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SANO SHIN’ICHRO | 佐野 真一郎
YANAGI SHIZUKO | 柳静子
Love is an odd thing, at least that's what Yanagi Shizuko thinks.
A person's idea of love, what makes romance such a dreamy concept, is born out of the way it's seen around them: the sweet, lovesick smile of a couple whose number of grey hairs ironically mirror the number of years they've spent together; the blush stained cheeks of youth falling in love for the first time; couples that wear matching wedding bands, fingers interlocked in casual possessiveness.
For Shizuko, love is simply a phenomenon that is out of reach. She watched first hand as her parents fell out of love soon after having her, leaving her in the custody of a mother who wasn't quite sure what to do with her and thus kept her at a distance, never coddling her like a parent should have. It caused a splinter to inch into the shape of her heart, burying deep inside and making sure that Shizuko thought of love as something no more than a treasure; perhaps existing somewhere in the world but not in the path of a girl like herself.
Sano Shin'ichirō is a welcome contradiction to her thoughts.
It's nearing the evening when a gang stumble in through the doors of Masato's diner, curses and swears leaving their mouths when they struggle to fit through the cramped doors. Shizuko glances up, eyebrows creasing together at the sheer noise they emit but continues to count money, sheets of yen slipping between her fingers. Masato's diner - named after the owner's daughter who had now become the owner herself - was used to being frequented by middle schoolers and Shizuko was too used to the black gakurans and sailor uniforms.
The boys who have staggered in are no doubt delinquents, vaguely familiar in a way Shizuko can't place. Bruises dot their faces, triumphant grins showing that the injuries are nothing compared to the glee flowing through their veins and they chatter loudly as they crowd around a small table. "Delinquents," Keiji mutters by her side, hand smoothing through her dark hair with a frown. The group isn't doing anything but there's an intimidating aura around them that has the waitresses hovering away, their expressions uncomfortable.
"Shizuko-kun," Hitomi whispers-hisses, grasping on the edge of her sleeve when Shizuko turns to move and slip into the staff room, done with her shift and ready to return home. "Deal with them," it's a plea more than a demand and Shizuko raises an eyebrow, gesturing to her school uniform that she changed back into while waiting for the last minutes of her shift to roll over.
"I'm done, Hitomi-san,"
"Shizuko-kun," another beg and Shizuko sighs, picking up the notebook all waitresses carry on them, stomping in the direction of the gang. Their cheerful and loud cackles die down when they see her approaching, quieting in a way that makes hair on the back of her neck prickle. But Shizuko has been raised in the darkest of the slums during the period of her youth where her mother struggled to feed both of them with her lacklustre job, and a few middle school boys aren't going to intimidate her.
"Hello," she greets in a monotone voice, flipping the notebook open and placing her pencil onto the page. "What will it be?" the first to speak is a boy with hair the colour of oil, slicked away from his face in a ridiculous style that reminds her of the style of the earlier 90s, face hopelessly earnest as he leans forward. Features just sharp enough to show that he's still growing, a violet blooming on the pane of his cheekbone and his knuckles smarting just as much, the smile on his lips lights up his entire face.
"Your number," he says confidently and Shizuko looks back at him evenly.
"Read the menu again. It's not on it," the boys around him explode into rambunctious laughter, wheezing at the boy's slumped figure.
"Again, Shin'ichirō?" a boy with wild blonde curls and sharp features resembling a cat asks in between hacking up his lung. "Geez, you really have no talent in charming girls,"
"Shut up, Wakasa," 'Shin'ichirō' hisses, cheeks stained ruddy pink with embarrassment, a shade that just highlights his various other injuries. He's pouting and Shizuko can't help but think that the expression is somewhat cute. When his gaze meets her amused one, his eyes shoot away, the pink climbing down his neck.
"Ignore this loser," another boy chimes in, a scar spanning down his right eye, black hair falling forward into his gaze. He rattles off their order and Shizuko nods as she takes it, scribbling it down and returning to the counter to echo it to the waitresses lingering around, their shoulders slumped in relaxation at the absolute failure that Shin'ichirō just experienced.
