Hanagaki Takemichi- Takemitchy- was an unusual person. From the moment he became a blip on Toman's radar, up until Draken actually decided to take interest in him.
He was strange, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And it wasn't even in the oh, this kid's a little off the deep end kind of way. It was more there are so many collectively wrong things happening here, that for some reason have cancelled each other out enough to keep him from dropping dead.
How Takemitchy hadn't dropped dead though, that was the realest mystery of all, Draken thought, as he watched the kid drink his third thermos of coffee in just as many hours.
Draken became acquainted with Takemitchy at about the same time as Kiyomasa's fist, and frankly, it only got weirder from there. His girlfriend was an absolute hollar, and Takemitchy himself just kept getting… better? Weirder? Whatever offering to be Draken's bodyguard was supposed to be. The kid followed him around all day, thinking he was slick, but he never actually made any moves. He, honest to god, just watched over him. It was nice, but it was wrong. Or-it felt wrong-but it wasn't inherently bad.
And then he saved Draken's life which was surely fucking something. Apparently he'd been half out of his mind, already beaten to hell and back, when he arrived at the fight. He didn't throw a single punch, but he did drop to his knees the second he found Draken crumpled on the ground.
The whole experience was rather abstract to Draken, looking back. He was beating the shit out of some people, and the flash of a Toman uniform barely registered when his legs stopped working, and he tasted blood. There were moments of silence, interspersed with rain and heaving breaths. He saw something bright a few times, but he later learned it was not the light of heaven or whatever other side he would end up on, but in fact it was Takemitchi's ungly, piss-yellow coif, as seen from slightly above and behind.
God, that kid was weird.
How all of his five-foot-something frame managed to lug Draken's six foot corpse-without opening or irritating the stab wound further, mind you-was impossible.
The doctors told him again and again how instrumental his little friend was in saving his life. Apparently the kid had held Draken's stomach against his hip, which managed to put enough pressure on the wound to stem its bleeding, and the slow way in which he'd walk-slash-hobbled allowed the edges to start crusting together.
Takemitchi had truly done just about everything he could have to help him. He later learned from Emma, who'd heard it from Hina, that he'd fought Kiyomasa earlier in the evening and gotten his ass handed to him. They'd tied him up and left him to rot, after actually managing to knock the kid out: which was apparently, an impossible task.
Either way, Takemitchy had carried Draken, and fought for him, had gotten stabbed for him, all with two fractured ribs, an open hand wound, and a concussion that had the ER nurses wincing at the memory.
And then the weirdness reached a peak. A new height, if you would.
At the bath house.
He didn't seem too thrilled about going with them, but Mikey dragged him along, and Takemitchy didn't dig his heels in too hard, so it was fine. They both started stripping, you know, as one tends to do when they're going to bathe, yet Takemitchy hesitated. Not just a teenage embarrassment kind of thing, like a little hesitation and a glance thrown at his buddies-no-he fucking froze. Hands balled in the hem of his shit, eyes glued to the floor, he had himself a good think before he pulled his shirt off.
Nothing could've prepared Draken for the sight under his shirt, because frankly, if he'd been warned ahead of time he wouldn't have believed it.
Draken had never actually been shot, but he'd been acquainted with the street long enough to know what a scar from a gun looked like. And Takemitchy was covered in them. Four shots spread across his chest with one of them as low as his guts, one on his thigh, and one that sat primly on the top of his sockless foot. The bullet wounds , jesus christ, would have been one thing to consider and worry about (because who the fuck was shooting this kid? How long ago did this happen, because those scars looked old?), but they weren't the only ones. Burns-or what Draken thought were burns-littered the front of the boy's body. Chewed bubblegum swathes hugged his thighs, a couple spots near his ribs, and a rather large spot between his pecs.
Takemitchy didn't say a fucking word about them-or the matching scar from the knife through his hand, that stared at Draken from both of the boy's palms.
Though neither of them actually said anything about it, he and Mikey were of the same thought: something was wrong here.
With Baji leaving Toman and having to deal with the new Moebius recruits, Mikey was eager for a distraction, and Takemitchy was the perfect thing to focus on. Their confrontation went something like this:
It was sometime in the evening-not exorbitantly late-but late enough for the sun to have already set. They'd sauntered up to his house, which they'd gotten acquainted with once before and simply busted right in. All the lights were off except for one in a distant room on the first floor, so it was a wash of whether or not there was anyone home. On the off chance there actually was-like, you know, his parents- they announced themselves and removed their shoes. When no one greeted them, a twin shrug sent them further into the building.
Takemitchy's home was… empty, to say the least. Mikey had obviously gone for the pantry and the fridge first, but when he found nothing appealing from their meager contents, he moved on. There weren't any pictures hanging from the walls, just a few rugs that Emma would've thought were stylish, and a layer of dust on the counters. The place didn't look lived in. If it weren't for the overflowing garbage can, and the remains of some convenience store energy drinks, Draken wouldn't have thought anyone lived there.
It was painfully dark, so they turned on lights as they went, finding a bathroom and what seemed to be Takemitchy's parents' room.
The light they'd seen from outside was in the living room, where Takemitchy was passed out cold, with an old (and cheap) looking guitar hanging off the couch he slept upon. He was snoring softly, and no amount of loud talking and pseudo-yelling was waking him up. So Draken took the initiative to just go and shake the kid awake. The moment he grabbed his shoulder, there was an elbow cracking across the side of his face, and Takemitchy had somehow managed to fling himself over the back of the couch.
Too shocked to do much other than stare wide-eyed, he became worryingly aware of what was happening. While Takemitchy's face was turning red with a mixture of embarrassment and fear, his breath stuttered on every intake.
But for a moment, the second his eyes flew open, Draken saw Takemitchy, but Takemitchy didn't see him. Eyes that were always clear-holding the light of some unimaginable determination-were dull. Unseeing.
He'd seen it in the faces of boys just on the edge of consciousness, when they're there with their fists raised and ready for more, but not really there, if you got his drift. The glazed over looks of kids who had been in places so inescapable, they were clawed back when their eyes closed. For as weak as Takemitchy had always seemed, Draken's left ear was still ringing, and he figured his eye would be swollen the next morning. His jaw smarted something pretty good, but that was a bit too much to admit. Had Draken stood at his full height, he would've gotten that elbow to his throat. He didn't want to think about how much that would've fucking sucked.
And by the time he'd wrapped all that up within his mind, in a bow and a box that read save for later or maybe not, Takemitchy was on his feet and apologizing profusely. Mikey tried his best to look amused at Draken's pain, but after having known him for so long, Draken could see his thinly veiled concern with ease. It wasn't concern for him-hell no-but for Takemitchy. The boy himself seemed to be fooled by Mikey's act, and ended up settling back onto the couch after getting a frozen bag of corn to press against Draken's temple.
Most kids their age, unless they'd dealt with beatings on the regular, wouldn't have even thought to ice something to keep down swelling. Let alone wrap it in a few paper towels to prevent freezer burn on the skin.
Each and every new thing they learned about Mikey's new pet project was worrying. Things were coming together to paint a less than sunny picture.
"So… what did you guys need?" Takemitchy finally asked.
Mikey, and Draken himself, were not people who were used to beating around the bush. To speak delicately. And so when they were faced with something like oh, who's been shooting you? Burning you? Where are your parents? They weren't exactly the best candidates for the job. Had they thought to make Mitsuya do it, they would have, but Takemitchy was their friend, so they had to do it.
As elegantly as Mikey could, he leaned forward with an airy grin. "Where'd you get your scars?"
At approximately 10:12pm on a Tuesday evening, Draken and Mikey became aware of a side to Takemitchy that they'd only ever seen glints of when he looked at Kisaki.
The blonde's face twitched. Rippled, even. As if they'd unsettled waters that had been previously undiscovered. The wide-eyed interest he saw the world with slowly turned to a strained-crooked-sickly grin that would've looked more at home on Mikey's face than his own.
"Why?" he asked.
Takemitchy wasn't accusing or hostile, or anything a normal person would've been when their (obviously traumatic) history got brought up. He was blank. Careful. He wasn't going to give anything away.
But on the other hand, that was a hell of a question, wasn't it? Mikey looked his way, a silent I did my best, now it's your turn. Draken sighed, and met Takemitchy's searching gaze.
"Because kids like you-or hell, like us-" he waved a hand in Mikey's direction, "-don't look like that. Yeah we've got a few nicks here and there, but nothing like you. So what are we dealing with here?"
Takemitchy watched him with an intensity that unnerved him. His expression never wavered, but Takemitchy didn't make a single indication he'd consider talking.
"Is it another gang?" Draken offered.
No reaction.
"A friend?"
Silence.
Mikey looked at him with resignation, and so he asked the question they desperately didn't want to ask.
"Was it your parents?"
Takemitchy's expression didn't change besides the slight twitch of his eyebrow. Draken saw that, and grabbed the topic before it could flutter away. Once gripping the thread, he was going to pull until he either found the knot, or unraveled everything.
He made an orchestrated glance towards Mikey before looking back. "Where are they, by the way?"
Takemitchy's eyes narrowed.
"I think we oughta wait until they come home and ask them ourselves. We'd get to the bottom of it real quick, I think."
"You'd be waiting a long time," Takemitchy drawled, the smile on his lips growing dimmer by the moment. "Last time I checked she's not scheduled to be home for a few more months."
It wasn't much, but it was something.
"That wasn't a no," Mikey added, much to Takemitchy's chagrin.
He looks more tired in that moment than Draken thinks he's ever seen him.
"It is a no," Takemitchy says. "And whatever's happened to me isn't anything that you two need to worry about. S'not like it'll keep me from fighting."
Draken's blood runs cold at his words. A silent mantra humming in the back of his mind screaming that the kid thought he was gonna be dropped. That they were checking in on him because they thought he was somehow incompetant now. That he was somehow not enough for them. God, this was why it was Mitsuya's job to do shit like this.
Amidst his minor epiphany, Takemitchy continued on.
"This," he said while gesturing to himself, "won't be a problem. It's all in the past. And if it's freaked you guys out this bad, I oughta go to fights with my shirt open."
He had the gall to laugh about it too, like his chest wasn't a treasure map of misery the likes of which Draken hadn't seen anyone walk away from.
"Listen, Takemitchy, I'm being serious here," Draken hums. "You don't have to act like a tough guy right now. We can set you up somewhere else, you've just gotta say the word."
The blonde looked at him, a bit of pity breaking through the careful mask he'd pulled together. "And the word is no."
Takemitchy got up after that and told them that they could let themselves out, and not to fuck up his house any more than they already had. And he went to bed without another word. It took a handful of silent minutes before they heard what could've only been the sound of Takemitchy throwing things around. A particularly loud fuck! split the silence, but the quiet reigned again.
Darken nor Mikey dared to breathe.
It wasn't until Takemitchy stumbled out of his room and started retching in the bathroom that Draken got to his feet. Every stair was like another weight on his shoulders, the air in the house a blanket holding him down. When he turned the corner and found the bathroom, the door was flung open and Takemitchy was breathing erratically. He'd changed into ratty shorts and a wide armed tank top, both of which showing the carnage he had been interrogated over.
What put ice in his veins wasn't the mess of a kid that was hunched over the bowl, but the fact that he flinched when Draken entered the room. In lieu of a response, Takemitchy spasmed again and a thin stream of bile left his lips.
What did you do when people worked themselves into such a nervous frenzy that they hurled? Did you hold their hair back-even if it was short? Were you supposed to rub their back?
"Get out."
The words were spoken into the toilet, and they were pushed out with air from malfunctioning lungs. Takemitchy looked like misery in human form, but from where his cheek was pressed against the rim, his eyes dripped with anger. It wasn't clear or not whether it was pointed at Draken, the situation, or Takemitchy himself, but the blonde was clearly pissed. He wheezed for a few moments before stuttering out a breath, but ended up dry heaving nonetheless.
"Forget about…" he waved a sweating palm, "all of this. 'N go away."
Instead of pushing his luck any longer than he already had, Draken turned on his heel and left. Mikey met him in the living room, looking like he hadn't moved an inch. The door to the Hanagaki mother's bedroom was open when Draken could've sworn it was shut, but that was neither here nor there. Takemitchy seemed to have quieted down, but the flushing of the toilet was telling enough.
Mikey didn't even need to ask how it had gone.
They put on their shoes in silence and hopped on the back of Mikey's bike. When they were sitting on top of the monkey bars at the nearest playground, with the moon as their only witness, Draken sighed.
"He wanted us to forget everything."
When Mikey's eyes didn't meet his own, he knew they were thinking the same thing.
"The scars, the house call, his little freak out," Draken continued. "All of it."
Mikey was as kind as he was cruel. He wouldn't be forgetting.
"I wonder if Mitsuya will be able to sniff it out," he wondered. "He's usually good at that kind of stuff."
Draken hummed in agreement.
"What're you thinking, Kenchin?"
Draken didn't bite his lip, but if he had anything to be ashamed of he probably would have.
"I think we need to keep our eye on him. Keep him from getting into any more trouble."
Mikey smiled in a way that wasn't so empty. "I don't really think that's possible."
Draken couldn't help but agree.
Chapter 2: Mizo Middle
Summary:
Yamagishi wasn't much of a gangster. He wasn't actually in any real gang, he hardly looked the part, and he could only fight better than the average schmuck. But he was Takemichi's friend, and anybody who rolled with him was a different kind of breed. Yamagishi was not a person that inspired fear in others-and that was okay with him.
Notes:
come get y'all's update!
The theme of this chapter is: compartmentalize. Your problems only hurt you more when they're disorganized!
This is also a PSA: I simply,,,, didn't include this in the summary. This fic is an au where Takemichi is given one last chance. Instead of the events post-Give Me Your Hand, Takemichi is sent right back to the beginning, to the time of his first leap. Think of it as,,, a last ditch effort. With it being such an,, Unusual occurrence, his scars are like tv static. Interference. I will not elaborate further 3
(EDIT: I fucked up Makoto's name. If y'all saw what it was before, no you didn't 3 user cestlavie I owe you my life)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Takemichi was not a person that was characterized as eye-catching. Not in Toman. Not in the world of delinquents. Not even particularly in everyday life. Yamagishi knew this because he was friends with the guy, and had been for a few years now. He wasn't Takuya, who had known the boy since before either of them could string two words together, and he wasn't Makoto, who had joined them only the year before. He was in no way like Atsushi, who seemed to radiate decisiveness, and made people want to stay around him.
Yamagishi was the only one who got A's and B's in their classes and had been tutoring Takemichi on the down low for longer than they'd been in middle school. He'd spent a good number of nights passed out in the boy's ever-empty home after having an all day study session. They were friends-strong and steady. They had secrets together, shared memories, and trust.
So they understood each other. Well, no, that was an assumption. They had an understanding.
Two completely different people, but with enough similarities to see somewhat eye to eye.
They weren't attached at the hip, but they knew each other.
Takemichi had been there for him when his sister had gotten into a bad car wreck, and he just couldn't keep it together any more. He'd lied to everyone and said the two of them were serving detention together, and that everyone else need not wait for them. Yamagishi played along because he was just too tired to do otherwise, too busy thinking about broken glass and brittle bones and beeping, beeping, beepbeepbeep
When he finally came to his senses, he was in Takemichi's bedroom, sobbing into his hands. The blonde was rubbing his back, feeding him tissues, and listening to the gibberish that was falling from his lips.
It'll be okay, 'Gishi.
He had said, with watery eyes and a wobbly smile.
She's just in the hospital, right? Hospitals aren't that scary.
He had wanted to scream then, because they were terrifying. They smelled like they were hiding blood, and the waiting rooms were tearstained, and everyone was too tired to give you the time of day. They were lonely, and too much all at once, and Yamagishi was bubbling over with shock and self-hatred because he couldn't make himself go and see her. His parents had been begging him for days to at least stop by. He didn't need to stay, just give her his best, but Yamagishi just. Couldn't. The longer he thought about it, the more his traitorous brain asked him why Takemichi of all people knew what hospitals were like, the more he thought he was going to be sick.
Takemichi's rub, rub, pause, pat, pattern that he was kneading into his back never faltered.
We should go see her on the weekend, Takemichi decided. I'll go with you.
And they did.
They really, truly did.
Takemichi picked him up on his shitty silver bike, with a sad little bouquet of flowers in the front basket, and practically dragged Yamagishi there in a fugue state. He held his hand, even though his palms were sweaty, and put his absolute heart and soul into dragging Yamagishi where he needed to go. He cried when Yamagishi cried, and he stood behind him in the doorway so he couldn't turn and run. Takemichi sat outside politely while he wailed, and entered just as politely when Yamagishi called him in.
Shuuya did not look pleasant in her bed, black and blue, with half her head shaved. She was in a coma too-which probably didn't help anything-but yeah. It wasn't good.
Takemichi introduced himself, despite them having met half a dozen times, and put the flowers (which were more stems than petals at this point) on her bedside. He didn't pull up a chair next to Yamagishi's, but he smiled through his tears and managed to act like the Takemichi he knew and loved.
So. They had history.
And he'd been there for Takemichi too. Maybe not in moments as spectacular as that, but for the little important things all the same. The quizzes with 82%'s were taped to the fridge for him, not Takemichi's mom, because he was the one they mattered to. He listened to the other fumble through chords on the guitar Yamagishi had threatened him into buying the other week. He'd read shity school novels while sour notes turned into gentle strumming, into fun little tunes plucked on a guitar that sounded entirely different.
Takemichi was quiet about things like that. He smiled bright enough to blind everyone from the important things, Yamagishi had come to learn. Takuya had long since known this-kicking in his front door when he wouldn't answer, and dragging him outside in his pajamas. Unlike everyone else, who would deal with Takemichi at arm's length, or with passive aggression, Takuya would pull his ears, and bite, and scream, and scrap. And then everything would be fine again.
But he knew that dealing with Takemichi was an inelegant affair. He'd enlightened Yamagishi after the first two or three fights he'd witnessed.
"Takemichi gets set in his ways, and stuck in his head," he grumbled once. "You gotta prove that you actually care about what you're saying. Otherwise he won't listen."
And you know what? That sounded just about right. Takemichi threw himself bodily into every single thing he did, and if the force opposing him wasn't stronger, if not equal, nothing was going to hold him back. He needed to be pushed up against, nudged-course changed-in order to get through to him.
To make a long story short: Yamagishi and Takemichi knew a thing or two about each other.
And Yamagishi, he was smarter than the average hoodlum.
He noticed when Takemichi started staring at Atsushi when he thought no one was looking. Like he thought their friend was going to disappear any second now. (Like he already had. Like Takemichi currently was).
He noticed when Takemichi's hair didn't look so good in the morning (so he'd share some of his gel), when the bags under his eyes started getting darker (so he'd save an extra set of notes for him while he dozed during class), when the bruises along his jaw didn't heal (that he wondered just where the hell they were coming from).
Yamagishi wasn't particularly strong and his glasses were fake, but his talent was telling when things were heading south. And in this situation, Takemichi was things and instead of merely going south, he was careening wildly towards the fucking floor at mach 8. It didn't take an idiot to see it, but all of their friends were idiots, so that didn't help anyone.
Takuya had met Yamagishi's eyes a few times, raised an eyebrow-even shared a few words-and they were of the same party: Takemichi wasn't holding it together well. The rest of the guys weren't sold, but they'd agreed to go easy on the guy, so the two of them figured they were doing alright. It wasn't time for an intervention-not yet. At the rate he was going, it would be coming sooner rather than later, but he hadn't gotten that bad yet.
(Yet, they told themselves. Yet.)
When he'd stopped coming to lunch most days, off stalking some upperclassmen who'd been transferred back in from reform school, they worried a little bit more. And when he started coming into school, shaggy locks not even brushed, let alone styled, they worried just that much more. The day Draken pulled him aside and asked what the fuck was up with Takemichi and his scars, Yamagishi awkwardly smiled and excused himself immediately.
Don't worry about it, Yamagishi had stuttered.
Draken didn't like the non-answer. You know about them?
And to avoid coming off as the worst friend ever, and because he was going to catch Takemichi's house on fire to kick off their intervention, he nodded once.
We've had eyes on him-no offence-a hell of a lot longer than you have.
And Draken let him go with a half appraising sigh. Yamagishi hadn't ever run that fucking fast in his life, praise the lord. By the time he managed to ring Takuya, the boy on the other end put together that Takemichi and what the fuck meant pencil in that intervention for right the hell now.
Yamagishi did what he should have as Takemichi's number two friend, and called his number one friend, but that didn't mean his job was done. Despite feeling like his lungs were crawling up his throat and his sweat made his socks slip within his sneakers, he continued to clip a pretty good pace towards Takemichi's house.
Somewhere about two blocks away, Takuya skated past him like a bat out of hell, and Yamagishi picked up his pace. The pit that Draken had carved into his chest wasn't going away, and with every step closer, the chasm opened wider.
Sucking wind like nobody's business, Yamagishi pulled up to Takemichi's house to find Takuya's board abandoned in the grass and the front door propped open. He entered, dodging Takuya's haphazardly strewn shoes, and slipped off his own. The house was silent, which was a terrible sign, so he started looking around.
With the first floor as empty as it tended to be, Takemichi had to be upstairs. Creeping up the steps nearly gave him heart palpitations, but every overly expectant part of himself deflated at the sight before him.
Takemichi, laying with his back to the room—curled up and gently shaking—, and Takuya, with a hell of a shiner and sitting on the floor beside Takemichi's bed.
"Hey," the long haired boy greeted.
In lieu of anything else, Yamagishi said it back. "Hey."
Takemichi didn't respond, but Yamagishi didn't really expect him to. Takuya didn't look like he expected it either. In the ten minutes it had taken for Yamagishi to get there, the duo seemed to have scrapped, but for the first time, it didn't resolve anything. That meant it was his turn.
Fuck. Okay. He wasn't good at this.
"Draken said you had scars," Yamagishi blurted. "What's up with that?"
Had any of them been in a better mood, he was pretty sure they would've laughed, because idiots doing dumb things was objectively hilarious. But none of them laughed. They were instead reminded that they were all children, and that Takemichi had all the answers but was too broken to share them.
Takuya sighed at the blonde's lack of reaction, and heaved himself up to sit on the edge of the mattress. He placed a hand on Takemichi's back, trying to lean over his body and get a glimpse of his face. The blonde tucked his face into the sheets in response, but did nothing else.
Playing hard to get.
Yamagishi offhandedly recognized the rub, rub, pause, pat of Takuya's movements as what Takemichi had done for him a million years ago, and offhandedly wondered who had taught who.
It was stupid, and bizarre, and all kinds of ironic, but it made a laugh bubble up from some forgotten part in Yamagishi's chest. It was bitter, but tasted like flower stems on a hospital counter. (Translation: not so lonely. Not so sour.)
"You're hopeless," Yamagishi muttered. "All you do is help people, and you can't even accept it when we try to do the same."
