Chapter Text
Money is what makes the difference between a cute gang made up from childhood friends with large egos, and an empire.
At the top of the financial ladder, almost neck and neck, are the Black Dragons and Brahman. In regards to strength, the two gangs are relatively equal as it is.
Despite Toman being the poorest, they have the strongest elite force among the gangs. Which Takemichi already knew, but forgets constantly considering how stupid all of them are on any given day.
Honestly, their lower-tier members are basically cannon-fodder if they don’t have someone (ahem, Takemichi) cheering them on and boosting morale.
Right above them in terms of financial stability is Rokuhara, whose strength is in numbers and the fact that those numbers consist of convicts and angry men that weren’t mentally fit to destroy themselves in the military so they opted to terrorize the streets.
But despite that Roku- or hehehe, should she say - Takemichi’s men being able to mop any of Toman’s lower ranks any day of the week, she is not prideful enough to lie and say that Toman’s captains wouldn’t tear her executives a new hole.
Toman has the Invincible Mikey. Him alone is enough.
Not only that, but Toman has the Twin Dragons. The Kawata Devils, Baji Keisuke and his banjos, Dumb and Dumber. Sanzu when he’s taken away from the reality TV shows he pretends he hates.
Takemichi has South, Shuji, and Tetta.
Valuable fighters, yes, but she would be one terrible leader to send those three out against a small army of men.
Takemichi isn’t sure if she should even count Tetta as a valuable fighter…
She wanted to take a page from Taiju’s book and reform her men into something stronger. Take fodder to fighter.
But to do that, she needs a Koko - someone who can play the financial system like a fiddle to their tune. The thought of driving up to him and throwing him into the trunk of a stolen SUV has kept her up at night.
But there is no way in hell that she would ever separate Koko from Inui!
They may be rival gangs right now, but Takemichi is no monster. It would be like taking fish from water! Stealing honey from a bee - it’s just not right at all.
‘I mean, I could just take them both.’
All she has to do is find a big enough SUV with a spacious trunk…
Takemichi hasn’t thrown that idea out just yet.
The issue is what would they want with Rokuhara when they already have everything they could achieve with the Black Dragons?
She does have a few other methods. Tetta even pitched his own ideas, but all of those were scrapped as soon as he said them.
Takemichi doesn’t know how she feels about blackmailing and manipulating two of her kinda-friends, kinda-enemies into working for her, but she knows it’s not good.
‘Ah, hell,’ she pouts into her crossed arms. ‘Haven’t even been a gang leader for a week and I’m already getting a headache.’
Luckily she doesn’t need to think about it any longer when South knocks on her door, “boss. May I enter?”
It’s kinda cute how respectful the man is towards her. Considering she is the woman that burst into his base, demanded his title, fought him for a week, then proceeded to steal his gang, uniform, and office.
“Hey, South,” Takemichi waves from the man’s old desk. “What’s up?”
His respectful demeanor apparently isn’t as solid as she must have thought because he walks over, throws her body over his shoulder, leaves the building, and deposits her onto his bike.
Normally, Takemichi would oppose being kidnapped from her (her own!) office, but considering South is her underling (her underling! How cool!) Takemichi decided to trust him.
“I’m not sure why you decided on Rokuhara, but you made one hell of a gamble,” South snorts, then grabs her wrists and tugs her arms tighter around his waist. “Hold tighter. Don’t fall off.”
Takemichi blinks, but listens because she just reached her goal of being a gang leader. It’s far too early to die off now!
“Rokuhara does not make money,” South explains when he finally parks his bike after driving her to a secure second location.
“I knew that before I joined,” she says as South helps her off his bike by fully lifting her up by her waist instead of just offering a hand like normal people would.
“If you want to join the Bastard Dragons and Brahman in selling violence, my body is yours to use,” South vows with a heavy hand over his heart.
“W-wah! Hey!” Takemichi waves her arms around to reject that almost sweet, kind of terrifying offer. “Your body is yours! If that’s what you want to do, of course I’ll support you, but- don’t- I’m not gonna sell it!”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” South grins as if he knew she was going to react that way.
He pulls her tight to his chest, lifting her off her feet in a bone-breaking hug, and rubs his cheek against the top of her head.
“Because you’re kind and gentle as a flower. Yet you’re the strongest person I have ever met.”
Blushing at such praise and the way South hugs her like a child would a teddy bear, Takemichi nods in semi-reluctant agreement, “yeah, yeah. Strength and kindness, it’s good for a leader to be both.”
“Yes,” South nods. “Like a mother.”
“Right,” Takemichi nods again. “Like a mo- Wait, what?”
South physically turns her around so that her back is pressed against his chest - now almost like a kitten being held by the kid that found it in the trash can. Not once does her feet graze the ground.
Like this, she can finally see the whole reason why South kidnapped her from the shabby office and took her on a twenty minute joyride through the city in the middle of the night.
“Before you, hurting others was the only reason I threw a punch. I haven’t had anything worth protecting in a long, long,” South’s voice trails into a tired sigh. “Long time.”
Takemichi frowns. She can feel the slight tremors emitting from him, and covers his hand with her own to offer warm comfort.
South’s voice softens as he mutters into her ear. “Anger, resentment drove me every morning. There was nothing else to look forward to.”
It’s now that Takemichi realizes exactly where South had taken them to. The little store looks vastly different underneath the Tokyo night sky, but this is a place worth holding on tight to in her memories.
It’s the same place where she won the rights to Rokuhara Tandai. The first time South lost.
“Rokuhara doesn’t stand for anything. And without my strength, I don’t have much more to offer,” South gently settles her on her feet and gestures to the building almost shyly. “But with this, I’d like to try.”
It’s a flower shop. Its purpose is made clear by the little patio of greenery and flowers laid in dirt buckets and rustic metal wire chairs. The glass window is painted with a cute logo of a sunflower.
Right underneath it, written in vintage cursive, reads Mama Michi’s.
Tears brim in her eyes at South’s heartfelt declaration, and Takemichi jumps back into his arms, “do your best, South! I’ll be rooting for you!”
“I am still one of your fists,” South promises into her hair. “Call me. I won’t let it ring once before I’m there. I swear on it.”
“I trust you!” Takemichi cries into his shoulder. Ah, she always knew South was a big softie underneath that hard exterior! All it took was beating the shit out of him to get it out! “I’m proud of you!”
South stiffens beneath his arms, then softens, “say that again. Please.”
Takemichi grabs the back of the man’s neck and pulls him down to a hug. Her voice is no more than a whisper when she says, “I am so proud of you.”
This time, Takemichi forces his face into the slope of her neck and hugs him tight enough to dispel any thoughts of abandonment.
South had already decided to follow her as his one and only leader. He figured dedicating his life to her wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
~~~
He’s walking down the street with Emma when he sees it.
“Mama Michi’s,” Draken reads, then bursts into a laugh and immediately pulls out his phone to snap a picture. “Hah, Takemitchy’s gonna love this.”
It’s a cute, little flower shop that Draken wouldn’t typically spare a glance to. But now that he knows Takemichi wouldn’t be opposed to receiving a bouquet or two, he wonders which flower would best match her eyes.
He doesn’t know much about flower breeds, or types, or whatever they call them, but he could color match Takemichi’s eyes to a petal while blind.
“Oooh, flowers,” Emma lightly touches the petals of a coral pink peony. “Hey, wanna go in? Hina loves flowers!”
He isn’t sure why she bothered to ask what he wanted to do when she grabs him by his wallet - literally stealing his wallet from his jacket pocket - and forces him inside the shop to get it back.
They could tell that the store was a decent size from the outsiders, but entering and immediately being hit with the fragrance of hundreds of flowers really sells the footage. Every square inch is packed full of potted plants, seedlings, or growing flowers. There are even some hanging from the ceiling as if they couldn’t get enough.
Draken is already overwhelmed.
“Never mind. Let’s get out of here.”
He’s turning around to leave when Emma snorts, “you can go if you want. I’m not leaving until I find flowers that match my pretty girlfriends.”
Draken rubs the kink out of his tense neck. He's not about to be outshined as a potential love interest for Takemichi when Emma inevitably buys the girl flowers that match the way her eyes brighten in the summer and the way her cheeks redden in the winter.
