#ayato 01

When Armin woke he expected to be back in his world, the whole thing just being some weird dream. It wasn’t a dream though, of course it wasn’t, it was silly of him to think that it was. He sat up in bed, yawning and stretching. Looking over at the letter, he vaguely remembered it saying something about a job. He picked it up, reading it over again. Yep, he had a job. He was a barista, apparently. He didn’t know exactly what that was or what it entailed, but he figured he better go try to find wherever it was that he worked.

Armin took his time in getting ready, carefully observing his surroundings. His hotel room was nice, much better than his previous living situation. As he wandered around the city he noticed many different buildings and areas that he’d be sure to explore once he got the chance. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man stumbling about, he seemed to be mumbling to himself and he had an angry look on his face. ‘Scary...’ He thought to himself, continuing to watch the man. He soon realized that he had been staring for quite some time and quickly averted his gaze to the ground.

“You’re always so forgetful, Ren.” 

That’s what she always said before she pinched his nose and started laughing, back then he never knew how to respond to her. He was caught off guard by her words, she was always so talkative and even a little cocky. Sometimes he got upset and said, she acts more like a brother than a sister, then her eyes would get glassy and she’d mumble something like, I had to take his role after all... 

In times like that he always felt like his stomach tied up and his mouth ran dry. What should he say? I’m sorry? I won’t do it again? Her reality was different from the one he was living in. Renji lived from day to day, it felt like only let the stream take him anywhere, while his sister swam and swam until... 

He snapped out of his thoughts and wondered why his thoughts trailed off like this again. How odd... No. No actually it wasn’t odd at all, everything had started a few days ago when he had first spotted him among the crowd. It felt like he was walking in the opposite direction of a person that could have been him. 

Looking at it now, when Ayato was still a child Renji tried to ignore that the same blood as his sisters and his own was running through the veins of this rebellious little shit. Touka was like a carbon copy of his sister, his sister he had loved so dearly and now he had to give the same love to her daughter... While everything he saw in Ayato was nothing but the offspring of the man whom he blamed for his sister’s death. The man who hurt Hikari and now Ayato was giving the same pain to his sister. 

Did he hate him? No. He would never be able to hate one of Hikari’s children, but he tried to forget him. Ignore the fact that he had to give the same love and care to this child, as for the longest time only Touka existed in his sphere. 

“... Ayato...”