Takuya's eyes found his, and he was startled to see the former's eyes were glassy. He was dead silent, and the gentle sound of skin on fabric didn't stop. Takemichi shuddered, sucking in a breath that was coated in more tears than Yamagishi thought him capable of, but he did it anyway.
He was always doing impressive stuff like that.
Yamagishi joined Takuya on the mattress. If Takemichi could do all these things that he hadn't before—that other people— hadn't before, Yamagishi could too. So he placed a feverishly warm, sweaty palm on the blonde's leg with all the confidence of a world renowned grief counselor.
"C'mon, man," Takuya drawled. "What's going on?"
If Takemichi continued to hold in his sobs, Yamagishi was going to start worrying about him choking. And he was focussing on that and only that because he didn't want to see Takuya cry-didn't even want to acknowledge that it was possible.
They took turns watching over him while the other took care of other things. Takuya stayed with Takemichi while Yamagishi showered and stole some of the blonde's clothes. Yamagishi prattled on while Takuya ordered them some food. It was fairly evident that neither boy was going to budge, and that Takemichi's unstoppable will had met their own immovable ones. Remember: Yamagishi wasn't that strong, and Takuya was the weakest of the bunch; but there were some things-the very few and far between-that warranted going all out, no holds barred. This was one of those things. (Takemichi was one of those things.)
It took four hours, and twenty minutes of smelling the warm soba sitting in a takeout container for Takemichi to break. If only slightly. He turned his head sluggishly, enough to expose his face to his companions. He knew they were still there-had to. They'd struck up hushed conversation here and there, and Takuya was a horribly messy eater that even Yamagishi recognized.
Takemichi looked like shit. Plain and simple. His eyes were swollen, sclera red and irritated, and his skin blotchy. The expression on his lips was pitiful, and he looked like a beaten kitten. There were no words to be said, but his lips quivered like he wanted to speak.
Takuya pressed the cup of noodles into his hands, followed by a pair of chopsticks. "Eat," he spoke. "Then talk."
Even as Takemichi held the cup and got himself settled into a somewhat seated position, tears started rolling down his cheeks again. A silent plea. I can't, his expression screamed. Please don't make me.
But he ate his noodles (only some of them, Yamagishi noted). And nibbled at them long after they'd gone cold, and his companions had finished. They sat in expectant silence, eyes finding Takemichi's hunched over form as he avoided eye-contact like an olympic sport.
Lips parted, but closed slowly. Silent.
(He looked so tired.)
"You're gonna think I'm crazy," he whispered.
Without hesitation, both boys said, "Never."
It brought a fresh wave of tears that Takemichi didn't bother to wipe. "I'm just… dealing with a lot of stuff right now."
Yamagishi felt like banging head against the wall because what the fuck else could've driven him this far? How dumb did he think they were? Had his brain finally been liquified by getting a few too many knocks on the noggin?
"No shit," Takuya drawled, not unkindly. "But what can we do to help? You've been keeping things from us for a long time, don't think we haven't noticed."
"And you're not taking care of yourself, man." Yamagishi leaned forward, twenty different files of instances where Takemichi was a dumbass to himself being pulled from his mental filing cabinet.
Takemichi hung his head and fidgeted with the cup. Picked at his fingers. Looked around the room as if he were making sure they were alone-as if there was literally anyone else that could have been with them. His foot twitched nervously while he made up his mind. Based on the dull flash in his eyes, Yamagishi didn't doubt that he'd keep holding back on them. It was that little, self-contained look of determination that Takemichi got when he was trying to Do Something. Even though there were only embers, that want to do something which burned so bright was still alive.
(Their Takemichi was still alive-suffering and perhaps lost-but not everything was gone. Not yet. Never. He was just smothered. Held down. The help he needed was not suffocation, but freedom and room to breathe.)
"You guys are… really great friends," Takemichi blubbered, his voice cracking halfway through. "Please don't ever change."
And all the disappointment at not getting an answer melted away at the sincerity behind those words. (At the odd stressing of ever, and how it almost sounded like are was actually were. )
Sitting shoulder to shoulder in Takemichi's bedroom at some random hour of the night, the full weight of the situation finally settled. This wasn't some rejection from a girl-not even Hina dumping him would be this bad-and this wasn't just some shitty fluke at school or their social life. Whatever his friend had been dealing with was grating on him, scratching away at all the soft smiles and snorting laughter that made Takemichi who he was. This was Real Shit. Bad Stuff-capital letters required. And Yamagishi was in no way knowledgeable about how to deal with that.
"We won't," Takuya pressed. Because, oh, right, Takemichi had asked them something.
"C'mon man, just tell us what's wrong!"
The blonde looked everywhere except the two of them, hands crinkling the styrofoam cup. Chin to his chest, he whispered, "You can't help."
Emboldened by his comment (or enraged, Yamagishi didn't have a good enough read on Takuya to tell), the eldest turned and grabbed Takemichi's shoulders stiffly.
"Of course we can't help you, asshole! You haven't even told us the problem!"
Whether it was his abrupt shout that shattered the last of Takemichi's silence or the fact that Takuya was failing to hold back his own tears, the blonde leaned over and pulled him into a hug. It was desperate and needy, hands full of the other's t-shirt and pulling, but Takemichi finally let out the wail that he'd been suppressing and Takuya shuddered in response. Yamagishi didn't even realize he was crying until Takuya, who was looking at him over Takemichi's shoulder, grabbed his shirt and pulled him into their bastardized group hug.
"Don't cry at me like that," he wheezed. "Fuckin'-get over here."
They held onto each other like they thought they'd disappear. Takemichi sobbed because he was being corroded from the inside out by secrets and stress that he felt he couldn't-didn't even want to share (burden)-with others, while his two friends released their anxiety and the tragic realization that their friend was under absolutely no circumstances okay. In any sense of the word. And they'd sat back and watched it happen, like a car on fire, they pulled up their lawn chairs and watched him wither and crumble.
God, they were useless, weren't they?
It could've been hours, or it could've been minutes, but Yamagishi's back was starting to cramp, and no one was weeping anymore, so their group hug was just about dissolved. Which was exactly when Takemichi spoke up.
"I knew Draken was supposed to die," he whispered. And like his tears, once the floodgates opened, they didn't stop. "And Baji. Baji's gon'na get stabbed by Kazutora on Halloween. And Katzutora's gonna die 'f that happens. I gotta stop it all-but I can't. And when I can't, Emma'll die. And Izana. Kisaki too. I just don't want anyone else to die, but I can't stop it! I cn'never stop it. And I can't sleep. I'm too busy, but I never get anything done. And if I tell you about it you're gonna get involved, and that means you'll get hurt. And Baji told me to protect the ones I love, and you guys promised you wouldn't change. "
When Takemichi's voice finally dropped off, he was leaning limply against Takuya, eyes unfocussed and blinking slowly. It was a good thing that he seemed to be disengaged (or disassociated? He filed this thought under shit to google later) because Takuya and Yamagishi were having an entire conversation using solely expressions. What the fuck, was the prominent expression, but there were several other utterances mixed in. Yamagishi just kept a grounding hand on Takemichi's leg, and eventually the blonde's eyes slipped shut from what he could only assume was sheer exhaustion.
The process of extracting each of their limbs from between one another was arduous, especially without waking Takemichi, but they managed to make it work. They left him on his bed, dozing for what appeared to be the first time in a while, and migrated outside his room. Leaving the door cracked, just so they could tell if he tried to escape or anything like that-because with how he'd been acting lately that could be a valid turn of events-while also attempting to muffle whatever conversation they ended up having.
Standing in the living room, they stared at each other.
Correction: Takuya was standing in the living room, while Yamagishi was nervously pacing from one side of the room to the other. When that started to feel too repetitive, he settled for walking laps around the couch.
What did they know, right? That was the next step. How ever Takemichi came upon this information-while not confirmed to have anything to do with the scars he'd gotten, was totally related-was unknown, but he knew a lot. He'd known there was going to be an attempt on Draken's life, and actually prevented it. With that in mind, combined with everything else Yamagishi had double-checked, this explanation made a lot of sense. A scarily great amount of sense. Because Takemichi had already been looking for Draken. Because he'd been seen creeping Draken and Mikey for a few days prior to the event. And Baji-whom Takemichi had already accepted a job to try and bring back to Toman-was next. Killed by Kazutora-though the actual mode wasn't mentioned.
"Wait… Kazutora? Where have I heard that before?" Yamagishi whispered, unknowing that his feet had stalled. In a brilliant moment of purely Ignoring What The Fuck Just happened, Alongside Everything He Was Feeling, Yamagishi found Takuya's eyes with the fire that Takemichi had shared with him. (Had lit within him. Had bumped his spluttering torch against his, to reignite the passion and determination to do it within someone whom he trusted.)
"What does that have to do with anything he just fucking said-?"
Yamagishi crossed the living room, hands clamping onto Takuya's arms.
"This has everything to do with what he just said," Yamagishi hissed. "So give this a good think, yeah? He said Kazutora was gonna kill Baji. He's already trying to get to Baji to stop it ahead of time, so why wouldn't he go for Kazutora too?"
Impatient, but suffering through his clipped rant, Takuya glared at him silently.
"Wasn't there a kid a year up from us with that name? Who went to juvie?"
Takuya's eyes widened slightly, catching on to the fraying edge of the thread Yamagishi was undwinding.
"Yeah-but he's back-just got out of corrections," the taller one realized. "I know that 'cause I helped Takemichi look into a guy like that. Oh my- god. I never knew his name, just asked around. It's him?"
All of the momentum building around them seemed to deflate, and in that one instance, they weren't thinking how the hell did Takemichi know this? How can we trust him? Instead, they were thinking something along the lines of how the hell do we save everyone?
They went back and forth, going over everything those brains of theirs could think of, and when things were getting too mixed to match, they assaulted Takemichi's printer and started writing shit out. Names, facts, locations, dates: every piece of information they could get their grubby little hands on. There were thirty-adjacent pieces of paper by the time Yamagishi started getting a headache and had to take his glasses and ponytail off. Takuya snatched it up, tying his hair into a knot atop his head. They'd built a bare-bones time line-more retrospective than forward looking-but they had a few notable events to work from. And Halloween was fast approaching. Two weeks. Fuck.
And they still hadn't really figured out what to do with Takemichi, who had infected them with his single-minded persistence. When they were finally able to sit down and plan, no matter how flawed or ineffective, for what to do for the blonde, it was somewhere around three in the morning. The aforementioned kid hadn't so much as twitched where they'd left him, which they counted as a net good. They decided that tough love was still the way to go, but they'd have to do their best to make everything else easier. How, exactly, they were going to go about this wasn't the issue at hand-it was a Tomorrow Them problem.
And so with heavy feet, eyelids, and hearts, they trekked back up to Takemichi's room with every part of the couch except the frame, and made a sorry excuse for a bed on his floor. With cushions, a blanket for each of them, and a couple throw pillows, it wasn't the worst sleepover he'd attended. (Makoto would always have that award because Yamagishi had had to use the throw rug as a blanket. Re-read that, and think about it again.)
They woke up to Takuya's phone screaming out an alarm. Takemichi was most certainly woken up by it too, but he was keeping up his corpse act from the night before-without the crying of course (though Yamagishi wanted to with how little quality sleep he'd gotten). Takuya, with his hands on his hips, gestured to Takemichi's fake-sleeping form.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Yamagishi grinned maniacally, knowing exactly what he was implying.
What do you take me for?
And like the kids they were, they grabbed the comforter Takemichi was lying atop of, and pulled it-and Takemichi-of the bed in one hard tug. The resulting squeal and pile of flailing limbs was worth the effort, because the entire house devolved into fits of laughter (and yelling, but that soon turned to laughter too).
Over the next few days and weeks, Yamagishi deepened his understanding of Takemichi quite a bit. It didn't make their level of friendship before that night any less valuable, but it showed him just how much lurked beneath the surface. He didn't give Takemichi grief anymore, when he changed in the bathroom stall as opposed to the locker room with everyone else, he even watched his back.
"Gettin' dressed in the stall like a girl , Hanagaki?" some wannabe gang banger sneered.
And before his ugly friends could even think about laughing, Yamagishi scoffed. "Why do you care? You tryn'a catch a peek?-Are you, ya' know, Looking His Way? Tryn'a make a move?"
In one foul swoop Yamagishi had turned the conversation on its head, and embarrassed the shit stain before he could get to Takemichi. By the end of their exchange, no one was questioning why Takemichi was suddenly gun-shy about his appearance-only why Yukihiko (which was his name, apparently) cared.
Under the flimsy guise-which was fooling no one, by the way-of helping Takemichi study, Yamagishi spent most of his free time at Takemichi's house. When he wasn't out with Hina, Takuya or Yamagishi was by his side. Even when he was at Toman official meetings, at least one of them had taken to listening in. They took place at a public shrine, for fuck's sake, it wasn't like it was forbidden or anything.
When Takemichi couldn't pull himself out of bed in the morning, Yamagishi was there to cajole him and make him breakfast. Takuya would all but physically strap him to the seat of Takemichi's own rusty grey bike, and give him a lift to school.
They hardly gave him a chance to do his detective work without them by his side. They'd found the location of Valhalla's main base, gotten photos of its members and upper-echelons, and had been introduced to Chifuyu-Toman's very own first division co-(but really the only) leader. Hell, they'd even spied on Baji.
In the few weeks before the Halloween brawl, Takemichi started to look better. He was sleeping a bit more regularly (because what he did shouldn't have been considered sleep-more like stalling for a few hours only to wake up in a frenzy), and was eating a lot more. Worse, though, they'd witnessed three panic attacks, and about half a day where Takemichi couldn't remember a single damn thing up until a month before. It was terrifying-more than him choking on air. The empty sort of recognition was something that would haunt Yamagishi for more than he'd be comfortable admitting.
Hours before the battle, for which Takemichi was getting dressed, Yamagishi popped the question he'd been dying to ask. "Does that happen often?"
Takemichi seemed a bit confused, until he paled slightly. "N-not really. Only a few times. But, uh, it usually lasts a little longer."
Yamagishi and Takuya were also getting dressed for the fight, but as non-Toman members, they weren't really permitted to participate. But after drilling it into Takemichi's skull for days on end, his thinking was finally nudged. Changed just enough to include them in his plans. Black jean jackets and oversized sweatpants were their get up, with a few different body pads tucked away. Takuya had the one that wrapped around his chest and stomach-hopefully making him a bit stronger against the attacks he'd inevitably get-while Yamagishi was leaving behind his glasses, and repped elbow guards guiltlessly stolen from Makoto's failed career as a skateboarder.
As they all suited up in somber, yet exciting silence, Takemichi changed out of his pajamas and into his gakuran. Before, this would not have been special, or noteworthy in any respect. But now shirtless, and throwing a patented Takemichi brand hey! look over here! smile, Yamagishi was treated to a quick look at the elusive scars Draken had mentioned. Pretty little cookie cutter holes were scarred over and smooth against the skin of Takemichi's back, and on his chest, from what he could see as the blonde turned slightly to face him, rested shiny and puckered patches of flesh.
The look was brief, and not a word was uttered between them while it occurred. Weeks. It had taken weeks before he was comfortable sharing them with his closest friends. The depths of Takemichi truly knew no end.
"Do they hurt?" Takuya asked, fingers picking at the sleeve to his jacket.
The blonde just laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Not one bit."
Yamagishi wasn't much of a gangster. He wasn't actually in any real gang, he hardly looked the part, and he could only fight better than the average schmuck. But he was Takemichi's friend, and anybody who rolled with him was a different kind of breed. Yamagishi was not a person that inspired fear in others-and that was okay with him. It meant that nobody paid him any mind when he slipped into the recycling plant that evening. With all the bystanders and interested third-parties, Yamagishi didn't stand out at all. He listened, which was what he was best at-and he watched. He learned about gangs outside of where Toman was operating, but would eventually butt heads with, and the temperament of some of the big shots in Valhalla. He surveyed the land-stood almost uncomfortably close to the pile of crushed cars-exactly where Takemichi had instructed him. Takuya was on the other side of the pile, doing nearly the exact same thing.
Though their faces were obscured by sick masks, the commitment in their eyes, and the adoration in Takemichi's was clear as day. As subtley as possible, Yamagishi wrapped his hands around a tire iron, and held it calmly by his side. He would use it-most likely-eventually. He just had to wait for when the time was right.
Atsushi was elsewhere, but instructed to call all three of them an hour from now. If he didn't get a single answer, he was supposed to call the cops and send an ambulance (or three).
Their plan was absolutely perfect.
In theory.
Because the depths of Takemichi knew no end, and not a single soul in that godforsaken industrial park knew what he was going to do-least of a Yamagishi. Perhaps the understanding of each other he'd always thought he had was a bit more surface level than what Takemichi let on.
It was frustrating-no, no-it was fucking infuriating.
But that was life, and that was Takemichi. Yamagishi had ridden this crazy train for far too long to bail now, and suffice to say, he actually cared about the kid.
So with blood in his mouth and his head craned upward, not for the first time, he spoke to the big guy in the sky.
God help us all, but most importantly, Takemichi.
So don't fuck this up.
Notes:
yamagishi my beloved!
All of your comments were instrumental in me finishing this! Thank you! This week's bookmark that made me smile: Arrysa_Clair's
Please give me suggestions for future chapters! Yell at me! Join my discord! We are absolutely bumping in there, and are doing a gift exchange, so y'all should join.
Until next time my friends!
Chapter 3: Diametrically Opposed
Summary:
"He nearly died to keep you human. So that you wouldn't regret what you'd done."
Looking at the soft bruising that curled across the apple of Takemichi's cheek did not make him feel any stronger, any mightier, any purer of intention; but that was never his intention! He had never claimed to have lofty goals, he just wanted control. To be someone with pride. That didn't make him a bad person, that just made him an enterprising one. In the real world, there were no fair fights and it sure as hell wasn't something as petty as a turf war between schoolyard bullies.
"Hanagaki Takemichi saved you from yourself. You know it, and you'll have to live with that."
Notes:
kisaki pov kisaki pov kisaki pov
blame my discord for this, they kept choosing violence! I hope I did an interesting take on Kisaki bc writing him makes me want to write myself a restraining order against him 3 The Undertones (tm) were,, interesting to say the least
Enjoy!
(I wrote this chapter while listening exclusively to Hikarunara, so do with that what you please)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Everything was going to plan: completely and utterly to the letter. Not a single t nor i was left un-dotted or uncrossed. The feeling when everything pulled together, and all the pieces fell in line was beautiful, awe-inspiring, even. The world would have likened it to a game of chess, when one pushes their opponent into a corner and picks off every adversary in just a few simple moves. Which would have been a false equivalence, and a poor understanding of chess. The most satisfying win always came from exploiting the opponent's holes—the ones they didn't even know they had—and taking down the strongest adversary in a single, smart move.
That was chess, and that was what Tetta was playing. But that satisfaction was what the world thought witty guys like him felt. One false equivalence to the next, people always thought they were right. Satisfaction wasn't the only feeling—if he was being honest, it was only minor—it was dwarfed by a more abstract sensation. And as much as abstract things managed to make him suck his teeth and turn up his chin, this was one he saw as a necessary evil, that without it he would remain misunderstood forever.
It was when goosebumps prickled over your skin at the part of the song when everything builds up—it's the crescendo, the very second before it all breaks down—when it feels like you are the music, and the raw emotion bleeds through and infects you with it too. It wasn't anticipation, because that was too pedestrian, and it wasn't quite euphoria, because all of the good that was coming had yet to actually come. It was an edge. Like standing at the top of a cliff, fully in control, weaving destiny between your very hands.
It was powerful, and violent, and beautiful, and a million other things that were hard to quantify, but easy to imagine. Hard to experience naturally, but not foreign.
Tetta was toeing the line of a precipice, one that he'd created, and could decide to break or save everything he saw. It was visceral, with a healthy mix of catharsis. The feeling wasn't good or bad, it was just a lot—heavy, but in a weighted blanket kind of way. He yearned for it, like a dope-fiend looking for his next fix, Tetta lived for the next plot.
And he'd done it. Everything was going according to plan.
Until it wasn't.
Until it wasn't.
And it was Hanagaki Takemichi, just like it always was. Everything rotten and corrosive and infuriating in life seemed to stem from him. Whatever he touched was poisoned—infected by whatever venom flowed through his veins. With a single motion, Tetta's precipice began to decay. All it took was a single moment, and he was ruined.
He had "saved" Mikey, proclaimed his undying loyalty, and lined up his men to protect them. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating—that that fool Baji had hit him a little too hard.
(Baji was like Takemichi, but in a more minor way. He wasn't a forest fire that burned everything indiscriminately with no conscience or reason, he was like a well placed charge. Deadly in his own right, but when handled correctly, useless. That's why he was supposed to be handled. He'd taken the time to plan for him to be handled. Why wasn't it working?)
But he wasn't seeing things—well he was, of course he was—but he was seeing reality, pure and unadulterated, and of course it was Takemichi's fault. Chifuyu, who would always be weak to Baji, had folded like a wet paper towel: which was exactly what was supposed to happen.
Tetta had woven that destiny himself, with his soft hands made not to fight, but to plan. He had foretold it, so it happened. But his power (not luck, never luck, because luck was a fallacy) was weak to the blonde. An eternal blind spot. Because when he crawled up the car pile, biting and crying and screaming, Tetta began to worry. And when he latched onto Baji's waist, his heart began to stir in his chest.
This wasn't supposed to be happening.
Whatever feeling he got when a plan came together—when he won—Takemichi always inspired the opposite. Instead of standing atop a cliff and looking down and everything he created, he stared up from an abyss. It was belittling, and angering, and if he was being honest with himself, terrifying: because no one could beat him. No one ever had! It was impossible that he had met his match, and that the person that could rival him in the one thing he excelled at was Takemichi?
It was impossible.
It was unacceptable!
Baji tried to shake him off, and despite Baji only doing so in an attempt to bash Tetta's face in, he secretly rooted for him. But Takemichi was another breed—no, an entirely different species. He was completely unknowable. He was a variable tetta was diametrically opposed to, and would never understand.
So Takemichi held on, just to spite Tetta, to show that weaklings like the two of them were good for other things. And when Kazutora padded over to the tousling duo, Takemichi didn't even acknowledge the man—which should have inspired hope—he instead, in a single motion it seemed like he'd been building towards, spun them around.
Kazutora, who'd been poised to stab Baji in the back, ended up sinking the knife into Takemichi's side. All three men stepped back in awe, or at least what looked like it.
Takemichi straightened out from his stooped position, the blade—pushed up to the hilt—sticking out from underneath his school uniform for fuck's sake. Whatever face he was making had seemed to have spooked Baji, because he took a half a step backwards. Chifuyu was the first to react otherwise, a pitiful scream falling from his lips. Hanagaki's name falling from his mouth as if they were familiar. (And if they were—which they shouldn't have been—it only happened because Tetta made it so. An unintentional ripple caused by pulling the wefts of fate.) But they had to have been closer than expected—or Chifuyu was simply weaker than Tetta expected—because he sounded pretty torn up about it.