He roams around. Passing reds, briefly looking at purples, wondering if Takemichi would like a bouquet of her favorite shades of greens.
For a moment, Draken wishes he had eyes like Chifuyu or Mitsuya, and he could give her a colored rose and hope she thinks of him.
Takemichi can be really dense. If Draken hands her a black-stained rose, she will take that as a threat to her life.
“Welcome in,” an employee greets. A little late now that the two of them have been in the store for at least five minutes at this point.
“Hello,” Draken calls back to be polite.
He’s about to crouch down and examine a pretty batch of yellow lilies, but then he feels a familiar sense of danger shivering down his spine, and snaps his head up to the flower shop clerk.
“If ya need anything, let me know,” South grins scarily in a petal pink apron and cutting up flowers with deadly accuracy at the front register.
Draken slowly looks around. Maybe what Draken thought was a flower shop was really a cannabis dispensary, and the aroma is getting him high off his balls to the point he is hallucinating South Terano whistling a little tune while he tidies up a bouquet of yellow sunflowers.
“Draken, which one do you think Hina would like more?” Emma wonders as she slides up next to him holding at least five different types of flowers. “Or do you think I should get all of them?”
Draken blinks, rubs his eyes, and checks himself for a fever, but South is still nodding his head to his own tune and wearing that pink apron that has Mama Michi’s written across it.
“Hey, Emma,” he murmurs - maybe he is having a stroke? “Punch me really qu - shit, ow! Hesitate a little!”
That damn Sano Strength is genetic and it definitely didn’t skip over her.
“Don’t get pissy with me, I just did what you told me to,” Emma waves off his pained wince and rubs the knuckles of the fist she just jabbed into his chin. “So should I just buy all of them?”
Once again, Emma doesn’t actually care about his input since she wanders away without waiting for a proper answer from him. Which is fine because Draken now has a problem of his own to deal with.
Seeing that he isn’t asleep and dreaming a really weird nightmare, Draken stares at the former Rokuhara Tandai leader with new eyes.
South feels his gaze and lazily looks up from his flowers, and then slightly down because he’s still taller than Draken.
“I’m not giving you a discount just cause you’re mama’s friend. I got a business to run here.”
Draken is not sure if he should be rude yet, so he settles with asking, “what are you doing here?”
“Working,” South raises an eyebrow, then turns his bouquet around to show him the finished product. For some reason, it’s gorgeous. “Mama’s been working hard, so I am too.”
“Mama," Draken mouths, confused. But it seems that South is genuinely here for work, so he isn’t going to cause a scene when there is no need to. “I’m looking for flowers.”
“We don’t have those here.”
Draken rolls his eyes and figures alright, he walked right into that, “what’s a good bouquet to get for a girl?”
South pauses in his task of wrapping a little pink bow, and looks up with an unamused expression. His eyes flitter past Draken’s awkward stance and land on Emma, who found a flower that matched Hina’s eyes judging by her excited giggles.
Draken follows his gaze and immediately shakes his head, “not her. Someone else.”
“I know,” South stands up straight. “You’re an honorable man, Draken. If I thought you were cheating on Mama, I would have torn that fuckass braid off your head.”
“Don’t talk in riddles,” Draken grimaces - feeling that they are now on two different topics. “Where the hell did this cheating shit come from?”
“I believe if you love a woman, you should stay loyal to her even if you aren’t officially together,” South explains. “Treat her as if you are already with her.”
“I only asked if you had flowers.”
“The flowers are for Mama, aren’t they?” South crosses his arms.
“Who the hell is that?” Draken wonders if he misstepped somewhere in the past two seconds and got South under the impression that Draken is going to buy flowers for his deceased mother.
Who Draken is pretty sure is buried in Brazil.
“I have another woman I want to give them to,” Draken says slowly.
He’s not heartless to outright say no, I’m not bringing flowers to your dead mom.
He will only heavily imply it.
“Another woman?” South’s previous kindness - or kindness of his standards - melt into fury and he leans over the counter threateningly. “So you aren’t in love with Mama? You aren’t honorable?”
“I’ve only ever loved one woman,” Draken stands his ground. “So I don’t know what Mama you’re talking about, but if she ain’t Takemitchy, she ain’t gettin’ flowers.”
South calms down, the anger melting off just as quickly as it came, “that’s what I said, ain’t it?”
The dots form in his head, slowly clicking together, and the disbelief is clear in his tone when Draken asks, “is Takemitchy supposed to be… Mama?”
South shrugs, “she’s strong and kind like a mother should be.”
Draken isn’t going to judge - he can’t. Half the guys have unresolved mother issues too. It would be far too hypocritical for him.
Emma appears by his side, holding at least ten different types of flowers. Draken is thankful - he isn’t going to judge South for his tastes, but he also can’t stand to hear any more of how he sees the love of Draken’s life as… that.
“All done, Miss?” South asks, much more polite than he had been with Draken. He even plasters a customer service smile that should feel awkward on his cheeks.
“Yup,” Emma grins, pulling out a wallet that is not her own. Draken suddenly remembers he never got his back. “I’m going to woo my girlfriends.”
“With my card?” Draken scoffs, letting her have this one. “You’re putting my name on Takemitchy’s flowers too.”
“That’s fine,” Emma waves him off while handing South Draken’s credit card. “I’ll be putting my handprint on her asscheek.”
Draken is going to ignore that before Emma decides to go into a thousand word tangent about all the freaky positions she would press Takemichi into.
It happened before, and Draken doesn’t need to hear the word frothing get used in that context again.
Draken suddenly remembers that bet he placed and won, “oi, this should be free. You owe me four grand since Takemitchy beat your ass.”
South lets out a long, deep sigh like he worked an eight hour shift and someone just asked how much the five dollar succulents cost, “the fuck you think I’m workin’ here for, ya cheap ass?”
“Cheap ass?”
“I’m not gonna make Mama pay a dime for a bet she won, but it’s not like I’m shittin’ diamonds,” South gestures to the store. “Used the last of my savings to buy this place. It’s an investment. You’ll get your chump change in a bit.”
“Chump change," Draken scoffs, deciding to be the bigger person instead of attacking every mental point he knows South has.
“Who’s Mama?” Emma looks to Draken for clarification.
“Takemitchy,” he explains.
“Hmm,” Emma narrows her eyes up at the overly-large flower clerk that takes up half the space of the shop. “Big guy, tattoo on the face, mommy issues… wait, you’re South Terano!?”
South nods, handing the flowers to Draken because men should always hold a woman’s belongings no matter the situation.
Emma gapes, turning to look up at Draken with a face full of disgust like it’s somehow his fault South became a part-time flower shop owner, full-time criminal.
“This is the guy that turned my wifey into a mess of bruises? The bitch that paraded my Michi around like a trophy having her wear his nasty button-up like a boyfriend shirt?”
Draken slowly steps back before Emma could start swinging on him, “yup.”
Thankfully, Emma rightfully turns her ire on the actual suspect - glaring at South with wishes of his death before pulling Draken down to her height by the collar of his jacket.
“My best friend is gonna kick your ass, buddy!”
“Emma…” Draken groans.
He wanted nothing more than to paint white roses red with South’s blood, but being commanded to fight like her little Pokemon feels demeaning.
“What are you waiting for?” Emma snatches the flowers back to protect them, and pushes him toward the flower shop clerk that has an actual kill count. “This bastard is stealing my woman, Draken! Our woman!”
“You’re my rival too,” Draken reminds - cautiously stepping out of South’s neck-shanking distance. “Why would I help you?”
He’ll go head to head with this big ass bastard any day of the week, but there’s not much else to do if South decides to grab a flower pen and stab it into his neck.
“On the very, very, very slim chance that Takemichi doesn’t end up with me and Hina, I’d be alright if she somehow ended up with you," Emma says with slight disgust.
Which is as much of a blessing as it will ever get with her.
“Mama doesn’t belong to anyone, little miss,” South smirks, reaching over to pat at Emma’s head.
Then, because he’s a slimy bastard, he ruffles Draken’s hair like a dog.
