Monster dad

Chapter Title: The Void Left Behind

Osano Akimatsu sat in the dimly lit private jet, one hand holding a glass of whiskey, the other flipping through the worn pages of an old photo album.

The hum of the engine was a distant murmur in his ears, but his mind was elsewhere—ten years in the past, to be exact.

His fingers traced over a photograph, slightly faded with time.

A little boy, no older than seven, clinging to his leg. His small hands balled into fists, gripping the fabric of his pants like his life depended on it.

Tears streaked down his chubby face. His red-rimmed eyes, swollen from crying, were filled with raw desperation.

"Please, please don't go, Dad! I'll be good! I'll listen! Just don't leave me!"

Osano could still hear the tremble in his son's voice, could still feel the frantic way Yozora had clung to him, as if letting go would mean losing him forever.

His lips curved slightly.

Back then, Yozora had been so attached.

It was only natural.

Nene had feared it from the start.

"He's too much like you."

She had whispered it one night, curled up beside him, her hands trembling ever so slightly as she stroked their son's dark hair.

"He looks at me the way you do. Like I'm the only thing that matters. It scares me."

Osano had smiled at that, brushing her bangs aside with a lazy touch.

"You say that like it's a bad thing, Nene."

Her grip had tightened on Yozora that night.

"You killed for me. You destroyed for me. What if he—"

She couldn't finish the sentence.

And Osano, always the loving husband, had kissed her deeply, silencing her worries.

"It's bound to happen," he had told her, voice calm, absolute. "He's our son. It's in his blood."

And yet—

When Yozora was little, there had still been hope.

He had laughed freely, clung to his mother's skirts, smiled with an innocence that hadn't yet been tainted.

But then Osano left.

And that innocence—

Was snuffed out.

He turned another page in the album.

More pictures.

Yozora at eight. His first school portrait. His lips curled into a small, gentle smile.

At nine, dressed neatly in a kimono for a family gathering. The same soft, practiced curve of his lips.

At ten, eleven, twelve—always the same.

His eyes, once bright, once full of life, had dulled into something eerily empty.

His smile, too kind, too perfect, was something unnatural for a boy his age.

Osano took a slow sip of whiskey.

The void had taken root, just as he expected.

"I tried smiling for Mom," Yozora had confessed once, when he was still small enough to curl up in his mother's lap. "She cries when I don't."

Osano chuckled under his breath.

Even as a child, his son had been performing.

For his mother.

For his teachers.

For the entire world.

But behind that perfect, gentle mask—

Was something else entirely.

Something dark.

Something dangerous.

Something unmistakably his.

The plane began its descent.

Osano closed the album, resting it on his lap as he peered out the window.

The lights of Tokyo sprawled beneath him, glowing like scattered embers.

It had been a long time.

Ten years.

And he couldn't wait to see what kind of monster his son had become.