ㄒ卄乇 ㄒㄖ爪卂几 ㄒ尺卂丨ㄒㄖ尺
ㄒ卄乇 ㄒㄖ爪卂几 ㄒ尺卂丨ㄒㄖ尺
[The Recruitment]
One month.
It had been one month since the fight between the three deities.
One month since you had kept to yourself, staying inside to avoid the outside world, not wanting to risk the chance of some delinquent recognizing you and running to whoever they worked under.
You had declared that you were done.
Done working with gangs.
Done with all the violence.
Done with the delinquent world in general.
You just wanted to start your normal life that you have always wanted.
A part of you knew that you would never get that dream life, there would always be those lingering stares from those who knew, who had heard what happened to you. There would always be those rumors spreading around, about how you murdered just for the fun of it, that you were a ruthless, bloodthirsty, bitch, that wouldn't hesitate to do whatever it took to get what you wanted.
And you would just have to push all of that away, ignore their looks, pretend that you didn't hear their hushed whispers. All so you could finally live normally.
But the truth was, there was no way for you to live normally, when you didn't even know what normal was.
~
Takemichi stood outside of the pet shop Chifuyu worked at, patiently waiting for the other blonde male to come out to talk. Letting out a heavy sigh, Takemichi replayed what he was going to say to Chifuyu in his head, but the moment the boy walked out of the front door of the pet shop, his mind seemed to go blank. Trying to fish around for his thoughts that he lost, which resulted in him spacing off while staring at Chifuyu who was dressed in his uniform, black apron and a small name tag with the store and Chifuyu's name on it.
"What's up? Tryna pick a fight right after you got discharged?" Chifuyu asked, his eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, staring at Takemichi who seemed to finally remember who the two of them didn't leave off on the best of terms.
"Um... I'm really sorry." Takemichi apologized, hand moving to awkwardly scratch at the back of his head, "I wasn't really myself... Back then. Y'see I was struggling with my own stupidity." He chuckled, glancing up at Chifuyu, hoping that he was able to get some sort of reaction out of the blonde male, but no, he could only see the back of Chifuyu's head as he began to walk back to the pet shop door.
"If you came here to just talk about that then please leave." Chifuyu said, shoving his hands into the pocket of his pants underneath the apron.
Takemichi's eyes widened in a panic, "Ah... Um! I was thinking of making a new team!" He blurted out, noticing how Chifuyu seemed to stop in his tracks, head slightly turning to the side in interest. "A team that can defeat the Kantou Manji Gang! I... I know this is too much to ask for, but please come fight with me, Chifuyu." Takemichi finished, knowing that these were not the way he had originally planned to ask, but at least he was able to get it point across, now all he could hope was that Chifuyu would agree.
"...You're too late." Chifuyu said, beginning to walk forward again, nothing more coming out of him, making Takemichi believe that he would not be joining.
"You're right..."
"I'll be sending a resignation letter, so you better wait!" Takemichi's head shot up at Chifuyu's words, a noise of confusion leaving his lips. "I can't get the store in trouble, y'know?" Chifuyu's head turned to the side, allowing Takemichi to see the small smile on his lips, "so wait for me, okay, partner?" Takemichi's eyes watered, tears falling down his cheeks as he ran to hug Chifuyu, yelling out his appreciation.
Happy that he and Chifuyu were better.
Already thinking of others who he thought would be of help in taking down Kantou Manji, the only problem was getting them to agree.
~
It was only a couple days later when Chifuyu strolled up to Takemichi with the gang shirts he had made, before setting off on their adventure to ask others to join.
Their first stop had been Hakkai, who seemed to surprisingly join without any hesitation, saying that he could never turn down Takemichi when he was asking for help. And while he seemed a little hesitant on the t-shirt, he was thankful to be able to hide it under his button like Takemichi had done.
After getting Hakkai, they then had to take a moment, each of them trying to think of another person, knowing that they couldn't possibly beat Kantou Manji with just the three of them. And that's how the trio ended up at Draken and Inui's shop, all of them moving to the back room where Takemichi had been that one night after encountering Rokuhara and Brahman for the first time.
"I will fight Kantou Manji Gang." Takemichi started, glancing across the table sitting in between him and Inui. "Thousand Winters is a team with the same goal, please, will you join our gang?" Hakkai's bottom lip trembled slightly, hand moving to his mouth, covering the small cough he let out to hide his laughter, still finding the gang's name and t-shirts a little unbelievable.
