SEPTEMBER, 2005
His features instinctively gave a warm smile before he held out his hand to greet her. Sakae's head tilted in confusion since he didn't recognize her in the slightest. That was until Y/n reached out her own hand to shake his, exposing her tattooed palm. It was a distinctive design and a one of a kind request made by a young girl. "Ah, I remember now. Little prodigy turned aspiring delinquent." There seemed to be a sense of lingering regret in his voice when he spoke and even as he looked at her.
"I was no prodigy."
"You look so different than before I almost didn't recognize you," he reluctantly decided to admit. Sakae was rather disappointed in himself for not noticing her because of a few external changes. "What's this about you needing a place?"
Y/n refused to admit to him of all people that she needed help. He knew her when she was pathetic, young, and chasing behind the footsteps of her brother. Sakae warned her against the path she was headed and at the time such warnings were always prone to fall on her deaf ears. He had sacrificed everything to support the twins back then. Y/n held the utmost respect for him for that, but he betrayed them.
"I don't need anything from you," Y/n said and stepped back.
Sakae was the father figure she had needed. Not the one she wanted.
That is what drove them apart in the end.
"You heard her Ken. If she doesn't need help then there's nothing to discuss here."
Draken didn't understand how the conversation had gone south so quickly. Y/n was already on her way out and Sakae just watched her longingly. His lips upturned to a proud grin upon realizing that she had grown and matured well without him. She was no longer the dependent young girl who followed the decisions others would push on her. Even if Y/n hated his guts to the grave, Sakae didn't mind in the slightest. He would never change a single decision he had made up until now whether she approved or not.
Mitsuya left behind Y/n after saying a quick, "Excuse us."
There she was, in the hallway, staring at a frame hung up on the wall. It was a photo of Y/n and Shuji in school uniforms which at that age was a rare sight. Y/n distinctly remembered how Sakae begged and pleaded for the two of them to at least pretend they were heading to school each time they would leave the tattoo shop.
'Kids your age should be studying for tests or something. Not hanging around here in an alleyway tattoo shop,' he would say while scolding us and drawing smoke from his cigarette. 'You two have this spark and with it you could do amazing things.'
Yet, her she was, an accessory to crimes she never thought she would be caught up in and acting friendly alongside the very gang whom she committed against. Y/n even helped orchestrate the downfall of Draken, the very person who is helping her right now. What would Mitsuya think if she were to tell him?
"Y/n, you doing okay?" Mitsuya came up and asked with his usual sweet concern obvious on his face.
What was she thinking?
"Just fine. I needed a bit of air."
She could never tell him about what she had done or what she was eventually going to have to do in the future.
"You know I'm always here for you if you need me," he tried to reassure and leaned forward a bit to come into her line of view as she stared upward at the framed photograph. He immediately noticed who was in it and the guilt that filled her eyes. "I want to hear you say it, Y/n."
Y/n couldn't leech off him anymore.
She laughed a bit and tilted her head when finally facing Mitsuya. "You're kidding, right?"
"No. I'm serious," he clarified and stared while he patiently waited for the words to come from her mouth. "Tell me that you know."
Y/n looked him directly in the eye for any signs of humor, but to her disappointment there was none. She playfully rolled her eyes, stepping closer to close the distance between her and Mitsuya. Her lips were just inches from his own once she leaned forward and carefully skimmed over each of his features. "I know that you'll always be there for me," she whispered quietly for only him to hear. Her hand running through his hair and slipping back just past his jawline, her finger just lightly tapping his chin. "No question."
Mitsuya swallowed nervously and planned to say something, anything. However, he couldn't get a single word past his lips. He even found himself unusually sweaty and stuck with a blank expression while trying to process the moment in his head.
Luckily, Draken came out in search of the both of them.
"What did that jerk do? Do you really not want the place?" Draken began to question a little more harsh than he intended when gesturing back to the room. Y/n went past Mitsuya to speak with him and waved him off with her hand.
"Sakae is not dangerous or anything like that. It's just a personal grudge, but who am I to stop that from letting me have a place to stay for myself," Y/n explained with a shrug of her shoulders.
"If you're okay with him being your landlord than my job here is done. You'd have to work out the kinks with him directly," Draken said and spotted Mitsuya frozen in place behind her. "You staying out here?" he called out to him.
"Just go in without me this time," he answered with his back still towards them. Once the two of them left him alone, he let himself fall down into a squat while covering his flustered face.
'The other Y/n was never that bold,' he thought to himself.
He rested his head in his arms and took a deep breath. "I'm supposed to be making her flustered, not the other way around," he muttered to himself.
**
Draken grinned and tried to gently hit Y/n's back to congratulate her on getting her new place. She smiled back awkwardly as he complimented the room and other features of it. Trying to stop him from going in depth about the benefits of her space was relatively futile.
"I mean you probably have the space in there to fit anything you need. Maybe we should have the Toman meetings at your place from now on. How about it?" he began to tease and Y/n playfully hit his shoulder.
"Now you're just messing with me," she scoffed before she glanced back at Mitsuya who seemed to still be in a daze. Though she couldn't get a word out to him since her phone rung in her pocket. "Who is this?"
The person on the other line chuckled lightly. "Didn't save my number? You know how to wound my pride, you know that?"
"You know me. Always doing..that," Y/n answered awkwardly since she genuinely didn't know who it was.
"It's Baji. You free right now?" he asked with hesitance in his voice and eagerly awaited her response.
Draken watched her on the phone and let curiosity get the best of him. "Who's on the other line?"
Baji seemed to overhear through the phone and panicked. "Say it's just a friend," he told her and she answered Draken with just that earning a raised brow from him. "Where are you right now?" Baji then asked through the phone.
"Somewhere downtown, it's on X street," she responded willingly. Y/n surprised herself with how quickly she would answer the questions of a stranger. Baji, huh? Where had she heard that name from before now?
"Tell him that your friend is coming to pick you up," he almost ordered and hung up the call.
"Hey, wait!" she shouted into the phone, but he had already hung up to prevent her protest. Y/n gradually pulled the phone down from her ear and just shut it closed in frustration.
'Who was that guy?' she thought to herself in annoyance. 'What if he's trying to hurt Toman?'
"You two can go on without me. A friend is coming to pick me up," Y/n said with a gracious smile. Draken already had somewhere to be so he said goodbye and hurried off on his bike. He didn't think twice about Y/n's ability to protect herself. However, getting Mitsuya to leave was an entire different feat.
He was skeptical of the so called friend that had called her out of the blue. "Y/n--"
"Yes, I promise to let you know that I'm safe," she said quickly and nudged him towards his bike. The last thing she needed was to drag Mitsuya into more of her problems. "I can take care of myself unlike your little sisters. Luna is about to get out of school..." she tried to ramble on about his different responsibilities to persuade him to his bike.
"You're meeting with Baji, aren't you?" he asked without really expecting a response as he furrowed his brows and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Your future self may be a bit different, but when it comes to him you both act just the same. You get fidgety and avoid giving direct answers," he pointed out. "I don't even think you've met him personally, yet. Funny, isn't it?"
Y/n tried not to let it show that she was taken back by his unusually hostile tone. He suddenly became indifferent to anything else she said after bringing up the name.