Chapter Text
Atsushi would never know what it was like to be a normal child.
He bore scars on every part of his body, some ranging to only from a few years ago to some that were pink and smooth because they were just a part of his body now. He would watch the other kids in envy. He would watch the boys walk around carelessly with their shirts unbuttoned and all he could see was porcelain, untouched skin on almost all of them. His grip on his own shirt would tighten every time he saw it.
It isn’t like he saw the other kids much though. Almost always, he was trapped in his cell starving from the lack of food. Either that or he would be being beaten down by every method available to the heads of the orphanage. He liked those moments better. Being trapped in that cell was too quiet and he hated the sound of his own stomach or his own whimpers because he was in so much pain.
His body started changing in that cell, and something about it felt awkward and wrong. He was 11, almost 12 now, and his mind would cling on to images of the sharp jawline and defined chest of one of the older boys. Or maybe he would see the small, but still noticeable breasts under the shirt of one of the girls who seemed to stare at him every time he was let out of his cell. He felt something pool in his lower stomach every time, something that made him clench his legs together and breathe heavier. Maybe that was what the orphanage was trying to beat out of him.
It was one of these moments, where his mind came up with the image of that older boy again, when the head of the orphanage walked in. Immediately the image went away, along with any of that warm feeling in his stomach. Instead it was filled with dread, the same terror he always felt (but it still never got any easier).
There was something different about this time though. He never really listened to the crazed rants, but he did this time. The vivid talk of a white tiger destroying the food supply everytime his head was lifted from the water. Something that apparently they had decided to blame Atsushi for (as they usually did).
But the talk of the tiger continued through the next few months of his torture. Passing through his 12th birthday, and into the summer.
August finally rolled around, and on August 5, Atsushi woke up to the smell of smoke, and the night air piercing his nearly shredded blue clothes. He could hardly move, but he heard the sound of yelling in some foreign language and could feel someone's shoulder dig into his stomach as they ran. All he knew is that he wasn’t in the orphanage, and he had been thrown over someone's back, a foreign person's back.
He was thrown into the back of some kind of vehicle, and the impact of his head hitting something hard knocked him out again. When he finally woke again, he felt better and was sitting in a comfortable chair in some other kind of vehicle.
His clothes were different. He was wearing a soft black turtleneck and a pair of white jeans. A long white coat had been placed over him as a blanket. As he looked around whatever vehicle he was sitting in, he found a man holding a gun sitting across the aisle staring at him intensely. Atsushi jumped a little bit, immediately crying out and putting his hands up.
“Calm down kid, I’m not going to hurt you.” He said, putting his gun down. Atsushi stayed quiet, still keeping his hands up. The man across from him just sighed, leaning forward in his seat.
“If it makes you feel better, if I killed you I would get very brutally murdered by the person that had me come get you. Now, do you want an explanation as to where you are? Or would you like to remain in the dark?” He sounded tired, like he wanted to do anything but transport Atsushi wherever he was taking him. Atsushi put his hands down slowly, biting his lip as he contemplated what he would say next.
He knew this game. Say something nice, ask a question, and then twist his words into something cruel so then they had an excuse to beat him into obedience even if he said nothing wrong in the first place. Breathing out harshly, Atsushi finally said, “I would like to know what is going on.”
The guy smiled, it was oddly kind, “Well. You, kid, are wanted by literally the whole underground because of your ability. I am working for one of the guys that wants your ability. So, he had me and some other guys destroy the orphanage and take you back to our homeland. Russia.” Atsushi furrowed his brow. They had to have the wrong kid, he didn’t have an ability.
“But sir, I don’t have an ability?” The man’s eyes widened at that.
“What do you mean you don’t have an ability? Trust me you do, you killed one of our guys when we tried to wrangle that tiger you can transform into. We almost had to abandon the mission because of it.” He explained, which in turn, caused Atsushi’s eyes to widen as well.
“What? If I had an ability I would have known because then I would have been able to protect myself from the head of the orphanage. If I was able to transform into a tiger I would have run out of there a long time ago.” Atsushi explained.
“Well, from what I know about abilities. Some of the transformation ones cause your brain to change too, so you have memories as a tiger, but those memories don’t transfer to human you. As for why you couldn’t, or I guess didn’t transform while being beaten. I would guess that direct pain would keep the tiger from coming out. I don’t know though. You’ll figure it out, the guy you’ll be going with apparently also has a complicated ability.” The man went silent again, watching as Atsushi processed the information.
“Okay wait, so let’s say I believe you. Why am I being taken to Russia to be given to some crime overlord?” Atsushi finally said. The man chuckled a little bit. Despite the way the sentences were phrased, they were spoken with true curiosity instead of spite.
“Because of your ability. It’s powerful, more powerful than you would think. A lot of people want that kind of power on their side, including my boss. As far as I know he wants to directly train you.” Atsushi took a few seconds to process again. He gripped the coat that was still sitting on his lap, trying to ground himself.
“So right now, we're on our way to Russia?”