It was actually Chifuyu's guttural scream that lulled the battlefield into submission. People that had once been at one another's necks were watching in a dull, distant way as blood started to darken the boy's clothes. It was as if the world had come to a stop—ruby blood suspended in the air as Takemichi turned towards the horde of teens below. Tetta didn't know this at the time, but Hanma filled him in later.
Takemichi smiled: joy-filled, and dripping with relief. He seemed genuinely happy, all the way from where Hanma had been fighting. No wonder Baji was scared—no psychopath acted like that. Hanma didn't even act like that. Takemichi didn't even seem to notice the knife protruding from his side—or at the very least he didn't acknowledge it. He simply looked out over the sea of delinquents and announced, "The fight is over! Toman's won!"
Kazutora, and most of the people present had opened their mouths to say otherwise, but a hollow clang froze the words on their tongues. Kazutora hit the ground in a boneless heap, revealing the culprit to be a kid decked out in all black, holding a wickedly twisted piece of scrap metal.
"We've beaten your acting leader! Surrender!"
Tetta had never hated anyone more in his life. He could've thrown up, cried even. But whatever Takemichi had planned wasn't over with yet—he wasn't done ruining everything Tetta had poured his soul and pride into.
The figure in black left Kazutora's body (or maybe it was his corpse? You never knew with hits to the head—they were easily fatal), and approached Baji. There were muffled words shared between them, which Baji seemed to dislike greatly. Well that made two of them, Tetta thought, bitter.
From his vantage point, he could make out the slowly moving form of another black figure—one dressed the exact same—making his way towards the outcropping. This meant Takemichi had unknown allies, the number of which Tetta couldn't even begin to calculate. He hadn't expected Takemichi to have allies in the first place—any guess he'd come up with would be plainly wrong. It would just be another one of the innumerable variables that Takemichi somehow sprouted. Chifuyu got to his feet, teetering listlessly, as if he were lost between going to his captain or to Takemichi.
Baji growled something lowly in response to the figure, which made said boy raise his weapon, and caused Takemichi to look Baji's way. When Baji struck forward with the intent to knock Takemichi and Chifuyu off the platform, the second figure made itself known. With one clean swing, what appeared to be a tire iron slammed down on Baji's outstretched arm.
The crack was sickening. Baji stumbled, and groaned, but never lost his footing. He threw a quick jab that no one was looking for, and managed to clip the second figure's face. They sprawled against the scrap—almost laid out, but not quite—while the first figure took a protective step in front of them. The second figure climbed to their feet a bit too slowly to be un-concussed, and after a few tense moments, Chifuyu and the first figure were escorting Baji off the rummage heap, and frankly, away from the entire fight. The sight of Baji's limp arm, swaying from the center of his forearm, made Tetta a bit green in the gills.
Still hushed and almost unknowing of what to do, delinquents started stepping away from one another. Instead of allowing the stale silence to ring any longer, Mikey rose to his feet and bellowed, "Toman has won!"
The resulting screams of victory were deafening.
Absently, Tetta heard the sound of his watch signalling the next hour.
Valhalla didn't seem to want to accept their loss, but weren't making any hasty moves. It was the opposite of deja vu. Tetta thought he just might actually be sick.
Mikey clapped him on the shoulder, a lowly muttered thanks all he received before he took off towards Takemichi, who had taken to leaning heavily on the masked figure. Mikey made quick work of dismounting the scrap pile, but by the time his feet were settling next to the blonde, the sound of sirens were splitting the night. A voice shouted about the police, and chaos instantly enveloped the yard. People were sprinting every which way, Tetta included; getting caught here, just to catch a glimpse of Takemichi's death, wasn't worth it.
When he met up with Hanma later that evening, he informed him of a bit of what had happened afterward. Takemichi and the Mask fumbled down to the ground, where Takemichi collapsed. He'd somehow convinced Mikey to carry down Kazutora's knocked out body without killing him, which was another impossibility about Takemichi: how he had an inexplicable choke hold on Mikey. The Mask and Mikey stayed with Takemichi until Hamna could see colored lights flashing, and as he imagined, got onto the ambulance with him. He wasn't actually around for those parts, but Hanma reckoned that Takemichi didn't look so good. He'd gotten… quiet.
Good riddance, a sick part of himself whispered.
But he'd never leave something that important to chance.
That evening he researched every hospital in the area, and managed to find a map of their response jurisdictions. Takemichi (and Kazutora) if (t)he(y) were alive, and maybe even Baji—if someone had managed to get him to go to a hospital—would've ended up in a place a bit south of Toman's stomping grounds and the one Draken had stayed at.
He suspected that some, if not most, of the upper-echelons of Toman would've waited to see his condition, so going in person to find out if the kids had lived would be exposing. And if Baji had ended up there, the likelihood of him blabbing about Tetta was rather high.
Risky, overall.
So he did the next best thing: he called.
Hospitals didn't give out information over the phone about patients, but at the same time, if the person you were asking about wasn't a patient, the receptionists tended not to care. He and Kika had a lovely conversation in which he asked if there were a lot of people in to see Takemichi. She—the angel—told him there were only a few, as the wealth of them left throughout the night, as he still wasn't conscious.
Interesting.
Tetta asked how long she was on shift, and when she explained she'd be there until visitor's hours closed, he asked if she could give him a call if, or when, there were no other guests—of course, only if she had the time. Suffice to say, when he got the call about an hour from closing, he was already on his way to the building.
The one question—the instinct, really—that was driving him was curiosity.
(Impulse.)
How? How could Takemichi have known? How could he just magically show up out of nowhere, and step on everything Tetta had meticulously planned? And it wasn't random—no—it was precise. Everything that he did was just enough to derail Tetta's plans. If he ignored the possibility any longer, he'd be willfully ignorant, and that was the one thing he promised himself he'd never be; Takemichi was either a mastermind like himself and hid behind a masquerade, or somehow had knowledge of his plans—not actively responding to his actions, but being fed intel and acting accordingly.
The only way the latter could be true was if his plans were being leaked—and the only person with that kind of information was Hanma, whom he was certain wouldn't betray him. But goddammit this was Takemichi they were talking about here! Everything flew off the rails when it came to him!
By the time he came out of the elevator in the almost-but-not-quite-ICU ward, he saw the receptionist who'd helped him so. And it was ironic, how a guy like Takemichi always ended up with the kindest people to surround himself with. (Why were they drawn to him and not Tetta? What was so incredible about Takemichi? What was wrong with Tetta that made people like that flee straight into Takemichi's arms?) It wasn't fair.
His shoes were oddly loud against the linoleum, he came to realize, as he made his way to the recovery room Takemichi had been placed in. It was dark out, the only stars visible being the distant city lights. For a hospital as busy as this, Tetta was taken aback by how silent it seemed to be—only the hum of air conditioning and other machines filling the quiet. Takemichi's room was at the end of the hall, a good walk away from the front desk, but very close to the night nurse's station. He hoped it was a sign that Takemichi was likely to pass away in his sleep and stop being a constant problem, but he knew it would be too good to be true.
The door swung open easily, just as quiet as the rest of the place, and opened up into a dimly lit room. It was square in shape, with windows framing the far side, and Takemichi bundled up along the right wall. There was a heart monitor beeping steadily, as well as two rather full looking IV stands. The blonde looked vulnerable with so many tubes leading to and from his form, but at the same time looked far too young.
(The scene reminded him horribly of himself—small, sharp, and weak. Too cowardly to run ahead and make a difference, and forever stuck on the sidelines. Takemichi looked resigned in sleep, and for once in his life Tetta didn't blame him. He'd been there once. A few times. Was swimming out of it as he stood awkwardly in the hospital room of his greatest enemy.)
Why was he here?
Was he searching for some scrap of understanding, searching every improbable place for an answer as to the enigma that Takemichi was? Should he be paranoid, and drop Hanma as soon as possible? Should he derail all of his plans to eliminate Takemichi specifically? Should he… eliminate Takemichi?
He'd entertained the thought before. It wasn't like he was above getting people killed, but there was a small part of him that asked is it okay because it isn't you? It stared him in the eye and told him the bitter truth.
You're glad Baji didn't die.
Tetta never gave it the satisfaction of being right—of trying to tell him how he felt.
You weren't sick because you were losing; you lose all the time. You just hated to see people in agony—to be there and witness the consequences of your actions.
No matter how he tried to push the thought from his mind, like a spectere— like Takemichi—it always evaded his grasp.
You could order anything in the world, like what happened to Pa-chin's friend and his lady, but you weren't there.
Tetta sat heavily, as if his knees gave out beneath him. But that would've been preposterous! He was completely in control—it was what he did. Control. He sat because he wanted to, not because all of his strength was being used to ensure his breathing remained steady. At Takemichi's side, likely sitting in the place his esteemed friends once sat, he had to see the irony.
Ironic: things were always ironic!
Nothing was ever simple and forthright, and easy to understand. It was always viewed in the retrospective, looking in the rear-view and trying to read the tiny scrawl on the signs.
He almost died for you, the voice hissed.
Tetta almost spoke out loud, appalled and offended by the venom in its voice. There was nothing wrong with that! Takemichi was a free man and he could make his own choices—if he wanted to throw himself on a blade, there was nothing Tetta could do about it. (But when he was the one that introduced the knife, and the one that lined up the trajectory, and left the victim to Takemichi to decide, he didn't seem so innocent.)
He nearly died to keep you human. So that you wouldn't regret what you'd done.
Looking at the soft bruising that curled across the apple of Takemichi's cheek did not make him feel any stronger, any mightier, any purer of intention; but that was never his intention! He had never claimed to have lofty goals, he just wanted control. To be someone with pride. That didn't make him a bad person, that just made him an enterprising one. In the real world, there were no fair fights and it sure as hell wasn't something as petty as a turf war between schoolyard bullies.
Hanagaki Takemichi saved you from yourself. You know it, and you'll have to live with that.
Tetta wanted to brain himself against the floor. He didn't want to think about it, he didn't want to listen anymore. These thoughts weren't him, they couldn't be. This was Takemichi, this was his rancid, overpowering influence. It felt like dirty fingers with chipped nails raking themselves across the surface of his mind. Defiling his insides, it was putrid and he felt dirty.
He did not want to think about it.
(He was thinking about it right now. He'd been thinking about it forever.)
This wasn't him.
(He was crying at Takemichi's bedside.)
He wasn't grateful—no he wasn't, he swears.
(He knows it's his fault but it might break him to realize that.)
He wasn't a bad person.
(Not yet.)
As sobs began to choke Tetta, and tears obscured his glasses, he could do nothing but try to hold himself together. He had almost (indirectly) killed someone. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but he'd loaded the gun and aimed. Oh, god.
Tetta was a person who wanted more from life, but didn't know what, so he played to his strengths and tried to find the most dangerous and challenging puzzle yet. He didn't think about the consequences of seeking out such a task.
He didn't think he was a bad person—couldn't—because there was no coming back from that. There were no happy endings for bad guys, because even if good guys lost the fight, they'd still get the girl: Takemichi taught him that.
If Tetta thought himself bad, then he'd wholly give in, surrender himself to every dark impulse with no holds barred. He didn't want to be that kind of person. Desperate and lost, he wanted to be good.
(But he was too late, too misled. He'd been a bad person for a long time before breaking down in Takemichi's hospital room, alone, but not quite. The day he'd ordered the attack of an innocent was the day he fell from grace, he just didn't realize it yet. Kisaki Tetta had been sewing evil into the world around him for a time now, and he mistook it as power. Control.)
He didn't know how long he'd sat there and bawled like a child before being pulled from his stupor by the feeling of a hand against his head. He sat upright, pulling his face away from his knees where he'd curled in on himself. The hand fell lazily from his hair, and landed on the mattress with a muted thud. Looking at him with glassy eyes was Takemichi.
Tetta was frozen, half wiped tears still rolling down his cheeks. He didn't know if he was embarrassed, mortified, disgusted, or any mixture of all of those at the same time. He was everything all at once, to the point where it felt like nothing.
Tetta was there, and so was Takemichi, and that was all there was to it.
Until Takemichi spoke.
"I thought crying was my thing."
And of course he would be the kind of person able to make a joke while clinging to consciousness, to make you feel like you were just having a teasing conversation and one of them wasn't recovering from a stab wound. Unable to do anything against the notion, Tetta huffed. Not quite a laugh, but a bit more pointed than a sigh: he was amused. He also didn't know what to say. And judging by the way Takemichi's blinks seemed to get longer and longer, he didn't seem like he was ready for the conscious world. Yet instead of asking for his people to be notified, or even hitting the nurse's button, he looked at Tetta with what he could only describe as fondness.
Takemichi looked at him as if he were reminiscing about an old memory, or a friend from long ago. He looked older, somehow. World weary in a way that teenagers couldn't be.
Light smile still gracing his lips, but with his cheek smushed up against the mattress and his chin on his shoulder, Takemichi gave off the air of a wiseman who was down on his luck.
"Did you come here to finish me off?" he breathed.
Oh, Tetta thought. Oh.
He sucked in a quick breath, the skin on his head burning where Takemichi had attempted to comfort him.
The blonde just blinked, long and slow. "Okay."
Tetta rubbed a hand across his face, trying to compose himself enough for an intelligent response. "I didn't say anything," he settled upon.
"No, I suppose you didn't," Takemichi nodded, slow and over exaggerated. "But I don't think you're gonna do it today, so I'm gonna go back t' sleep."
"What makes you say that?"
Takemichi's eyes closed and for the first time since they'd opened, they remained shut. Of course, the only reason he'd managed to keep himself awake was because he'd thought he was in mortal danger. No alternative made sense, but it didn't hurt any less to know Takemichi thought the worst of him. (It didn't make any sense to think otherwise.) But for some stupid, indescribable reason, he'd thought Takemichi would offer him an answer. Maybe it was just his manic need to know, to try and unravel his failure, to understand what made Takemichi so unknowable. His eyes fell to the floor, chastising himself for thinking for even a second that Takemichi would try to do something for him, be it as simple as answering a question.
"Because we're the same."
And no matter how many times Tetta grabbed his hand (like a desperate fool), shook his shoulders, or called his name, Takemichi remained asleep. Bitter tears and clipped breathing didn't wake him like they did the first time. Silence, peppered only by the steady drumbeat of Takemichi's heart monitor, descended. It remained quiet even when the pretty lady from reception came and told him visitor's hours had ended, even when she told him she'd call him when Takemichi was finally conscious. (It was exceptionally quiet when he nodded, not daring to inform her that the boy had awoken, if only for a moment.)
The silence followed him home, back to school, and everywhere after that.
With just four words Takemichi had managed to tame his overactive thoughts. Or perhaps he stunned them instead? Broke them? If anything, they were stalled—put off until a better time, whenever that ended up being.
Glasses on the nightstand beside his head, Tetta stared at the ceiling instead of sleeping, replaying the exchange in his mind, every night for a week.
(He was so tired, but he couldn't rest. Time that was once filled with self reflection was silent. He missed the whispers, as vexing as they were, because they kept him company. Being stuck in his mind was isolating, for the first time in his life. He actually wanted company—only one person's—but it was a hunger nonetheless. It may have been pathetic, and borne of guilt and probably a nervous breakdown, but he was gripped by it.)
When Takemichi got released from the hospital—oddly, without a parental escort—Tetta was there. Not there in the sense that he was with the welcoming party that had waited outside the doors and walked with him through the building, but there in that he'd staked out the place and saw it happen. Takemichi moved slowly and over-carefully, and everyone surrounding him did the same. It was obvious they were trying to 'act normal' around him, but their nerves showed easily. Takemichi didn't let his annoyance show.
(Ever since their talk, Tetta had started considering Takemichi to be more intelligent than he always had. It was a change, but it seemed to make more sense. Before, he would've assumed Takemichi was blissfully ignorant of the way everyone was dancing around him, but now he knew that Takemichi was aware, he just acted oblivious for their benefit. It wasn't much in the big scheme of things, but Tetta had never thought the other capable of emotional manipulation, so it was an unsettling adjustment.)
For the rest of the weekend, Tetta staked out Takemichi's house.
He learned that Takemichi's parents were never home, and that his neighbors were the kind who minded their business. When they saw a congregation of delinquents, and what were obviously gang uniforms, their eyes simply glided past. His neighborhood was also exceptionally quiet at night, save for the occasional sounds of cars and garage doors, no one cared to sit outside. Curtains being drawn was the norm. Everyone kept to themselves, Takemichi included: he didn't leave his house, not even once.
Members of Toman, and some of his loser friends were in the house at all times, stopping in with food and gossip, while others ran errands. Takemichi was never really alone.
Those first few nights, when Tetta watched him on his own, he came to understand just how many people Takemichi had around him. When he thought about the distinct lack of people whose company he enjoyed, it made envy bloom in his chest.
Because we're the same.
It rang in his ears like tinnitus, constantly. Buzzing.
But it raised a good point: if they were the same, did that mean that Tetta could have everything that Takemichi did? (Conversely, did that mean Takemichi had been—or was yet to be—like Tetta?)
When he started attending school, he outsourced the stake out operation. It lasted a week before a discernible schedule could be worked out, and just a single call for Tetta to be standing on the front steps of Takemichi's home. His hands remained crammed into the pockets of his pants, worried that they might shake. Tetta had never worried about things like that before, but he was weak to Takemichi in every way it seemed, so he wasn't taking any chances.
It was well into the night—some time before sunrise, when his classmates would barge in with breakfast foods and schoolwork, and after when the silver-haired Mitsuya would drag Chifuyu out in the evenings. There was a window, about five hours in length, when Takemichi was well and truly alone.
Ever since they'd been alone together, opposite sides of the same coin, Tetta had been choking on the silence. (He wanted the noise back. It was too lonely like this. He wondered if that was why Takemichi surrounded himself with people—to-to stave off the loneliness.)
"We just gonna stand here all night, or'r we going in?"
Before Tetta could lose himself in the muffled echoes of his head, Hanma was behind him. All smiles as usual, one could've easily mistaken Takemichi's home for his, with how relaxed he was. He walked everywhere like he owned it—as if the very ground he stepped upon became him. He was the perfect kind of distraction (reminder).
Tetta sighed, but opened the front door in a single motion, Hanma hot on his heels.
"Aren't you excited to be inside your new little girlfriend's house?" he snickered. "I've got butterflies wondering just what about him has you so hot and bothered."
Not embarrassed in the slightest, Tetta spoke like he always did: cold, and with purpose. "I'm interested in him—and not like that—because he's predicted my plans."
Though the porch light was on, the entire first floor was dark. Foregoing removing their shoes, Tetta made his way to the staircase, where a warm shaft of light illuminated the floor. The gentle strum of what could only have been a guitar wafted down the steps, and idly, Tetta wondered if anyone else heard the sadness in those notes. (If anyone heard them at all.)
Not wasting a moment, Hanma lilted, "Oh? So you've finally found someone you see as an equal. Fun."
And wasn't that just the thing, huh?
Because we're the same.
Maybe they were equals. Maybe that's why the quiet was overbearing—because he was finally understanding Takemichi on the level that he himself operated. Tetta was driven by words and concrete endings, and everything he could see in his mind's eye. He kept tabs in his mind, assessed others, and planned within the confines of himself. Compared to everyone, Tetta was so full—of life, excitement, energy, everything. He pushed away other people because everything he could have ever wanted was within the reach of his mind. So if the whispers that never seemed to stop and the painfully blunt realization of his own thoughts were the embodiment of himself, that made the silence Takemichi's.
That meant that Takemichi was empty—hollowed out. Maybe he didn't start out that way, but it seemed like eventually, other people lost the things that made them powerful. But Takemichi's skin was always too thick for that, so he stood, like a tree eaten from the inside out, and looked everything like the beacon of hope he'd become. The truth was, he had nothing left to give. He pulled people towards him with magnetic force, doing everything possible to fill the emptiness inside. Throwing yourself on a blade didn't hurt nearly as bad when there was nothing inside to injure—no pride, no hope, no fear. The outside could be stitched together again to prevent the abyss from spilling out.
He'd always said Takemichi was a disease, an extant form of decay: a slow death to everything that was Kisaki Tetta. And he was right. Because after spending just the smallest fraction of a sliver of time with the boy whose shell had been cracked, the void had bubbled out and infected Tetta. In a mere instant it had sapped him of everything he'd grown accustomed to, and had left him only four words to ruminate over.
(Because we're the same.)
Climbing up the stairs that didn't creak in Takemichi's empty house, Tetta realized that he didn't want to be the same any more—not if this was what awaited him. If Takemichi lived, breathed, ate, and slept with the silence, he wasn't surprised that the blonde had picked up such a noisy hobby. That he'd stuck his nose into business that didn't strictly involve him.
(Tetta wondered if Takemichi was bored. If he had as much trouble sleeping as Tetta did.)
Hanma was unusually quiet while they padded to Takemichi's open bedroom door. It put Tetta more on edge than he already was. But Takemichi's music still bounced off the halls, even when Tetta stood in the doorway.
Propped up in his bed, sheets awry and the window open, Takemichi looked at them with something like amusement. That same expression he'd worn at the hospital.
The strumming didn't stop, only growing quieter. "I figured you'd show up one of these days."
Tetta didn't trust his traitorous mouth, so he kept his expression as flat as his lips. Realizing that his partner wasn't going to speak, Hanma took up the task. Walking further into Takemichi's room, a feat Tetta had been dreading, seemed to have absolutely no effect on the older boy.
"I bet you did," he nodded, as if patronizing a child. "Which was why you had your friends leave you alone. All vulnerable."
Choosing not to react to the obvious threat, Takemichi's eyes found Tetta's, and they crinkled with mirth. "Exactly. I had to make an opening, otherwise it'd be too risky for Tetta here to make a move."
"Life's a risk," Tetta snapped, the sound of his name on Takemichi's tongue making him want to shiver. This was not the Takemichi that'd gotten beaten up for Hinata all those years ago. This was the ghost of that boy's admirations. This was the blonde who'd forced his eyes open in a dark hospital room and smiled fondly at the person he thought was going to kill him. Takemichi made his skin crawl.
"It's a stab or be stabbed world out there," Takemichi nodded, as if he'd actually thought his joke was funny. "But you've got questions. And I'm a captive audience, so ask away."
Everything Tetta could have hoped for was occurring, but it felt disingenuous, despite what Tetta (thought he) could identify as sincerity was painted across Takemichi's face. Hanma's narrowed eyes told him that the elder felt similarly.
But then again, they'd never get a chance like this again.
As Tetta gathered his thoughts, he was chilled to realize the music had stopped, but he had no recollection of when. Just how long had they been wading in the silence? The window was open, right? So where were the cicadas?
No! He was getting derailed. But Takemichi was just as calm as ever.
"Who's been leaking information about my plans?"
It was as safe a question as any—one that had Hanma stiffening, and whipping around to look at him. If his face were capable of showing betrayal, Tetta thought that was what he'd look like, but as things were now, he only looked vaguely interested yet disappointed.