“I ain’t as selfish as people seem to think, ya know. Mama’s gotta lotta love to give, and I don’t mind sharin’.”
~~~
Tetta had his issues with Takemichi literally punching her way to the top of a leadership position, but it worked out well enough.
Any Rokuhara members that had an issue with Takemichi’s role in the gang from the start have all either revised their decision after watching her tank punch after punch from South and still get up for more.
Or they mysteriously disappeared.
And if Takemichi ever asks, it has nothing to do with either him or Hanma.
The respect earned from South’s staggering strength combined with the adoration Takemichi garners with her heart makes Rokuhara climb the hierarchy of the delinquent world faster than when Tokyo Manji first jumped on the scene.
Takemichi is well on her way to the top of the world. Up at the stars, above all else - exactly where a woman like her belongs.
Having it all in the palm of her hands, Tetta figured that it was finally time to put his own selfish interests in the forefront of his planning.
Now, after a decade of pining and thoughts of the future, Tetta decided now was the optimal moment to finally confess.
Slap!
Saying ‘no’ used to be the worst thing women could do.
“How dare you?” Takemichi hisses through the tears in her eyes.
‘Ow,’ Tetta holds his cheek.
He can count all the times his eyes burned with tears on one hand: when he came out of the womb, and the time he caught that slimy bastard Yamamoto Takuya kissing Takemichi in the playground of their elementary school exactly ten years, eleven months, and three days ago.
Tetta hasn’t gotten his revenge on that blonde haired bastard yet because he’s letting it simmer, but Takuya will get his dues one day.
And the third time Tetta has ever felt the sting of tears?
Right now.
The combination of the shock of the slap and the clear rejection from the only woman he has ever felt true happiness with is enough to send his carefully crafted, mysterious persona crumbling.
“I would have been alright with a ‘no’,” Tetta mutters in near tears.
This is how incels are made. If Tetta were a lesser man, he would already be posting on Reddit and 4chan - posting about how all women are the same and what a high value man he is.
Never in his life did Tetta think that Takemichi would reject him so vehemently.
He planned for the dreaded response of ‘I’m sorry, Tetta-kun, but I love you as a friend', and made peace with the fact that he will be working over the span of three decades (at minimum) to win over her heart.
The chances of his love being reciprocated were never one-hundred percent, but he never expected Takemichi to slap and verbally spit on him.
“Take it back,” she snarls, fist shaking at her sides.
Tetta moves his jaw up and down just to make sure he still has feeling in it, “take what back?”
“You-your confession! Take it back, I don’t want it!”
“I can’t just take a confession back! I don’t want to take it back,” then - in case there was some sort of miscommunication - he stupidly decides to repeat, “Takemichi, I like you.”
Takemichi slaps her hands over her ears and yells, “stop saying that! I don’t want to hear that from you!”
“There are much nicer ways to reject someone,” he chokes out through the tears that he is fighting to keep in. When did the love of his life get so mean?
“How dare you do this to Shuji-kun?” Takemichi sneers, pulling back a palm to slap Tetta again. “How could you betray him!?”
…
What?
Takemichi smacks him across the face too fast for Tetta to react, “you’re not the Tetta-kun I grew up with! He would have never betrayed his lover like this!”
?!What!?
“You’re a no-good, dirty ass cheater! Scum of the earth!” Takemichi screams, slapping him again and then going as far as punching him in the stomach. “Wench!”
“Wenc- what are you talking about!?” Tetta yells so loud his voice cracks.
“How dare you come onto me knowing damn well your three year anniversary with Shuji-kun is next week?” Takemichi sneers with disgust in her eyes.
She stands up straighter, crying at the sky like she is the one being stabbed in the back, “and to think, I helped him pick out the best restaurant to take you out to! It was an expensive ass steakhouse!”
Takemichi turns back to him, and leaps forward to strangle him by the neck, “you deserve the dollar meal! Not even happy hour!”
Tetta yelps, ducking out of the way because he knows what those hands are capable of, “Takemichi! What in the world are you saying to me right now!?”
Dinner? Anniversary!? What the hell is going on!?
“I’m not dating anyone!”
Takemichi gasps in horror, then tries to slap him again. Tetta is a bit faster this time, catching her wrist before it can hit his face and knock him unconscious before he can find out just what the hell is happening.
“Stop hitting me!” Tetta pleads, holding her wrists as gently as he can without her escaping and putting him in the ground. “You’re hurting my feelings, Takemitchy! Like, really badly right now!”
Luckily, she stops trying to pummel him. It still makes absolutely zero sense when she says, “Shuji-kun has been your boyfriend for years, Tetta! How could you act like none of that meant nothing to you?”
What the fuck?
“Who the hell said that!?” Tetta looks left, then right - someone here has to have a camera, this is just one really fucked up prank. “Are you messing with me right now? Takemichi, please, you know I can’t handle these kinds of jokes.”
“There’s nothing funny about you throwing away a three year relationship!” Takemichi reaches down to snatch a rock, and Tetta quickly jumps to the side before it can hit in his eye. “Stop moving so I can pummel you! Scummy cheaters get stoned!”
”Please, you have to explain what’s going on!” Tetta ducks underneath a baseball-sized rock. “Enough of the rocks!”
“What’s there to explain, huh? I thought you were some big time genius! You have the audacity to confess when you’ve been in a relationship with Shuji-kun for literal years!”
She flips him off with one hand, but the thumbs down she sends him with her other hand somehow hurts more.
To his horror - even though he’s the one getting pelted with rocks and essentially being called a whore by the love of his life - tears build in Takemichi’s eyes.
“Did all those words of affection mean nothing to you when you said them to him?”
“I‘ve called him a pile of shit every other day.”
And that’s only what he’s said in public.
“You know he’s into that!” Takemichi throws her hands in the air. “And all those times you’ve shown public displays of affection towards him? You’re not a touchy guy, Tetta, but you’re always all over him!”
“That’s me trying to choke him out! There’s absolutely nothing going on between us! Hanma is my pawn!”
“I know you have really weird kinks, but I don’t want to get involved with your powerplay dynamics,” Takemichi huffs, crossing her arms. “Keep that in the bedroom.”
Tetta doesn’t know what else to do but drag a hand down his throbbing face. Somehow, he knows this is Hanma’s fault and then (and he hates to blame her but really. The naivety gets to a point.) Takemichi’s fault for falling for whatever tricks that lanky bastard laid out.
“I can’t even stand to look at you,” then to prove that, Takemichi shuts her eyes, twirls around, and then slaps a hand over her eyes. “Dirty, dirty, bastard cheater.”
Tetta throws his hands in the air so fast that it cracks his shoulders, “I was never dating him!”
“Does Shuji-kun know that!?”
“I sure hope he does!”
“Ah, hell. This is one mean ass way to break up with a guy,” Hanma - who appeared out of nowhere like always when shit gets out of hand - hangs his head and lays across Takemichi’s shoulders as if too weak to stand normally. “A text woulda hurt less.”
“Don’t you fucking start, Hanma,” Tetta snaps. “What the hell have you been telling Takemichi!?”
“Don’t swear at him, you nasty heartbreaker!” Takemichi shoves her middle finger into Tetta’s face before hurrying to comfort the gaslighting son of a bitch. ”Don’t listen to this guy, Shuji-kun!”
Hanma sighs woefully, “oh, Mi-chan, my heart is so broken right now.”
“You can’t seriously be falling for this!”
Tetta knew his childhood friend / love of his life is an actual buffoon when it comes to romantic relationships, but this is getting so ridiculous that it’s genuinely concerning.
“Falling for what?” Hanma huffs, laying his entire weight across Takemichi’s shoulders. He pretends to wipe a fallen tear from his face. “Falling for your tricks like I did? Ah, Kisaki, this hurts, ya know? It really does.”
Tetta is going to have a stroke. “We were never dating!”
“Apparently,” Hanma scoffs, wrapping his arms around Takemichi’s waist and hiding his tears into her neck. “Did three years of love mean nothing to you?”
”What love?!” Tetta made his thoughts on their relationship quite clear! “I told you that you were my pawn every other day.”
“I’m into that!” “He’s into that!”
