Chapter Text
“Mikey?” Takemichi calls from the kitchen, his loud voice shrilling through the Dojo. The young blonde freezes at his brothers voice, fearing he may of been caught.
Mikey is currently in the process of sneaking out. There’s a Toman meeting today, and he thought Takemichi would be out of the house so he could leave wearing his uniform, but it turns out that his elder brother just got fired from his DVD job, so he’s home instead.
Inwardly, Mikey curses himself for being so careless, he should have asked Takemichi if he was working today. No matter, he just thought he’d sneak out in his normal clothes and keep his uniform in his bag and change at Baji’s house.
That’s easier said than done, because Takemichi can see through his bullshit even better than Shinichiro could, and that’s saying something. He tried his best to sneak out, the steps his feet make against the floor are almost soundless, but Takemichi’s bat-like ears picked him up from a mile away.
“Where are you going?” He quires as he finishes cooking a medium sized stake on the stove.
Mikey sighs and goes to the kitchen, dropping his uniform off just before the door, and walks inside, knowing that he’s not going to get away without a thorough investigation.
The younger mumbles, “.. gonna play with Baji.” He looks everywhere but Takemichi’s sparkling blue eyes and all the elder can do is sigh, instantly realising that his brother is lying.
On the contrary from what Takemichi normally does, he just nods his head with a smile, letting Mikey go without too much questioning. Mikey, overjoyed by the fact he’s not going to be late to his own meeting, runs to his brother and hugs him before quickly sprinting off. If he wasn’t so excited, Mikey may of noticed the mischievous glint in Takemichi’s eyes and faltered, but he didn’t, and so he runs down the street to Baji’s apartment.
Mikey arrives at the shrine less than twenty minutes later, unfortunately without his Toman jacket since he left it at home while he was in such a rush to leave.
Despite his missing clothing, Mikey walks up the stairs with a pep in his step, happy that Takemichi was finally starting to trust him enough to not ask too much about where he’s going — even though he technically lied, but Takemichi wouldn’t find out about that.. right?
Baji walks behind his commander with a small smile on his face, happy that the younger blonde is so joyful despite the wind nipping at their skin.
They reach the top and all the members bow at their arrival. Mikey greets them all like every good commander should and then walks through the small gap made, reaching the very top of the shrine in less than a minute.
Draken stands in front with his hands behind his back, looking professional as always, ignoring the small scowl on his face.
When the smaller reaches his best friend, Draken raises an eyebrow at the Toman Commanders missing jacket. Mikey tells him about how he ‘forgot it’, Draken just rolls his eyes and urges him to get on with the meeting.
Mikey does, but not without a small, immature stick out of his tongue. Draken feels the sudden urge to hit him but holds himself back, something deep inside himself tells him that Mikey will get a taste of his own medicine soon enough.
“And.. he’s back to normal,” Baji commentates to Chifuyu from his place to the side of the shrine.
The 1st Division Vice-Captain just laughs behind his hand and meets Baji’s darker eyes, “was he really that different?”
“Oh yeah, full of sparkles and rainbows, it made me want to puke. You should have seen him skipping down our street, I was almost compelled to not let him in.” Baji shudders at the self-reminder, cringing.
“I didn’t know you knew what ‘compelled’ meant,” Mitsuya chimes into the conversation from his place beside Baji, trying to hold his snickering by biting his lip.
The gasp Baji lets out conveys just how betrayed he feels, “huh?! You know what? Fuck you Mitsuya! I know what it means, I just don’t know how to write it!”
“Are you done?” Draken deadpans from his place by Mikey a couple meters away, “because I’ve got a date with Emma I want to get to, and you’re holding me back.”
“Sorry Draken,” Baji says almost sincerely, emphasis on the almost. Anyone else would think that Baji was being serious, but Draken is hardly anyone. “I don’t think you knew this, but I really,” the black haired male pauses for dramatic affect before swiping his hand over his face, letting his face drop into a deadpan, “don’t give a shit.”