Takemichi's answer was quick and light. "No one. You're just that easy to see through."
Before Tetta could even formulate a response, or even a follow up question, there was a knife held only inches away from Takemichi's face. Hanma had stepped towards the boy, a concealed switchblade (which really shouldn't have been surprising) gripped by one hand.
"You'd better watch your mouth, Pincushion, or I might give you a few more holes," he hissed.
To the blonde's credit, he didn't so much as flinch, simply turned his head to Hanma, and gave the man his full attention. The empty air that seemed to manifest around Takemichi was deeply unsettling, especially after having known what he was like. Before. Evidently, Takemichi had enough within the empty chasm of his chest to scrape together a sneer.
"You won't hurt me," he told. "You're nothing but a dog on a leash, and if you go too far, your owner," Takemichi gestured towards Tetta, "will stop you short."
And if he wasn't suicidal enough, he leaned forward so that the blade rested against the column of his throat. "Today is not the day you kill me."
Everything afterward happened rather quickly, if Tetta was being honest. The duo stared at each other for a few tense seconds before Hanma was on top of Takemichi. It was undignified, screaming and curses filling the air, but with Takemichi being so injured, Hanma had him pinned quickly. Luckily, the knife wasn't sunken somewhere in Takemichi's flesh—a thought that made his knees weak, that he'd almost lost everything again.
The bad thing was that Hanma's hands were wrapped around the blonde's throat, and the latter was starting to go from cherry red, to a dusty purple. Tetta couldn't tell what he was saying, because he could feel his lips forming words, but his mind was so far away that the sounds were lost on him. Only when Takemichi's struggles lessened and his eyelids started fluttering did Tetta's stomach drop.
Takemichi was dying in front of him, once again because of him, and he was doing nothing.
He was frozen, not in fear, but because he simply didn't know what to do.
His limbs were so tired, abused from lack of sleep and poor care. He wasn't strong either. What could he even do? His screaming and ordering didn't seem to be working, so what else was there? All he had were his words! He couldn't talk his way out of this.
Takemichi's head fell towards Tetta slightly, and his hand fell against the mattress with a muffled thud, no longer able to claw at Hanma's eyes. The sound was so similar to what it'd sounded like at the hospital, that for a bright shining moment, the silence lifted and Tetta's inner thoughts returned.
Cacophonously, they howled Save him!
Tetta's body moved without his mind, and he was ramming into Hanma. All of his strength had been packed into the motion, because it managed to knock him off-balance, and the two of them tumbled to the floor as Takemichi spluttered back to life.
Hanma pushed against Tetta, but didn't throw any fists, which he was considering a massive win.
"What the fuck?" Hanma cried. "I was doing us a favor!"
With the voices ringing in his ears, he parrotted their words for his partner to hear.
"No you weren't," his voice spoke. "You were falling for his insults. What would you have done if he'd actually died, huh?"
Tetta shakily got to his feet, his knees and shoulder aching from the fall, but his lenses uncracked. "And most importantly," he extended his hand to Hanma, who grasped it without hesitation, "Where's the fun in ending the game early? I thought you were around to have fun."
He pulled Hanma to his feet using all the weight his lithe body had to offer, and once again the two stared at Takemichi. He was panting slightly, his face flushed, and a ring of dark bruises blooming like a noose around his neck, but he still managed to look (dead tired, yet) chipper. He held out the folded up switchblade like a peace offering.
"I guess that means I'll have to keep on living, huh?" the blonde graveled. Tetta knew it was supposed to be a joke, but that Takemichi truly meant it.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Tetta found himself sighing.
This prompted the blonde to laugh like crushed rocks, and quip, "Would you like that list alphabetically, or in terms of severity?"
Hanma was the only one that laughed at that.
They left shortly after that, Tetta recognizing the quiet evening, but not being silent all the way through. He hesitated to talk to Hanma about what had happened, weighing his options against the older man's temper, but he was beaten to it.
"You're both the same brand of batshit, I'll give you that."
It was the Hanma seal of approval if such a thing existed.
Tetta laid in bed, no longer obsessing over the fact that he and Takemichi were one in the same. It struck him though, as headlights passed through his window, that perhaps he'd misinterpreted everything he'd just witnessed.
Today is not the day you kill me.
That wasn't meant for Hanma, that was for Tetta.
And he was right—Takemichi had managed to escape Tetta's presence, once again, with his life. It was the certainty within those words that made the boy feel nauseous, as if he truly had known.
(And if Takemichi knew that day that Tetta did end up killing him, it meant that it was a fact that Tetta would cross that invisible line in the sand. That in some respect, he already had. It made him want to sob, scream his heart out to the heavens until his voice sounded like the blonde's, and then damn everyone—including himself—to hell.)
(If Tetta truly was/would be/already was that terrible person, then everything that Takemichi had done was done with the express purpose of fucking with him. Played with his emotions, psyched him out, influenced him: this whole meeting—that he even admitted to fucking organizing— was just to flaunt how much more clever Takemichi was. He felt like crying anew, because in the face of the insurmountable wall that was Takemichi, no matter how well Tetta had begun to understand him, he would always be wholly within Tetta's blindspot. It meant he was doomed to fail.)
(The one thing they both shared though, much to Takemichi's chagrin, was their ceaseless drive to move forward. And Tetta, as hopeless as he was, would not be cowed. In the end, their encounter didn't really change much. Takemichi didn't steal his heart and lead him to the light, but he did allow Tetta a look behind the curtain, which would never be forgotten. It was a scar on Tetta's mind that would ache at the sight of box bleached hair, and flare up when his thoughts were just a bit too quiet, and the world a bit too loud.)
Notes:
please bully me over this because I have absolutely no fucking clue what this is. I was grabbed by the balls by the writing gods and I simply Didn't Stop Writing until I Did.
Until next time!
Who do you guys want to see next? Please tell me I'm begging you.
Chapter 4: Tears like liquid silver
Summary:
Takemitchy is simultaneously the most well put together liar Mitsuya Takashi has ever met, while also being the least stealthy delinquent Tokyo has ever seen.
The world is not ready for Takemitchy, Takashi included.
Notes:
this chapter is likely Un-Mitsuya like, but also? I am this universe's god, and if I want him to be more than The Mom character who treats everyone kindly, I absolutely can.
please make sure to bully me in the comments if you think otherwise! I welcome it
enjoy this flaming dumpster heap as I prepare for the next chappie (and I suppose cw? Suicidal thoughts are alluded to,,, briefly .)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The wicked and dark bruising around Takemitchy's throat, a product of Hanma's more hedonistic tendencies, was not something the blonde was able to sweep under the rug. He could not hide it with hoodies or blankets, nor could his friends—Hina included—cover it with enough makeup to be realistic. Takashi noticed those kinds of things. He was an older brother to everyone he'd ever met, especially for the girls in his home ec club who did not wear bruises like badges. Every bump and scrape they acquired as something to be questioned, or at least acknowledged.
But to people like Toman members, bruises should have been nothing. (But to people like Takemitchy, who were fragile and already broken, they meant everything.)
"I'm not asking because I'm mad you got your ass kicked, I'm just wondering why you tried to hide it," Takashi drawled.
Takemitchy was sitting with his back pressed into the cushions of his couch, while Takashi sat on the edge of the loveseat across from him. The living room table was a buffer between the two—something, anything—to prevent the duo from clashing. Despite looking somewhat calm, Takashi could tell that Takemitchy was feeling… something. He couldn't quite tell if the other boy was defensive, or if he was enraged, uncomfortable, or scared. Emotions—besides his plasticine smile—tended to mix together on Takemitchy's face. They were lost in translation.
Unlike most people, it was the blonde's mannerisms that gave him away. For someone so young he'd managed to hide everything so well, which was more than a little alarming. But every once and a while his foot would tap the floor, or he'd make to crack the same knuckle on his right hand. His eyes would stray to the clock in the kitchen, and little by little, he made himself look smaller. Poised himself towards the door, as if he could make a break for it. Takemitchy was very good at concealing his emotions, his motives, his plans, but he wasn't perfect. Takashi wasn't perfect either, but he'd learned to wait for those moments of weakness.
"Because I knew something like this was gonna happen," Takemitchy said calmly, a false look of embarrassment on his face. "Toman's got enough on its plate—you especially. You shouldn't have to stand guard around me when you've got better things to do."
The way his shoulders bunched slightly and his head tilted just so made it seem like Takemitchy really believed what he was saying. That he'd deluded himself—or at the very least, is actively trying to convince himself—that what he was saying was true.
Takashi waved his hand, as if he could physically bat the words out of the air. "Oh, that's what a second in command is for. Hakkai can handle everything until you get better."
Based on the way Takemitchy didn't react—as if he hadn't even heard Takashi speak—he didn't like what his senior had had to say.
"I don't need a babysitter, Mitsuya-san," he groaned.
Takashi knew that. He just wanted to see how far he'd have to push before that funny little facade came crumbling down, and they'd be able to work through the problems that the blonde undeniably had. Takashi was all for pride—don't get him wrong—but in matters like these, where someone's well being was under scrutiny, it was unneeded. Whether it was right or wrong, pride was something Takashi tried to eliminate in these kinds of situations. (He was just a kid, asked to do an impossible task, with a life that wasn't too hard but was hard enough. Of course he didn't know what he was doing. At the very least it was his best.)
He shrugged and settled himself back into the chair. If Takashi had to guess, he'd say he looked pretty comfortable. Very settled. Permanent. "You worry too much, Takemitchy. It's just a week off."
Both of them knew what was happening, yet neither one of them were willing to peel off the thin veneer of friendliness they were wearing. Takashi knew that there was something under there though, that Takemitchy wasn't as perfectly endearing as everyone thought he was. Draken and Mikey had seen it, if only briefly, when they spotted his scars.
Him watching over Takemitchy wasn't something that had to happen, but because the duo had clued him in, he was personally invested. He could've had anyone stand guard in the blonde's house, but he took this job with a purpose: he was going to figure out just what Takemichi was hiding. Standing guard was a convenient excuse, his real aim was to break through the kid's armour and dig.
And Takemichi was… starting to get frustrated. The gaps were starting to show.
Like a flicker, as if he'd made up his mind on an emotion and his body followed after, Takemitchy crossed his arms. "In that case, I can't wait to meet your sisters."
If Takashi's hackles weren't already up, they sure as hell were now, because he wasn't supposed to know that. Takemitchy may have been under his care, but he hadn't been around long enough to know, nor had anyone bothered to talk to him in the first place. Takashi was suddenly set adrift with that single comment. The first thing he'd been hit with after prying off a piece of Takemitchy's armor was fear. He didn't think it was a threat—but this kid was a wild card through and through, so the option was still on the table.
But he wasn't done talking yet. "If you're gonna be watching my back whenever my friends aren't here, that means you'll be staying the night for more than a few days. I think I've got enough extra futons for you all, but I oughta stop by the store to pick up some food. You're used to cooking, right."
The blonde may have asked a question, but he'd said it like a fact. It was an undeniable truth that Takemitchy knew more than any regular member of Toman should have, and that made him dangerous. Draken and Mikey didn't seem to think he was a threat—but the intent was clear.
So… so maybe he was going about this all wrong? Maybe this wasn't really an interrogation, and more of an… intervention? He was looking at Takemitchy wrong if he wasn't seeing what Mikey and Draken were, so he'd have to adjust. Takashi wasn't too prideful to admit that he was wrong sometimes, or that his hunches didn't pan out—and he was the last one to assume that Takemitchy was planning to be malevolent. That was his fear, but that didn't make it true.
So he took a breath, and tried to look at everything from a different perspective.
Maybe the false comfort that Takemitchy wore wasn't a behavior learned to deceive, but to co-exist. Maybe it was something necessary: a security blanket as opposed to a mask. Maybe Takashi had been misunderstanding the kid from the start.
He knew what kids who got beat on by their parents looked like, the kinds of habits they had, the way they reacted to people. Some people acted like Hakkai—they froze up, body burning with fear so bright it blinds them. They'd been conditioned to react one way, and so they did, and it was so ingrained in them that it felt impossible to overcome. Some reacted like Yuzuha—with an anger so hot it burned your hands. And she bared it. She grabbed it with both of her hands, not caring for the burnt flesh of her tender palms and she squeezed until the fear and the anguish and the helplessness was drowned out: it was a way to focus. (To forget. To occupy yourself when things were too much.)
Maybe Takemitchy's overly practiced calm around people was something he learned to react with out of the crippling fear of other people. But why did he fear them? If that was the answer at all?
But Takashi, as much as he wanted to ignore it, knew what neglected children looked like too. He'd looked in the mirror—he knew what he was. He'd seen Takemitchy do things children their age shouldn't have known how to do, he'd seen how the blonde folded into himself when the crowds got too big, how he reacted negatively when people poked into his business.
He noticed the behaviors because Takashi himself had them.
(Maybe he was hostile towards Takemitchy because he was seeing himself and he didn't like it. He didn't want to see the piecemeal reflections of each of his closest friends reflected back towards him in a way that just felt wrong. He knew how to handle Hakkai when things got bad, his sisters, even his own division members—who weren't free from their circumstances—but he didn't know what to do with Takemitchy.)
This whole act, everything that Takemitchy was doing, was just his way of trying to crawl back to where he felt safe. The stillness, the well thought out reactions: they were his way of silently communicating.
The restrained breaths that Takashi had mistaken for stiffness were actually Takemitchy's way of keeping his emotions in check. It wasn't done with the intention of coming off hostile, it was done because he felt like the environment he was in was hostile.
This whole charade of knowing more than he should have, and flaunting it casually wasn't supposed to be a power move, it was a frightened animal puffing itself up to look scarier. Takemitchy was afraid— of Takashi, this conversation, what he'd see while staying with him, what he'd find out. Knowing too much was a way to protect himself; if people were too intimidated to cross you, they wouldn't raise any issues with you. But that wasn't the reality.
The reality was that Takemitchy was terrified, and Takashi had been too blind to pick up on the hints.
(He was just a kid though—he wasn't a therapist—he shouldn't have been able to catch onto these kinds of things. He shouldn't have even felt like he had to. He shouldn't have been expected to.)
(But at the same time, you tend to notice the walls people put up when you share them. Sometimes you got let in, and sometimes you just tapped along the rocks and hoped for a response. Takashi desperately wanted a response.)
"I'm going to level with you here, Takemitchy," he sighed, allowing seriousness to slip into his tone. "I'm not here for that. Not just for that."
Takashi figured that the smoke and mirrors only added to the blonde's anxiety—to his inherent distrust in others. It might be best to be straight with him, and depending on how he reacted, Takashi could go from there. When the division head allowed his weariness to show through, to let his shoulder slope and his smile drop, Takemitchy flinched minutely. If his piss poor understanding of Takemitchy was to be trusted (which it shouldn't have), he would have said the boy was surprised.
"Then what are you here for?" the blonde said quietly. He was picking at the scar on his left hand as he spoke.
"The boys are worried about you."
It was the plainest language he could get.
"Mikey, Draken, Chifuyu, Baji—believe it or not—hell, I hardly know you and I'm worried."
Takemitchy seemed to take a beat at that. He inhaled what was the deepest breath he'd taken since sitting down, so whatever Takashi had said was something that allowed him to breathe. When Takemitchy sighed, Takashi realized that the second layer of armor had come crumbling off.
"It's because of the scars isn't it?"
Takashi only nodded.
"You'd think the top two admins of Toman would be able to keep their mouths shut, huh?"
The bitter fondness the boy spoke with was the most genuine emotion Takashi had seen all night, and he didn't want to let it go.
"We're a nosy bunch," he settled on. He allowed his eyes to land heavily upon Takemitchy's frame, showing that the boy was still the subject of their little chat.
Takemitchy's smile crumpled at the corners. "I think if everyone minded their business just a little bit more, everything would be fine."
"You threw yourself on a knife, Takemitchy! Do you have a death wish?"
The words flew from his mouth before he could stop himself, and by the time they'd cleared the room, Takashi found he didn't regret having said them. It didn't matter what angle Takashi looked from, or who had sent him to investigate, the cold hard truth was something that couldn't be obscured no matter how much Takemitchy wanted it to be. There was no safety blanket large enough to cover up what had happened.
Takemitchy had been willing to get himself killed to keep Toman on the straight and narrow, he'd come screeching like a bat out of hell when Draken had been stabbed—something the blonde had been anticipating—, and managed to save Baji's life by getting stabbed in his place—all the while leading other people to help him. Takemitchy was fourteen years old and he'd been stabbed in both hands, and was riddled with bullet holes, and a brand new scar on his abdomen.
Takemitchy had single handedly taken down Kazutora and Valhalla in a single night, and had been attacked by previous Toman members. He was nearly killed and no one would've known until the morning. If Hina's concealer had been just a few shades darker, the world may have just kept on spinning. Takashi might not have been sitting here and staring down the world's most broken boy. (Quite possibly his world's most important boy.)
Takashi could only sit in silence as the blonde's face contorted before his eyes. First it was the bottom lip, which trembled like a leaf in the breeze, only to be bitten to try and downplay the motion. But it was too late because his head came next, tilted towards the floor as if that would hide its expression.
Takashi didn't understand Takemitchy like he needed to, but he could recognize pain, and Takemitchy was hurting .
His hands fisted themselves into his shorts, the knuckles turning white from the force. If he looked hard enough (which he didn't want to do) he could see the way they trembled. Takashi didn't dare move as the third layer of Takemitchy's armor slogged off. The poor boy's breath hitched as he held it, trying not to let it out while he thought it'd shake. He was seconds away from imploding, and Takashi hadn't meant to push him that far. He didn't think what he'd said would do this!
Do you have a death wish?
His own words were not a comfort, because if anything had set off the boy, it had to be that. It was a throw-away comment, something that was meaningless.
Unless.
"Takemitchy, do y—"
"It's not like that okay!" the boy sobbed.
Takashi had leaned forward in the chair, instincts telling him to try and make up for his blunder—to try and comfort the kid—and at the very least apologize, but the blonde's outburst had him scooting back in surprise.
Tears, hot and heavy, and so much unlike the courageous ones Toman had come to know and love, rolled down his cheeks. In one shuddering breath, the composure that he'd painstakingly worked to craft had been burned away. Rail-thin arms held himself by the shoulders in a bastardized sort of hug, as the boy doubled over. Takemitchy, who'd once been silent and appraising, was now wailing incoherently.
Takashi didn't want to risk aggravating him more by invading his space when he wanted to be alone, but the rate in which his breathing had picked up was starting to get worrisome, as he was coughing more than he was sobbing.
The elder slowly rose from his seat and settled onto his knees on the floor in front of Takemitchy's form. As heavily orchestrated as he could, he raised a hand to place it on the boy's knee. As if reminded that another person was still with him, Takemitchy's head swung to meet his gaze.
"You-y have to be-lieve me," he wheezed. "I promise !"
Takashi didn't know what else to say. "It's okay, I believe you."
When Takemitchy shook his head, a particularly chest-rattling wail making him sway where he sat, Takashi insisted. "I believe you, Takemichi. I do. Look at me, right?—It's gonna be okay."
He repeated himself for a while, not daring to do much other than keep saying the mantra he'd worked himself into. Something would make Takemitchy wince and he'd turn his face away—breath already starting to quicken—and Takashi would have to drag him back.
Barely clear headed enough to say anything but discordant half sentences, Takemitchy looked at him and spoke.
"I don't want to die, Mitsuya-san. I've thought about it before and it won't solve anything so it's not good enough. I swear. S-… there are things I still need to do—want to do. And I can't do them if I'm dead, right? So I don't want to die! I really don't."
At some point Takashi had gotten a hold of Takemitchy's hands, and was now pressing them together between his own, trying to imbue him with the strength he needed. As it stood, the blonde looked like he was minutes away from passing out.
"I don't want to die, so you don't have to worry about me going off and getting myself killed. You don't have to tell Mikey and Draken or pull me from fights. I want to see this through, alright? Toman is everything to me. Please don't take that away too."
Takemitchy was looking at him—begging him—to do the wrong thing. To just sweep this under the rug as if he'd never seen it.
Takemitchy may not have wanted to die, but the world surely wanted him to. It seemed like it had been throwing everything at him, hoping that something would finally strike him down. Takashi refused to be one of those things. He was going to say as much: he was going to open his mouth and tell the kid that he wasn't gonna get kicked out of Toman, but Takashi would definitely be staying with him for a time, and that until he was ready he'd be barred from fights. He really was going to say it, but Takemitchy had somehow slid himself from the couch cushion, and was now bowing with his forehead to the ground.
"Please."
Takashi had never been bowed to before. No one had ever desperately needed him enough to fully lay themselves out and beg . (It made him sick.)
Instead of telling Takemitchy everything he needed to hear, he found his voice to be paper thin when he said, "Please lift your head."
When Takemitchy didn't budge, his frame just shuddering with the effort he was putting into not crying out, Takashi realized that there was no hope of changing the blonde's mind. As much as the elder wanted to say he didn't understand Takemitchy, he knew him well enough to know that once he'd put his mind to something there would be nothing to stop him.
The silver haired boy could try to convince himself that the child at his feet was a stranger, an outsider, but the longer he looked, the more he saw himself. Barely four years old, dark hair hanging stringy around his face as he sobbed Mama, please don't leave me again! It was a shock, knowing that he'd been trying to reject Takemitchy for being different, when in reality, they were more alike than he thought. (He thinks he understands the expression his mother wore. The crumpled sadness with a chewed up excuse for a smile. She had wanted him to be happy—to reassure him—but what she had to do broke her heart just as much. Takashi did not make things easier for her. It was selfish of him, but a four year old knew nothing of what was selfish. Takemitchy did though, and Takashi got the distinct impression that he was never really allowed to be selfish before.)
"I believe you, Takemitchy, so raise your head."
(If Takemitchy was allowed to be selfish, then so was Takashi. He didn't want to hurt his junior, and so he wouldn't. He would allow his reckless behavior to go on because it would spare him the momentary heartbreak.)
When the blonde's eyes found his, Takashi made sure to smile—something real, and bright—because it would stick with the boy for years to come. He would not make the same mistakes as those before him had. Takemitchy looked at him, face swollen and red and tearstained, like he didn't believe what he'd heard. So the elder said it again.
"You worry too much. I won't tell anyone."
The relief that flowed through the boy was heavy, or perhaps that was his entire body weight—which he'd flung onto his senior when he wrapped him in a hug. Takashi could tell there were fresh tears staining the back of his uniform, and that his earring was being pressed uncomfortably against the side of the boy's face, but the boy wasn't letting go. It seemed like Takashi's honesty finally showed through, because Takemitchy believed him.
Takashi gently held the boy, rubbing comforting circles into his back as he emptied himself of tears. Fear, anger, shame: it seemed like Takemitchy had tears to spare for every emotion. Every layer—every feeling—seemed to get stronger the deeper Takashi went.