“Dammit, Tetta!” Takemichi reaches a hand up to pat at Hanma’s tuft of hair - still trying to comfort that lying sack of nuts that is clearly sabotaging everything Tetta has done to get this far. “You need to be more aware of other people's feelings!”
“I am not gonna hear that from you of all people!”
“Hey, stop yelling at our snookums,” Hanma scolds, wrapping his body around Takemichi like a shield to protect her from Tetta’s rather true words.
Tetta scoffs in disbelief, “if we were really dating, calling her pet names and this,” he gestures to Takemichi’s cheeks being squished between the cage of Hanma’s arms. “Would be considered cheating.”
“Mi-chan’s always the exception,” Hanma scoffs, taking Takemichi’s hands and swinging them around.
Takemichi suddenly remembers that being in a man’s arms while he’s having an argument with (who she thinks) his boyfriend isn’t exactly a good look, and shimmies herself to freedom.
“I’m leaving,” she announces, pushing Hanma at arm’s length and closer to his assumed lover that was assumed to be cheating. “You two figure this out ‘cause I will not be a homewrecker.”
Takemichi storms off but not before thumping a fist against Hanma’s chest and saying, “you could do so much better.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tetta snarls in his face, gripping his collar because otherwise his fingers would have ended around Hanma’s neck and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed.
“Now Takemichi is never going to look my way romantically, you stupid sack of sh-“
“Yikes, Kisaki,” Hanma clutches a hand at his heart. “Harsh words to say to your boyfriend.”
“We are not together.”
The lanky ass makes an error buzzer sound, “wrong. We’ve been datin’ for almost three years now. Happy early anniversary, pookie!”
“Are you- are you trying to gaslight me into a relationship with you?” There’s no way Hanma thought that would actually work on him.
“Now how would that make sense when we’ve already been dating?” Hanma laughs, and fixes the glasses on Tetta’s face that were nearly slapped to the ground. “Don’t worry too much about Mi-chan, either. She’s gonna join us soon!”
~~~
“So apparently Tetta-kun and Shuji-kun weren’t actually dating this whole time! I mean, they were on Shuji’s end, but Tetta had no idea about it until a few hours ago! Isn’t that crazy? Like, how does someone not know they’re dating someone, right?”
Emma stifles a giggle into her pillow while she rewatches all the videos she took of Hina and Takemichi at the mall.
They spent the entire day deciding which outfits Takemichi would look cutest in for the next time she decides to beat the living crap out of rival delinquents.
Because it’s Takemichi, everything looked good on her so Emma and Hina just bought everything she tried on.
“Yeah, that’s crazy,” she absentmindedly agrees - zooming in and taking pictures of their smiles. ‘Whatever you say, wifey.'
“And then Shuji-kun came and it was really a whole mess, but I guess he clarified some things with Tetta," Takemichi continues. “I think they’re actually dating now.”
Emma should copy that lanky bastard one day. Maybe she and Hina should manipulate and gaslight their way into a relationship with their crush if outright confessing doesn’t work the way they want it to.
“Argh! But I feel so bad ‘cause I almost beat the snot out of poor Tetta-kun ‘cause I thought he was being a stinky cheater! Turns out he was just stupid!”
Emma can hear the muted thud of kicks when Takemichi rolls around in bed out of guilt for turning her childhood friend into a victim, and giggles again.
She knows for a fact that Takemichi looks soo cute right now!
“Hey, turn your camera on.”
“Eh, what for?” Takemichi asks, but listens like the good girl she is and turns her camera on for Emma.
“There’s my pretty lady,” Emma grins once her screen is full of beautiful blue eyes, blonde hair soft like clouds, and a cute pout she wishes she could kiss away. “I missed your face.”
“Emma," Takemichi frowns even as Emma feels giddiness running up and down her spine at hearing one of the loves of her life say her name.
Forgoing the scolding tone Takemichi is using…
“What’d I say about these jokes? It’s not fair to Hina.”
“This again?” Emma groans, sitting up to lazily raise an eyebrow at her oblivious, adorable second wife.
She takes a quick screenshot of that little pout - another one for the album!
“Takemichi, what’s it going to take for you to get that we’re ser-“
“Emma!” Mikey slams her bedroom door open with a grin that squeezes his eyes shut. The door balances against the wall it hits - which is weird because Emma locked that. “Hey, whatcha doin’ in here for, huh? Shin said dinner’s ready!”
Flipping him off because he is interrupting her second chance at securing a second wife, Emma turns back to her phone to give her pretty girl more attention.
“Hina and I are in l-“
“Oh? Is that Takemitchy?” Mikey doesn’t wait for an answer before he is leaping across the room to snatch her phone.
Enma mentally growls, ‘this lunatic probably knew I was on call with Takemichi before I even called her!'
“Takemitchy, hey,” Mikey tries to act suave by running a hand through his hair while Emma attempts to tear out tufts of it. “What’s up? How’ve you been?”
Emma karate-chops his neck, “gimme back my wife!”
‘Awh, what a cute sibling fight!’ Takemichi thinks when Emma successfully wraps her hands around Mikey’s neck and starts squeezing like her life depends on it.
“Hello, Mikey-kun,” Takemichi waves in amusement.
Mikey is already choking when Emma switches from using her hands to wrapping an arm around his throat, but nothing below a bullet going through his head would stop him from hearing his name slip from Takemichi’s plump lips after three months of Sano-san bullshit.
He knows Emma is an obsessive freak in her own right too. There’s no doubt she has been recording this call from the start.
Mikey is definitely going to steal that one second snippet and change all his ringtones so he can always hear Mikey-kun, Mikey-kun, Mikey-kun for the rest of his life.
”I’m bac - aghck, Emma, quit it!” Mikey shoves a hand in her face and attempts to push her away - all while still trying to look cool in front of Takemichi. “We’re finally done with the Sano-san shit? I’m back to being Mikey-kun then?”
“Back to being a little bitch!” Emma grabs Mikey’s wrist and bites him down to the bone. Mikey swats her away like a fly.
Takemichi snickers, “that would just be confusing when I have two Sanos in front of me.”
“Should just be one,” Emma mutters, using one hand to tug Mikey’s ear from his head and the other to pull out his hair.
“Emma, seriously, can’t you see I’m having a conversation here?” Mikey smiles casually at Takemichi even as tears burn in his eyes when Emma’s hand pulls away with at least ten strands of his hair. “Pfft, little sisters, am I right?”
“Ya know, I’m starting to realize you didn’t do much besides punching and kicking things.” Takemichi turns the camera to point at the papers piling up on her bedroom desk, “I’m getting slammed with work over here.”
“When you’re so good at punching and kicking things, that’s all you have to do,” Mikey grins.
If this had been his phone and he had been in his room - not getting strangled by his little sister that needs to learn to give up - Mikey would be curled up in his bed and using Takemichi’s voice like a lullaby.
Not for the first time, Mikey mourns the past three months where he hadn’t been able to hear Takemichi’s voice on his way to his dreams.
Mikey missed everything about her, but not having a late-night video call to chat about the day they spent together was a deeper kind of grief.
Speaking of…
“Hey, did you unblock me from your phone yet?”
Thanks to Mitsuya’s manipulation, Mikey has been unblocked from her social media accounts like the rest of the guys, but while they’re able to spam-call her phone and flood her messages, none of his have ever been sent through.
Takemichi’s face drops and she immediately switches off her camera, “o-oh, man! Hey, the camera totally shut off just now. I think something is definitely wrong with my phone… yeah! So, if your calls haven’t been goin’ through that is… definitely why…”
“Don’t lie to him, Mi-chan,” Izana swiftly walks into the room - summoned by the sound of his siblings fighting and Takemichi’s faint voice.
The intruder snatches the phone in one swift movement. “She doesn’t wanna talk to you, Mikey. Get the hint already.”
Takemichi switches her camera back on - woah! Suddenly it’s fixed! “Hey, Izana!”
“ Hello, my little corgi,” Izana grins while completely ignoring his two younger siblings trying to tug at his earrings. “Leadership treating you well?”
Mikey glares and smacks the back of his head with one of Emma’s weighted stuffed animals, “Stop calling Takemitchy that. She’s not a damn dog.”
