F1. To Lose Yourself

⚠️𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂⚠️

𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙇𝙀𝙍 𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝘼𝙄𝙉𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙊𝙇𝙇𝙊𝙒𝙄𝙉𝙂:

•𝘼𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙈𝙋𝙏𝙀𝘿 𝙈𝙐𝙍𝘿𝙀𝙍

•𝙈𝙐𝙍𝘿𝙀𝙍

•𝘼𝘽𝙐𝙎𝙀

•𝘽𝙇𝙊𝙊𝘿

•𝙂𝙊𝙍𝙀

•••

𝙉𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝙊𝙁 𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙎 𝙄𝙎 𝙍𝙊𝙈𝘼𝙉𝙏𝙄𝘾𝙄𝙕𝙀𝘿.

𝙋𝙍𝙊𝘾𝙀𝙀𝘿 𝙒𝙄𝙏𝙃 𝘾𝘼𝙐𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉.

•••

Ren was around seven when this all started.

He was subjected to many harsh penalties and punishments from his coach.

His coach that he considered his father.

That man was anything but a father.

He slapped the poor boy whenever he made a mistake. He reprimanded his son.

The scars that man left on Ren followed him to the present day.

•••

"You're not built for your school team."

Ren's hands let go of whatever he held onto, and it dropped to the floor with a thumping noise.

The silence was loud.

"With how I'm training you, you're far superior to that of your school team," his father began. "You will drop out and I will teach you."

He left no room for argument. That was a clear order.

"But papa—" Ren tried to argue.

"Not buts, Ren," his father stated harshly.

From that day forward, Ren didn't show up to school. It's like he completely disappeared, constantly marked absent by his teachers and worried about by his classmates.

For almost two whole years.

But still, he was allowed contact with his friends.

He now lived a sheltered life in his home, worked to the bone all in the name of improvement. Since the boy was young and nothing short of impressionable, he thought that all of this was normal. The torture he endured from that satanic man was enough to make even the toughest of people cry and those with iron stomachs vomit.

Since Ren's father had masters in both being a doctor and a scientist—more so a biologist—he knew what he was doing and the limits of the human body.

If Ren failed a dribbling drill more than three times, he's slapped.

Fail at shooting more than five times? Second degree burn on his limbs.

Complain? Oh, his father hated that. That's partially how Ren got the scars so close to his eyes. And on his arms. And on his legs. And on his torso.

And he still thought this was normal.

His face was covered in tears at the end of every day, yet he still ran back to that sorry excuse of a human. He still called that man his papa, and still sought his forgiveness, love, and respect. He loved his father dearly, but life for him was painful and full of traumatic events that seriously messed him up.

Throughout every needle, every sedative, every anesthetic, every steroid and procedure, he still wanted the comfort of his father's arms.

But when Ren asked about his birth mother, something in his father's eyes changed. The actions his father took after that question made the little fourteen-year-old boy open his eyes and realize that his father was just hurting him repeatedly and mercilessly.

"Why don't you shut your fucking mouth before I fucking kill you," his father hissed, taking Ren's face in his big hand and nearly suffocating him. "You wanna ask stupid fucking questions? Go on, ask some more, you sorry excuse of a damn child."

Ren gripped his father's wrist, gasping for breath underneath the wall of his palm.

He didn't remember his father being like this. Why wasn't he comforting his son after a long day of practice and tests? Why? What was going on?

Ren's eyes practically bulged out of their sockets when his father squeezed harder.

His father's arm bent back, taking Ren's body with him before slamming his head into the wall. Ren was half conscious.

But when he felt something sharp dig into the skin just above his eyebrow, he screamed. It was a deafening scream before there was an agonizing pull at the flimsy piece of loose skin. The vision of his right eye was clouded in a thick red liquid, smelling and tasting like iron.

Then, the same thing happened to his other eye, but the cut was on his cheek and the skin was ripped up instead of down. Blood ran down his chin and his neck. Ren clutched his face and crumbled to the floor as he screamed over and over again.

Until he could scream no longer.

The blood stained his clothes and pooled onto the floor. He saw the disgusting extent of his injuries and was convinced he'd die.

"Stupid fucking child. The only thing you're good for are tests and making me filthy rich."

Weeks passed. Ren's face was healed but the scars left were absolutely disgusting. They were a reminder of his gruesome past and how his father treated him. His entire body was.

His body was a canvas and his scars were the art. The art of his trauma.

The art wasn't very pretty, and Ren was still suffering.

Every time he looked in the mirror, he was disgusted. The scars were newly healed so they were still rather dark, adorned with scabs.

Even so, his father's relentless pursuit to continuously test the waters of his son's body never ceased. Not even slightly.

When Ren expressed distaste for his father's procedures and how he thought that doing such a thing was considered illegal, his father tried to kill him.

But what that man didn't know, is that with how much Ren had suffered, how many drugs he consumed and how many procedures he'd endured, he snapped.

Everything he felt poured out all at once.

The anger, the frustration, the sadness, the disdain and the grudge he harbored for that man surged straight to his chest and infiltrated his brain with thoughts of violence.

A punch to the gut, Ren coughed.

A stab to the thigh, Ren tensed and whined painfully.

The brunette grit his teeth and removed the blade from his leg in a successful attempt to drive the psychopath away.

The knife he now wielded was covered in his thick red blood. It dripped from the tip and pooled on the floor. Ren gripped his wounded leg.

When it finally clicked that the pain was slowly subsiding thanks to a massive burst of adrenaline, Ren started to stand up straight. His eyes were dead. Devoid of any light and his lips formed a cruelly thin line.

He wiped his face with his free hand, smudging blood on his cheek as he discarded of the blade.

His heart pounded and his body moved without any hesitation or thought.

He lunged.

His hands wrapped tightly around his father's neck and he squeezed. He bent over, feet on either side of his father's torso as his arms recoiled and snapped forward, shaking the body writhing beneath him like a rag doll.

He repeated the motions multiple times before finding that the body beneath him was devoid of any life.

Cloudy eyes and a mouth agape were met by cruel dim brown eyes and a grin.

He knew exactly what he'd done, but did he feel good about it?

Yes.

The years of pain he endured for the past few years finally came to a grim halt. It concluded only after the perpetrator's life had ended at the hands of his own offspring.

But he couldn't shake off the overwhelming feeling of guilt that resided within his psyche. It flooded his veins and he started to shake.

He could barely stand straight and when he went to move he wobbled. Despite that, he left. He only took a few things with him: a soccer ball, a phone, and his cleats.

They all went into a spare bag he found.

As he left the house, he began to have second thoughts. Was that man actually dead, or was he just really good at faking it?

He digressed.

He locked the door on his way out.

Ren felt a piece of himself grow distant, eventually lost in a void. He didn't know who he was or what he wanted anymore.

But a familiar face had found him when he needed it the most.

He was slowly walking away from his home, covering every inch he could of the sidewalk.

He didn't know where he was going.

He just wanted to go away.

Away, and never back.

Someone stopped in front of him. He stopped too.

Aoi's body moved to embrace the boy in warmth. He embraced his world with care.

"You're safe now," he murmured, holding Ren closer. "You can cry now."