She expects the interaction to be their only one and is surprised when she encounters the boy once again on her way home from her shift at the diner's, clad in his black uniform and a snarl on his face as he faces a group of opponents much taller and fiercer than he is. 'Shin'ichirō,' Shizuko remembers his name being echoed throughout his little stint at the diner's and wants to slink through the shadows and make her way home, soak in the chipped bathtub until the warm water goes tepid to push away the exhaustion clinging to her figure. But Shin'ichirō has a way of grabbing attention, licking at the blood that pools down his shattered nose and stains his lips a violent red, knuckles marked with bruises old and new. Barely fifteen and yet filled with such ferocity, a gleam in his eyes showing that he's enjoying being pummelled to a pulp, and she's entranced by the easy violence, the cheer in his voice as he calls out a taunt.
Shizuko can only sigh, mumbling a curse under her breath as she kicks off her shoe, raising it high into the air and aiming it at the head of the supposed leader of the trio attacking the teenager. She has always been soft hearted and too meddlesome albeit in small, barely noticeable ways. This loud attack goes everything that she's become over the years - introverted, studious and polite with a sharp tongue that made her mother sigh - but the glimmer of disbelief and excitement in Shin'ichirō's eyes when a single school shoe arches through the air and lands squarely on the back of the other boy's head is bad for her heart.
"You-" one of them says, his words cut off by Shizuko hurling another shoe in his face, wincing slightly when she hears the impact of the shoe's dirty sole against the boy's teeth. She lunges forward, grasping onto Shin'ichirō's hand and tugging him behind her.
"What are you, dumb?" she asks in a snarky tone when his feet stay glued to the ground, eyes dazedly gazing at her and making her cheeks heat at the blatant attention.
"Just stunned by your beauty," he says lasciviously and Shizuko rolls her eyes.
"Flirt later, pretty boy. Run now!" they stumble through the dark alleyways, Shin'ichirō guiding her towards his tilted motorcycle, an exhilarated grin on his lips as he keeps glancing backwards to the gang members that stumble through the unfamiliar paths. Shizuko turns to depart, startling when Shin'ichirō's fingers clasp around her wrist.
"Come on!" he coaxes, pitch black eyes shining under the amber glow of the street light and Shizuko feels the first stutter of her heart - the first ever symptom of falling in love. She nods, jumping onto the back of Shin'ichirō's motorcycle just as the unfamiliar gang members burst into view, Shin'ichirō's laugh infectious as he jeers at the boys he leaves in the literal dust. The wind brushes against her face, vicious and pushing away her auburn coloured hair from her night chill flushed skin, and Shin'ichirō glances at her, adjusting his body to shield her from the worst of the breeze. "Where to?" he yells over the howling wind and Shizuko tells him the address of her home. She turns her gaze to the sky, bewitched by the swathe of silver stars twinkling across the sleek black canvas. She's witnessed the sky at various times of day, watched the sun rise and paint it with the vivid shades of dawn, sink and bring forth the muted and dark colours of dusk.
On Shin'ichirō's motorcycle, her feet bare of shoes and her skirt riding up her thighs, the cold of the night forgotten due to the boy's body heat, Shizuko sees the sky in a completely different way - how dazzling it is in the fast moving depiction caused by the speed of the bike.
They reach her neighbourhood much faster than she expected, the perks of travelling via motorcycle instead of the rickety bus that takes almost an hour to arrive at her apartment, and Shizuko untangles herself from the press of Shin'ichirō's body and the metallic chains of the motorcycle. Shin'ichirō smiles at her, bright and cheerful, his dark hair slick with sweat and sticking up in every possible direction from the wind running its hands through it. It suits him, seems like a sight that the universe has gotten used to and fond of if the way the stars twinkling in his black eyes say anything. "You saved me, back then," he says and Shizuko raises an eyebrow.
"You're a delinquent. Surely you could have handled it?" his hand creeps to the back of his head, combing through the messy strands sheepishly. Against her will, she finds the gesture cute, just like the pink that lit up his cheeks when she had rejected him promptly.