“It’s a pet name, idiot,” Izana snaps - using the phone to smack him back.
“Hey, hey!” Shinichiro pops his head into the room to see Emma trying to grab her phone, while Izana and Mikey slap each other. “I called dinner five minutes ago - it’s gonna get cold! What is going on?”
“Hello, Shini-san!” Takemichi calls from the phone.
So that’s what’s going on.
Using his superior height and status as the eldest brother, Shinichiro smoothly grabs the phone and holds it high above the rest of their heads.
“Hey, Mi-chan,” he waves with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but we’re about to have dinner and I’m trying to do a no phones at the table policy.”
“What the hell?” Izana snaps, kicking Shinichiro’s shin. “That’s never been a rule before.”
Shinichiro rubs the sore spot on his leg. ”It is now.”
Mikey scoffs, “who said?”
“Uhm, me?” Shinichiro raises his head hautely with a self-satisfied smirk. “When you pay the mortgage, then you can have a say in the rules.”
Izana crosses his arms, “I could buy you.”
“And Grandpa already paid off the mortgage years ago,” Emma snorts. “You didn’t pay anything.”
“I’m gonna go!” Takemichi quickly says before they could start another round of arguing that will just leave their food cold and soggy. “Oh, and if Baji and Tora call you and say someone broke into their apartment, don’t worry about it!”
Shinichiro clasps his hands like a stern parent giving a lecture because that is exactly what he is - curse these kids for making him have to deal with these kinds of topics.
“Just to make sure we are all on the same page her-“
“You look like the teacher that nobody likes,” Izana huffs.
“How would you know, Izana? When was the last time you went to a school?” Mikey laughs, leaning over to steal a meatstick from his plate.
Izana slaps his hand away, then tips over Mikey’s water cup in retribution, “I already graduated.”
“Barely. You threatened your principal to let you pass,” Emma corrects, then she turns to Mikey. “And at this rate, you’re gonna have to do the same. You know you’ve missed at least fifty classes in the past three months?”
“Mikey, you what?” Shinichiro gapes. He turns to Grandpa. “Did you know about this?”
“Don’t drag me into it,” the old man huffs and completes another round of Candy Crush.
“Yeah, don’t rag on Grandpa, Shin,” Mikey sticks his tongue out instead of flipping him off because they’re at the dinner table and he has manners. “You’re the reason I missed sex ed in middle school. You’re why Takemitchy was pissed at me from the start.”
“I was in a coma," Shinichiro shakes his head. “No, we’re getting side-tracked. What I wanted to say before I was rudely interrupted… are we all aware that Mi-chan isn’t dating anyone?”
He’s met with three pairs of deadpan stares.
Even if Izana isn’t biologically related to the rest of them, the look on his face matches the rest of theirs perfectly.
“Uh,” Mikey shares a side-eye with Emma, then another one with Izana. “… yeah?”
“Right, and we all know none of you have ever confessed to her either,” Shinichiro crosses his arms.
“I literally asked her to marry me.”
“It’s Takemichi," Shinichiro raises an eyebrow as if to say, isn't that obvious? “She’s friggin’ terrible at knowing when someone is sincere about their romantic feelings. And I know it can get frustrating, but I have never heard any of you actually tell her that you love her.”
All three of them look varying degrees of uncomfortable at having this talk. Shinichiro doesn't exactly think he has the best footing either.
What other parent has to give the ‘you can do it!’ relationship speech to three people who are all in love with the same girl?
“I can’t let you guys fight over a girl when none of you have truly confessed to her. None of you have any claim on Takemichi, so none of you have any right to act possessive, or obsessive, or freaky-deaky,” he waves a hand through the air. “I don’t know what the kids call it these days.”
“Point is, you are all siblings,” Shinichiro reminds them - as if they could forget at this point. “And you all deserve a good relationship. And if any of you really want that with Takemichi, you need to clearly say it to her face. No room for misinterpretation.”
He clears his throat, straightens his back, “you just need to walk up to her, hold her by the cheek, and say, ‘Takemichi, I wake up every morning just to see your face, and go to bed knowing I’ll see you in my dreams. Nothing is funny when you aren’t there to laugh with me. Nothing is more terrifying than when you are missing from my side. I’ve loved you for years and I’ll love you for decades more, so please. Give me a chance and I promise you will love me back.”
…
Shinichiro coughs - wow! Where did all of that come from? Must have slipped out a bit…
Mikey suddenly leaps across the table, climbing over plates and spilling drinks. Izana and Emma are quickly following suit.
“Shin, you freak-creep son of a bitch!” Mikey yells, launching himself to wrap his hands around Shinichiro’s neck. “That sounded way too honest!”
~~~
“Did Takemitchy annex some of our territory without us knowing?” Kazutora frowns, side-eyeing yet another suspicious-looking character clad in a purple jumpsuit.
He’s seen at least ten Rokuhara members - or as Kazutora calls them, ‘Takemitchy’s dogs’ - in the past five minutes. As far as he knows, they’re still in Toman occupied territory.
“Not that I heard of,” Baji raises an eyebrow at a Rokuhara member crouching on the sidewalk. “Move out the way, asshole. You’re in the middle of the walkway.”
The Rokuhara bastard stares for a second before shuffling to the side. He’s still crouched, so he just looks like a crab trying to get out of their way.
“They tryin’ to start a war for Takemitchy or what?” Kazutora scoffs, glaring at two more that pass them. “They’re stinking up our turf. Don’t they know this shit would cause a conflict?”
If those Rokuhara jackasses are trying to sabotage Takemichi’s leadership by unnecessarily causing a war between her and Toman when she just came to power, they’ll knock the shit out of everyone involved and have them all disappear before she finds out.
“Oi,” Baji calls to a small, loitering group of Rokuhara members. “You better not cause trouble for Takemitchy, ya pieces of shits. She worked hard to get where she is, so you better not fuck it up for her.”
They don’t bother waiting for a response to their unsaid threat and continue walking to their apartment.
They both just finished a ten hour shift at the pet shop. Cleaning up all the animal droppings from every single cage is definitely not how they wanted to spend their Friday.
And they definitely did not want to spend their Friday night beating the shit out of at least twenty guys when they could collapse into bed and sleep for twelve hours, but that’s what they’re about to do.
“What the fuck!?” Kazutora snaps out of his exhaustion and sprints full-speed toward a Rokuhara bastard that just exited their apartment.
“Oh, shit!” The bastard yelps when he looks behind and sees two of the scariest Toman captains rushing toward him with murder burning in their eyes. “Run, run, run, run, run, run!”
Anxiety spikes through Kazutora’s veins. What the hell are Rokuhara guys doing in their apartment!?
They could have stolen all of Kazutora’s porn mags. His coffee shop mug collection. The twenty bucks he stashed under his mattress for emergencies.
When they’re a few hundred feet away, Kazutora realizes that these bastards stole something even worse.
“Is that- you fuck, is that Michi!?” Kazutora yells, catching sight of his hamster casually eating a large grape within his cage without a care that he’s being hamster-napped. “You son of a bitch!”
Baji sees five more guys leaving their apartment - all holding Michi’s toys, hamster pellets, and all the fruit they had in the fridge left for him.
These bastards had the audacity to wear a ski mask, but what the hell is the point of that when they’re flaunting their Rokuhara uniforms?!
“You’re seriously robbin’ us!?”
Neither of them are slouches when it comes to speed, but apparently the fodder of Rokuhara were smart enough to send their fastest runners to rob two Tokyo Manji captains blind.
The thieving group of six are around the corner of their apartment complex and scaling down the stairs in record time.
“Dammit!” Kazutora yells, banging his head against their open front door after they just saw an entourage of motorcycles pick up the thieves and drive away. A few threw up middle fingers that are going to get chopped off one day.
Baji quickly checks the apartment for anything else that could have been stolen and, luckily, comes up empty.
“Everything else is untouched,” he sighs - thankful for the small mercies.
But now he bets at least six Rokuhara bastards are aware of the small collection of Hanagaki Takemichi polaroids that he keeps hidden in his closet.
Which, when asked, is a collection of all his friends.
It just so happens that Takemichi takes up 90% of the pictures - coincidentally.
