Living A Dead Dream (Baji x OC)

39

"Five o'three..." Danny muttered as she looked at the clock. It had been a total of four days of her dealing with past Takemichi, and she was still worried, to the point where she was having a hard time sleeping. Sure, she was able to get a message to his future self, hopefully, but she had no way of knowing if he was alright. To top it off, the current him had been getting on her nerves more and more during the past two days. Just as she got back to work on a sketch, her door opened, revealing none other than her brother. "What-"

Before she could even get out a complete sentence, he had tackled her into a hug. They both fell down to the floor, along with the swivel chair.

"Take, what the he-"

"Thank goodness you're okay..." he shakilly said before sniffeling. His grip around her tightened as he began trembling from the relief he was feeling. She was really here. She was alive. She was breathing. She was warm. 

A silent sigh of relief left her as she caught on to what was happening. With a corner of her lips curling up into a small smile, she ran her scarred hand through his hair. He was finally back. Alive, breathing, and crying. She usually wasn't the type that liked to deal with crying, nor was she any good at it, but she let him stay on her shoulder while she patted his back and ran a hand through his hair. "Never leave me with the old you again, got it?" she said soon after he began to calm down with a light chuckle.

With another sniffle, he finally sat up and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Right..." he replied with a half-smile before stopping short, his eyes softening with worry. "Daju..." 

"What?" she questioned, confused.

"Come here." He helped her sit up from the fallen chair before wiping her eyes with his other sleeve. "You were crying," he said with a half-hearted smile.

"Thanks..."

Neither made a move to get up from the floor, instead opting to lay on the soft shag carpet. They were both relieved to see the other beyond words. It had only been four days, but it felt like an eternity to them. After being together nearly every day for the past six months, it was hard for either of them to imagine going without any sort of contact for that long. Even a single day felt like a lifetime at this point. 

"Hey, Take?"

He hummed in response as he continued staring at the ceiling.

"I'm... sorry. For pushing you away for all those years," she continued as her gaze traveled along the plain white ceiling. "You were having trouble and I just... ignored you. I should've been there. I should've been some sort of emotional support, if I wasn't kicking their asses, at the very least."

He turned his head from the ceiling to look at his sister. "Daju... None of that was your fault."

"Still. I'm the oldest, even if it's not by much. I had the strength to help you, but I was too focused on myself to even think about helping you out. I should've been a better sister. Back then... I'll admit, I honestly wanted nothing to do with you. All I wanted was to get my adrenaline kick. I know it's kinda late, but... I want to be a better sister. While you were gone, even though it hasn't even been a week, I was probably worrying enough to where it took a few years off my life," she continued with a light chuckle. "Ever since we started this, I've been trying to do better. I know it's late to try and fix everything, but I want to be the sister you can rely on. I want to be there for you. For better or for worse."

He didn't know what to say. All he could do was stare and blink at her in surprise. After all this time, he didn't know that this was how she felt. Even after they graduated high school and he knew that she had fully stepped away from delinquency, he had still seen her as this untouchable entity that would stand tall and push through any and every obstacle. And his view since they had started this journey to save Hina and Sayu wasn't much different. Counting today, there had only been two instances in which she seemed the least bit vulnerable. Had she felt this way the entire time? Had he been seeing her as some ethereal entity, when she was just as human as he was? He silently scolded himself for how much of an idiot her truly was. All this time he was worrying about how he could change things, she was dealing with the lingering guilt from their days as teens while still helping him. "I'm sorry too..." he finally said after a few moments, making her look at him with a hint of confusion on her features. "I could tell there was something going on... but I never even bothered to ask. Back then, I was too caught up in my own misery that I completely ignored what you were going through... And... I don't think it's too late to try and fix things." He gave her a small smile. "I've kinda realized how empty it is without you around these past few days. Even if I can't do much, I wanna be there for you too."

After all that, Danny felt lighter, and more at ease. She was afraid that he might reject her. That he might push her away and do to her like she had done to him. She was glad that wasn't the case. To have the chance to have the relationship with him that she wished they had relieved her to no bounds. With a bigger smile spread across her face, she sat up. "Alrighty, so what's the forecast?"

After he sat up, he recounted what had happened, even telling her how she ended up dying. The papers that she had given him the translation paper for were nowhere to be found, Naoto had said that the perpetrator must have taken them either to be burned or to be translated. They were able to get a little bit of information from a notebook about some of Toman's guys though. Then he went on to tell her about how he had met Taiju again and how he and Naoto had gotten shot by Kisaki, Kakucho, and Izana.

"Wait, Izana... is that the Tenjiku guy? I forgot."

"Yeah..." Takemichi sweatdropped. "And do you remember Kaku-chan?"

She pursed her lips for a moment before shaking her head. "He's a dude with a scar going across his left eye, I know that. One of my favorite background characters in my manga also has that name."

He sighed in defeat, not even knowing why he expected her to remember. After all, she had forgotten that she was in a gang and that she had been friends with Kisaki, both of which weren't really that long ago. "He was one of my friends back in elementary school. He'd constantly get in fights, but would always lose."

"Huh, sounds a lot like you."

His eye twitched in a bit of annoyance. "BUT. I would always take care of the bullies."

She shrugged. "Still ain't ringin' a bell. Remember, you're talking to someone who can't remember what they had for lunch." As if on cue, her stomach growled. "Or if they had lunch. Or breakfast, for that matter. Did I even eat yesterday?" she asked herself the last part as she scrunched up her face in thought and held her chin in her hand. "I don't... know... I don't think so..." She looked up at him. "You hungry?"

Another deep sigh escaped him before he remembered something. It was the day Tenjiku attacked them. After they went to the warehouse where Kakucho was, after he was able to talk to him for a moment, a girl came in. 

"I don't really understand this conflict... But what I do know is that fucker Kisaki is using Izana," Kakucho said with his brows slightly furrowed.

"Kisaki..." Takemichi muttered before the sounds of light footsteps echoed through the warehouse. A bit surprised, he looked behind Kakucho to see a girl coming from what must have been a back door. She was about his height, her long red hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail with two pieces left out to frame her face and go along with the straight-cut bangs, and her dark eyes barely glanced over him before they went back to Kakucho. What surprised him most though was that she also wore Tenjiku's uniform. Similar to his old friend, she had the front undone, but a sarashi was bound around her chest and a gold chain necklace with an old heart-shaped silver pendant hanging from it.

"Kakucho," she said, catching his attention, "are you done here? It's time to go."

"Hey, Daju..." he trailed off as he recalled the event, making her look at him with raised brows. "Do you remember if you had any info on a girl with red hair? Back when we faced Kaku-chan, she came in, telling him it was time to go. And it looked like she was part of Tenjiku too."

"Red hair..." she muttered as she scrunched up her face in thought. "Mmmm... I vaguely remember a blurry picture of someone like that in my bedroom, but that's it. I don't know." She shrugged. Something did come to mind though at the mention of a girl like that. It wasn't so much of an image as it was a feeling, and it made her feel uneasy.

~... I meant to update this yesterday... Whoops. Well, you guys get one today and tomorrow. I'll also be going back to two chapters a week. After last week's episode came out, I got a different and, admittedly, better idea for what to do during that section. That's not for like six chapters though. Anyway, we'll be having some more Baji content soon:3~