"My friends came up with this saying for me," Shin'ichirō confesses. "Sano Shin'ichirō; weak to women, weak in fights," Shizuko laughs, an unexpected noise that has her hand clasping over her mouth, surprised that her mirth at the statement would express itself. Shin'ichirō's eyes light up at the sound, bracing his forearms on the mirrors of his motorcycle and staring at her. "Especially weak to pretty women," he corrects and looks over Shizuko purposefully, straying from the wind curled orange hair falling down her back to the delicate slope of her nose, her bitten pink lips and warm brown eyes. Her face feels like it's on fire at the appraising gaze, so hot it could melt the coldest cube of ice, but all she does is clear her throat and spin on her heel.
"Thank you for dropping me home, Sano-kun. Take care not to get into any more fights, especially knowing you won't win," his eyes burn into her until she rounds the corner of the apartments' entrance, her hand braced against her chest and still-thumping heart.
It's the first instance of love, one that she doesn't forget and spends her entire afternoon and the weekend after that flipping through her sister's romance mangas, committing the first moment the characters fall in love. She looks at the protagonist's heart splayed across her cheek, eyes wide as she processes the thudding of her heart and realises - 'ah, I'm in love'.
Love, that's what it is? The skewered emotion that has you gathering all of your nerves, whispering velvety words that encompass your mouth and beg to be let out from behind a partition of neat teeth - heart wondering will they accept you, or not?
Shizuko thinks that it's just her luck that the first love - the first crush, she'll correct anybody who asks because she's stubborn and doesn't want to admit that Shin'ichirō was the first boy she ever fell in love with - smelled of wind and faint cologne with the lingering scent of sweat and fried taiyaki from days of picking up the sweet delight for his youngest brother, had black oil and grease jammed under his bruise marked skin from tinkering with his motorcycle.
( She'll own it one day. She'll sit in front of the remaining Sanos and entertain Emma's inquiry of her first love - because the Sanos had been there when Shin'ichirō stumbled home and prattled on adoringly about the fire haired girl who saved him, her feet bare if not for her teddy bear patterned socks, how she smelt of strawberries and the crisp night. She'll repeat the story to the founding members of Toman when they innocently ask about what love is like, laugh when their faces wrinkle at the sweetened honey story that is Shizuko and Shin'ichiro's first meeting )
The universe is stubborn and sees a pessimistic and an optimist and decides that romance must bloom between them, even better that they are ones with an attraction already brewing under their skin.
Shizuko meets Shin'ichirō again and again, often in the comforting aura of Masato's diner, more often than not accompanied by his ragtag gang of delinquents. They know better than anybody how besotted the Sano boy is with her, watch her quirked up smiles when Shin'ichirō lays line after line on her, breaking out the most poetic pick up lines when he spots her reading a poetry book after work. She grows to have a friendship with him, one marked by him splurging on meals at the diner, tugging her down to his side when he knows her breaks are about to happen - because he's such a dolt that he even memorises them, revelling in the moments when Shizuko's concentrated expression softens after he waves energetically at her - and Shizuko wincing but not holding back her laughter at Shin'ichirō absolutely butchering the lyrics to the 2010s early pop songs he insists on playing at karaoke bars he drags her to.
She doesn't need her sister's romance mangas to tell her that spending quality time together, wishing that all of Shin'ichirō's time is spent with her, is another symptom of growing love - a desire that both teenagers are quickly feeling. The world is the only one aware of Shizuko's growing feelings for Shin'ichirō because she holds her recently blooming feelings close to her chest, unwinding them from the inside of her heart in the absence of presence. The ferocity of her feelings startle her, make her fear the control Shin'ichirō is growing to have for her, but the greater part of her marvels over how innocent a crush can be, at how much sincere joy it can spark.
Her feelings are akin to that of an ice cream flavour becoming one's favourite - growing deeper and deeper the more you encounter it. Shizuko can't help the way her cheeks heat at Shin'ichirō's less than subtle looks, how his smile widens whenever they stumble across each other in the corners of Shibuya, everything about him no short of bewitching. Her coolness doesn't put him off, only making him more determined to see spring break across the winter planes of her face, delighting in every shake of her head and the upward curve of her lips.
