Chapter 175: The Boy Before Hiiro (3)

After Akihito died, the Watanabe family never recovered.

Naomi left Japan for overseas training as soon as she was able. Ren refused to speak to either parent and eventually moved in with his girlfriend. Their father was arrested after the investigation into his career expanded beyond doping and uncovered fraud, bribery, and illegal drug possession.

Their mother disappeared differently.

There was no arrest. Instead, she vanished behind legal disputes, psychiatric treatment, rehabilitation programs, and carefully managed attempts to restore whatever remained of her public reputation.

Sometimes Souta saw her on television. She spoke about accountability, healing, and rebuilding her relationship with her children. He usually changed the channel to avoid hearing her made-up stories.

Souta, being the youngest, became a problem someone had to place somewhere. He was too young to live alone, too old to be passed between relatives without understanding that he was being passed around.

Eventually, Masato took him in. He was older, married, and apparently stable… at least compared with everything else.

His wife, Ayame, welcomed Souta into their home with a smile.

Their house was modest compared with the Watanabe family residence, tucked into a quiet neighborhood where reporters did not wait beside the gate and nobody cared what Souta's surname meant.

For the first few months, he slept better than he had in years.

Masato had a respectable job, neighbors greeted him warmly, and Ayame packed Souta's lunches every morning and occasionally hid little handwritten notes beneath the lid.

| Good luck in your test. |

| There's an extra tamagoyaki because you liked it yesterday. |

It was just small things, normal things his parents never did for him. So, Souta clung to them harder than he understood.

Masato's house had rules: homework before games, no television after ten, and training schedules written down in advance.

At first, he thought he had been rescued. Then, he discovered Masato's rules changed depending on his temper… and Masato's temper changed whenever he drank.

Souta learned that during his first year in the house. He was twelve and Masato sat at the dining table with the report card in one hand while Souta stood across from him.

Eighty-three had been written across the top in red ink. It was not an excellent score, but his teacher had added a note praising his improvement.

Masato stared at the number, then looked up. "Eighty-three?"

Something in his voice made Souta straighten. "I… I can do better next time."

His brother placed the report card on the table. "Do better?"

Then he leaned back and gave a short, humorless laugh.

The boy's stomach tightened, then he lowered his head. "I'm sorry—"

The strike came fast. An open palm cracked across his cheek, snapping his head to the side.

For several seconds, Souta heard nothing except the sudden ringing inside one ear. He did not move. More than the pain, it was the shock that held him still.

Masato had hit him.

Of all his siblings, Souta had never expected it from him. Masato could be impatient, he could be harsh, especially since Akihito died. His temper had grown shorter, his words sharper, but Souta had never once thought he would raise a hand against him.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

The report card slipped from the table and drifted onto the floor.

"Akihito didn't bring home scores like this."

The name struck Souta harder than the slap. For a second, he forgot what expression he was supposed to make.

Masato pointed at the report card without looking away from him. "If you're going to live under my roof, don't embarrass me."

Souta stared at the paper on the floor. The contents had blurred through the water gathering in his eyes. His cheek was still burning from the slap. But beneath the sting, something colder had begun to settle in his chest.

"Pick it up."

"Yes, nii-san…" His voice came out quiet and obedient. He bent slowly and picked up the report card from the floor. His fingers, however, tightened around the paper until the edges crumpled.

Ayame watched from the kitchen doorway. She did not intervene while her husband remained in the room.

At twelve, Souta thought that meant she had chosen not to. But later, he understood there was a difference between refusing to stop someone and being afraid of what happened if you tried.

Masato left that evening to drink with his friends.

Ayame waited until the front door closed before she went and entered Souta's bedroom carrying an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel. She sat beside him without asking permission.

"Let me see."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. I saw what happened."

Souta kept his eyes on the book. "I've been hit harder in training."

"Trainig isn't supposed to be your brother."

Souta reluctantly lowered the book he had been pretending to read.