Slung over his shoulder, the boy could just barely make out the litany of I'm sorry and thank you that fell from the blonde's lips. The prospect that Takemitchy felt the need to apologize made Takashi's heart throb, so he held the boy tighter in response. He didn't want to think about how he'd done the same thing when his mother had shown him his little sister for the first time. He'd grabbed his mother as tight as his tiny fists could manage, and apologized for being a terrible son, while thanking her for bringing him someone to keep him company.
He wondered what Takemitchy had to apologize for.
Instead of poking the wounds that were fleshy and sore, Takashi just continued to pat the boy's back, and wait until he was calm enough to talk.
That didn't end up happening that evening, as Takemitchy nodded off to sleep right there on Takashi's shoulder. He used the blonde's landline to tell Hakkai to bring the girls over before he went home that evening, since there wasn't a chance in hell that Takashi would be leaving Takemitchy on his own after all that.
A few hours later Luna and Mana were giving him big hugs, and Hakkai was setting the table. He'd brought take out, like the angel that he was, without having been asked. They kept their conversations quiet so as to not wake up Takemitchy, who was sleeping in the other room. After dinner, Hakkai let the girls run around the backyard catching fireflies while Takashi found where the blonde's extra futons were. (He found a bedroom on the first floor that was entirely empty and coated with dust, the exception being the handle to the bathroom and the closet within it. As if it'd been opened recently, Takashi cracked open the closet and was met by boxes upon boxes of hastily scrawled notes, a few weapons, and body armor. Something that reminded him dearly of the fight with Valhalla. He simply closed the door, as if he'd never seen it.)
By the time the girls were tuckered out and in their pyjamas—teeth brushed and their hands washed—they were ready to spend the evening on Takemitchy's living room floor. He'd extended the invite to Hakkai, but he'd declined and went home shortly after.
Despite being someplace new, and sleeping on old, dusty futons that probably hadn't been washed in a good number of months, Takashi fell asleep easily.
When he woke up to his watch chiming softly, he almost ignored it, thinking he was still at home, and would have enough time to get ready if he took five more minutes to rest. However, when he took a deep breath (which was really more of a sigh), he got a whiff of something being cooked, which was as un-home-like as it got. Sitting up abruptly, his heart in his throat, he realized that he was not at home at the same time that he remembered what had happened the day before.
Still working through the panic in his veins, he turned to check on everyone. The first thing he saw was one of Takemitchy's friends—the one with the long hair and the soft punches—standing at the stove. He was looking at Takashi with a light smile, as if this was something he experienced on the regular. "Rise and shine."
Whatever he was cooking smelled good, and seemed to require quite a lot of focus because after greeting his senior, he turned back to the pan. The boy was dressed for school, his uniform pooling at his waist and ankles, and after further investigation Takashi saw a bookbag by the front door. As his eyes travelled around the room he mentally relaxed after seeing the sleeping form of Mana a few feet away. That relief instantly turned right back into panic when he found both Luna and Takemitchy gone. He threw off the blanket and got to his feet just in time for the long-haired kid to scold him.
"Quit it!" he hissed, the spatula in his hand pointed at him threateningly. "You are going to wake her up!"
Freezing at the kid's tone, Takashi followed where the spatula was pointed, and saw how Mana's features wrinkled slightly before smoothing out.
"He told me you'd freak out. They're upstairs. Takkun got up first, and Luna came and found him when she couldn't sleep, so he's giving her the house tour."
Still groggy, Takashi didn't do anything besides looking wide-eyed at the boy.
His lack of response didn't cow the other in the least. "We haven't met before. I'm Takuya. When you get up there, tell them breakfast will be ready in five."
And so Takashi met Takuya in Takemitchy's living room slash kitchen, and was threatened by him with a spatula like a petulant child. Life sure was strange, huh? Deciding not to question what happened when he was within a mile of Takemitchy, Takashi simply untangled himself from the sea of futons, and climbed up the stairs he'd thrown the futons down from the night before. With every step upwards he took, the clearer he could hear hushed words. Just as his socked foot reached the top step, a discordant twang erupted from Takemitchy's room. It was followed by Luna's infectious laughter.
"I played it!" she squealed.
"You did," Takemitchy responded. "Do you want to hear me try?"
Luna gasped deeply before clapping her hands in a premature ovation. "Yes!"
Takashi moved slowly towards the doorway, unabashedly eavesdropping on his little sister and his… assignment? Friend? Takemitchy.
As Takashi stepped closer, he thanked his lucky stars that the floor wasn't old and creaky, because he'd have given away his position a thousand times. Instead he saw Takemitchy sitting on the edge of his bed, Luna beside him, as they faced the only window in the room—from which orangey-pink light filtered in through. A much smoother strum sounded, which made Luna start clapping once again.
"That's not even the good part," Takemitchy stage whispered, much to her delight.
(If Takashi were better rested, he might have wondered why the blonde bothered to speak loud enough for Takashi to hear from the doorway. But he wasn't. And so he didn't think about it until he was sitting in school, eating lunch. Takemitchy had known he was there from the start.)
When the blonde really pressed his fingers to the strongs, the tune was something bright and twisting, and you could just tell he enjoyed playing it. The rhythm was mostly the same throughout, but it jumped up and down on the scale, and it progressed in a slow, meandering way. The boy's soft humming only added to the tune. Luna somehow managed to start clapping to the beat. By the time Takemitchy had played long enough, there was a nearly completed song flowing through the house.
Luna jumped to her feet, ooo ing and ahhh ing, small hands clapping away. When she stood, her back was no longer towards the doorway where Takashi was creeping, and thus she caught sight of him.
"Aniki!" she beamed. "Mr. Takemichi can play music!"
Tiny footfalls brought her to her brother, whom she attacked with a hug. "Did you hear him? Did you see? It was amazing!"
Takashi ruffled her hair with a lazy grin. "I did. He did a very good job."
The girl pointed at the guitar, which Takemitchy had hung up by then, and plainly said, "I'm really bad. Really, really bad. I think Mr. Takemitchy is magic, aniki."
The man himself just chuckled drily, more amused than annoyed (like most kids their age tended to be around kids Luna's age.)
"I'm assuming Takuya sent you because breakfast is almost ready?"
Takemitchy looked directly at Takashi while he spoke, the puffy bags under his eyes almost non-existent—only the typical dark bags visible. It was oddly isolating: Takemitchy's glare. The boy didn't look tired or move sluggishly, but it was etched into his mannerisms and every step he took.
(This was what Takemitchy looked like without all the bluster and layers of armor. It was cathartic, after yesterday's events. It felt like a reward. One he shouldn't have ever gotten, because he shouldn't have folded to the boy's will, but it was one he would cherish. He wouldn't dare abuse it either.)
His mouth moved on autopilot. "Yeah. Food's ready."
And so Takashi had breakfast with Takemitchy and his friend Takuya. They ate pancakes that were a little crispy on the edges and bit too underdone in the middle, but Takemitchy was smiling—genuinely—and he got to know the boy better. What surprised him most was that when Luna started getting fussy, he cut her pancakes for her, making sure to slice the pieces into slivers small enough for her (despite the fact that the blonde didn't even bother cutting his own pancakes).
Takuya was Takemitchy's oldest friend, and had Takemitchy not been recovering from a lifethretening injury, the brunette would've given him a lift to school on his bike. He also got to see how much Takemitchy's friends cared for him.
The second the duo thought they were alone, Takuya was practically tackling the boy in an effort to get a look at his neck. "I'm surprised he let his sisters near you, looking this shit."
"Language!" the blonde hissed. "What if the girls hear? Mitsuya-san would kill me!"
Takuya brushed him off as his gentle hands prodded the column of the boy's throat. He poked a couple different places, asking if things hurt, if his voice felt funny. Exasperated, but used to doing the same song and dance, Takemitchy answered all of his questions. Even lifted up his shirt to show the boy his healing side.
Takashi almost gasped at the sight of the kid's chest, because what the fuck? Was all that what Draken and Mikey were talking about?
Takuya was completely unphased by it though, only giving the, a cursory glance before starting to change the boy's bandages. "You'd be hopeless without me," the brunette singsonged. "Now hold still!"
Takemitchy's grin was full of real appreciation. "How do you manage to make that sound threatening every time you say it?"
Every night for a week, Takashi stayed at Takemitchy's. While his friends were over, things were fine, but when they were left alone, Takemitchy tended to keep to himself. It was a bit disappointing, but Takashi had to respect when Takemitchy wanted privacy—especially with how he was camped out in the kid's house. He ferried his sisters off to school in the morning, and more often than not returned to Takemitchy's house just a few minutes after his buddies.
Sometimes they just stopped by for a few minutes, other times a few of them would sleep over as well. The redhead re-dyed the blonde's hair—which was a whole to do, considering how much the kid had complained. (Your hair is so fucking brassy I don't even think re-bleaching your roots will match. And no, don't you dare tell me that you like it, because I know for a fact you think it's ugly. Do not test me, Takemichi.)
Once, the kid with the glasses (and a broken nose?) walked in, took off his shoes, lugged a disturbingly large bag into the first floor bedroom, and yelled up the stairs. "I put your shit in the war room!" Takemitchy yelled something incomprehensible down, and the kid left without another word. He didn't even bat an eye at Takashi's presence. He decided then and there that the glasses kid was the one to be watched.
On the sixth day, Takemitchy's house was devoid of friends when Takashi walked in. Instead, the first floor bedroom— the war room— 's door was shut, and there was a muffled argument happening inside. Takemitchy's voice was too muffled to make out, but Baji's voice was easily loud enough to hear from the living room.
"How the hell did you know ?"
That was the question that was followed by the longest silence—only a gentle murmur telling Takashi that the boy was even responding. It felt like an eternity before Baji spoke again.
"So, what's next?"
Takashi actively avoided hearing that answer—being willfully ignorant to Takemitchy's everything was seemingly how he'd deal with whatever revolved around the boy. When Baji walked out of the room, looking a few years older than he actually was—his arm still resting in a sling—Takashi tried not to laugh. Evidently he didn't try hard enough, because Baji's eyes found him instantly.
"When did you get here?"
The boy shrugged. "I could ask you the same question."
Baji seemed to take it for what it was. (An out.)
Takashi didn't see him again. (But Chifuyu stopped by a few times to pick up some things that Takemitchy brought out to him. The first time Chifuyu came by, he folded the blonde into a hug that made Takashi feel bad for spying on.)
By the time Takashi was packing up to leave, he'd witnessed six night terrors, three secret meetings in the war room, over a dozen private conversations, and a handful of private moments that weren't so private anymore. He'd seen Takemitchy at his highest and his lowest, and came to the conclusion that Takemitchy was not doing so good.
But he wasn't self-destructing.
(Not yet, anyways.)
So he would give him a pass. He was walking on infinitely thin ice, but he was still walking, so Takashi was giving him the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't going to run back to Mikey and Draken and sideline the kid, but he certainly wasn't going to lie to their faces.
Tucked into the shrine, the three of them talked about everything that had happened.
"So?" Mikey leaned forward. "What'd ya get?"
Takashi shook his head. "Nothing that'll scratch the itch you're looking for."
Both boys seemed to deflate.
"He's a good kid—but he's definitely got his demons. I think they're old news though, nothing that'll affect Toman. He's got good buddies too; loyal. As weird as he is—and I'm telling you there's something wrong with him, he's planning something and Baji's in on it too—he cares for those kids and they care about him right back."
The two blondes looked at each other, weighing their options.
"Who's gonna spill first?" Draken asked.
Without hesitation, Takashi replied, "Baji."
Takemitchy was an objectively weird kid. He had scars that didn't belong to him, and eyes that looked haunted beyond belief. He knew more about everyone and everything than he should have, but he was good and he was trying. Takemitchy was good with young children, could play guitar, while also orchestrating gang wars. He would wear his pyjamas to the supermarket if there was no one to stop him, and he loved puzzles.
"Even if you've done it before," he'd said on one uncharacteristically early morning, "every time you do it, it's just a little bit different."
Those haunted eyes could hold an equal amount of hope as they could despair.
As Takashi was walking out Takemitchy's front door, the blonde stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked at Takashi with the gaze that seemed to go right through him.
"Can I offer you a piece of advice?"
Takashi's lungs were oddly empty when he said yes.
"You should spend some time with Hakkai and Yuzuha after this," Takemitchy said slowly, as if he were picking his words carefully. "You never know when you'll have downtime like this again."
Takashi didn't want to ask why Takemitchy thought their peaceful week was going to be exactly that—only a week. He wondered if Baji knew, if anyone knew. (If Takemitchy had someone he could talk to.)
Takuya smiled in response. "You know what, that sounds pretty good to me."
Takemitchy was a weird kid. Objectively. But he knew too much about too many things, yet he was the only one Takashi trusted to warn him about the future.
Bloody knuckled and bloody lipped, eyes swimming and knees weak, Takashi will let the light from the stained glass windows overtake his vision. He will breathe like it is the last thing he'll do, and he'll block out the pain like a champion. He will stand victorious, lips pulled back into a snarl-slash-smile, and he will think three words in the wake of one of the worst fights of his life.
Thank you, Takemitchy.
Notes:
haha what if you commented your thoughts, and I responded ?
jkjk
Unless? 0-0
(also the bookmark of the week goes to Saguear, who made me laugh out loud. Love you 3)
Chapter 5: The Girl Who Knows Enough
Summary:
A few weeks after Takemichi had been allowed to attend school, he asked her to walk home with him. It would have been a normal request had Takemichi been a normal boy, and had his face not shifted in guilt and unease. They were dating—walking home with each other was nothing—so she said yes. (She ignored the signs that indicated that something was wrong.)
That evening they broke up.
Hina did not cry, but Takemichi most certainly did.
Notes:
hey hope you all enjoy! this is 10k of me trying to deal with Hina, who has the least Personality personality, but also? The Nuance 3
also she's best girl here, and everywhere.
this is unbeta'd and posted at 2am. apologies for everything! n e ways, I listened exclusively to Soul to Squeeze by rhcp and Blood of a Mutt by the growlers while writing this, so those are the songs I recommend for this reading.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hina was never a girl who was praised for her intelligence, nor her skill, and most certainly not her personality. She was called pretty because her face was soft and her eyes were bright, and the beauty mark on her face gave her character. By any means, Tachibana Hinata was no one special.
But she wasn't dumb. And she wasn't incapable. Her personality wasn't bad, but no one had ever truly seen what laid beneath the thin veneer of congeniality she wore. Her hands were not made to sew, nor were they created to cook, but they were kind and they wielded pencils like weapons when she put them to the page. Her impulses sometimes took over, but she cared about her friends, and she wanted the best for those she cared about—and even those she didn't know. And that was normal.
She was normal.
(It was a blessing and a curse.)
A few weeks after Takemichi had been allowed to attend school, he asked her to walk home with him. It would have been a normal request had Takemichi been a normal boy, and had his face not shifted in guilt and unease. They were dating—walking home with each other was nothing—so she said yes. (She ignored the signs that indicated that something was wrong.)
That evening they broke up.
Hina did not cry, but Takemichi most certainly did. They looked each other in the eyes and they spoke from the heart, and somewhere deep down in her chest a yell may have been building, but that too was ignored. She ignored the tremble in Takemichi's hands when he spoke, and he in turn ignored the relief on her face. The lockets on their necks were none the wiser. Neither were their friends.
For days afterward she replayed the conversation.
"I don't want to hurt you but… I don't think that I'm in love with you," Takemichi spoke with balled hands. "I care about you, so much, but I don't think that I love you that way. I'm sorry."
He closed his eyes and steeled his body as if he expected to be hit for his admission. Every line in his body was prepared for hostility, and it made Hina frown slightly.
"I'm really sorry," he choked.
Hina grabbed one of his hands, worried about how tightly they were held; he would cut his palms at this rate. When she unfurled each digit, taking care to rub at the crescents already dug into his skin, she found her smile returning.
"I know," she whispered. "It's okay."
Letting the right hand drop and reaching for the left, she met the blonde's gaze with only understanding. "I know that you've not loved me for a while now. Maybe at the beginning, but you're different now—don't think I haven't noticed."
Takemichi's eyes were filled with tears, the ones Hina couldn't shed herself.
"And come to think of it, I don't think I love you like that either."
The breath her Not Boyfriend sucked in made her lungs hurt. He sounded wounded—and not physically, she'd known enough of his wounds to understand them by sound. This Takemichi, the one who looked at people with eyes that held sharp intelligence, and the one who looked more tired by the passing day, he was not the same boy that she'd found herself helplessly endeared with. He was still Takemichi, crybaby tears and weak fists, but he was different. And that was okay. That was life; people change. (Hinata wondered why it seemed like she never did—how she was always painfully, apparently, pleasantly normal.)
"But you're very important to me, Takemichi," she continued seriously, both of his hands secured between her own to prevent him from hurting himself. "I don't want to lose you."
Tears bubbled over and left silver trails down his cheeks.
"I don't want to lose you either," he cried.
Hina had always been jealous of how his tears flowed freely, unabashed by how others would view him. She hated that he was crying for her, but she was glad that someone would cry on her behalf.
"Will you promise to still be my friend?" she asked. "Even if we're not in love?"
In this moment of weakness, her eyes found the ground. Hinata, for everything she could put up with, was normal, and so her confidence would come and go like the sea. She could walk into this conversation with her shoulders squared, but the longer it went on, the weaker she became. But Takemichi wasn't normal, and instead of flagging, his confidence grew.
Hands with busted knuckles and matching scars broke out of her grip, and carefully folded her into a hug. Pressed against his chest, she could feel the vibrations of his breath and voice rattle around his ribs.
"Always," he whispered. "I promise."
Hina's own arms rested around his waist, careful for his newly healed wound.
"I may not be much, but I will always be there when it counts," Takemichi nodded.
Tightening her arms around him, carefully noting the feeling of tears atop the crown of her head, she spoke with her utmost authority, "Hanagaki Takemichi, you have always been enough."
The ugly, chest rending noise that he stifled probably would've pulled tears from her eyes had he let it run wild. (Hina could be strong, but she wasn't invincible.)
"Even when you're scared, or you're running away, or you're crying, or you're losing, you will always be enough."
The for me was left unsaid.
They stayed like that for a while, Takemichi crying for the both of them, and Hinata keeping a watchful eye on the bad habits he could never break. When they pulled apart, the blonde's eyes were swollen, and Hina's lips couldn't bear to hold the smile they always wore. The sun had met the horizon long ago, and the last vestiges of sunset were melting into night when Hina stepped away.
Noato would be home by now, and her mom would be cooking dinner. The thought of food made her stomach growl.
"Want to eat at my place?"
Takemichi's voice was thin and ragged, but he still managed to sound kind. It took a few silent moments before Hina understood what he'd even asked. Her brows furrowed slightly.
"Even though…?"
"We're friends," Takemichi grinned. "Or did you forget?"
Hina could not find it within her to smile, but a tension that'd been building in her chest seemed to unravel. She breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of answering him, she simply walked past him, the route to his house already mapped out in her head. He was quick to fall into step.
They did not hold hands, nor did they laugh or be nervous. They walked in companionable silence, the heavy weight of secrets and doubt no longer weighing them down. Hina was grateful to Takemichi for being the first one to say it, because Hina was normal and she never would have scraped together the confidence to say it.
Boiling rice noodles on the stove, Takemichi found her wandering eyes while she fiddled with her homework. "You're always welcome here, you know." She placed her chin in her hand, taking in the sight of him with his mother's apron on. "Whenever I'm here, feel free to come right in."
Eating teriyaki noodles at a quarter to ten in Takemichi's living room, algebra two splayed across the table along with a smattering of guitar picks and straps, Hina found herself waiting for the next time she'd get to hang out with her friend. (Because she missed when things were simpler. She liked being Takemichi's friend, because they'd never really been friends like this before.)
And she loved it, she really did—as selfish as she could be, every stolen moment with her friend was a blessed rain after a drought. Takemichi was not her first friend, but he was her most dear. Neither person had to dance around the fact that they didn't love one another, and they didn't have to worry about hurting each other inadvertently. Takemichi could vent out loud his frustrations—pace the rooms like a madman, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together—while Hina could do the things she really wanted to—like learning how to throw a punch, or what pencils worked best to shade with.
Hina drew pictures and left them strewn about his home. Takemichi showed her the tunes he was learning, and even played ones she'd never heard of. The blonde would sit for portraits when Hina started getting into paints, and she would add harmonies to whatever tune he'd string together.
Supposedly she spent the winter months sleeping over at her girlie friends' houses, when in reality she was having sleepovers with the boys. Takemichi's house was always empty, and so he desired to fill it. (Hinata's social life was always empty, and so she had gone and filled it.) And Takemichi could never keep secrets from his boys, and so Takuya, Akkun, Yamagishi, and Makoto had been filled in on the Not Boyfriend And Girlfriend situation. She was to be treated like one of the guys. (And she was.)
Shitty movies filled her evenings, with a growing number of play fights and roughhousing, along with guitar plucked ballads. She enjoyed Takuya's incredible pancakes, and she drooled over Takemichi's noodles. Yamagishi taught her how to skateboard—if only to stand on it while moving—and Makoto escorted her home when it was really, really late.
Other Toman boys came and went, and sometimes they'd come home scuffed, out of breath, and a bit worse for wear. Hina learned how to patch cuts and wrap sprains, and just how the hell butterfly bandages worked (and what kind of thing to use them on). A month running with gangbangers taught her how to sprint, how to heal, and how to take a hit like a champ. She met some of the heads—most notably Baji and Mitsuya—though Chifuyu was practically one of the boys by that point.
Hina had never been so happy. Every night that she laid her head upon one of Takemichi's borrowed couch cushions, she prayed that it would never end. Every afternoon she spent nicking things from corner stores, she wondered what her life would have been like had she met them sooner. Though the stars were not visible from Tokyo, she had a feeling one of her wishes had made its way to a hidden shooting star, because Hina did not think life could be this fun.
But everything was too good to be true, even when she could ignore everything she didn't want to acknowledge. Takemichi's moods often reflected what was to come. When he got stressed and couldn't sleep, when he would mutter under his breath incessantly, some day in the near future Takemichi and any number of other boys would come stumbling in in varying states of disarray: ranging from ouch to fucked up .
When Takemichi stared at her for a bit too long, and he cried silently instead of cracking jokes, something terrible was going to happen.
This last thing had only happened once, and it shook Hina more than she'd be willing to admit. He did nothing but curl up in his bed and ignore the world. His friends did not come over, and Hina wasn't even planning to stay the night, but the moment she saw the state he was in, she couldn't leave him. You didn't leave people you cared about like that. She couldn't leave him like that.
He burst into fat, wailing tears when he saw her, but his tears had never been something she couldn't deal with—he was her crybaby hero, they didn't scare her. When she sat on the edge of his bed he tried to push her off, to make her run away so he could be sad alone, but she was never one to give up that easily. She may have been normal, but she and Takemichi were attached at the hips, and so they shared some less than savory traits—bullheadedness being one of them.
She managed to drag him out of bed and shove cup noodles down his throat. She went to sleep on his bedroom floor with the lights on at his insistence.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Hina just sighed good naturedly, and rolled over to look at him. "You shouldn't be."