She meets the two children that make up 2/4 of the Sano household, sweet Emma who hides behind her brother's leg and boisterous Mikey who is always tailed by his own gang of friends; Baji with his fanged smile, Draken with a tattoo she desperately hopes was inked somewhere safe, Mitsuya with his exasperated smiles and level head, Pah-Chin and his tastes for Hawaiian shirts and Kazutora, cat eyes peering at her timidly. Soon, Masato's diner is flooded with not only the delinquents of Shin'ichirō's circle but Emma's small circle of friends and Mikey's quickly growing one, Shizuko always sighing and cleaning after their messes with a fond smile.
"Sorry about them," Shin'ichirō always apologises because as the eldest son, he gets to know of his siblings' antics one way or the other. They were eighteen when he had taken to picking her up from the diner, his lanky form becoming more sculpted, chubby cheeks slowly sinking away and being replaced by sharp edges. Shizuko is flustered whenever she notices his eyes lingering on her figure, hyper aware of their ages and heights rising as the years go by.
( Shin'ichirō is always just as bashful. His eyes follow the dips of the growing curves of her figure, how her eyes curve up when she smiles, her hair a settling flame that lights him up with a warmth that lasts forever )
She's gotten used to the heat emitting of Shin'ichirō whenever she sits behind him, always in awe of the comfort the scene of the friend in front of her and the bright sky invokes in her. They've graduated from hovering around each other to Shin'ichirō actively reaching for her, his eyes always searching the crowd of gathered friends for hers, his fingers gentle as they press against the skin of her wrist to catch her attention or to guide her into tightening a bolt on his prized motorcycle ( that in itself evidence of how much Sano Shin'ichirō cares for her because if there was one thing he loved, it was his motorcycle - something that always brought forth the image of Sano Masato perched on top of it, the delighted screams of Sano Sakurako as her husband drove them through the crowded paths of their neighbourhood, Shin'ichiro watching with Emma and Mikey by his side, affection for his family brimming in his chest )
The seasons pass and Shizuko grows to regard her friendship, her relationship with Shin'ichirō as one of the most fundamental ones of her life. When things splinter - her mother's gaze a touch too tired as if she still sees her ex-husband in Shizuko's brown eyes, a test that went so badly that the mark written in red ink crumpled under her fingers, a day at the diner's that ended with Shizuko needing several moments to herself in the backroom - Shin'ichirō is there, chasing away the pain with his offers of long rides and his loud laugh.
They spent their teenage years side by side, Shizuko watching as Shin'ichirō brings forth a new generation of delinquents - boys that fight as much as they breathe but are always sheepish and shuffle back and forth self consciously under her critical gaze. She's amused by it and so are Wakasa and Benkei, two of Shin'ichirō's friends who take a fast liking to her. Shizuko stumbles across them fighting one day and blinks when she sees the uproar. Despite knowing how the Black Dragons are, their reputation falters in actuality of their strength. In the middle of a fight, they are exquisite, ignoring the pain prickling through their bruised and marked skin in favour of grinning at each other, enjoying the fight of all things.
Shin'ichirō's eyes widen when they meet hers across the pavilion and he looks anxious, so worried about her sudden arrival that he doesn't notice the boy lurking behind him. Shizuko sighs, shaking her head and saving Shin'ichiro yet again with a hurl of her shoe. She's close enough to hear the noise when her heeled Mary Jane shoe lands, the empath in her flinching at the crunching sound. 'Deja vu', she thinks to herself.
"Are your shoes your weapons?" Wakasa shouts, an exuberant grin on his face as he avoids a punch, white-blonde hair fluttering in the breeze, and Shizuko's lips twitch in response.
"My always dependable ones," she answers, picking up her second one and hurling it with all her might at the boy looming behind Benkei.
"Retreat!" Shin'ichirō's voice is choked and adrift with laughter and the members of the Black Dragon surge backwards, their cheers so loud it's like they won this fight instead of making a break of it, unwilling to pay for the damages to the restaurant they had decided to fight in front of. Shizuko stumbles backwards, amused laughter leaving her lips. The rain has taken to leaving deep puddles in the pavement and water splashes up to her ankles, soaking her socks and turning them wet and muddy. She winces at the unpleasant sensation of wet clothes, knowing that her mother is going to have quite the words for her when she sees the state of Shizuko, her eyes widening when arms sweep her up into a bridal hold. Shizuko's arms automatically go to grasp at Shin'ichirō's neck as he picks her up like she weighs nothing, continuing to race ahead to where the Black Dragons had parked their motorcycles. The sinking sun bathes his face in colours similar to her bright hair and he grins at her, cheek starting to swell after taking impact of fist after fist.
