One day, Baji had shown up to their newest hangout spot, Musashi Shrine, with a bruised and battered blondie in tow. He introduced them to the group as "Chifuyu", his "new friend" from middle school.
The others had been pleasant enough, but Chifuyu had been somewhat irked by the bottomless gaze of Mikey, who silently appraised this Beta newcomer. After a tense moment, Mikey smiled and simply said, "welcome, Chifuyu, I'm Mikey!"
With the addition of Chifuyu, who himself was another fighter known at least within his school area and smaller groups with siblings at his school as Baji had already noticed. More and more senpai were picking fights with each of their group members, especially to 'show them their place' as they felt threatened by a bunch of newly minted middle-schoolers who often had bigger reputations than them.
A couple of older middle schoolers also went after them simply to pick a fight, and there was even an occasional high schooler who tried head-hunting Draken, Baji and Mikey at some point. That was where Baji got the idea to bring up creating their own gang one day.
"We're already basically a group on our own," Baji reasoned. "And we already have all our positions figured out." He turned and shot a sharp grin at Mikey, "Our Commander's gotta be the most powerful, cocky little shit in the universe, Mikey!"
"Don't praise me so much, you'll make me blush," Mikey retorted.
Baji went off to list their Vice-Commander, Draken, their Elite Guard, Mitsuya, their Flag Bearer, Pah, and declare both himself and Chifuyu as the Attack Unit.
"I've already got the named figured out," Mikey declared, "Tokyo Manjiro Gang!"
"So lame!" said the other five simultaneously.
"Aside from the vainness of naming it after yourself," Mitsuya jabbed, "don't you think the senpais might kick up a fuss about Mikey's designation as our leader?"
Baji shrugged and nodded, but was beat to it when Draken added, "who gives a shit what they think? If anything this makes it more interesting. Not to mention when it comes to power, nobody can deny Mikey doesn't deserve the position."
"We can just bash their faces in even if they want to complain," agreed Pah.
"Well I'm sure Mikey-san can probably do that himself…" Chifuyu added quietly.
"That settles it then," grinned Baji. "We're entrusting our everything to you, so create the new age, Mikey."
Facing his group - no, gang - Mikey felt a warmth unlike anything before unfurl and take root within him as he gazed at each of the faces looking earnestly toward him. "You all belong to me now, and that makes us pack."
Though they wouldn't realize it for awhile, this group of boys had formed the most tentative of pack bonds amongst each other, with the pack hierarchy automatically falling into line with their gang hierarchy. This meant they had circumvented the usual fight for domination that most pack bonds instinctually forced upon parties involved.