He heaved out a deep almost-weep, and turned to face her as well. His blonde hair, going black at the roots, was splayed across the pillow in loose curls, but the blue of his sunken-in eyes never wavered.
"Why do you stay?" he croaked. "Here? With me? Why don't you ever go?"
Hina blinked. "Because you're fun."
Takemichi's eyebrows furrowed.
"I have had more fun in the last few months than I have in my whole life," Hina grinned. "There's nothing you could do to make me want to leave. Not when I have you and the boys!"
She thought Takemichi may have started crying again.
"I'm really glad that you're happy," was what he settled on.
Hinata thought it was an inappropriate time to ask him if he was happy, but she had a feeling that he was. Whatever was coming was scary, but Takemichi had never broken before, and it wouldn't overwrite everything they'd experienced, so she'd say he was happy. The glow of the Takemichi From Before would sometimes come back—always at the most random times.
Like when they were all learning how to hop fences at high speed—something boys their age apparently did—and Yamagishi tried to offer her his pants.
"Makoto's just gonna look right up your skirt if you try it," he said as a matter of fact.
"I will not!" Makoto hissed, his face flushing from collar to hairline.
Akkun and Takuya only laughed at his misfortune.
At the time, Hina had just crossed her arms. "Yamagishi, as much as I appreciate you trying to protect my modesty, I'd be more scared to see what's under your pants than if Makoto saw up mine."
When Takuya started choking, and Makoto was howling with laughter, Hina saw that light in Takemichi's eyes as he giggled. She wore shorts under her skirt from that moment on, but she'd climbed that fence in record time, skirt or not.
But Takemichi had seemed happy. He was. (She had to believe that.)
Hina did not wake up early enough to stop Takemichi from donning his uniform and heading out. Hina did not pay attention enough to realize that the brawl with Tenjiku was so soon. Hina did not know what was about to happen when she was woken by Takuya kicking in the front door.
Hina learned that day that hospitals were not fun places to be. They were lonely, and cold, and stiff, and suffocating: they were everything Hinata had learned that she did not like. She also learned that Takuya's family was Takemichi's emergency contact, and so anyone that showed up with them would be let into the waiting room. Mikey, Draken, Chifuyu, and Emma were all seated in there ahead of time, since they rolled in with the ambulance and rode with him. They'd been answering questions posed by the doctors all morning.
The hospital waiting room was unquiet in the absurd way the hospitals in movies and tv shows tended not to be. They were always shown as clinical and unfeeling and either filled to brim with people or without a single soul. None of that actually held true. The heating was very loud if she was being honest, and the carts that went up and down the halls tended to have at least one squeaky wheel. There were plenty of workers making their way, but they always tended to hush their conversations as they passed the waiting area where the group had gathered. It was out of courtesy, she assumed, but Hina had never been one to understand things from other people's perspectives so she ran with what she thought. She also had nothing else to think about—because she was ignoring the entire situation with all of her willpower—so she focused on what she could.
Hina was not dressed well. She'd left Takemichi's room at Takuya's insistence, and had barely enough wherewithal to slide on her shoes. Braless, in her pj's, and lacking a toothbrush, a good meal, and her cell phone, Hina was everything but ready to face the day, but she'd scrambled in the Yamamoto family car and was spirited off to the hospital.
It took hours for a doctor to approach them with news, Takuya's parents speaking with her privately in the hall. They came back in with both good and bad news: the good news being that Takemichi wasn't dead and that they could go and visit him, the bad news being that he was comatose and they couldn't be sure if (or when) he'd wake up. While the news was being relayed, Takemichi was being moved from the ICU and into a recovery wing, where it'd be easier for them to visit, and where multiple people would be able to see him at once.
Everyone gathered themselves quietly, sighs of relief and unease filling the air as they began their exodus a few floors upward. Hina would realize later that she was in shock, because the walls of the hospital were not grey, footsteps did not muffle on tile, and people tended to react when their Important Person ended up in the hospital with an uncertain outcome.
Numb. That was how she felt.
The haze seemed to lift slightly when she got into Takemichi's broom closet of a hospital room. While she liked that the nurse's station was just outside the doors, the tiny place could barely fit everyone inside it, let alone give everyone a place to sit.
But Takemichi was a vision, and she latched onto that. The left side of his face was swollen and turning every shade of black and purple Hina could've imagined possible, at the same time it looked like there was still a bit of blood crusted to his forehead. The hair on that side of his head was shaved to show off the line of eight, neat little stitches. What was left of bleached hair going black at the roots fanned behind him in a sad excuse for a romance painting. For once in his life, Takemichi looked like he was sleeping soundly.
Settling at his side and grabbing his hand in her own, she worried about waking him. Of course she wanted him to open his eyes and embrace her and be all better again, but as someone who had shaken him out of nightmares and saw firsthand what his sleeplessness had done to him, Hina did not blame him for wanting to catch a few extra Z's.
Takuya pulled up a seat next to Hina, and at that moment she realized the bags the blonde wore were mirrored by his friend. Takemichi's oldest friend. One hand still clutching Takemichi's, she wrapped the other around Takuya's shoulder and pulled him into a weak side hug. It was loose and tired, but Takuya's head rested atop of hers and it reminded her that Takemichi was not her only friend. She was not the only one hurting. Friendship was comforting weight atop her head and back, but it didn't feel like a burden.
It was… nice.
But Hina's thoughts and shuttering feelings were not felt by everyone in the room. When she bothered to look up at everyone else, she was taken aback by their grimness. Though everyone in the room was beyond tense, it was Emma who broke out into sobs first. It took a dozen minutes of back rubs and brushed away tears before Hina learned that Kisaki Tetta (and wasn't that crazy? ) had been aiming for her when Takemichi took the hit instead.
Emma did not tell her that Takemichi had thought she was Hina, and begged to know why she'd taken off her necklace. Nor that the only thing he'd been able to say, while being loaded into the ambulance and throughout the entire ride, was I'm sorry.
After Hina heard Kisaki's name, the film started to rise and the room seemed to descend into television static. Hours passed in the blink of an eye until it was nearly dark out and it was just Hina, Takuya, and Chifuyu still sitting inside. Chifuyu was pressing a can of soda into her hands, his face fluctuating between emotions so quickly that Hina could hardly tell what he felt. Silently, but allowing herself to pull her eyes from Takemichi's form, she nodded in assent. The can opened with a crisp crack that she realized she'd heard earlier, and when she looked to Takuya's hands she found the exact same brand resting between his palms.
"Where did everyone else go?" she asked, eyes settling upon her un-sipped soda.
Both boys looked over her head, speaking in the silent language that she couldn't be bothered to understand.
It was Chifuyu that spoke. "They'll be preparing for the conflict with Tenjiku. And… Emma's at home."
Hina took a sip. It didn't taste like oranges, nor anything remotely as fruity as the label had led her to believe. It was tasteless. Flat. Disappointing.
"Where's the conflict gonna happen?"
Chifuyu's face was wrinkled when she sent her gaze his way. "Why do you want to know?"
"So I know where to send the ambulance when someone ends up getting run through."
As morbid as it was, it seemed to bring some levity to the room. "Never took you to be so kind hearted, Hina," Takuya said lightly.
"Oh yeah, that's me. Charity and kindness to all."
Chifuyu found that sentiment to be funny enough to laugh. "I can't believe I used to think you two weren't dating," he chuckled. "You're perfect for each other."
Takuya stiffened beside her, his gaze heating the left side of her face. She just nodded along and acted as if nothing was wrong. "Yeah, yeah, you sap," Hina stuck out her tongue. "Thanks for the soda."
Doing that Dude Bro Head Nod that boys seemed to love, Chifuyu acknowledged her gratitude without a single word. Hina had seen it enough times to understand what it meant. Boys were too silly and sensitive to say you're welcome, so Hina learned to read between the lines. The fragile mood pervading the room seemed fake, but it was a small mercy from the all encompassing feeling of dread.
Hina took another sip off her soda before standing. She noted how stiff her legs felt, how the tendons felt like they were grinding up against each other. Chifuyu and Takuya both seemed to bristle at her movement, but she placed her can on a nearby table (because everything in that tiny shoe closet was nearby) and said, "I just wanna ask the nurse something real quick."
Whether or not that was worrying didn't matter to the girl, because she simply left the two of them there. If they really cared enough, or were freaked out enough, they'd come after her—it's not like they had to worry about her throwing herself off a balcony or something. Instead she padded to the group of women behind the counter.
"Excuse me, uhm, do you have the clothes he—uh—the boy in room 642 was wearing when he came in?" she said slowly, feeling her way through the question. She didn't know what he'd come in, but based on Mikey, Draken, and Chifuyu's fits, Takemichi had looked the same, and would've wanted it to be taken care of.
The nurse in the back tsked. "He's a lucky one."
When Hina didn't bother asking for clarification, she rolled in her office chair towards a cupboard and pulled out a small basket. It was lined with black fabric, a white ribbon sitting atop it, along with a silver chain. "Clothes aren't normally saved when they're cut off," the tired woman continued. "But his attending thought it was important, so he kept it along with the necklace."
When she rolled over to where Hina was standing and passed her the box, one of the younger looking ladies raised an eyebrow. "Should you really be giving it out to her?" The accusation in her tone was clear.
"Deal with it, Teibei, the poor girl's been here all day. And she's got the matching necklace," Hina's new savior grumbled. "If there are any problems with who took custody of the kid's items I'll take responsibility."
For once, the tired I hate my job and live on caffeine worker actually helped her out—so maybe hospitals were kinda magical after all. When Hina walked back into Takemichi's room, the boys watched in relative silence as she fished out the four leaf clover necklace they both coveted and clipped it around her own neck. The two charms bumped up against one another on her chest, but it was a piece of Takemichi that she'd carry until he was better.
The sky was orange when Hina told Chifuyu that he was released from duty.
"You don't have to stand watch," she said. "Go prepare for the conflict, it's what Takemichi would've wanted. Make him proud, yeah?"
It took a bit of wheedling, but he did leave. From how much he resisted, his genuine care for the blonde was showing through—something Hina was grateful for. The second he was out of earshot, Hina turned to Takuya, and it was clear she meant business. "I trust you know where they'll be fighting?"
He cracked a lopsided smile. "Who do you take me for? Yamagishi? Of course we know. I just don't have the address memorized."
"Then you'll come pick me up in time? I'll be at Takemichi's place."
The question wasn't whether the boys would be showing up, it was a matter of whether or not they'd bring her along with them. She was certain he'd say yes, but Takuya was also compromised by Takemichi's injuries and probably wasn't at his best. It also raised the uncomfortable question of whether or not they expected this to happen. (She ignored that thought vehemently. She feared how she'd react if the boys had known and she hadn't.)
The brunette scrutinized her for a moment, but nodded. "You got it. What'll you be doing in the meantime?"
Hina got to her feet, her soda abandoned in case Takemichi woke up thirsty, and the box of his belongings pressed to her chest. "Well, I've got a uniform to mend."
Takuya must have seen something in her expression because the corners of his lips quirked upward. "Then I'll see you later."
"Until then."
And so Hina left, her feet not quite dragging, but her steps heavy and loping. Takemichi's house was a hike, but she'd get there with enough time. Though the fog of disconnection fought to cloud her mind, the longer she was left on her own, the angier she got. It was a wet kind of anger that clawed up her lungs and made the skin of her back crawl. She wanted to rub her face, as if wiping tears, but there was nothing there to worry about. Just her cheeks getting redder and redder, and her eyes getting misty every once and a while.
By the time she was sliding off her shoes in Takemichi's entryway, her hands had steadied, and she had quieted her mind. Ignored everything she didn't need to care about. She had no respect for the tidiness of Takemichi's room when she pulled open drawers and rifled through shelves, trying to find what she was looking for: she'd spied it the other day, and now realized what it was for.
(It meant Takemichi had entertained the fact that this might happen.)
Eventually she found the spool of golden thread tucked underneath his pillow—the last place she had committed to looking to. Takemichi knew her too well. (He knew too much, didn't he?) Hina ignored that thought, put it away, and went into his mother's room to find a needle big enough to handle the thick and waxy thread. It's yellow matched the gold accents of the jumpsuit perfectly, and after a good hour of piecemeal work Hinata found herself holding the poorly mended remains of Takemichi's uniform. When she held it up and admired it in the mirror, she felt like she'd finally understood something that had been tugging at the back of her mind for a while.
An urge. (An impulse.)
A flare of anger. (Grief so strong it was blinding.)
Slipping on the Toman uniform was one of the easiest things she'd ever done.
The top was unharmed, save for the stiff and flaking blood stains around the collar and left side, while the bottoms sported scars of gold up the front. The cuts went from the ankles and all the way through the waistband, and so with great effort, Hina had managed to pull the pieces together. Around her knees, where her stitches got sloppy and overly spaced, the creamy pale of her legs poked through the wrinkles, but she wore shorts now under all of her clothes, so she wouldn't have to worry about damaging Yamagishi's delicate sensibilities.
The white sash wasn't something she really knew—or understood where it went—but the blood staining one portion of it meant that that area should end up on her left shoulder. She was sure Akkun would know how it went.
And while she really should have been eating, sleeping, and drinking something other than hospital vending machine orange soda, Hina spent her time doing literally everything else. She stared at her reflection in the mirror until she had to tie up her hair to avoid looking at herself in this state. Her finger caught on the undercut she'd gotten on a whim—the hairs prickly and starting to grow out.
"Are you sure about this?" Takemichi had asked. "You don't have to."
"No, I want to! Did you see how cool she looked? And my parents will never know!"
Takemichi just sighed like an elder brother, one who was going along with his little siblings' whims. He waved his hand in surrender and settled back to watch the chaos happen. Sitting on the kitchen chair that had been moved into the backyard, Hina was practically vibrating with excitement. While they'd been out shopping and fooling around, Hina had spotted a girl with platinum blonde hair in a ponytail—but the bottom segment of it where she should've had a bunch of flyaways was buzzed. Pointing out the girl to Takemichi made him give the girl a real healthy once over, but he came to the same conclusion as Hina: that the buzzed section wouldn't really show if she wore her hair down.
Which brought Hina to where she was now—Takemichi's backyard with a towel wrapped around her shoulders and Akkun wielding a pair of electric clippers.
"Do I want to ask where you got those, or how you afforded them?" she teased.
Ever one to come out on top, Akkun shushed her. "A magician never reveals his secrets. Are you ready, or what?"
Buzzing in anticipation, she could barely withhold her shout of Yes!
Akkun got started sectioning off her hair while Makoto, Yamagishi, and Takemichi clapped along the sidelines. A similar scene had happened at the piercing place when Takuya got his tongue pierced the week before. (Hina would never get tired of it.) Deft fingers pulled Hina's hair into a clip that rested atop her head and one final reassurance was passed before Akkun started cutting. The section of hair was too long to just go right in with the clippers, so he cut off the length of it in one go.
He held the strand out for everyone to see, "There's no going back now!"
Another round of hollars and clapping erupted. The clippers made quick work of her fine hair, and Akkun was whipping off the towel only moments later.
"Ta-da!"
Takemichi seemed pleased, but Yamagishi and Makoto looked mildly confused. "You can't even see it?"
Akkun handed her a ponytail with an impish grin as Hina rounded on the duo. "That's the point, morons!"
In one smooth move she bent over and flicked her considerably lighter hair so that it'd dangle above the grass. She bunched the hair easily and tied it up, so once she stood at her full height, a chorus of oops broke out.
"That looks pretty badass," Takuya whistled, the first real comment he'd made all evening. "I just might have to make an appointment with Akkun Scissorhands here."
She tried to sit down and draw, but without music to hum to or a shitty movie to ignore, she found herself struggling to even mark the page. In a fit of what had to be rage, she threw everything within reach on the floor. Instead of picking things up or feeling sorry for herself, she seethed quietly, taking in the darkness of the sky. The canvasses with exposed underpaintings that lined the hallways seemed to taunt her, because most of them had unfinished and muddy excuses for Takemichi's smiling face. Every pencil drawing of her friends taunted her, and every doodle of Takemichi was a judge condemning her for her lack of attentiveness.
They got ripped off the walls next, magnets flying off the refrigerator with the force she pulled at them. Notebook pages, sketchbook segments, sticky notes, everything got ripped or crumpled, or thrown in the trash. She couldn't stand it. This big, lonely house and every single eye on her.
You're always welcome here, you know. Whenever I'm here, feel free to come right in.
But he wasn't here anymore.
She was as good as a stranger in a home that wasn't hers. She wasn't welcome here anymore—all the life had gone and slipped out right under her nose. She was sleeping on the floor of his room, for fuck's sake! How could she not have heard him leave? How didn't she notice? Hina must have, she told herself, but she probably just ignored it like everything else that she was afraid of. It was her fault all of this had happened.
(She was a terrible friend.)
Holding the shoddy photograph that someone had snapped of the six of them, Hina's grip wrinkled the edges. The thought of a world where there was no unruly blonde to noogie Yamagishi when he didn't shut up, or argue the merits of not glazing his ugly fucking hair with Akkun, or outsprinting Masaru at any given time was terrifying. It made her ribs feel thin—like her heart was just going to bust through them. The nerve endings on her arms felt like they had interference, the skin crawling, numb, and too sensitive all at once.
She was cold. Hot. Tired—so, so fucking tired—but she couldn't sit still.
The lights were too bright in Takemichi's too empty house, and the night sky was getting dark enough to make her worry—but Hinata trusted Takuya to come and get her when the time was right. Ice was seeping into her veins, and so she found an old pair of Takemichi's sneakers—a size that'd fit her—and laced herself into the destroyed red and white tennis shoes. She resumed her aberrant pacing around the house for however long it took before the knock at the front door finally came.
After finding the blonde's mp3 and listening to as many songs as she could, the high volume almost covered the sound of the boys' arrival. She pulled out one of the ear buds when she joined them, but one of them remained. Similarly, the battle sash burned where she gripped it—the garment not fully worn, but cared for enough to be remembered. The tracks that filled Hina's mind were winding things that blended into the background at times, while also gripping her emotions so tightly that she thought she'd choke. Half of them were ones Takemichi had played, or at least learned parts of. A surprising amount of them were English songs, which wasn't weird per se, but it wasn't something she would've expected. And it just so turned out that the song she'd loved to add her own little lyrics to—one of her favorites—was in English too.
She'd have to find out what it meant.
(The music was reassuring—a ghostly voice in her ear telling her that she was making a choice she'd be able to live with.)
The Mizo Mid gang was decked out in full black, their faces obscured by dark colored sick masks. They were not Toman members, but they'd blend in well enough. Each step towards the wharf felt like a funeral march, but her heart beat a little louder in her chest and everything got harder to ignore.
"D'you know what you're getting into?" Makoto asked.
Hina shrugged her shoulders, which was as accurate a response as she could muster. "Not really. But Tetta should be there, right?"
Their silence was as much a confirmation as anything.
"Mind if we fill you in?" Yamagishi quipped. "So that, y'know, you don't get killed."
That pulled a bark of a laugh from her lips. "Go for it."
The next fifteen minutes were filled with a story that winded through a thousand different turns and peaks, ultimately tying together everything that had happened in the last year. It made Hina want to be sick, how all of this had been happening and she'd just been dancing around the outskirts—close enough to know, but ignorant enough to be a danger. She could have known if she wanted to. (But she was normal. Girls like her didn't get involved in that sort of thing.)
Hina decided then and there that maybe she wasn't as normal as she thought. Anyone who compared themself to Takemichi looked boring, no matter what, and so maybe she'd miscalculated when she thought of herself. She was normal at one point—cowardly and prim, the perfect daughter of a cop—but then she'd gone and fallen for a boy who cried all the time, and she changed just who she wanted herself to be.
Short skirts were not something that she imagined herself wearing, and makeup started to become more of a chore than a habit. She loved to run her fingers across her undercut, and sneakers easily started to replace the loafers she always wore. Hina didn't care about the smelly boys she hung around because she too was dripping with sweat and heaving from running from the pissed off stallowner they'd lifted from. The skateboard underneath her feet started to feel stable, and the brush between her fingers started to dance.
Hina no longer cared about people hearing her off-key voice, nor did she bother with what they had to say. She still went shopping with Emma, and gossiped around school. Yamagishi loved to tell her about all the drama he'd overheard, and in return she'd fill in the gaps. Akkun was always one call away when she needed fashion advice and Takemichi's home was always warmer than her own. The eyes of girls when they sent daggers towards her back as she hopped on the back of Chifuyu's motorbike made her beam—they bounced right off the helmet he practically clammed on her skull.
"No sense in either of you!" he'd cry. "It's like you forget that helmets exist!"
Lately she'd gotten into the habit of poking his sides while saying, "It's because we want you to wear it, dummy!"
No one needed to clarify that the either in either of you referred to Takemichi. They were a package deal like that, even when they weren't A Thing. Why they hadn't told anyone besides their crew… Hina couldn't really put her finger on. Instead of ignoring it like she normally would have, she put it off to the side as something she'd return to later. It wasn't something she could spare the brain power for right now, but it was something . And she'd promised herself that she'd stop being numb—stop floating through life.
The Tachibana Hinata that walked into the wharf was a new girl that no one had ever met before. Hina wasn't just another normal girl—or maybe she was?—but she didn't know what normal was nowadays, and she'd refuse to build herself around another person. She wouldn't say she had half of Takemichi's confidence, or twice Yamagishi's strength; she was Hina. 100% herself.
She was not what other people were, and it was freeing.
She was not her mother's perfect daughter, who excelled at school and learned how to cook.
She was not daddy's little girl, who followed directions and lowered her head when she made mistakes.
Hina would become whoever she needed to be whenever she wanted to.
Akkun's hands were steady when they tied the battle sash around her arms, the knot tight, and the tails of the bow almost kissing the ground from how short she was compared to Takemichi. The seventh wharf of Yokohama Bay was in chaos when Hina arrived. Most of the black outfitted Toman boys were on the ground—Mikey and Draken being the exceptions. Some of the other leaders and their seconds in command were nursing injuries like no other, and hesitantly still doing their part, but they were pretty much out of it.
Everyone in Toman looked like they hurt, Mikey and Draken included.
Chifuyu was getting the living shit beaten out of him by a stick of a boy with a mighty scar.
Hina's feet moved on autopilot, her chest filling with the sensation of bugs. They rammed against her heart, her lungs, and threatened to come spilling out of her mouth. Pestilence—the decaying emotions she'd always kept a lock on—was itching to greet the air, but she held it in. Not out of necessity or some twisted need to contain herself, but tactically. She couldn't give her position away—she would never forgive herself if she fucked it up. Delicate, artist's hands curled into fists, short cropped nails biting into soft skin as she shouldered her way to the center.
"Toman will not lose!"
Chifuyu's cry was piercing—an arrow straight through the heart.