"Shin'ichirō-" Shizuko says, startled and flushed at the affection she sees in his eyes, hiding her face in the crook of his neck when she hears obnoxious wolf whistles coming from Takeomi and Wakasa.
"Nice going, Shin!" the air fills with the members of the Black Dragon joining in, leering and encouraging Shin'ichirō with such genuine sincerity that Shizuko is mortified. The pink of Shin'ichirō's ears tells her he's feeling the same and she laughs when he throws a rude gesture at the gang before dismissing them in his crisp voice, helping her onto the motorcycle and driving off. One of their favourite places to haunt has become the playground Emma and Mikey play at, silent and peaceful without the menaces running around and engaging in the creative games the younger Sano boy seems to come up with.
"That was embarrassing," Shin'ichirō groans, black lashes fluttering across his cheeks as he squeezes his eyes shut, and Shizuko smiles at the ground.
"It's sweet, how much they care for you," she's been around the Black Dragons and heard enough of their escapades to know that Shin'ichirō's title of the 'Weak King' is literal - his ass handed to him so smoothly that if he was a less good tempered person, he'd probably be sulking for his entire life. "They admire you," there are always a gaggle of children - aspiring delinquents who watch the violence the Black Dragons cause with fascinated eyes - hovering around the motorcycle shop Shin'ichirō works at - one she knows he hopes to own one day.
"And what about you?" he asks, nudging her shoulder with his, eyebrows wiggling and eyes aglow with anticipation.
"As a fighter? Well, Shin'ichirō, I don't think you want to be insulted after retreating from a fight," Shin'ichirō throws his head back and laughs, tawny light catching on his lashes, the cut on his bottom lip, the slight crook of his nose from where he broke it in yet another fight.
( Shizuko had been there when he had broken it, a gasp fluttering past her lips when she had turned around at the sound of the bell above the entrance to Masato's diner ringing to see Wakasa and Benkei hobbling in, arms firm around Shin'ichirō's slumped form. She had done the best she could with the first aid kit that the workers at the diner had started to keep after growing a fondness for the delinquents that came in and left like thunder, a generous tip always thrown in because they were polite under their rough demeanours. "You idiot," she had hissed, fingers trembling as she mopped up blood and Shin'ichirō's eyes had fluttered open, a hazy smile stretching across his lips. "Does it hurt?" she'd questioned in a small voice, touch as gentle as it could be and Shin'ichirō had shook his head.
"You chase the pain away," he'd replied and Shizuko had turned the colour of a cherry, glaring at his friends as they snickered behind him. She thought it was the stinging pain and adrenaline forcing the words past his lips but Shin'ichirō was being honest. Shizuko always caused a knot of tension to wind out from his chest, her brown eyes as soothing as his mother's touch had been - grounding him and making the various responsibilities held across his still-too narrow shoulders lighten. )
He eyes her feet, pressed into the dirty of the playground, cheerful hearts patterned across the white fabric. She seems to have given up on keeping them clean, humming as she swings her legs and his lips twitch upwards into a smile. "You're like Cinderella," his mother had read him that book when he was younger, smoothing her frail hand through Emma's golden locks, the girl's blue eyes alit with wonder as she wondered if a prince would come chasing after her like he did after the servant girl turned princess at the end of the story.
"Would you be my prince then, ready to whisk me away?" Shizuko questions, eyes crinkling with her smile. "Dance with me in a ballroom full of stuffy people and serenade me?"
"Who needs a ballroom full of snooty people?" he throws back. "I'll dance with you wherever you want,"
"Shin'ichirō- what are you doing?" she asks as he drags her up and starts to hum an old Japanese ballad, scratchy in his voice. It takes her a minute to place the song - Oh My Little Girl - a classic released in the years before they met. She associates the song with love, remembers clutching to her mother's leg as the woman cooked and smiled at her husband mouthing the lyrics energetically, a time where her parents were undoubtedly in love before they crashed and burned. Shizuko will now associate the song with her own love, innocent and so full of sincere affection that she loses her breath at the strength of her feelings.