“I don’t care about that,” Kazutora mumbles in despair. He’s collapsed against the doorframe like he’s been shot in the chest. “My freakin’ hamster is gone, Baji.”
“I’m gonna kill those fuckers,” Baji snarls, not punching the wall knowing that they wouldn’t get their security deposit back. “They’re tryin’ to sabotage Takemitchy!”
Just when he is about to run out with his keys and chase those rotten dickheads down for trying to ruin something good for Takemichi, Kazutora’s phone goes off in a familiar ringtone that he hasn’t heard in three months.
Kazutora whips out his phone and quickly answers the call. There’s no need to check the caller ID.
“Hey!” Takemichi laughs on the back of a motorcycle. She’s wearing a ski mask, but he would recognize those blue eyes anywhere. "How was work?”
“Takemitchy,” Kazutora breathes, heart still pounding at having his pet stolen from him. It slows a bit as it finally clicks who the culprit really is. “Did you just rob us?”
“Sure did!” She raises up the familiar cage and the fat, yellow hamster blinks at the camera. “No way you thought you were gonna steal my hamster and get away with it, right?”
~~~
After the most tedious two weeks of his life, Daiki finally did it. The biggest accomplishment he could ever achieve with his own two hands - blood and sweat. He did it.
“You’re all the newest members of Tokyo Manji,” his new vice commander Ryuuguuji Ken - the Draken, one half of the infamous Twin Dragons - announces. “You all proved your worth during the battle between Toman and Tenjiku a few weeks ago. Congratulations.”
Daiki’s casual black ensemble that he hastily threw together last month has been switched out for an official Toman uniform - authentic gold embroidery and all. He got a haircut, and his sleek white boots are polished to the nines.
He has never been this dressed up in his life. Not even for his dad’s funeral. It’s fitting for a special occasion such as this.
Being able to join the same gang as Hanagaki Takemichi…
Anyone blessed enough to reach this level should always look their best. What a privilege it is to stand where she has.
“You’ve all gotten your assigned divisions,” the first division captain, Baji Keisuke, says - more so to the group of ten that recently joined his attack guard. “Don’t disappoint me.”
“Yes, sir!” Daiki’s voice sounds like a few dozen with the rest of the recruits echoing his words.
“Let’s get started,” Draken nods, stepping back to give the floor to the commander.
It’s expected for new recruits to give their full attention to their commander when he speaks. Manjirou Sano is definitely a man that garners attention and respect just by walking into a room.
Daiki, however, takes the time to twist and turn his neck. He noticed a certain someone was missing from the ranks.
Daiki wasn’t as fortunate as the seven that were able to join Mitsuya Takashi’s second division - the team made known for its captain, and infamous for having Toman’s sweetheart within its ranks.
Instead, he was thrown into the third division. That only makes it easier for him to scan the next one over - hoping to spot the very woman he joined this gang for.
But Hanagaki Takemichi isn’t here.
The sight of Hanagaki tearing off her Tenjiku uniform after knocking the commander of Toman and the president of her then-gang on their ass is ingrained into their minds. Where she disappeared after - no one that Daiki asked knows.
They all figured with how determined the captains were to get her back, Hanagaki would be back within their ranks at the same time they decided to add new recruits.
“Sir!” A fellow newcomer from the second division raises his hand when it seems no one else will. “Please, allow me to ask about Hanagaki Takemichi’s whereabouts!”
Daiki freezes at the sudden chill that frosts over the entire plaza. All the captains standing at the front glare at the newcomer for even daring to say her name.
‘Ah, shit,’ he internally sweats. He wants to know where Hanagaki is too, but he would have had more tact than that! ‘Not even five minutes in, and we’re already gonna get tossed out ‘cause of this fuckin’ clown.’
The fifth division captain looks ready to rush forward and snap the bones in the newcomer’s neck. The two fourth division captains don’t look far from following either.
“Takemitchy is no longer with us,” Mitsuya eventually says when none of the other captains look willing to answer. “She won’t be with us for a while.”
!?
Panic. Dread fills his bones.
“Oh, my god. Is she dead!?”
“What the fuck!?” The fourth division captain snaps, his smile twitching so wildly it looks like a frown. And that’s a freakin’ terrifying sight for that guy. “Takemitchy’s not fuckin’ dead, who said that!? Get out here, I’m gonna beat your ass!”
“Why’d captain Mitsuya say it like that!?” Someone shouts in despair.
“Takemitchy isn’t dead. Don’t you ever say something like that again,” Matsuno snaps. He can’t find the exact person that spoke, so he throws up both his middle fingers and shows it off to everyone.
“Then where is she!?”
Draken steps forward before any of the more confrontational captains could. It’s clear that he is trying to remain professional, but the wounded look on his face is still prominent.
“Some of you might’ve heard, but Takemitchy is officially retired from Toman.”
An immediate uproar booms through the shrine.
“Hanagaki Takemichi defeated South Terano in combat and is currently the leader of Rokuhara Tandai,” Draken continues over the noise. He drops his professional facade, and glares at the crowd. “We don’t have an official alliance with Rokuhara, but we are working on it.”
The commander finally takes a step forward, the look on his face shuts the crowd up with swiftness.
“We aren’t trying to make Takemitchy or Rokuhara our enemy,” Mikey raises his head and that familiar dark glint in his eyes is a promise. “If anyone purposely starts shit with Rokuhara, I’ll kill you.”
Takashi knew the news of Takemichi officially leaving Toman was going to cause a stir among their men. It’s why they held off the announcement as long as they could in an attempt to mitigate the backlash.
He also knew that something like this would happen in light of the situation.
One of his own division subordinates takes a step out of their formation - standing rimrod straight just as he was taught and shouts with clear intent.
“I’m announcing my departure from Tokyo Manji’s Second Division!” He announces, voice steady. “I have remained loyal to Toman under the impression this is where Hanagaki Takemichi will stay! If Takemichi-chan has become the leader of another gang, I will follow her!”
Turning to Takashi, the man bows low at the waist, “thank you for having me!”
Takashi sighs, but resignation floods his face. He knew this would happen. “I accept your resignation. Thank you for fighting alongside me all these years.”
“No, thank you, President.”
Suddenly, the guy pulls at his hair, wiggling it until off comes a wig. Long, brown hair comes spilling underneath the apparent toupe as the former Toman member unbuttons his toppuku.
A series of confused symbols flash inside Takashi’s head. There are no words to describe what he is feeling right now.
Yasuda from his sewing club stands in front of the gang. Her long hair is free from the wig, while her breasts are bound tight to her chest - leaving no indication of their existence while wearing the toppuku.
”Ooh, what the hell?” Pah-chin coughs, choking on his spit.
“When the hell did you get here!?” Peh-yan shrieks, pointing a finger at the woman like she magically appeared in a flash of light and didn’t just take off a toupe.
“I’d apologize for the deception, but I’m not sorry at all,” Yasuda shrugs - uncaring of the wide-eyed looks she’s receiving. “I joined Toman shortly after falling in love with Takemichi-chan because I wanted to get closer to her. I figured that she was the only exception to the no women rule and went by a masculine identity while in the delinquent setting by choice.“
Takashi rubs a hand down his jaw, trying not to look as discombobulated as he feels.
“I thought I’d be kicked out if you found out the truth, so I decided to create a new identity,” Yasuda holds up her wig. “Unlike Takemichi-chan, I purposely hid who I was. Now that she is the leader of Rokuhara Tandai, there’s no need for me to pretend anymore.”
Nothing but the wind could be heard in the silence that follows.
Until a figure from the third division steps out of formation, tears off a toupe from their scalp, and unbuttons their toppuku to showcase bandaged breasts.
“You’re shittin’ me,” Takashi blinks. “Akari?”
“I, too, am announcing my resignation from Tokyo Manji,” Akari declares, bandages breasts on display and her toupe by her side. “My place is by Takemichi’s side!”
One by one, then two by two, more and more members step out from the formations of Toman’s male-dominated gang, and unbutton their toppukus to showcase a chest full of breasts.
“I’m not a woman!” A member from the fourth division declares, but tears open his toppuku anyway. “But I’ll follow Takemitchy everywhere she goes! Thank you for having me, captains!”