Instead of her knees giving out, like any normal person would when they run up against a will that is sharpened and deadly, she stepped just as strong. Because that will was hers too. Toman—she didn't care about—but Takemichi did, and he was its heart and so she would do what she could to preserve the love he'd sewn them together with. A couple hundred threads of gold were tied from every Toman boy's pinkie, all which lead back to Takemichi: a fated tie.
(Hina was covered in them. She was tied up, wearing them like a badge. It was an honor.)
She pushed through the final ring of people and was met by Chifuyu's listing form, the scarred boy's surprise, and Tetta's hand extending a gun to the boy's forehead. Somewhere she thought she heard Baji howl.
The song she loved most played in her ear, but she pulled out the earbud. She didn't want to miss a single thing of what was about to happen.
Hina approached from the side, people staring on in awe as a girl crossed into the heart of the conflict.
Tetta's voice was ugly when he yelled, "What is this? A kid's fight?"
No one so much as breathed. (Besides Hina, of course.)
Her continued, unrushed movement drew his eyes, and when they landed on her, his face reared back in surprise. Hell, he was so taken aback that he lowered the gun—dropped his stance. All eyes were on her as she approached the boys.
Chifuyu spoke through busted lips. "Hina… what are you…?"
Tetta watched in thinly veiled horror.
Hina didn't know what expression she was making when she planted her feet and punched Tetta with all the power her lithe arms could manage. Either her dad's lessons and the boy's tips were phenomenal, or Tetta was weak, because she laid him out.
The gun slipped from his fingers and laid in the dirt. Hina didn't reach for it. Instead she continued her forward assault. Tetta was on his side, trying to get onto his knees, but was obviously dazed from the hit. Hina's hand hurt something fierce. Maybe she'd broken something? Another thought to set aside.
As Tetta groaned, eyes squeezing and opening quickly, she wondered if Takemichi did the same thing when the boy tried to bash his skull in. If Emma would've looked the same way had Takemichi not saved her. Pestilence spilled from her lips like vile acid.
"Get up!"
The half-hitched sob hurt her throat, but it felt good—just like the throb in her hand. Tetta looked up at her with fear across his face, and she saw Takemichi's scared expression instead. Tetta tried to say something, she knew that, but the blood in her ears overpowered everything else as she sent a foot into the boy's chest. Hand-me-down shoes buried themselves in his stomach and the boy froze.
All of the grief and hatred that had been burning her up from inside came bubbling out, and once she got started, she couldn't stop. She went for the gun, everything her father had ever taught her about them running through her head as she unloaded the clip into the sky. Every boom was deafening, but the sea of people that had started to run towards her when she picked it up immediately halted. Her ears were ringing, and she was crying, but she didn't care. The pitch almost sounded like the same note she'd hum when she painted.
Red was a color she wasn't sure if she'd like after this evening, but she'd figure that out later.
Instead of doing the smart thing and throwing the gun away and leaving, she threw herself on top of Tetta, a hand fisted in the front of his redredred jacket and wailed.
"What is wrong with you?"
It was a question she would never have answered. Hina knew it, deep down in her guts, the exact same way she knew that tall people were intrinsically frightening, and that the sky was blue; she would never know what possessed Tetta to become this monster.
But it was red—the world was, her sight, her battle sash, Takemichi's face, Kisaki Tetta's everything. Hina pressed the muzzle of the gun to Tetta's clavicle as she heard her father's voice say don't ever touch the barrel, it'll burn you.
His unholy scream was something Hina thought she'd hear in her nightmares. As if a switch had been flipped, he began to writhe, hands trying to bat at her and the gun without burning them as well. Tetta's back arched off the ground as his hips bucked discordantly, but Hina was not going to let him off that easily. She hissed back. "Fuck you!"
It only took two of Tetta's ear ringing screeches before strong arms wrapped round the girl's shoulders and ripped her away from the boy. The yell of grief that punched through her lungs made the assailant pause for a moment, but otherwise only served to make her feel better. Dragged half by her neck and half by the uniform, Hina didn't see who had done it, nor did she see the windup for the punch that nearly whited out her vision. Her wails stopped if only for a moment as she gathered herself.
Fighting, Hina finally understood, was a lot of the same things over and over again. Like breathing, speaking, getting up, and punching. There was an odd monotony to it that she wasn't sure if she liked, but it easily could've been worse.
Hina did not know what she looked like either, on her knees in the dirt before Kakucho, but she must've looked like hell because his face was crumpled in just the right way to make him look guilty. Or maybe he just didn't like hitting girls, or little kids like Chifuyu when they clearly couldn't continue fighting.
Hina had no patience for people like him at the moment. Her rage was pointed at Tetta, and no one would be getting in the way of that. "Who do you think you are?"
The boy grabbed her by the lapel and lifted until her feet were just barely scraping the floor. Luckily for her, Takemichi's clothes were too big, and she was able to sink into the fabric instead of getting choked out.
"What are you doing here?" he rumbled. "Who even are you?"
Hina's nails sunk into the boy's arm, but he didn't budge. "I'm settling a score, dumbass, what does it look like?"
"Everyone in Toman's got beef with him, you're gonna have to get in line."
The scarred boy didn't hit her again, but his grip loosened slightly, an invitation to run if there ever was—but Hina wasn't interested in his charity. She used both hands to pull herself up slightly and she used her new position to sink her teeth into his hand. Another piercing scream perforated the silence, and this time it was met by boots hitting the ground. Kakucho practically threw her down, but she landed on her feet and in a wave of pure adrenaline stepped forward to push him away with all her might.
As Kakucho's twisted features met her own, Makoto stepped into Hina's vision and gave (what she would later recall as) a really dirty punch from behind. Kakucho's eyelids fluttered and he had to take several steadying steps. With his attention turning to the new biggest threat, Hina sent as many mental thanks as she could manage, because she owed Makoto for that. Big time. Kakucho wasn't her problem any more though, and so she continued down her war path.
Instead she left them and went back for Tetta. Hina turned on her heel, eyes searching for where she'd left him on the ground, but instead zeroed in on the boy who was way fucking closer than she thought . A fist buried itself in her gut, and for several moments she couldn't breathe. Double over and gagging, Hina had no way to defend herself against the hand that latched into her hair and pulled . Without any breath, the most she could utter was a silent scream before she hit the ground.
"Why are you doing this?" Tetta hissed, as if he didn't want anyone to hear.
The dirt was dusty and tasted like metal—though that may have been the blood in her mouth.
"Takemichi should've killed you," she shouted. "Call this karma!"
When she saw Tetta's face twist in anger and his fist rise for a jab, Hina wondered if this was how Takemichi experienced fights too—well enough to know what was coming, but not skilled enough to get out of the way.
"When you know it's coming," Yamagishi had explained, "you gotta tense up your muscles. It'll bruise like hell, but it won't KO you instantly. It'll just get your blood pumping, y'know? Adrenaline and shit!"
The four other boys nodded their heads vigorously, agreeing without hesitation, and treating the bespectacled kid like some wise sage.
"It keeps you on your feet," Takemichi added.
Hina took the blow like a champion, just as good as Takemichi ever could have.
Her head snapping to the side was like a momentary shutter on her vision, but with the endless heap of emotions that had gotten tangled between her gut and her brain, Hina's dedication was endless. The first available moment she could, with none of the finesse that someone like Mikey possessed, Hina tackled Tetta to the floor. Before pointed fingers could dig into the soft spots on her sides and face, the girl grabbed either side of his head and slammed it on the ground. Chest to chest, with Tetta's jacket getting covered with dust once again, Hina put all of her weight into making him hurt. Every question is punctuated by a hit.
"What happened to you?"
Hina didn't even know she was speaking, but the words tumbled out nonetheless. The only thing she could see was the shy boy she'd spoken to in class, with the dark hair that curtained his face and hid a warm smile.
"Why would you hurt him?"
Takemichi's face is beet red in her mind, tears streaming from his eyes. She can't tell if he's sobbing or laughing, but the moment is one she's remembered.
"Why would you hurt her?"
Emma is balancing on the skateboard Hina was gifted with, and instead of wobbling or doing anything as pedestrian as learning, the girl hops slightly, kicks the board out, and does an easily intermediate trick.
"Is it worth it?"
She thinks of Chifuyu and Baji, who used to stop over for noodles on the weekend, and now look like they're seconds away from dying on their feet. She thinks of Hakkai, who is too large for his own good, and gets incredibly flustered whenever Hina gets in his personal space. She looks at the blood that is caked on their skin, matting their hair, sneaking into every crack and crevice of their skin. (She tries to forget about three children who were in over their heads, crying at one another because they didn't know what to do. Hina never stopped being that kid—because here she was, crying because she didn't know what to do with herself.)
When she finally sobbed out a final breath, Tetta stared at her with a glassy look that couldn't be attributed to his lack of glasses. He was nearsighted anyways, so he could see her just fine—she'd just managed to finally scramble his brain.
"Why did you choose him?" Tetta's voice sounded lazy and half asleep. "What was always so good about him?"
A tear, or maybe it was sweat, fell from Hina's face and onto Tetta's. She was also dripping blood, but so was he.
She decided there was no way to sugarcoat it. "Takemichi is my friend."
His eyes were begging for more.
"And you're not. He stood up for the people he cared about, and all you've ever chosen to do is mow them down."
When Hina started to stand, Tetta made no attempt to move. When Hina even bothered to look at what was happening around her, she was met by utter chaos: people were running in every which way, screaming, groaning, dragging people across the ground, all while the wailing of police and EMS drew closer.
Hina's hands hurt.
She slid one of them into her pants pocket and pulled out Takemichi's mp3. The same song was still playing, so she plugged the headphone back into her ear. The chaos faded into the background once again.
As people cleared out, the few stragglers were herself, Tetta—who didn't seem keen on moving any time soon—, Kakucho and Izana—the latter helping the former stand—, and Chifuyu—who was sitting on his knees and gazing at the exit Baji had to have been manhandled through. Slow and heavy steps brought her to Chifuyu's form. When he turned to look at her, he recognized that a friend was there, but it was clear that there was no recognition; he'd pushed himself farther than he could go, and his brain was just doing what it could to keep working.
The blonde was heavy, but once he got his feet under him, he managed to stay upright pretty well. As their shoes left behind the dusty wharf and made landfall in grass—and later, the street towards Takemichi's house—Hina put the second headphone in Chifuyu's ear.
He didn't react to it, so she wondered if he was even hearing it, but the next day she caught him humming it.
That night Hina went to bed with busted knuckles, a strand of her hair missing, roadrash on the side of her face, and one helluva shiner. When she inevitably had to go home her parents would be furious, but right now she was feeling hollowed out—but in a good way. She didn't feel like there was nothing going on inside, it was as if she'd finally cried out all the tears she didn't let herself shed, and now she was feeling the world all over again.
Chifuyu's face looked ready to pop with how tightly his skin was stretched over swollen bruises and cuts. Playing nurse, Hina gave him liberal amounts of ibuprofen and replaced his ice packs hourly.
Her mother and father screamed at her for hours, but Hina was proud of herself. For a first fight she didn't do too bad.
When she went in to visit Takemichi again, this time with her family, her bruising had finally started turning dark instead of swelling. The purple had even spread to her other under-eye, and made her look like the delinquents that she hung around (or was she one of them now?).
Takemichi was still out, not a single sign of him waking up.
The nurse who had given her Takemichi's uniform was behind the counter again that day. She didn't really acknowledge Hina's presence, but when she walked by to get something from the vending machine, the old woman asked, "Did you win?"
Thinking about how Toman had risen from the ashes once she bit Kakucho, and how the fight ended with Tetta getting arrested for being in possession of a firearm, Hina figured her boys were victorious. On a more personal level, Hina also thought she'd made out okay.
"Do you hate me?" Tetta asked, blood pooling like a halo under his head.
Hina stared at him, her muscles burning from having to support Chifuyu. "I think so, probably."
"I'm sorry."
The boy's eyes weren't on her when he said it, and she had a feeling it wasn't meant for her either.
Instead of letting the boy have his way, she spit out the foul tasting blood that had coated her mouth. "If he wakes up you better tell him yourself. I'll kick you in the nuts if I hear you don't."
On a more personal level, Hina scared the shit out of like four hundred delinquents of various ages, and grieved for her best friend. "Summerily," Hina told the nurse.
"That's my girl," she grinned.
And time moved on.
There were always a lot of flowers and photographs adorning room 642, where a boy who wasn't really a boy anymore slept. A lovely lady stopped by at least once a week, every week, for as long as she could remember. Most of the time she'd be alone, other times she'd come with a slip of a boy, and other times there would be a boisterous group of people.
Whoever 642—Hanagaki Takemichi—was, he was dearly loved. Hell, it had been twelve years, and there was never a day that boy went without company. He must have done something wonderful in a past life to have the good fortune, and good friends he did.
Hanagaki Takemichi had been sleeping for a long, long while.
And one day he woke up.
Notes:
i'll be drawing this eventually. please berate me down below! or praise, that's cool too.
Feed me comments!
ALSO I MADE FAN ART !
post/659594717140598784/toman-hina-when-also-shout-out-to-my-first
Chapter 6: The Boy Who Lived Enough For Everyone And Then Some
Summary:
Things hadn't changed much, but like the passage of time, Takemichi couldn't preserve everything.
Notes:
There are a lot of deleted scenes for this chap that I didn't bother including because I felt like it was a bit too cluttered. Either way! It's the pov you've all been waiting for!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Hanagaki Takemichi woke up it was not to a fanfare of trumpets, nor to a room full of smiling friends. The sun wasn't filtering in through the window dramatically, and there wasn't someone holding his hand. It was night time, he was alone, and it was a Tuesday. To make a very long story short, he had terrible timing.
Though he did not make a graceful entrance into the future he'd created, he did end up scaring the ever loving shit out of the night nurse who was changing out his IV. Truth be told, he didn't really have any idea what was going on, he was running fully on autopilot. He'd opened his eyes and blinked a few times to work out the fuzziness when a sound to his left drew his attention. Sluggish, and feeling weak like he'd never experienced before, Takemichi rolled his head to the side and took in the sight of the girl fiddling with… something.
The poor girl, who was just minding her own business, really, finished up transfering the bags and was greeted by the open eyed stare of a guy who'd been asleep for almost half her life. And while waking up from his coma was disorienting, Takemichi did remember that she screamed. His laugh was silent, but his lips curled into a smile, and from that moment on it felt like everything was moving all at once.
Takemichi was weary from his soul to his bones—which were pretty much the only things left of him. All the muscle he'd built up had simply withered away, and doing anything more than looking from one side to the other was exhausting. The moment he'd been deemed conscious enough, doctors were rushing in and out, doing every test imaginable. They were overjoyed to find out that he wasn't paralyzed—he could wiggle his toes, squeeze fingers, and feel from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
Apparently the weakness he was suffering from was normal. (The only thing that was ab normal was how much Takemichi was actually able to move. In a bout of confusion he didn't remember having, he'd actually managed to sit himself up and swing his legs off the bed. That earned him a babysitter to ensure he didn't ever do that again, so he'd consequently not have any broken arms or hips.)
The only big snafu seemed to be that his left eye didn't see any more. It still moved around and all that, but Takemichi couldn't make anything out—it was all TV static. When people got really bad head trauma, his doctor explained, sometimes the stuff around the nerves in their eyes would swell up so much that the actual nerves couldn't get oxygen and the cells would die. Considering that side was where the bat had impacted him, he was lucky the damage wasn't worse.
They'd covered it several times now and asked him to make out numbers and letters, but it was really hopeless; the most he could make out was whether or not there was a hand over his eye. Shadows and hard lights were the extent of what he could see—but all in all it could have been worse. (It could have been so, so much worse.)
The thing that bothered him the most of everything though was his trouble speaking. It felt like he couldn't ever have enough water, and lifting the dixie cup to his lips more than twice had him panting in exertion, or his hands shaking so bad he spilled the water. When he did manage to speak, his words were slow and fragile—Takemichi's voice was paper-thin and more breath than actual voice.
He'd sleep for short periods, waking up an hour or two later and not even realizing he'd fallen asleep. At times it felt like even keeping his eyes open was a monumental task. The doctors assured him that that was normal. (He didn't like it.)
It took him nine hours to realize just how long he'd been asleep. Takemichi had been forgetful ever since he woke up, having to be reassured by nurses several times that No, you cannot just walk out of here and that Yes, you were in a coma for twelve years.
When he asked for a mirror, at right about the time the sun was coming up, the poor girl that he'd startled came in with a hand mirror. His hair was fully black, not a drop of bleach present, and his face was thinner than he ever thought possible. The funniest part was that his haircut had stayed the same, and that he wasn't an unwashed mass of mid-twenties loser like he'd been expecting.
"Akkun does… my hair?" he whispered.
The girl's eyebrows furrowed, before she brightened. "Sendou-san? Yes, he comes in a couple times a week to wash your hair! You would not believe the fuss he raised a few years ago when one of the new girls did it."
Takemichi could only smile as he imagined Akkun, hairdresser's apron on, as he waved around bottles of shampoo and combs. He imagined he would smell like barbasol and shaving cream, and he'd still have his signature red coloring. His black outfit would be peppered with hair clippings, and his hands would be as confident as his smile always was.
"Hanagaki-san?" the nurse said slowly. "Is something wrong? Does something hurt?"
He was crying. He didn't need to wipe his eyes to know.
Takemichi just shook his head. He had to breathe deeply a few times to keep from breaking down, but he ultimately managed to beam. "He's happy?"
That was the only thing on his mind. He needed to know if Akkun—if everyone—was happy. This was his last ditch attempt. For some reason he got the sense that he'd run out of jumps; that this was the end. He'd come the long way around, for the first time ever. It had to have some sort of consequence.
The nurse seemed a bit taken off guard, but she nodded. "He seems to be doing well. Always complains about kids that won't sit still in the chair, but he still has the time to come by, so I don't think things are too bad."
Takemichi's eyes closed of his own volition—a weight falling off his shoulders. "Good."
Relief had never felt so sweet. If Chifuyu wouldn't have killed him on the spot for even thinking it, Takemichi would've said he could die happy. There was a helplessness in there too though, an ugly sliver of a thing that reminded him that this was permanent—that he, who could never do anything right—had changed time, and this was the last thing he'd created. If his past track record was to be considered, every time he meddled with things they always ended up infinitely worse. The things he touched became tainted, including time. (The people he held dear always ended up crusted with blood and kissed with bruises, so he figured at this point he ought to cut his losses.)
His current situation was like schroedinger's emotion: on one hand, he was elated to have done at least something right—and if what he thought would transpire after the incident actually did—everyone should have been saved; but on the other hand, he was ready to crawl out of his skin with anxiety. Who was footing the bill for his twelve year coma care? Did everyone actually survive, or did they just make it up until the point that Takemichi got taken out? Was everyone truly happy or were they just alive?
Takemichi remembered seeing the joyous and prideful expressions on Kisaki's face when he thought he was winning, but he also saw the fear and guilt in his eyes when he got caught at his bedside all those years ago. Looks could be deceiving, he learned, and Takemichi was a hard man to trick.
(He wouldn't be able to live with himself until he knew that everything was perfect this time around. There was an itch in his bones that made him want to throw himself out of bed and by sheer force of will crawl to his friends' feet and beg for the truth.)
(But he'd have to live with this either way. There was no going back now.)
Takemichi bared the images of Akkun, round-cheeked and blood pooling on the steering column before him, of sunken features alight with a smile, or crooked limbs on the pavement, of fear and betrayal. Though more tears flowed from his closed eyes, he focused on what his Akkun would be like today. Would he be married again? Did he have kids? Oh, god, he better have gotten rid of that pompadour. Could he smile without guilt or fear, and laugh just as freely as he used to on bicycles at night? At the very least, Takemichi hoped he'd still be Akkun , no matter how much he'd inevitably changed, he just (selfishly) wanted to still recognize his buddy.
He hoped that for everyone.
And so as he slipped back into a fitful sleep, he ignored blood and sobs and gnarled features in favor of beaming grins, laughter, and flushed cheeks. (He wondered if Naoto was still a cop.)
The first people to greet Takemichi were two that he hadn't expected. He hadn't recognized them either. When his eyes cracked open, an elderly couple were sitting on his left, the lady gesturing wildly while the husband nodded along. Takemichi moved his head slightly to get a better look, since they were sitting on his blind side, but his movement seemed to alert them to his presence because both of them were staring at him with their undivided attention. No one said anything—Takemichi not quite trusting his voice, and the couple seemingly at a loss for words.
It took a few awkward moments before the lady cleared her throat. "Long time no see, Takemichi-chan."
The aforementioned boy simply blinked.
The husband leaned forward slightly, a sheepish smile on his weathered face. "You probably don't recognize us, we're Takuya's parents—Iori and Kouhou."
About halfway through Kouhou's statement, everything seemed to click. Takemichi's face pulled upward in surprise and recognition. He gasped too, but that was a bit too childish for him to admit. (He didn't want to admit to a lot these days.)
"Y-You remember us?" Iori beamed, gesturing between the two of them.
Takemichi nodded as enthusiastically as he could. "F' course."
He felt bad for how little emotion his voice conveyed, but Iori was clapping her hands together in excitement and Kouhou was ready to cry, so he assumed it was alright. Seeing the two of them was a trip down memory lane that Takemichi hadn't crossed in ages—very few times did he ever come across Takuya's parents when he jumped back and forth. Most of his memories were sepia painted and wrinkled—his original timeline's memories—and it seemed like neither of them had changed much.
They'd taken him and Takuya to an amusement park one summer and Takemichi could still fondly remember how terrible of a driver she was because she was too busy pointing at things instead of watching the road. Kouhou still seemed a bit slower to act than most of the guys Takemichi was used to hanging around, but he was still equally as willing to fill the gaps that Iori left behind with her absentminded nature.
Things hadn't changed much, but like the passage of time, Takemichi couldn't preserve everything.
Takuya's parents had always been older than the other parents he'd ever met. Iori had wrinkles ever since he'd known her, and Kouhou never used to toss him and Takuya around like the other dads in the parks. They'd been old when Takemichi was young and now… and now Iori's hair was more grey than not, and Kouhou's dark hair was beyond thin. Their wrinkles were pronounced, and it seemed like they were being weighed down by more than just life.
"We're so glad that you're awake," Kouhou grinned. "A-nd I'm sure you'd much rather be seeing your mom or your friends but… a lot has changed since you… fell asleep."
Takemichi's heart monitor started to beep warningly, the levity that had painted his features melting into fear. "Where?" he wheezed. "What?—wha' happened? Who—!"
"Oh, dear, don't worry!" Iori backtracked. "It's nothing bad! Everyone's just got jobs now! They won't be able to visit you for a while!"
Takemichi's breath left him like a punch. The strings that were pulling him upward on shaking, pencil thin muscles were cut, and Takemichi slumped back into the pillows behind him. The world had whited out for a moment, his heart climbing up inside of his ribs screaming I knew it I knew it I knew you fucked it up!
Iori's hands were on his shoulder the next moment, and in the back of his mind Takemichi realized he must have passed out. "-michi! Hey, there you are."
