Living A Dead Dream (Baji x OC)

21

As she read on and drew nearer to the old arcade, she went to pick at one of her left fingers to find a thin metal band. With furrowed brows, she looked at her middle finger to see a silver ring with three small green stones in it. She didn't wear jewelry. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that the backs of where the stones were were open, so they were genuine and not just costume jewelry. A memory came to mind. It was of her and Baji at a store, seeing the ring on sale, and later on him putting it on her finger. She abruptly stopped in the empty alley, her mouth hung agape slightly. "What?" She blinked a few more times before shaking her head. I'll think about this later...

Once she reached the old crumbling building, she stopped and put her notebook into a pocket, seeing the old graffiti that was fading with time. She rolled her shoulders back and got her now dirty blonde hair off her shoulders before heading inside. Compared to the last time she had been in there, it looked older and dustier, but it wasn't filled with the suffocating smoke. On the stage where Hanma once stood was Kazutora. From the back, he looked a lot like Baji, with the way he styled it. Then she noticed Baji off to the side looking at his phone. Both males noticed her presence and looked over at her. "Took you long enough," Kazutora said as he hopped off the stage.

"Yeah, I'm usually the late one," Baji added with an amused expression as he stood and turned off his phone before shoving it into his jean pocket.

"Sorry," Danny apologized as she put her hands in her jacket pockets. "I had to answer a few messages before I could leave." That was a lie, but neither male noticed.

Kazutora nodded before heading toward another portion of the building. "We should get going. Chifuyu just said that Kisaki pulled them from the meeting."

They all piled into the car, Kazutora driving while Baji and Danny took the back seat. Danny mentally cursed herself for not taking the front seat because she still didn't know her exact relationship with Baji in this timeline. To try and distract herself from her current onslaught of thoughts, she looked out of the window into the city lit by all sorts of fluorescent and LED lights. She figured that it must have been around 11P.M. by now.

"You remembered to leave your phone, right, Danny?" Kazutora asked after a minute, bringing Danny out of her thoughts.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I did." She nodded, remembering the first bold note in the notebook saying to leave it.

"Yeah, we don't need a repeat of last time," Baji mused with a half smile.

Another memory came to mind, one where they were talking to some informants and her phone rang, almost scaring the guy off. Turns out you shouldn't take a phone that's still turned on during those types of meetings.

Her thoughts were cut off once again when she felt warmth envelope her right hand. She looked over and saw Baji's hand on top of her own, his fingers intertwined with her own. She swore her heart skipped a beat at the sight. Her eyes flitted up to Baji's face to see him looking out of the window. Sensing her gaze, he looked over and gave her a small smile. Are these butterflies? Is that why my stomach feels weird? she thought as she bashfully returned the smile. Her fingers softly closed around Baji's as she looked back out of the window. Holy shit... Baji lightly rubbed the palm of her hand as the ride continued. 

Was she easily won over with such small gestures? Yes. She had gotten a handful of confessions in her youth, but she was never interested in any of those guys. Now that someone she had actually thought was good-looking and knew well was doing something so small yet endearing, she was swooning. Freaking out too, but it was a good type of freak-out. Now she knew what the hype of a simple handholding was about.

The car ride went on in silence for a few more minutes as Danny slowly relaxed. She still found the feeling foreign, but grew used to it. It just felt right, as if this was the way it was always supposed to be.