that's okay."
"Of course. Could you just..." I sighed. "Keep talking? I'm going to close my eyes and rest for a bit."
"Mm. Okay. So today, I saw this really big fluffy dog at the park. He looked like a marshmallow, so guess what? I got the courage to ask the owner about him, and he's a Samoyed! I got to pet him too, and the owner was really nice to me too..." I found my eyes closing as Blaine buzzed on, and I couldn't help but think about the situation at hand.
If Blaine didn't meet me, how would he have lived? If Blaine didn't meet me, would he even be alive?
If only his real father was in the picture, how much could have been changed? Would Blaine not have suffered as much?
Just how could anyone have hurt him so much?
My darling, my precious.
My Blaine.