“I’m going to kill you!” Draken roars, springing forward to wrap his hands around Baji’s neck.
And from there, the whole shrine devolves into chaos.
Some of the lower members just leave, the some that have known the group for a while, they know this ‘fight’ isn’t going to end any time soon. Mikey is almost jealous of them, he wants to go home too, he’s said all of the important stuff so there’s no need to stay now, but.. Mikey is a good commander so he reluctantly stays!
Just a couple seconds before Draken’s hands begin to wring Baji’s neck, the sound of a motorbike rings throughout the shrine.
The taller blonde stops mid action and pulls back, his eyebrows furrowing. If Draken had dog ears sticking out the top of his head, Mikey would imagine them twitching as he located where the sound was coming from. He then turns to Mikey and asks, “is that your CB250T?”
Mikey furrows his eyebrows in confusion. Of course it’s not his Honda, he left it at home with Emma and Takemi… “FUCK!” The present members jump at Mikey’s use of profanity.
Pah-chin cracks his knuckles and grins manically, ready for a fight, “did someone steal your bike Mikey? Do you want me and Peh to kill ‘em? ‘Cause we can do that, can’t we Peh?”
“‘Course we can Pah, no one messes with our Commander,” the elder replies seamlessly. They grin at each other and Pah-chin wraps his arm around Peh-yan’s shoulder before promptly choking him. Everyone laughs at their antics, Mikey’s ‘stolen’ bike momentarily forgotten about.
But the Toman Commander cannot stop thinking about the fact that.. that Takemichi must be riding his bike. It can only be him.
Emma doesn’t ride bikes — well she used to when Shinichiro was alive, but she was never really interested in them like Mikey was — so it couldn’t be her. Even if she wanted to ride his bike, she’d definitely ask first and not steal it when he wasn’t home. Takemichi though, while he wasn’t very enthusiastic about them, he has his own bike to ride to work, in fact, his bike used to belong to Shinichiro. In conclusion, Emma doesn’t want to ride bikes and Takemichi has a bike. That only leaves one possibility.. “fuck!”
Mikey swears much softer than before, subconsciously bringing all of the attention back to his small structure. All the while, the sound of Mikey’s bike continues to get louder and louder.
“This is going to be fucking embarrassing..” the Toman Commander mutters under his breath, speaking even quieter than before.
Suddenly, the sound of shouts and surprised yelps come from the bottom of the shrine. The sound of Mikey’s bike engine continues to increase, almost like it was getting closer. But it couldn’t be.. right? It has to stop at the bottom of the stairs.
Some Toman members become curious and run to the stairs to look at who’s down there, only to sprint away and part in the middle, as if someone was riding up towards them.
The yelps continue as the sound of the bike gets closer, louder, and eventually someone emerges from the stairs, straddling Mikey’s CB250T.
As they reach the top of the stairs, the bike jumps in the air and the person riding it gains a solid three seconds of airtime before the tires meet the ground again. They continue flying forwards until the bike clambers up the next set of stairs, zooming past the Division Captains and their Vices. They continues riding before turning, looping around the physical shrine. Then, they skid to a stop, around a meter away from Mikey, and take off their black helmet.
Black locks flow from the helmet, falling onto the shoulders of this.. man, with such delicacy that Baji almost starts to feel jealous.
This person before them, the person who stole Mikey’s bike, has bright, stunning blue eyes that sparkle despite the fact it’s almost dark outside. Angry feels himself inhale sharply, in awe of the man in front of him.
“Hey Manjiro!” He greets. Instantly stunning the shrine into deathly silence.
Mikey almost blows up there, so close to jumping on top of the man in front of him, but he holds himself back by taking in a deep breath, “I told you, it’s Mi-key! Not Man-ji-ro!”
“This is your punishment for lying to me, so I’m going to use your government name,” they reply, lengthy, black hair swishing in the slight wind. The stealer pauses for dramatic effect before smirking, “Manjiro.”
