𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐝𝐞

CHAPTER 13 (2/2): Entr'acte Symposia (PART II)

"My treasured best friend from cram school, Yunagi Reiya," Hina introduced, and Takemichi all but squawked in disbelief.

This time, the first thing he noticed was her height. Yunagi was taller than he expected—about just as tall as he was—and definitely younger from how she appeared in the photographs, her features formed with a touch of youthful softness and the iridescent warmth of a moonlit summer, her long black hair now cut short in a layered bob.

What he also didn't expect was how she was even lovelier in person, her figure curvy but neat with her voice and manner being just as refined. And when she smiled and slipped a lock of lustrous midnight behind one ear, presenting her dimple and the tell-tale form of her bright and glinting cherry earring for all to see, Takemichi immediately understood why the symbol mattered so much to Mikey.

For a second he saw two versions of the same shape merging over the other before his eyes—one polished and glittering, while the other was jagged and bloody. In that moment everything about Yunagi had Takemichi gripped in a tight hold of disbelief. Such a nice and perfectly cultured girl, and yet she became involved with the terrifying Toman in the future, absolutely oblivious to the horrors committed in her name.

How she even met Mikey was beyond him but the more Takemichi observed her, the more he saw how Yunagi was proving to be an anomaly. She had this magnetic stare, the considerate and incisive kind that gave Takemichi the sense of being in the presence of an adult, and she showed neither fear nor hesitation when they went to Musashi Shrine and came face to face with the middle school Toman. He had been puzzled yet grateful that she went with them for Hina's sake, but he had been on edge as well for he knew that she and Mikey would undoubtedly meet that night.

Nevertheless amidst the nerves, Takemichi had wanted to see how the two would interact. How would their current selves react to each other? These two who had become so much more to the other in the days that were lost, but also in a time that was undeniably theirs.

But it appeared that the pair had already met before that night because the connection was instant—the attraction indisputable, palpable—so potent that none of them dared to intrude. But where there was interest, there was also the hesitation. Mikey, for his part, seemed to be in the process of figuring out how well she'd fit—or not—in his world of constant peril. And Yunagi, for whatever reason outside the fact that the blond was commandeering the most notorious gang in Shibuya, seemed to be holding back.

They were a pair that struck Takemichi as odd—the gang leader and the violinist—but they'd been an endearing sight. So strange and endearing that Takemichi ended up blurting it out to Naoto right after they came in contact with Osanai, the two of them joined with one more unlikely playmaker in their unplanned symposium.

﹌﹌﹌﹌

"Are you certain? Are you sure!?" Naoto drew close and all but infringed on his personal space, his face bearing the most intense but baffled onto-something look Takemichi had ever seen.

"Yunagi-san showed up at the shrine after knowing Toman would be there? And she's already close to Sano?"

"Uh...Yeah?" Takemichi replied in the same way he'd say 'Uh...Duh?' He shrugged. "That's what I just said. And not like close, close. But the spark's there, you know?"

Naoto swung away from him, his arms crossed, his features scrunched in deep thought. After an eon, he faced the older male again and asked, "This is the first time you've encountered her, correct? And the first time she'd done something as strange as that?"

"Yep. That night I returned to the past. I was even surprised to learn she was best friends with Hina." Takemichi narrowed his eyes with half-hearted scorn. "She said they've been friends since first year middle school. You never told me!"