He had only been ten at the time. His brother was eighteen and his parents were happy in love. His mother had just finished tucking him in and reading him a story about a teddy bear in overalls and how he had finally found the home for him. He smiled and kissed his mother on the cheek and she left kissing him on the forehead.

All had been perfect that night, his brother had played video games with him, and his mom had sat with his dad while they watched their boys play video games. They were all just one happy family, who never thought that there was one really desperate teen waiting outside their house. That very desperate teen waited until they were all asleep before he jimmied the lock to the front door and headed around the house taking anything and everything that he could. Good china, silver, jewelry. But then the kid got greedy, if they had stuff like this downstairs, what could they have upstairs? He went to find out. Up the stairs, he climbed and right into the happy couple’s bedroom, in which he was confronted with a woman coming out of the bathroom.

The woman stopped and headed over to the bed, but was grabbed by the teen, her mouth covered by his hand and a knife at her throat. “Shh, don’t say a thing.” The teen said and glared at the man that was under the covers, “I want you to show me your good things. Show me where you keep all your valuables and if you do so quietly I’ll let you go. No harm will come to you or your husband.” He said.

So the woman nodded, anything to protect her family…

That’s when Akira stepped into the room, having thought he saw a monster under his bed. “Mom?” he called, looked confused when he saw someone he didn’t recognize in his parents' room. “Mom?” he asked again, biting his lip.

Akira’s mom turned quickly and looked at the desperate teen who also turned at the word. “No!” she screamed as she saw the teen head towards her son. That caused her husband to wake up and look to see what was going on, only to find his wife struggling against an attacker who had cut their son on the shoulder.

He rushed to help her but it was too late, she was already stabbed in the stomach. He grabbed the teen and punched him in the face, “You bastard!” he screamed and started to beat him to a pulp, trying to take the knife away from the kid.

He managed to grab the knife away from the guy... he even managed to stab at the guy, but he was worried about Akira and his wife. So he dropped the knife and went to protect his family, to make sure they were all right.

A knife was plunged into his father’s back. His father toppled on top of him as he backed up trying to wrap his young mind around what happened.

“And that’s when my brother walked in and managed to get me out and himself out, we headed to the neighbors and called the police,” Akira stated, “I went to a lot of therapy when I was a kid, I’ve said that story a thousand times… and the images never get any better,” he said, looking away from Yuji. Akira had no facial expression, he looked as if he wasn’t really involved in the situation that he was just telling a story, but perhaps that came from saying it so often when he was younger.

Yuji stared at Akira as he told his story, suddenly wishing he hadn’t forced the other to tell him it. “I-“

“Don’t,” Akira stopped him, “I’m sick and tired of hearing how people are sorry for me. That’s why I don’t talk about it. It happened and now it’s done,” he frowned and settled into the car, “So there, that’s the story of how I got that scar.”

Yuji looked over towards the town and away from Akira. “I was going to say that I was sorry for asking,” he said, “I didn’t think it was something that horrible. Like maybe it was something you didn’t want to admit to so you just say something that could be horrible. I thought that maybe it was a stupid dance accident or something you got while drunk.”

Akira nodded and sighed again almost ignoring Yuji for a bit. He needed to get back inside himself and fix up his emotions before he let them out again. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a bit, trying to pull on his ice queen act so that he could ignore the feelings that were starting to boil up.

Yuji watched the other for a little while as he noticed this cold air being brought around Akira he looked away, “So… that’s where you got that ‘ice witch’ bit?” he asked.

Akira looked over, his back straight and proper, his hands folded into his lap and nodded, “It’s better than being an emotional rollercoaster all the time,” he looked up when the car finally stopped, “I guess this is going to be where we start?” he asked.

Yuji looked over to the mall they had stopped in front of and nodded, “Yeah, this is where we start,” he said and got out of the car, waiting for Akira. He already knew a couple of stores that were in this mall that would be perfect for what they were looking for. Once Akira was out of the car he motioned for the other to follow as he headed into the mall and straight for the closest store.