Smiley almost breaks out in laugher there. He has to bite his lip to not interrupt the deafening silence. This ends up failing and the peach haired male lets a long wheeze leave his lips, making everyone’s attention turn to him. In between laughs, he stutters, “g-government n-name!”
Chifuyu finds himself laughing along with his friend, but that is soon cut short when Mikey breaks through the laughter, shouting, “what the hell are you doing here?! How did you even know where I was?!”
The taller rolls his eyes and kicks down the stand of the bike before turning so he was sitting facing Mikey. “Did you really think you could keep this a secret from me? I’m not stupid you know,” the blue eyed man deadpans.
“Oh really? Well you could have fooled me.”
“Huh? What’d you say to me you little shit!”
“I said you’re fucking dumb!” Mikey retaliates, stepping closer. Draken does too, waiting to intervene if anything happens, though, he’s not sure who he should pull back in this situation.
The taller gasps scandalously, a hand lifting to place over his chest, all the while, Mikey doesn’t even flinch. “And so are you! Guess it runs in the family!” The mystery man shouts.
Wait.
“Family?!”
Someone voices their thoughts and Mikey whips around, almost like he’d forgotten they were there. The Toman Commander promptly flushes, his cheeks and neck turning all deep shades of red, the black haired male can only help but laugh.
“You haven’t told them about me?” They ask. Surprisingly, the words held no venom behind them and Mikey just rubs his neck. Seeing that as a reply within itself, he just sighs and scans the crowd. His eyes seem to find what they were looking for and the black haired male smiles, “there you are! Haru— Sanzu, tell them who I am, since Mikey won’t!”
The white haired male jumps, startled by the hundreds of eyes that turns in his direction. “Um— I,” Sanzu coughs nervously, “this is ‘Michi.. Takemichi, Mikey’s older brother.”
The shrine hushes silent once more and Takemichi holds himself back from rolling his eyes. “Come here Sanzu! Give your real big brother a hug!” The black haired male commands softly with a huge grin plastered on his face.
Sanzu leave his place beside Mucho, biting his lip from under his mask as he tries to hold himself back from laughing. He quickly climbs up the three step stairs, walking to Takemichi with confident strides. The elder opens his arms for Sanzu and hugs him softly, ruffling his hair long platinum blonde has he does so.
“Sanzu.. is also your brother?” Hakkai questions, his whole tone holding only one emotion — confusion.
Mikey shakes his head as he watches his brother talk to Sanzu in hushed tones. “No, but Sanzu’s older brother, quote unquote, sucks, so Takemichi looked after him when he was younger. Sanzu has quite a soft spot for him,” Mikey replies quietly, his eyes holding some sort of adoration mixed with sadness.
“I do not,” Sanzu glares in his direction. The Toman Commander only huffs with a shake of his head.
“Takeomi is a real asshole though,” Takemichi hums, releasing his grip on the white haired male, “he would always send me glares for no reason, maybe that’s because his siblings like me more than him. Guess he’s just a sore loser.” Sanzu chuckles softly at Takemichi’s words, almost inaudible but so out of character for the people that only see him during Toman meetings.
Suddenly, someone shouts as they walk up to Takemichi, “I knew you were real!”
“You.. thought I was imaginary?” Takemichi muses, his lip quirking up at one end as Baji walks up to him, stopping less than a meter apart.
“Yeah! Mikey said Shin never had a twin, he almost hypnotised me to believe it! Even though I knew I’d seen you two together before..” Baji suddenly trails off, and looks at his feet, his shoulders pulled high with tension.
Takemichi raises his hand and Draken steps forwards to intercept it, watching as Baji tenses further, but Mikey just pulls him back.
The hand Takemichi lifted clasps on Baji’s shoulder with a small ‘smack!’ And the taller laughs, resonating from his belly, causing the younger male to look up, “you can say that he died, you know? It’s not a sensitive subject for me anymore, besides, there’s nothing we can do about it now!”
“I’m sorry..”