“Yeah, specifically Moscow. We’ve been flying for about three hours now, so we only have about six hours left, give or take.” It was silent again, Atsushi wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wasn’t going to show too much excitement (or really any emotion) about the stuff that was going on. So he just sat there, processing all or the information that he had just gotten.
Eventually, the man fell asleep, leaving Atsushi to his own devices. He immediately opened the cover on the window and pressed his face to the glass, admiring the world below. He had only ever seen planes in brief moments as they flew above the orphanage. Even then he was hardly let outside, so it was so cool every time he was able to see one.
He stared out the window for easily an hour before he was startled by a voice speaking behind him.
“Oh yeah, you’ve probably never been in a plane before, have you?” Atsushi tensed up, immediately closing the window and snapping his head around. The man from before was awake and was smiling fondly at Atsushi. Atsushi panicked, he had never been told he was allowed to look out the window.
“I’m sorry sir, I- You didn’t give me permission to open the window.” He stuttered over his words, trying to prepare himself for whatever this guy would do to him. All the man did was stare silently, the fond smile on his face being replaced by a frown instead.
“Jesus Christ kid what did they do to you in there? You should never have to wait for permission to do something. Well, actually I take that back. You should ask for permission to do a lot of things, but not for stuff as simple as looking out the window.” Atsushi felt his breathing calm down. He wasn’t mad at him, or at least he wasn’t showing it. Even if it meant he might get shot later, Atsushi soaked in the comfort of knowing he was okay for now.
Atsushi went back to looking out the window, his face pressed against the glass again. He missed the light chuckle from the man behind him. Atsushi was only interested in the world outside for so long, before he finally turned around to observe the only other person he had seen on the plane.
He had dirty blonde hair that fell to his shoulders. It was wavy and cut in layers and he also had a light stubble on his chin. His eyes were a pretty sage green color that he had only seen in nature, but they looked almost black because of how hooded the man’s eyes were. It didn’t help that he had dark eyebags. He was almost as skinny as Atsushi was too. His face looked gaunt and pale and his cheekbones were well defined from it. He had a scar going through his chapped, pale pink lips.
He was wearing a black compression shirt with a bomber jacket the same color of his eyes hanging off his shoulders. His shoulders were small despite him being more muscular than the average person, and even with defined abs Atsushi still noticed just how small this man was.
Atsushi watched the man for the better half of an hour, and he felt the constant urge to laugh at the man’s little quirks. The way he would bite his lip and furrow his brow every time he saw something unpleasant on his phone, or how for some strange reason he would puff his cheeks and his eyes would go wide for a second when he got excited. He also had to change seating positions multiple times so he wouldn’t have to push his bangs out of his eyes, and each new position was more stupid and uncomfortable.
Atsushi finally did let out a small laugh when the man started angrily typing and muttering angry Russian. He immediately stopped, sitting up sharply and staring at Atsushi. Atsushi felt his stomach drop.
Then he started laughing too, barely able to say a word as Atsushi eventually joined too. They laughed for a while, unable to take each other seriously anymore. Finally, the man wiped his face off and looked at Atsushi fondly as he calmed down as well.
“My name is Lev Tolstoy, but you can call me Leo since I know that’s easier.” He said, taking Atsushi by surprise for multiple reasons.
“Shouldn’t I use your family name though? It’s impolite to use someone’s given name unless you are very close.” Atushi asked, earning another chuckle from Tolstoy.
“It doesn’t work like that in the Motherland. If we’re in a workplace or something like that then we would use first names and patronymic names, but I don’t think that applies to us here. So, I’ll be Leo and you can be…kotenok.” Leo finally settled on a name, instead leaving a very culture shocked Atsushi staring at him in disbelief.
“Um, well you can call me Atsushi then.” He finally said, moving across the aisle back to his own window seat as Leo hummed.
“Thank you for letting me use that name, but I’m still going to call you kotenok.” Atsushi just sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to fight the man who had a gun over a name.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be a menace though, “Will you at least tell me what that means?” he whined.
“You’ll figure it out when you start your Russian lessons. Which hopefully I’ll be teaching you, I would never let Ivan near you with a ten-meter-pole.” He said, spitting out Ivan’s name like it was a bad drink. Atsushi resigned himself again, taking note of the annoyed look on Leo’s face as he thought about whoever Ivan was.
Atsushi yawned, realizing he was actually exhausted despite how much he had (apparently) been asleep in the last 24 hours. He put his jacket/blanket over himself as he curled up on the seat, falling asleep in less than five minutes.
If anybody noticed the way Leo went and fixed the jacket everytime it fell off the boy, or how eventually he just went and sat next to the little twelve year old so that he could hold the jacket up instead. Or maybe if anybody noticed the way he did nothing but smile at the boy in pure fondness, well, nobody would believe them.
Nobody would ever believe that the scary Lev Tolstoy would become fond of a little twelve year old boy in just a few hours, especially not one he had kidnapped.
Well hey, if anybody did notice the way Leo already wanted to adopt this little boy, nobody would ever believe them anyways, because they would be dead before they even knew what hit them.