Her hands were trembling where they were pressed against his skin, and her smile wobbled in the way someone just barely holding it all together tended to. He must have given them quite a scare.
"Sor—" his voice cut out halfway, only breath leaving his lips.
Iori sounded every bit like the stand-in mother she'd always been when she said, "It's alright dear, just take it easy."
She waited until the erratic beeping of the heart monitor leveled out before she resettled herself in the chair. "And don't you dare apologize to me, Hanagaki Takemichi."
Having had his full name whipped out, the boy knew he was about to hear it. Iori was never serious, but when she was she took absolutely nothing from no one. He'd only ever heard this tone a handful of times in his life, and the pinch to her eyes had him feeling like a rabbit in front of a dog, sweat starting to coat the back of his neck.
"I don't ever want to hear anything like that out of you again, especially about anything relating to all… this. We should have taken care of you more, and that's on us."
Takemichi wanted to tell her no, that it was never their job in the first place, that no matter what they could have done it all would've turned out the same way or worse.
"So I will not hear any apologies about our failings as parents."
Takemichi tried to speak again, but his voice was shot, and only a painful rasp pushed out. He still tried to tell her otherwise. No, he mouthed, over and over. No, it's not your fault.
The old woman just shook her hands at him, shooing away every attempt at shifting the blame. "Takemichi, you may not have been our son, but you and Takuya have always been a set. It never was our job to watch over you, or make you lunch for school, or-or take you on vacation, but Takuya took a shine to you and so did we. Those last few years, we thought giving you space was the right way to go, but it's one of the things I will always regret." A choked sob shook her frame. "My boy, please forgive me."
Takemichi raised a withered hand and tried to reach for her, to get her to stop, please stop, but it barely left the mattress. Iori found it nonetheless, her skin soft beneath his. Even if he could have spoken, Takemichi wouldn't have known what to say. He was overwhelmed with gratitude and care—no, love—that the family he'd been unintentionally absorbed into truly wanted him.
It was a tough pill to swallow, always having been alonealonealone when everyone around him seemed to have people they could rely on. As much as his original timeline tended to get buried underneath everything else, there was a reason everything happened the way that it did—Takemichi had prayed in that moment before the train hit that he'd actually had the time to fall in love with Hina, that he'd been able to care for his friends in the way that they deserved. (There was a hairpin on a bitter trigger somewhere in his heart that held the loathing and loneliness his absent mother had caused him. The boys in Toman would have understood, but at the same time their problems were so much worse.)
(Takemichi didn't want to be the weakling who broke down because he was a little lonely. Yuzuha and Hakkai literally tried to kill to be in his shoes. He couldn't complain. But at the same time, none of them had an extra twelve years of suffocating isolation weighing down on them. Takemichi had spent double the mornings they had waking up to an empty home, not talking in school, failing his classes, getting berated at his job, and eating the same 200 yen meal for dinner. He'd had the same unfulfilling thing so many times he ended up just saving the money and skipping the cardboard taste. He was grateful for it too, considering he'd shown up late to work the next day and missed an equal amount's pay.)
(They would never understand. They couldn't.)
(But Iori might get the closest.)
Iori had been the mother he could go crying to when he failed his exams or when he threw up all night. The school would call her when he fell asleep in class or when he stayed at lunch too long. After sitting with the school and asking him a million questions, Iori started making him lunch—something an elementary aged Takemichi couldn't do, or afford to buy from the school. Iori was the one to figure out that a young Takemichi was eating cereal for almost every meal, and not wanting to spend all his allowance on milk he'd started only eating one meal a day. The hunger pains used to keep him up at night, from which he'd fall asleep in class (and the incessant hunger without money left him staying at lunch too long trolling for half finished and untossed lunches to scavenge).
Iori decided she would fix all that by walking to his house in the mornings, one hand holding Takuya's while he waved, and the other grabbing Takemichi's. Each boy would get to hold their own lunch.
The cape he used to wear was hand sewn by her, and without it, he may not have met Hina. He was so grateful to her, and it broke his heart to hear her apologize for not being good enough—because it was him. He wasn't a good enough son—person.
He didn't take into account who he'd hurt in his crusade for justice, and it was only that much worse because he'd sooner do it again than change nothing.
Always, he mouthed, fingers tightening. Always.
She smiled at him and gripped his hand between two of hers. "You've grown up so much, but you haven't changed a bit, huh?"
A tear hit the mattress cover with a dull thud. Iori's cheeks were wet too.
No. I haven't have I?
Takemichi was beside himself with grief and embarrassment. How could he have forgotten her? (How did he manage to forget what being loved felt like?)
(He was still a lost child that didn't know what to do with himself, who was searching for his friends, and surviving with the weight of every overbearing bruise gained from freedom. They burned.)
Takemichi woke up twenty eight hours later, not remembering how their conversation ended.
"Don't worry about it," Toru—the night nurse—assured him. "Most coma patients have some trouble keeping new memories for the first few days after they wake up. You still remember some of it, right?"
He nodded.
"They I wouldn't get too worked up over it. But speaking of, yesterday took a lot out of you, huh?"
He nodded again, taking in the evening sky. He wondered if anyone else came by while he was asleep.
"You better get some extra sleep if yesterday was a lot," she added. "You have no idea how many people came by while you were out, I've got a feeling they'll be back first thing in the morning."
Takemichi hadn't felt this excited while laying in bed since he was eight and it was the night before a school field trip.
"Yamamoto-san also wanted me to tell you that your mom would be in town—not tomorrow—but the day after."
It was a negligible piece of information that Takemichi didn't really care about—it was nothing in the face of getting to see everyone else. It'd be an awkward meeting that he'd have to suffer through, but she'd stop by, probably tell him he needed to get a job to pay off his debt, but then she'd be gone and out of his hair.
Takemichi went back to sleep with the funny thought that for someone who'd been asleep for twelve years, he sure needed a lot of rest.
Toru was with him when he woke up the next morning, an overbright smile on her lips as she fed him his breakfast of jello and applesauce. She looked at him like she knew something he didn't, and judging by how he'd slept for thirty of the last thirty six hours, she probably did.
What? He mouthed.
She only chuckled snarkily while shoving another spoonful of applesauce in his mouth. "Well, a little birdy down in reception told me that there's a couple dozen people milling about the lobby even though visitation doesn't open for another fifteen minutes."
Takemichi nearly choked.
Really?
"Really!"
Takemichi was ready to cry in preparation to cry when they all got here. Toru seemed to read his mind.
"They told me you were a crybaby," she tutted. "So no tears yet! Just wait until they get here!"
And so for the next few minutes Toru spoke here and there, helped sit him up, fixed his hair a bit, and gave him as much water as he wanted. She didn't let him do a damn thing. She claimed she was helping him conserve his energy, but he had a feeling she just wanted to dote on him without any complaints.
The walkie-talkie on her waist crackled to life with an unintelligible stream of racket, to which Toru smirked. "I think that means your guests have finally been released."
Takemichi mouthed a thank you.
"Now you have to promise me that you'll hit your call button—or have someone else do it—when you start to get tired. You start to feel funny, anything hurts, your voice cuts out: you call for a nurse. Okay?"
She pressed the call button into his hand, and placed them both into his lap, a rare look of seriousness on her face. Takemichi could only nod.
"Good," she tutted. "Then allow me to get out of here before I get run over by your stampede of friends and family."
Takemichi was not prepared for the rest of his morning.
The first person to enter his room is a girl, to his great confusion. She is tall and thin, with light colored hair and a very quiet disposition. She is bundled up in a long and fuzzy jacket, a scarf still wrapped around her neck as she shuts the door behind her. From the short period that the door was even open for, Takemichi could hear the cacophonous noise of people gathered outside. It made a shock of anticipation crawl up his spine and bloom in his lungs. Had he been able to move more he would have been vibrating with excitement.
Instead the girl—well, she was actually more of a lady, considering everyone was in their mid-twenties now—turned to face him. Her expression was pinched and her cheeks were growing red from any number of emotions. Long eyelashes—delicate face—Takemichi could recognize her, but the only girl he'd ever seen in the future was Hina and… well this lady wasn't her.
It was actually that thought that led him to the right answer— because he'd never seen her in the future.
"The nurses warned us you probably wouldn't recognize us after so long, so—"
"—Emma?"
The girl was stunned into silence, but she melted into a pitiful kind of grin. "Long time no see, eh, Takemitchy?"
The smile that lighted Takemichi's face, unbeknownst to him, was the purest and brightest expression anyone had ever pointed in Emma's direction. Or maybe it wasn't and Shinichiro had once looked upon her with a fondness of equal value, but it had been well over a decade since then and he was dead and Takemichi wasn't, so the novelty was still there. (Looking at him made her feel like a kid again.)
Takemichi couldn't find any other words besides, "I'm so happy you're okay!"
"How?" Emma snapped, the smile just barely clinging to her lips. "How can you say that?"
Takemichi had wondered why no one else had come in with her, but seeing the tears gathering in her eyes, and how she could barely look up from the floor, this conversation seemed to be a long time coming. Instead of giving her the canned response a fourteen year old kid with bad hair and an ugly face would've spat, the real Takemichi—who had been twenty six when he let himself fall on the train tracks—spoke.
"Look at me."
It was a thin request, Takemichi's voice still sounding less than stellar, but Emma finally found his eyes. "I lost twelve years of my life, and I know you did too. You haven't given yourself a break since then, have you?"
The girl's face twitched, as if she wanted to deny him but thought better of it.
"I did what I did, and I don't regret it. I would do it again, actually," he shrugged. "All I've ever wanted is for everyone to grow up to be happy. So if you want to make it up to me, just be grateful."
By the time he finished his throat was starting to get sore, and he was glad he'd saved his voice all morning by not speaking with Toru. Actually getting to express himself was nice. Being able to actually shed some of the weight that had been sitting on his chest for literal years now was… cathartic wasn't quite right, and relief seemed too pedestrian—but he was relieved.
His bones felt somehow less weary, and his skin wasn't so tight across his muscles.
Emma didn't look any different from when the conversation started, but Takemichi could see where her hands had been bunched into fists were now lax by her sides. Wide eyes searched his expression, and seeming to find nothing awry, she sighed.
"You're not normal."
Takemichi laughed with a wince. "You're just figuring that out now?"
And with a snort that sounded like it had more tears than air, Emma nodded her head. "Yeah, yeah, I'm a little slow. Sue me."
It should have clued Takemichi into the fact that everyone seemed to know that something wasn't right with him, especially when Emma didn't seem too off-put by the Real Takemichi showing through. He'd thought himself so clever, and so good at what he was doing, that he thought he'd fooled them all. Their Hanagaki Takemitchy was a little weird, but Chifuyu was not his partner anymore, and the upper echelons of Toman didn't know his secret, so he thought he'd dodged their suspicions.
Takemichi was not as good at time traveling as he thought he was.
No one knew, but everyone suspected something or other.
They wouldn't bat an eye at the thin film of youth being torn off like tissue paper, because they'd already seen through it. The Real Takemichi was not one they shied away from, nor were they surprised by him. Everyone knew that he was the most genuine. (They liked Takemitchy better that way.)
When Emma finally opened the door, a dozen perfect strangers walked in, and Takemichi's smile split his face.
It was all a blur of laughter and tears and elation. Hina and Takuya had cried at him for like twenty minutes, telling him if he ever pulled something like this again they'd pull his plug and fight him in hell. Hina was a mangaka, who did freelance art on the side—her drawings and paintings now selling for money, along with the words she'd always been so frightened to speak. Takuya had gone and became an elementary school teacher.
Mikey had gotten down on his knees to show his gratitude, despite how vehemently Takemichi told him not to, and lacking the mobility to pick him up or kick him, he hit the call button and sicked Toru on him.
"Get off the floor, Sano," she drawled from the hall. "Keep upsetting my patient and visitation will end early."
Mikey was on his feet in record time and glaring, but Takemichi and Toru were already exchanging winks, so Mikey was nothing but a peach for the rest of the day.
Everyone had more or less ended up in the same place that they had in what Takemichi had dubbed the Bonten Timeline : Draken was running Shinichiro's shop, while Pah and Peh kept up their business. Mitsuya and Hakkai were both still into fashion, and Akkun was a well acclaimed hair stylist and barber ("which are completely different, you heathen").
Mitsuya promised he'd help Takemichi catch up on nawaday's fashion, and take him shopping once he was ready—maybe even tailor him some clothes. It reminded Takemichi of the time Mitsuya had once resized Mikey's old Toman uniform for him, and it made the not so blonde want to reach out and hug him.
It felt like there were people in his room all day, even when Toru kicked everyone out to give him his lunch, or when they inevitably had to go take care of kids, spouses, and jobs. And wasn't that a thought?
(Akkun came in the evening, with Yamagishi and Makoto, who were all misty-eyed with excitement. Draken's face flushed fifty shades of shut the fuck up when Takemichi pointed to his ringless finger and asked why he hadn't yet proposed to Emma. Baji and Chifuyu stumbled in an hour before visitation ended, and were treated to Takemichi dozing lightly in between visits. Chifuyu had burst into tears, thinking he'd gone back into his coma—which was actually what he woke up to. Chifuyu sobbed anew, while Baji tried to be as cool as he'd always been, despite how much the shorter man's emotions affected him. Baji had a great spot in an animal shelter, where he was practically the manager, and Chifuyu was a mailman. They worked at the same time and lived together, which was, well—not unheard of but… un surprising? They seemed happy.)
The evening was coming to a close when Kazutora of all people traipsed in. Bleached pieces framing his face, and eyes tired, he didn't leave the doorway. The man looked supremely uncomfortable, but he was alive, kicking, and not being openly hostile, so Takemichi was counting it as a bonus win.
"How did you know?" the boy asked, eyes looking slightly to Takemichi's right, unable to meet his eyes.
"Specifically…?"
Kazutora's glare narrowed, but found the floor instead. First Emma, then Mikey, now Kazutora: it was like there was a sign that told people Takemichi's face was a no-go zone. After lifetimes of never being able to meet peoples' eyes, Takemichi craved it more than anything. He was annoyed, disappointed, a whole bunch of things he hadn't let himself feel in a long time.
"How'd you know I was gonna kill Baji?" Kazutora said quietly. "I didn't—I… I wasn't, uhm, well then. I didn't know what I was gonna do until after I'd actually done it. How did you figure it out?"
Takemichi looked at the whelp of a boy with a stare devoid of pity. (It was understanding, not that Kazutora would recognize it on the boy's face.)
"Because that's what Kisaki wanted to happen."
They faced off for a few moments more before Kazutora nodded jerkily. It seemed like he was convincing himself of something. He made to leave before he paused—eyes crawling across Takemichi's face.
He cracked a somewhat knowing smile. "How good of a liar d'ya think you are?"
Takemichi laughed, enough to get his heart rate monitor glowing a warning yellow. "I think— ha— I think I just might be the best."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
Kazutora did not come back.
Kisaki did though, and he didn't cry, but he wore contacts and had dark hair that curled lightly. He looked at Takemichi without hatred or fear or pity. For a man that had nearly killed on a dozen and a half occasions, Kisaki was the most fearless of the people Takemichi had met that day.
The nurse on duty for that evening warned him he had exactly seven minutes before she'd drag him out, and he raised no fuss. He pulled up a chair, much like he had that night so many years ago. His discomfort showed in the way his hands roiled against one another—sleeves just a bit too long, and fraying, as he picked at the edges.
"Do you want me to go?" Kisaki asked quietly, neither scared, nor scorned.
Takemichi shook his head no, despite the heart monitor beeping quickly.
"Do you hate me?"
And Takemichi, by now he was tired. He didn't have it within him the willpower to uphold the farce he'd forced himself to bear. He shook his head no. (He was honest.) A beat of silence passed, and Takemichi nodded up and down. (That was honesty too.)
Kisaki laughed, though that seemed to be an exaggeration for his dry exhale. "You never could be straight with me—or anyone—huh?"
"But it's the truth," Takemichi whispered.
It was the most heartfelt and raw thing he could've offered, because it was the rotting and decaying parts of himself that begged him to never be consumed with hate—that he was too powerful to hate anyone like that. It was every weak flutter of his heart whispering that if Mikey deserved to be saved after the atrocities he'd done, Kisaki ought to be forgiven too, since he was the one person Takemichi could never save.
Kisaki was everything about himself that he hated. Kisaki had hatred in his heart, a will that never broke, and a propensity for violence. He was weak, protective, and a manipulator that ended up—however indirectly—teaching Takemichi how to make others look the other way.
"I could never hate you more than I hate myself," Takemichi explained. "But I think after everything that's happened, we ought to go easy on ourselves. Doesn't that sound nice?"
"But you can't actually forgive me, can you?" Tetta sighed.
Takemichi just smiled. "You still want to win, don't you?"
Tetta laughed again. "Touche."
The longer their conversation drew on, the more the former time leaper relaxed. His eyes were spending more time closed than they were open by the time Tetta stood from the chair. Without the imposing air of a mastermind, Tetta looked just like any other guy—someone Takemichi could walk by without a second thought. Without his glasses the bags under his eyes were more visible, while his hands were spindly knuckles wrapped beneath tissue paper skin.
(He looked fragile. Human.)
"Do you like music?" Takemichi surprised himself by saying.
Fighting to keep his eyes open, desperate to see Tetta's reaction, Takemichi pushed on. The other boy seemed frozen in place, mind whirring to try and understand the (painfully absent) veiled meaning behind his words.
"I haven't really had the time to listen to the radio."
"The CD shop on South 46th and Central. They've got a real diverse selection. Ask each of the workers to pick something out for you, and bring it back here. I'll tell you if any of them are worth your time."
Tetta was silent to the point where Takemichi wondered if his hearing had slipped away.
"...you want me to come back?"
"I don't think you've got it in you to kill me, and I'm too tired to hate you. It's been a decade since I heard some tunes, and you need a hobby. Do we have a deal?"
Takemichi fell asleep before he got his answer.
(The nurse on duty said there was a number left by the man, a little note saying call me when you want me. Takemichi held it in his hand for hours, marveling over the tiny victory. He'd saved Kisaki too.)
Alone, a few days later, and watching the sun rise, Takemichi found himself bubbling over with emotions he couldn't process. It was as if his very understanding of joy had been broken by the trauma that he'd experienced, and the elation that filled his lungs acted like a noose. He was choking on it—thorns and thickets growing lushly from within. A briar had grown around his heart, and to protect himself he'd simply refused to let anything truly touch his heart.
But being alive, having seen everyone living happily, Takemichi was overtaken by a wave of grief. For the first time, he grieved everyone that he lost—who suffered on account of his failures. Foriegn tears dripped down his cheeks, painting his skin with blotches of red. Gasping breaths escaped from swollen lips, strings of spit and snot tying them together.
It felt like he was dying—and he knew all too intimately what that was like. He was painfully, all too apparently alive, and he didn't know how to deal with it. He didn't know when he thought all of his plans would end with him six feet under and all his friends happier without him, but he was faced with the ugly and touching reality that they loved him.
A particularly wet choke had a nurse cracking open the door, and trying to calm him down. His elevated heart rate had to have alerted someone to check on him, because there was no way he was calm throughout this whole mess. Every word that passed through his head was being pushed from numb lips by a voice that didn't work.
"What's wrong, Hanagaki-san?" the poor girl asked. "Can you say that again for me?"
Red-faced and toeing the precipice before him, Takemichi threw his weight forward and hoped to be weightless in the grip of freefall. Instead of greeting the abyss, the girl's hands were pushing him back against the pillows. There was no way he could fight, no air for him to breathe, no life for him to live—because everyone he knew were nothing but ghosts, unlike these imposters who fell in love with a lie.
"I'm alive!" he sobbed, unable to hold himself back anymore. "I'm alive!"
"You are! And it's a real mi—"
"—Why?"
Only his faltering gasps for air filled the room.
"Why?" he asked no one in particular. Maybe he was asking her. Maybe he was asking himself. Maybe he thought God, or at least one of them, would answer. Why am I alive?
"Because you're lucky," the girl responded.
Takemichi just cried harder. He was laughing actually—not crying. He was howling with glee and unrestrained delight.
Physical therapy fucking sucked, Takemichi found, but at least it meant he got to move out of the hospital. When his mother visited, though he couldn't remember a moment of it, he'd apparently shouted himself into such a state that Toru had to ask her to leave. Suffice to say, when she came to help move him into the rehab facility, she was cowed and agreeable. Though he'd never get the time back, he prayed to one day remember what he'd said.
The hospital had thrown a mini-party when he left. (He was genuinely touched that they'd cared about him enough to pull something like that together.)
But the rehab facility was nice too. It was right by where Pah and Peh worked, and so they usually ate their lunches with Takemichi. They'd make small talk, or cheer him on while he did his strength building exercises. It was the two of them who saw him take his first few steps, unassisted.
That evening they sat outside, celebrating. "We never really got to know you well when we were kids, Takemitchy," Pah nodded. "But compared to how everyone described you, you're so much weirder."
Takemichi only laughed. "It took you this long to realize?"
"You know too much about everything don'tcha?"
Clear blue met unassuming black. "Oh, you've got no idea."
Peh called him a creepy bastard, but the night was otherwise normal. Takemichi secretly cherished it—a single frame of memory shared with someone who didn't revere him as Takemitchy The Great And Beloved.
Everyone visited at least once a week, but he made sure Tetta came at least three nights a week. The tiredness that clung to their bones like a second skin seemed to peel off with time and exposure, so Takemichi kept him coming around. (He would've never said he was worried about Tetta doing something stupid, but the thought struck him amid his breakdown last year, that the duo had always been more alike than either of them refused to admit. He never inquired, but based on what Tetta shared, Takemichi's intervention wasn't unwelcome or unhelpful, so he meddled guiltlessly.)
It was snowing out when Takemichi, cane in one hand, followed by a veritable crowd of people, unlocked the door to his childhood home. It reeked of dust and hadn't been properly cleaned in several years, but the lights still worked, and so did the water, so he turned up the heat and invited everyone in.
Surrounded by everyone whom he'd protected with his very soul, Takemichi was warm. The ice that had invaded his veins the very first time he'd awoken in the past seemed to have melted in the face of everyone's love.
He was twenty eight years old, fourteen, sixteen, thirty, and dead, yet alive, when Takemichi slept soundly for the first time in years. He dozed without worry or fear, and dreamt of a smile that blinded him with colors he couldn't perceive. The figure that wasn't a person or anything that could ever exist seemed pleased, or at least its equivalent of whatever that was. It didn't speak in words, only colors and feelings and impressions.
He awoke to the sensation of a child's hand wrapped around his finger, and the calloused hand of a teenage fighter on his shoulder. The world blinked in a holy yellow after-image for a moment.
Outside, a lone bird chirped.
And Hanagaki Takimichi, Time's smallest victory, was happy.
(And his house—let alone in heart—was never empty.)
"Mother, Father, make my bed,
Make it long and narrow.
My sweet one he died for me today,
And I'll die for him tomorrow."