Ayame placed the ice against his cheek and held it there when he tried to take it from her. "Eighty-three isn't a bad score."

"It is in this house."

Her fingers tightened around the towel. "You don't have to believe everything he says."

Souta gave her a little grin. Smiling usually reassured adults. It told them they had done enough and could stop feeling guilty.

"That's bad advice, Ayame-neesan."

The trick did not work on her. Her eyes shone, but she looked away before the tears could fall. When she reached to adjust the towel, her cardigan sleeve slid back, and fading bruises circled her wrist in the shape of fingers.

Souta noticed, but he pretended not to. That became another lesson of Masato's house: sometimes kindness survived by pretending it could not see what fear refused to name.

Masato had good days. Those were what made everything confusing. If he had been cruel every hour, Souta thought he might have learned to hate him cleanly.

Instead, Masato could wake up one morning and make breakfast. He could drive Souta to practice while complaining about traffic, buy him a drink afterward, and spent the journey home criticizing his footwork with the same older-brother impatience Souta remembered from before everything fell apart.

Sometimes he laughed, he brought Ayame flowers, and sometimes Souta caught himself thinking the slap had been an exception.

Then there would be another bad night. But then, the uncertainty made the good days more powerful than they deserved to be.

Souta learned that achievement could summon them.

When he earned high grades, the atmosphere changed. When he won tournaments, Masato bought dinner. Medals could produce new shoes, spending money, or an evening no one raised their voice.

After Souta won a regional Karate championship, Masato clapped him on the shoulder and grinned widely enough to resemble the brother Souta had hoped he was.

"That's more like it."

Souta remembered how good those four words felt.

Those words should not have been enough to make his chest feel light. They should not have been enough to make him forget what happened during bad days, but for a while, they were. He carried those words like a medal because somewhere along the way, praise from Masato had stopped feeling like something a younger brother could simply expect. It had become something he needed to earn.

They ate yakiniku that night. Masato was in a good mood, and Ayame smiled throughout dinner without checking her husband's face before she spoke. For three hours, the house felt warm.

That was when Souta began to understand the system. Not consciously, no. Children rarely gave names to the habits that kept them alive. They repeated them until everyone else called those habits personality.

The first rule was to avoid Masato whenever he came home drunk or in a bad mood.

Souta learned to identify his brother's condition from the front door. A careful turn of the lock meant he was alright. Scraping metal and two missed attempts meant Souta should disappear upstairs. A door slammed hard enough to shake the framed pictures meant he should not make a sound until morning.

By fourteen, Souta could read a room before entering it. He noticed who held power and who was afraid. He recognized the exact moment a joke might release tension, as well as the point when laughter would make everything worse.

Hiiro could enter a gathering of strangers and understand its shape within minutes. He knew when Astrid wanted company without questions, when Caius needed someone to interrupt the thoughts trapping him inside his own head, and when Misha's sarcasm hid exhaustion rather than irritation.

People called him naturally sociable, but Souta had once called it getting through dinner.

The second rule was to obey quickly when avoidance failed.

Souta learned to answer before a question was repeated, apologize before anger peaked, and adjust himself without showing resentment. He became agreeable without appearing timid and useful without making his usefulness feel like a threat.

At school, those habits made him popular.

Souta could enter any group and find the role no one else wanted. If someone needed a leader, he stepped forward. If the leader needed support, Souta became the loudest source of encouragement in the room. When classmates argued, he found the joke that allowed both sides to retreat without humiliation.

Now Hiiro did the same thing in battle. He adapted to other people's rhythms, he shouted ridiculous encouragement, gave dramatic names to attacks no one had asked him to name, and turned tarot into a game because games possessed rules.

If a monster was a boss, it had a pattern. If an ability was overpowered, it could be countered. If the party wiped, then they had failed to learn the mechanic quickly enough.

Even the Tower, cruel as it was, operated through conditions.

Games could be understood, mechanics could be mastered, but homes could not.