"You don't have to ask." Inui spoke, standing up from his seat, smiling down at Takemichi, "This is why I chose you." Chifuyu excitedly stood up, and grabbed one of the shirts, proudly presenting it to Inui.
"Alright, now that that's settled, from today on, Inui is a member of Thousand Winters!" Chifuyu held the shirt out towards Inui, excited to see Inui's shocked and happy reaction to wear the shirt, "Please wear this!"
Inui stared boredly at the shirt, his lips curling up in disgust before spitting onto the shirt and walking away, "There's no way I'll wear something as lame as that."
"Aaaghh!" Chifuyu horridly looked down at the shirt before glaring up at Inui who seemed to be chuckling as he walked away. "Why would you do that Inui?!"
"Who's next, Takemichi?" Hakkai asked, turning his attention toward Takemichi who was still stuck watching Chifuyu chase Inui around with the shirt until he had finally managed to get it over the older boy's head.
"Well... I have a couple ideas, but the one I want to go see next will be a little hard to find." Takemichi answered, the other two coming back to sit down, joining in on the conversation.
"What d'you mean?" Inui asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion by what Takemichi meant by 'hard to find'.
"Y/N, I haven't seen her since the fight. I have her phone number but I doubt she'll just willingly tell us where she is." Takemichi leaned back onto the couch, head rolling back to stare up at the ceiling in thought.
"I saw Y/N the day I went to see you at the... Hospital." Chifuyu commented, "She was standing outside of the room when I left, but when I asked her if she was going to visit you she just said she would another time, did she not?"
"I saw her at the hospital too, after me and some of the boys went to see you one of the days, she was heading towards your door, but we left before we could see if she ever went into your room." Hakkai added, "You should try calling her though, maybe she'll be interested." He shrugged his shoulders, half smile on his face, trying to be as helpful as he could.
"Yeah, I guess we could give that a try." Takemichi mumbled, pulling out his phone from the pocket of his pants, scrolling through his contacts until he found your name.
The line rang and rang and rang, but there was no answer. And so, he tried again, only this time, the call went straight to voicemail making all four males let out a sigh.
"I don't think that's going to work." Chifuyu said, pulling out his own phone before trying to call you himself, call immediately going to voicemail like before.
"If she didn't answer Takemichi, you think she wouldn have answered you?" Inui scoffed, standing up from his seat and went to the front of the shop, coming back with a book in his hands. He threw it onto the table, flipping to a certain page with Wakasa Imaushi's name and info on it. "I overheard that she was staying with Wakasa whenever Draken first joined Brahman, is she still staying with him now? Who knows, but at least it's something other than phone calls going to voicemail."
"I think I do remember her mentioning something about that guy..." Takemichi trailed off, turning the book toward him, eyeing the address before asking for a piece of paper to write it down. "Let's go see if she's still there."
They all abruptly stood up, following out the door behind Takemichi, unsure about what they were going to find.
But hopefully it would be useful.
~
When the four males had arrived at the address, they could tell that there was barely any sign of life coming from the house.
The front yard was a mess, grass up to the ankles, mailbox stuffed full of mail yet to be gotten, curtains drawn together, blocking the outside world from reaching in through the windows.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Chifuyu asked, glancing between the house and Takemichi.
"Uhhh..." Takemichi looked down at the paper in his hands before looking at the numbers on the house, "Yep, this is it." He took the first step up the driveway, the other's following closely behind as they watched their leader stop in front of the front door, letting out a shaky breath before raising his fist and knocking.
They stood there for a moment, listening for any kind of movement coming from the other side, but they could only hear the occasional car passing by. Takemichi raised his fist once again, letting it knock against the door, once... Twice... Thrice, before someone decided to speak up.
"Maybe no one's here?" Hakkai said, eyes nervously glancing around them, feeling somewhat embarrassed that they were just standing there knocking on a door.
"Yeah maybe we shoul-'' Chifuyu was cut off, the sound of the door lock turning before slowly being peeled open, the bright light of the sun poking into the small crack, blinding your eyes instantly.
"Y/N?" Takemichi spoke, stepping in front of the crack, blocking the sun from your eyes, watching as you slowly blinked away the blinding tears.
