When the Morning Comes by scheherezhad

Rating: PG-13 for brief domestic violence

Disclaimer: Not mine, not making money, please don't sue.

Summary: A beginning before a beginning.

Author's notes: I had to write this because a)I've wanted for a long time to write a fic with young!Atsuko (she's 18 in this fic) and b)I found some info about the final volume of the YYH manga that inspired me. Go here, here, and here to see what that's all about.

Feedback: Please. scheherezhad@yahoo.com

"Where'd you learn to cook, you dumb bitch? This tastes like shit."

Atsuko took another drink of her beer and stared down at the cracked countertop. Shin shoved his chair back, and it clattered to the floor as he stood. She felt him beside her, felt his breath on her shoulder as his hand rose to strike her.

Even though she knew it was coming, the force took her by surprise. Her head snapped to the side. A familiar tang seeped over her tastebuds. It hadn't been a slap, but a real punch. Her teeth had cut her tongue and the inside of her cheek. Her beer bottle was in shards in the sink.

The second blow landed on her back. The next, on her arm. The next, on her head.

"Stop it! Stop it!"

She was on the floor. The ceiling spun in her vision. Carefully, she turned her head, searching for that voice.

There. Yusuke was flailing at Shin with all the strength in his three-year-old body.

"Don't hit my mommy!"

Shin laughed and pushed him down. "Go watch cartoons or something, brat."

Yusuke started to cry, and Atsuko struggled to her hands and knees. "Leave him alone, Shin."

"Shut up," he barked, kicking the bend of her elbow.

Her arm buckled, and she went down hard. The sudden movement made her stomach churn. A wave of dizziness and nausea kept her down, and Yusuke kept crying.

"I'm going out to get some real damned food. Clean this up while I'm gone," Shin said, stalking out of the room.

"Bastard," Atsuko spat. With a great effort, she got to her hands and knees again, and she slowly crawled over to her son. "Are you hurt, baby?"

"I'm scared, Mommy."

Atsuko propped herself up against the cabinets and held out her arms. "Come here, Yusuke."

He toddled over and climbed into her lap, burying his face in her chest. She wrapped herself around him and rested her cheek on the top of his head.

She didn't care that Shin beat her—her own father had numbed her to that pain years ago—but she would not let him take his anger out on their son. She would pack them up in the morning and leave. Some acquaintances owed her a big favor, one big enough to get them a new place and get her cash until she found a job. It'd just take a couple of phone calls.

"Don't grow up to be him," she mumbled into Yusuke's soft hair.

She would rest a while, then make her calls. In the morning, they'd be gone.