Chapter 2 - Remembering Misaki...
"About damn time!" Misaki stood ready to go, hat and red sweater on with one foot already on his skateboard. "What took so long?" He pushes off and starts forward as I struggled to keep up. I glance at him with the 'none of your business' glare as I put on my jacket. He must notice my red face because he rolls his eyes and says, "Good grief, is all you two do talk and spit swap?" I grit my teeth. "You know, Misaki, one day you might understand."
"Don't talk to me like I'm a kid, Miko."
"I'm not saying you are a kid, I'm just saying you are... inexperienced."
"Oh yea." He spits out his words as if in disgust. "Just because I choose not to latch myself to another person with all their baggage."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know damn well what you mean. You are talking about 'love' and 'feelings' and leeching off of each other's insecurities." He exaggerates his words and uses air-quotes around them as if emotions don't really exist. I just roll my eyes. "You can't honestly say that you never had feelings for someone... not at your age." He is quiet for a while. "Misaki?"
"Huh? Wha.. well.. I..." he lets out an exhausted sigh. "I don't know..."
"It's not that complicated-"
"Yea says the girl who is latched to the most passive guy in the world. The girl who can tell how you feel with a hand shake. Hate to break it to you Kimiko but it IS that complicated. I mean... aw hell, I don't know what I feel these days."
Misaki Yata was complicated. When he first came to Homra over a year ago he was looking to blow of steam. He was a spoiled little rich kid searching for trouble and his best friend, Saruhiko Fushimi, did nothing to stop him. I'll never forget the day Misaki changed. We were returning home after an encounter with Scepter 4. Nobody said a word. We just watched the pavement pass under our feet. As we entered the pub we saw Tatara and Anna playing cards on the floor. He could tell from our faces that we had lost. "Ah Well, I suppose it would be too easy if we won them all, right King? Go Fish, Anna!" She dropped her cards and hurried to Mikoto and looked at him as if watching a fish tank. "Was it at least fun? Misaki?" Tatara looked at him expecting an exciting fight story to lighten the mood. Without answering Misaki stormed to the back alley and Fushimi followed. Everyone else drifted to their neutral corners. I was sitting at the bar when Tatara's warmth approached me from behind. "Odd... I know they have been fighting lately," he sat on the bar stool next to me and leaned back on the bar, "but it is unlike Misaki and Saruhiko to be so quiet with each other. What happened out there, Miko?" I couldn't answer. Tatara held out his hand. "Perhaps I could lend some happy thoughts. Would that help?" He always knew what to do. I slipped my hand into his and felt the purest emotions fill me up. After resting in the tranquility for a moment, I spoke. "Fushimi... It's his fault. He made a fool of Mikoto-san today. He was in charge of watching his back, but he just stood there and watched." Tatara smiled, "King doesn't need help though-" I interupted, "I don't care, Totsuka! If someone attacks your king, you defend him no matter what! I saw Fushimi hold a fallen Scepter 4 sword. We all did. He was just holding it like he was in some trance. It distracted us.. and we lost."
I had hardly finished explaining the encounter when Misaki came back in, red with flames, kicking furniture, "The jerk! That idiot Saru! To hell with him. If he wants to go, I won't stop him!" Kusanagi shouted across the room, "Misaki! You better have a good reason for for trashing my bar!" Misaki jerked a finger out and aimed it at him, "Don't call me that! Not Misaki! Not anymore! I never want to be anything like I was when that... Monkey was around!" I raised an eyebrow at him, "A million insults and monkey is the best you can do? Just tell us what happened. Where is Saruhiko?" He stormed over with a look in his eye I had never seen before, violently grabbed my arm and shoved his fist into the palm of my hand. I shook and turned cold. I could feel hatred, betrayal, and anger... nothing but anger. "That about sum it up for you?" Yata let go and stormed to the room he and Fushimi shared and started burning everything Fushimi owned. Misaki was gone. Now it was only Yatagarasu.
Tatara explained it to me best. "When we lose someone we care about, we change. Sometimes the change is so small we hardly notice it. Other times we change the entire person we are. But no matter what, we are never the same again." I would have preferred the former for our Misaki, but still I accept the way he has changed. But nobody will ever hear the name Yatagarasu escape from my lips. Yatagarasu is angry all the time. The only time he laughs is through arrogance or sarcasm, never joy. I will occasionally let a "Yata" slip here and there when he pisses me off, but still there are moments like this, when Misaki opens up and tells me what he is thinking.
"Misaki..." I stop walking as he takes his foot off his board and stops. "I could tell you what you are felling... help you understand." I open my hand to him and after glancing down at it he answers, "You said you wouldn't use your powers on a Homra." It was true. Most of the clan kept to themselves and liked it that way. Except Tatara of course. Still there were few times someone in the clan would approach me needing advice and extend their hand to me. "Just an idea." I shrug and close my hand into a fist and shove it into my coat pocket. He grunts and pushes off again. "Enough of this crap. Let's go deal with those blues." And with that, the Misaki from my past was gone again.