#imagine Mikoto as the richest young lord who always has to wear suits and gets invited to polo

[ridiasfangirlings]

Victorian-ish au where Saru is a poor streetrat, who ran away from his shitty conartist/trick thief parents, and where Yata is from an upper class wealthy family. Their paths somehow cross and they develop a relationship

Say Niki is like this petty thief and con artist who hangs out onstreet corners and tries to trick rich people into giving him money.He does a pretty good job, since even though he’s an asshole he’s asmart asshole, but he still lives in relative squalor because hespends all his money on drinking and gambling. Kisa’s not muchbetter, whatever Niki doesn’t spend on drink she spends on buyingsuper expensive dresses and accessories so that she can sneak intorich people parties and pretend to be one of the elite. Neither oneis home much and so neither one cares that their son Saruhiko isliving in this filthy run down apartment in the worst slum of thetown, trying to scrape out a living when there’s barely any food inthe pantry and he has to stockpile knives to defend himself in casesome of the gangs that roam the slums try to shake him down. Maybewhen he was little one of the gangs did break in and they beatFushimi up, breaking a couple bones and leaving him in this sadgasping heap in the corner. He lay there for hours waiting forsomeone to come back before forcing himself to his feet and settinghis bones all by himself, which was when Fushimi realized that therewas no point in relying on others in this world, no one’s going totake care of him so he has to learn to take care of himself.

So Fushimi’s doing his best trying to survive all on his own when oneday Niki comes home dead drunk and starts getting violent with him tothe point that Fushimi legitimately starts to fear for his life. Hedraws a knife on Niki, stabbing him and leaving him lying in a poolof his own blood. Fushimi immediately freaks out, he’s not sorry thathe might have killed Niki but he doesn’t want to be thrown into jailor given over to a workhouse or anything so he makes a run for it. Heends up living on the streets with nowhere to go, not even a roofover his head and starts trying to find ways to make money so that hecan at least get something to eat. Finally he has to resort to justoutright pickpocketing, his first target is that fancy looking shortred-haired kid he can see waiting for his parents outside a candyshop. Fushimi throws a knife to distract him and then tries to snatchthe kid’s coin purse, he’s surprised when the idiot proceeds tofollow him into the alley as he’s making his escape, yellingat Fushimi to stop and give back his money. They get into a bit of abrawl and Fushimi actually manages to get some good hits in, he’ssurprised by how scrappy this rich kid turns out to be. In the endFushimi’s too weak from lack of food to hold his own and he figuresthe kid’s going to just call the constable and that’ll be the end ofit. Instead the kid stops fighting and just looks down at him withthis concerned expression before leaving his money behind and runningoff, Fushimi hears the kid telling his mom that he dropped his coinpurse somewhere and is totally confused because he has no idea whatjust happened.

Then a few years later Fushimi’s been honing his thievery, he decidesto take a page from Kisa’s book and steals himself some nicerclothes, trying to get himself hired out as a servant or personaltutor or something to a wealthy family so that he can rob them blindand then finally get out of this town. He ends up hearing that theprestigious Yata family is looking for a tutor for their eldest sonand Fushimi figures this should work fine, he’s a smart kid and he’sspent a lot of time stealing and dumpster diving for books, teachinghimself anything he can that he figures will help him get out of thisshitty place. Things don’t go quite as planned though because LadyYata insists on interviewing all the tutor candidates and besidesbeing so young Fushimi is also terrible at giving interviews becausehe keeps slouching and mumbling and doesn’t like meeting otherpeople’s eyes. He’s ready for her to dismiss him when the family’soldest son himself, Yata Misaki, comes walking in and takes one lookat Fushimi before asking his mom if this guy can be his new tutor.Fushimi looks up, confused, and finds himself staring into the faceof the kid who gave him the money all those years ago.

From there the two of them start to develop something like anunderstanding, Fushimi’s on alert at first because he assumes Yata’sgoing to try to blackmail him into doing humiliating things bythreatening to tell Lord and Lady Yata about how Fushimi’s actuallyjust this petty thief street rat. He’s completely blindsided to findout that Yata’s been worried about him all this time, when they firstmet Yata was surprised to have someone who actually fought backagainst him rather than immediately being all full of flattery andfake smiles because he’s the son of a rich family and they have to benice to him. As it turns out Yata’s actually only the son of thefamily by marriage, his mother was from a good family but her firsthusband died and she married into the Yatas. As such Yata himselfalways feels like an outsider, he’s technically the eldest son buteveryone treats his younger brother Minoru as the true heir ofthe family. Most of the people in the manor house will treat Yatawith nothing but respect and praise to his face and then badmouth himbehind his back and he hates it, hates all these fake trappings ofbeing rich and powerful and he’d much rather be free to do what hewants the way Fushimi is.

Fushimi meanwhile thinks Yata’s totally naïve and doesn’t realizehow good he has it, but as he tutors Yata he also starts to realizethat he and Yata aren’t so different either, both haunted by theghosts of their families in different ways. Plus it becomesincreasingly clear that Yata really cares about Fushimi’s wellbeing in a way no one ever has, like one day Fushimi comes to tutorhim clearly suffering from illness and Yata immediately makes him sitdown and calls for some soup and just starts fussing over him. Whenhis stepdad sees what’s going on he orders Fushimi to go home beforehe infects the whole family and Yata smuggles Fushimi into his roominstead, knowing that he’ll be in trouble if his stepdad finds outbut refusing to send Fushimi back out on the streets when he’s ill.(But then maybe it happens that Fushimi’s actually in debt to somestreet gang or other and he needs to rob Yata’s place or they’ll killhim and he’s all torn because he knows that if he wants to survive heshould just rob Yata’s place and go but he keeps finding himselfmaking excuses to stay and see Misaki more even though every day hestays he’s putting himself in more danger.)