In the end, about a fifth of their members walked out.
Regardless of what was on their chest, despite the fact that it was lightly snowing, they all disappeared down the steps of the shrine with their toppukus open and proud.
“That’s at least…” Chifuyu takes a moment to count, his mind still reeling at such a bombshell dropped on their head at eleven o’clock at night. “A hundred and ten women hidden within our ranks. For three years.”
Hakkai is still covering his eyes even though all the women left more than an hour ago, “and every single one of them left.”
“And almost seventy men left to join Takemitchy, too,” Kazutora murmurs, staring up at the stars and wondering what else he is oblivious to in his life.
Mikey is laying face down on the lightly-snow dusted concrete, his voice muffled by his scarf, “I kicked out Takemitchy for being a woman… the whole time a fifth of my gang was made up of women…”
He groans in physical pain and rolls into a tight ball, “I failed at feminism. Mom, I’m sorry.”
“Ya know, lookin’ at it that way,” Pah-chin grins. For a guy that lost half of his division to Rokuhara in less than thirty minutes, he looks pretty giddy about the entire situation. “Didn’t we win at feminism? Over a hundred women fought as equals with us for years, that's more than what Brahman has!”
“And now we got none, Pah,” Draken deadpans.
“Tenjiku doesn’t have any either,” Souya notes.
“Yeah, ‘cause bein’ on par with Tenjiku is such an accomplishment,” Baji scoffs, then leans back to shove his palm into his eyes. “Did you even notice that most of our strongest fighters walked away tonight? I lost thirty members of my attack guard. Twenty four were women. All I got left is fodder, man. Friggin’ fodder.”
“Mikey-kun, Mikey-kun, Mikey-kun, Mikey-kun."
Draken gapes in disbelief when Mikey hurriedly answers his phone. “Did you seriously make Takemitchy’s voice your ringtone?”
Mitsuya shakes his head like he didn’t think of doing the same thing, “it gets to a point, man.”
Mikey flips them both off and answers the call. Takemichi’s face appears on the screen, and they all scamper to Mikey’s side to snatch a peak - ignoring the way he slaps and kicks at them to step away.
“Hey, Takemitchy!” Mikey grins, shoving Chifuyu’s face away from the camera so that the girl can’t see him.
“Did you put a hit out on me, you jerks?” Takemichi gapes, looking somewhere off to the side of the camera with an expression of slight horror. “Are you really that pissed that I left!?”
“What are you talking about?” Mikey sits up with a straightened, serious back. “Are you alright? Where are you?”
Takemichi squeaks, and turns the camera to show them outside of her window. “Why’re there a bunch of half-naked women in Toman uniform outside my base!?”
Outside, led by Yasuda, are their recently resigned members standing in the snow. They all still have their toppukus unbuttoned as they politely knock on the door of Takemichi’s base.
“Is that Yasuda-chan!?” Takemichi gapes, then turns the camera to sneer. “Mitsuya-kun, what the hell did you do?”
“I had nothing to do with this, Takemitchy,” Mitsuya quickly defends himself - still in the doghouse for his past manipulation. “I’m just as surprised as you are.”
“I can’t believe you guys would think I’d fall for this seduction tactic! I know an assassination attempt when I see it - I’m not falling for this!”
Despite that, Takemichi stares a little too hard at the crowd of half-naked women before shaking her head.
“I'm not fallin’ for it!”
“It’s not an assassination,” Mikey sighs. “Apparently we aren’t as observant as we thought, Takemitchy. We’ve really fallen short on feminism lately.”
“There were over a hundred women in Toman,” Draken explains at Takemichi’s confused look. “They snuck in throughout the years, but since they found out you’re the head of Rokuhara, they took off to join you.”
“You’re the face of a new movement, Mitchy,” Chifuyu grins, shoving Mikey’s head out of the way to get into frame. “Congratulations!”
“A hundred women?” Takemichi awes with a growing smile that Mikey quickly screenshots five times. “There were seriously that many in Toman!?”
“Yeah, but they actually tried to hide their gender,” Baji butts in - pushing Chifuyu and Mikey to the side even though he just snatches the phone away. “So you can’t get mad at us for not knowin’ about it! They didn’t want anyone to know.”
“This is more women than what Brahman has,” Takemichi gushes, pressing her face against the window to get a better look.
Souya quickly snatches the phone and screenshots at least fifteen photos in three seconds.
Takemichi lets out a happy squeak and pumps a fist in the air, “haha, this is too great! Hell, yeah! This is gonna be so freakin’ expensive…”
Takemichi ends the call before any of them could add anything else.
…
“Takemitchy looked so happy that I don’t even care we lost over a hundred of our best fighters,” Mikey shrugs - snatching his phone back and admiring the new collection he got from a three minute call.
“You wanna send me tho-“
“No.”
~~~
“You look like a neglected boyfriend.”
Sanzu looks up from his phone through his eyelashes with an unamused expression at the rest of the captains. He should have known nothing would stop the rest of the guys from digging into his business when they have nothing else to do.
“We aren't talking about this,” Sanzu shuts off his new password-protected phone and shoves it down his pocket for security.
As if that weren’t enough, he shoves his hands down there as well. He also knows where Kazutora keeps the meat cleaver - just in case.
“We’re worried about you,” Mikey nods solemnly.
“You’re just bored because Hanagaki’s too busy to text you back.”
He knows he’s right since Mikey spaces out before he could even finish his sentence to check his messages for any missed texts from the girl.
His fingers itch to do the same.
“Takemitchy got almost two hundred recruits,” Chifuyu lays back in the chair - phone resting on his chest and waiting for a text back. “And we are two hundred down. We’ve got a lot of time on our hands right now.”
They could be doing a variety of productive things right now. Anything from meeting with potential clients to building treaties with similarly powerful gangs.
And they choose to sit around in Baji and Kazutora’s heater-less apartment, still moping about the fact that Takemichi is too busy to pay any of them attention.
“You’ve been sulking for the past few weeks,” Baji switched out his contacts for glasses today just so he can push them up like a therapist. “Let’s talk about it.”
Sanzu eyes the front door - freedom. “No.”
“If you’re stressed about the gang, calm down,” Pah-chin yawns, going through the fridge for drinks only to remember they went through the alcohol last night. “We’ve got a few meetings lined up for next week. We won’t be broke for long.”
Meetings that Sanzu arranged.
Seriously, none of them have done anything productive for the gang in the past three months.
Hakkai leans forward with a slight judging look on his face, “did you get dumped by your girl already?”
“I didn’t get dumped,” Sanzu snaps, fingers twitching to wrap them around the guy’s neck. He needs the meat cleaver. “We aren’t dating.”
“So why do you look like a stupid, sick dog every time you look at your phone?” Kazutora questions.
He doesn’t even care about the conversation - he’s too busy scrolling through Takemichi’s social media accounts. Kazutora just wants to make sure someone else is having a worse day than he is.
“Nothing happened,” Sanzu simply says.
Which is the issue.
Nothing is happening.
He would have congratulated the girl on her new position as the leader of Rokuhara Tandai if that hadn’t also meant he had to compliment a rival gang member, and Sanzu is nothing but loyal to his own gang.
Disregard the fact that he was sleeping with the girl when she was a Tenjiku recruit.
But he bet on her during the fight, threw in his own hundreds of dollars, and when he finally swallowed his pride to ask if she wanted to join him for dinner before he took her back to his apartment, Takemichi hadn’t even opened the message.
Sanzu mustered the courage and dared to double-text, then took a line of five shots of vodka and ended up sending another.
Not a single message has been read.
She’s busy - Sanzu gets that. Rokuhara was in rough shape and Takemichi had her work cut out for her.
It isn’t as big of a deal as people may think.
“It’s alright if you got dumped,” Baji shoots him a thumbs up. “We’ll only make fun of you a little.”
Everyone bursts into laughter and Sanzu quickly stands up to leave.
“Alright! Leave him alone,” Draken quiets them down as if Sanzu needed his defense. “If any of you got dumped by Takemitchy, you’d be jumping off a cliff right now.”
“I’d be doing way more than that,” Mikey snorts, balancing his phone on his nose. “You’re all going down with me.”