“It’s alright Baji, I know neither you nor Kazutora meant it.”
The younger male sucks in a shocked breath, surprised by Takemichi’s reaction, before leaping into his arms, bawling harshly into the elders black shirt.
While Takemichi comforts the sobbing male in his arms, rubbing his hand in circles on his back, he turns to Mikey, “anyway, now that I’m meeting all your friends, who’s the person who always fixes my bike?”
“That’d be Ken-chin.”
“Stop calling me that,” Draken retaliates on impulse, narrowing his eyes at the smaller blonde before turning to Takemichi, “so you’re the one who dislodged your engine over ten times in a month?”
“Yep! That’s me!”
Exasperatedly, Draken asks, “How the fuck did you do that?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I crash a lot, I guess,” Takemichi admits sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head in the way Mikey does when he’s embarrassed — a family trait, probably.
“That’d do it,” Draken sighs, rubbing his head as he feels a headache forming.
Mikey growls at the mention of the ‘engine incident’ and narrows his eyes. “I swear, if you don’t take care of Shin’s bike then I will steal the bike off of you and kill you,” he hisses, almost animalistically.
“You can’t! Shin gave it to me in his will!” Takemichi retaliates childishly. Just as he’s about to continue, Baji lifts his head out of the elders chest and sniffles, catching Takemichi’s wholehearted attention. “Are you okay now?” He asks, wiping Baji’s tears with the pad of his thumbs.
From behind Mikey, Mitsuya asks, “is he this.. brotherly with everyone?”
“Yeah, that’s ‘Mitchy for you. He takes one look at Emma’s friends, Izana’s friends and mine and instantly names himself their big brother, it’s become quite a problem actually,” Mikey ponders before snapping his attention back to Takemichi and Baji.
“Izana?” Angry inquires from his space next to Mitsuya and Hakkai.
Takemichi’s freakish hearing picks up the use of Izana’s name and he smiles happily, “my other younger brother! He’s such a cutie, I’m so glad that Shin introduced us before he died!” No one knows whether they should laugh or get Takemichi to seek medical help due to how excitedly he mentions his brothers death.
“Oh right! I actually just came here to give you your coat,” Takemichi tells the Commander, opening the seat of the bike to pull out Mikey’s Toman jacket. He pulls it out and throws the embroidered fabric to the younger, who catches it with ease and pulls the cloth onto his shoulders.
“That’s what you came here for?”
“Well I knew you were in a gang for a while, Shin told me actually, so I knew what I was coming to. And I figured, if I’m going to a meeting, I may as well do it in style!” Mikey can only find himself to face palm at his elder brother antics.
Takemichi turns his attention back to Baji, going to check up on him like his brotherly instincts tell him to, only to find another boy tending to Baji.
“Oh my! Mikey, who is this?” Takemichi’s eyes light up at the sight of the boy and Mikey can only find himself to face palm again.
“I’m Matsuno Chifuyu!” The undercut male says with a large smile. He puffs his chest out and puts his hands on his hips. It reminds Takemichi of his younger self where he’d go around pretending to be a hero with Shinichiro. He feels his heart swell with adoration at the sight of Chifuyu. Takemichi can’t help himself but to be brotherly to him after seeing him as a reflection of himself.
“Mikey, you’ve got yourself a new younger brother.” Is all Takemichi says, his eyes melting at the young boy in front of him.
Just as Takemichi reaches out in front of him, eager to embrace the younger boy in a warm hug, Mikey’s kick flies to his chest. Takemichi, obviously unprepared for such an attack, falls back and trips on his bike, landing on the hard concrete with a grunt. His upper body ends up on the floor while his legs become flung over the seat of the motorbike.
“No. More. Siblings.”
“WHAT?! Mikey no please, you can’t do that—! He’s so cute, just look at him!”
“I said no, Sano Takemichi,” Mikey replies sternly, standing over his elder brother, watching his face forms into unparalleled shock.
Takemichi then promptly bursts into tears.