"Takemichi?" Your voice was hoarse and toneless, as your eyebrows knitted together, getting a peak at the other three males standing behind Takemichi.
"Mind if we come in? There's something we'd like to ask you." He smiled, trying his best to ignore the look you had in your eyes, the one screaming at him to go away and never come back.
"Sure." You turned around, leaving the door as it was for them to come in, the four following behind you down the hall towards your destination, finding it to be your bedroom.
To put into the simplest of words, it was a total mess.
There were clothes strewn across the floor, leftover trash littering the table beside your bed, holes in the walls, seemingly from you punching it due to the rough cuts you had on your knuckles. Aside from all that, there was also writing on the walls, words that seemed to be targeted towards you directly, calling yourself a monster.
That was the most common word written that they could see.
Monster.
They watched as you climbed back into your bed, pulling the covers over your body before going back to staring at the wall.
"Y/N?" Takemichi took a step forward, finding himself soon sitting on the corner of the bed, his eyes landing on your face. "What... Are... Are you okay?"
"Mhm." You replied, eyes unblinking as you stared at the wall, "What's up with those lame shirts?" You asked, hearing Chifuyu let out an offended noise before crying out to Hakkai how everyone was so mean.
"I'm creating a gang to defeat Kantou Manji... And I want you to join." Takemichi answered, his eyes still locked onto you as you shifted to sit up, a small smile on your face as you nodded your head.
"That's nice, I'm sure you can do it." You encouraged, hand reaching over to the table, fingers wrapping around the cup that held the now room temperature beverage.
"Yeah... And I want you to join."
"No." You spoke, bringing the cup to your lips, gulping down the rest of its contents before letting the cup land back onto the table.
"No?"
"Yeah, you heard me, didn't you?" You turned your attention towards Takemichi, "I'm done with gang shit, I'd just like to live the rest of my life, normally." You spoke, letting your body fall back against the pillows, each of the other's eyebrows furrowed, internally questioning how exactly 'this' was normal.
It became silent after your last statement, Takemichi trying to take in your words, wondering if this was what you considered normal.
"Have... Have you been like this all month?" He hesitantly asked, watching as you nodded your head, eyes slowly closing for a split second before they shot back open, your breath getting caught in the back of your throat. Shaking your head as you tried to push the image of yourself, laying on the cold wet ground, out of your head.
The blonde male recalled that in the last future he had visited, Chifuyu said you were placed into a hospital... Could it have been because of this? That you pushed yourself away from every little thing happening around you, to just lay quietly in an empty house for months on end?
Because that... That would definitely drive someone mad.
"But Y/N... Didn't you say that you wanted to defeat Mikey?" Takemichi asked, trying to come up with anything that could possibly get you to join, to get out of this house into the daylight, so you weren't just by yourself.
"No, I said I wanted to kill him." You corrected, pulling the blanket up over your shoulders, tucking it under your chin in comfort. "I wanted to kill him. But I'm done with all of that, Takemichi. I just want to be left alone... So please, just get out. I'm not going to join you."
All four of them stared at you in silence, Takemichi slowly nodding his head as he stood up following behind the other three out your bedroom door.
"Y/N..." Takemichi stopped in your doorway, turning his head to look back at you, your eyes glued to the wall as you silently mumbled to yourself. "Let's hang out after the fight, okay?"
He didn't get a response, only the sound of your bedroom door creaking as it shut behind him, walking down the hall toward the living room where the others stood waiting.
"She's a mess..." Hakkai whispered, frown evident on his face as he looked around the living room, everything was untouched, except for the note which had been ripped to shreds and left on the table in front of the couch.
"What do we do now, Takemichi?" Inui asked, looking towards the blonde male who stood just barely outside of the hallway, lost in his own thoughts.
"Takemichi?" Chifuyu called, feet traveling across the floor to said boy, hand landing on his shoulder, waking Takemichi from his thoughts.
"We can't just leave her like this..." He mumbled, hand running through his hair, feeling stress begin to weigh him down.
"Well, let's just move onto the next person, and then we'll come back to her. She's... going to need a lot more help." Chifuyu answered, nudging Takemichi towards the door, making sure to lock it behind them before leaving.
The four males marched on their journey, feeling slightly dejected at your rejection to join, but hopefully Mitsuya would have a different answer for them.
ㄒ卄乇 ㄒㄖ爪卂几 ㄒ尺卂丨ㄒㄖ尺