“If Takemitchy ever broke up with me, I’d make it everyone’s problem,” Chifuyu sweats at the thought. They’ll have to lock him in a basement to keep him from doing something the world does not need to see.
He’s not even dating her, by the way.
“What are you talking about, Chifuyu? You’d just cry the entire time,” Hakkai flips him off. “Takemitchy would only take you back because she’d feel sorry for you.”
Chifuyu waves him off carelessly, “all I heard is she would take me back. I don’t care, nothin’ else would matter.”
“I wasn’t dumped by Hanagaki,” Sanzu quickly snaps. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah, we know. Draken was just using her as an example ‘cause we like her,” Mitsuya raises an eyebrow, slowly lowering his tea with an increasingly dark expression. ”But why’d you get so defensive?“
Sanzu knows every single one of the captains have deep, fond feelings for the woman he is sleeping with. Each of them would trade places with him in a heartbeat given the chance.
But goddamn, he’s so fucking tired of hearing about it.
“You don’t need to bring her up in every conversation,” Sanzu groans, fingernails stabbing into his forearms from where they’re crossed. “Every goddamn day, it’s just Takemitchy, Takemitchy, Takemitchy. She’s all you people fuckin’ talk about it. Why don’t you move on already?”
There is a familiar genuine irritation on his face, yet this time it feels less about Takemichi herself, and more towards them.
“Every day for three years straight, it’s all I hear from you,” Sanzu continues even as the voice inside his head and the look on everyone’s face is warning him to stop talking. “You’re on her ass all the goddamn time, pussy-whipped.”
“Watch it.”
“When are you going to accept that maybe she just doesn’t fucking want you?”
“Calm down, Sanzu,” Nahoya laughs only because it would make the guy even angrier. “Don’t take it out on us because you got dumped.”
“I didn’t get fucking dumped.”
“You’re getting real upset here,” Mikey simply says, leaning his chin against his fist. “Kinda feels like you got dumped.”
“This is why your girl left you,” Draken shrugs. “Your emotional constipation gets real fuckin’ tiring.”
If Sanzu wants to talk down on their relationship with the girl they like, then he has no problems beating him while he’s down about the girl he’s clearly miserable over.
“She’s not my girl,” Sanzu growls. God, he hates that guy. “We just fuck. That’s all there is to it.”
“I didn’t need to know that about you,” Chifuyu groans, digging his hands over his ears. The thought of Sanzu getting down and dirty makes him sick.
Hakkai snickers, “you fell in love with your fuckbuddy. Happens to the best of us.”
“What the hell would you know?”
“Are you mad because she’s not texting you back?” Mitsuya frowns yet nothing about it feels sympathetic. There’s even some light behind his eyes knowing Sanzu’s having relationship problems. “Maybe the lucky girl found some better dick.”
As if. Sanzu has had the girl they are all in love with in his bed every other week for almost a year. If Takemichi wasn’t satisfied with his dick, he’d know.
“Yeah, I’d be pissed off too if I fell in love with my fuckbuddy and she’s too busy gettin’ twisted like a pretzel by some other guy to text me back,” Kazutora yawns. “We won’t hold it against you, man.”
Sanzu grits his teeth. If any of them knew just who they were talking about, they wouldn’t be acting so haughty right now.
No one understands how collected he is for the situation.
Had it been any of them - had any of these pussy-whipped dicks been sleeping with Takemichi and all of the sudden she’s ignoring their texts, Japan would be on lockdown for the hell they would raise.
Before Sanzu could snap back and say more about their relationship with Takemichi that would end with him having injuries he wouldn’t be proud of, his phone finally, finally beeps in that familiar tone that he’s been waiting to hear for days.
The guys are still making fun of him, but he’s too busy whipping out his phone to hear.
Hanagaki (Do Not Answer) : haru-kun !!! srry i havent responded lately >.< rokuhara’s a mess
“So she finally texted back,” Baji doesn’t frame it as a question. It’s clear by the way the irritation completely disappears from Sanzu’s face, melting into a relaxed smile they rarely see even on a good day.
It’s uncanny. Honestly, something about it even feels threatening for some reason.
“Good,” Chifuyu scoffs, checking his own phone and hoping his girl texted him back too. Takemichi didn’t. “Maybe some cooch is what he needs to stop bein’ such an ass about my relationship with Takemitchy.”
“What relationship are you talking about?” Souya leans over to flick Chifuyu’s eyelid. “You remember you’re not dating Takemitchy, right?”
Meanwhile, Sanzu briefly wonders why Chifuyu is suddenly on the guard with Souya’s neck trapped in a chokehold before putting all his attention on his phone.
Me : I figured you would be busy. Rokuhara is nothing without South’s strength.
“Is that what we look like when Takemitchy is mentioned?” Nahoya looks around worriedly, biting his lip. “This girl has him by the dick!”
Hanagaki (Do Not Answer) : i dunno about that dummy 🙄 my boys have been hard at work
Hanagaki (Do Not Answer) : and who lost almost two hundred members again 🤔 cause it def wasnt me :P
“Holy shit,” Kazutora rubs his eyes just to make sure he isn’t hallucinating. He leans in to get a closer look and doesn’t even get swatted away for it. “Is he… is he smiling? What the hell?”
“Shit, he’s in love with this girl,” Draken shifts uncomfortably. He didn’t think Sanzu had any other emotions besides apathy and annoyance.
But look at him now. Smiling. Why are there chills going down his spine?
“No wonder he was bein’ a dick,” Draken hums in slight wonder.
What a goddamn discovery! Sanzu’s a real human!
Me : Don’t get too excited. You’ll need to provide for your members if you want to keep them loyal. I don’t think you have the finances to act so smug.
Hanagaki (Do Not Answer) : you think i dont have any tricks up my sleeve haru ?????? dont you know im a genius ?
Sanzu snickers, and the rest of the captains immediately flinch back at the sound.
“What the hell was that?” Mikey gags, clutching a throw pillow and readying it to be used as a weapon. This can’t seriously be the guy from his childhood - this is obviously some lovesick clone. “Did he just freakin’ giggle?”
“Do I look this pathetic when I talk to Takemitchy?” Hakkai sweats, looking around for confirmation. “Guys, please, seriously! I need to know!”
Me : I haven’t done charity work in a while. Want me to give you a few tips? It’ll be my gift to you for finally getting promoted from little lackey.
Hanagaki (Do Not Answer) : blah blah ! im not takin advice from some toman punk youre just gonna sabotage me
“I don’t like that smile,” the look on Peh-yan‘s face would make anyone think he just saw someone piss in the street. “This is so weird to watch... Someone make him stop it, I’m gettin’ freaked out.”
Me : I should have known you’d rather have another tip from me.
“Hell, no,” Baji easily notices the change of expression on Sanzu’s face and throws an empty can at his head. “Hell, no, Sanzu. You’re not fucking sexting some girl in my living room!”
“Kick him out before he gets hard!” Kazutora shouts from the kitchen.
Hanagaki (Do Not Answer) : i didnt say that you cornball but if youre offering <3 is that dinner still on the table ?
A photo is sent through, and Sanzu has enough experience to shut off his phone before it could properly load. Whatever tantalizing picture that Takemichi wants to torment him with tonight is going to have to wait.
Truth be told, Sanzu is a rather impatient guy.
He heads towards the door without another word to the rest of the captains.
The second he is out, that photo is his.
“There he goes!” Hakkai cheers. “Wrap it, Sanzu, we don’t need small, grouchy ass clones of you walkin’ around here!”
Sanzu snorts from the outside, opening the photo of Takemichi kneeling in front of the full-body mirror that they have spent quite a bit of time with. The open, purple Rokuhara toppuku drowns her, framing her bare breasts perfectly for his eyes.
He whistles, low and steady, “pretty girl knows exactly how to get me, huh.”
Inside the apartment, the rest of the captains clap and whoop, cheering him on to ‘go fuck your frustration out, man! And you better not be a dickhead when you come back!’
Saving the photos to his growing photo album and adjusting the hard on in his pants, Sanzu can’t help but laugh.
‘Those guys don’t have the slightest clue.'