"Come on, I'll keep you warm," he croons. "As we walk in the twilight, holding hands, I'm sure that I will never ever leave you," registering the lyrics, his gritty English and the Japanese words melded in, she can't help but giggle, surrendering to his grip as he tries to twirl her - laughing outright when he stumbles over the laces of his sneakers.
( Shin'ichirō will tell her in a few years that he listened to the song on the radio when he returned home, the lyrics accurately summing up the thrill he felt at their interaction, the memory of her rain soaked orange hair and hand in his rendering him useless )
He stumbles over the lyrics, unable to mimic the smooth singing of Ozaki Yutaka but his rough baritone is still somewhat soothing, the clumsy movements of his body against his bringing a smile to Shizuko's lips. They're not doing anything more than gentle swaying, Shin'ichirō's humming and the chirping of night crickets their background music, yet Shizuko feels like her heart is thundering. Shin'ichirō gazes at her, the burn of her hair, so deep in the darkness of the night, the quiet of the park usually full of his siblings clamouring for their joint attention, and the love that wracks his chest is a physical thing.
"Shizuko," he speaks suddenly, looking deep into her eyes. "You-" Shin'ichirō looks nervous, fingers tightening around her waist, the other holding onto her outstretched hand. "I really like you," the words are simple but they act as a blow, his bruise marked fist tunnelling past skin and flesh and bone to plant itself squarely in Shizuko's chest, gently cupping the circumference of her time-worn heart. "I think I'm falling in love with you - with the way your hair resembles fire, how your smiles are so faint but are always aimed at me, your strong personality and desire to help. I've done a lot of things in my life - formed one of the biggest gangs in Tokyo, lost more fights than I've won, been rejected by countless girls - done so many things that have had my heart pounding. But in a single moment of your presence, around you, my heart races like it's running a marathon," he cups her cheek, pulling her close to him and feeling more than seeing her eyelashes flutter, fingers pressing against the dark lashes as she gazes up at him with her eyes - the colour of the smooth wooden floorboards at Sano's Dojo where he spent his entire life, the withering flowers by his mother's bedside table, the fading bruises on the Black Dragons as they return victorious from another fight. "I love you,"
If counting all of those rejections he had gotten in middle school and high school, added with the ten times he confessed to Shizuko - joking ones thrown after she added a milkshake to his order, serious ones whispered and carried away by the wind as she sat behind him on his prized motorcycle, the one time he looked down at her napping with his siblings on the day she babysat for him and mumbled the confession because he couldn't help it - this is his twenty first confession. Shizuko stares at him, pink lips parted in shock, cheeks flushing at the brutal honesty in his words. It only takes for the tremble of his fingers to realise how much of his heart he's gifting her - will she take it or not?
Love's symptoms have been in Shizuko for the three years that they've been friends. When she had first thought of the beating of her heart, the flutter of butterflies and the sweating of her palms as 'love', she had dismissed it at first for the fear of falling in love, then for the fear of losing Sano Shin'ichirō and the holes he had filled up in her life. She had kept her feelings in her heart, warding them away but not able to chase them away fully despite her best attempts. Falling in love with Shin'ichirō was as easy as breathing, one of the easiest things in her life and the reply she gives him is one she gives with a shaking voice and pink cheeks.
"You're an idiot," Shin'ichirō winces at her words but doesn't let go just yet, eyes widening when she raises her hand to cover his hand with her own. "You've got nothing but motorcycles on the brain, more often than not forget to do your homework and have the worst pick up lines because you ask your friends for romantic advice and they're just as dumb as you are. But- But I like that about you," Shizuko wants to melt into the ground at the cloying sweetness on her tongue, a sugary confession forcing itself past her lips. Worse is the way Shin'ichirō lights up, diamonds glittering in his obsidian black eyes as if she's told him the answer to every question on those quizzes he barely scores marks in. "You're sweet, and determined, and you care so much. I like the way your hair sticks up when you ride your motorcycle, how you take care of your siblings even when you whine and complain about them being too energetic for you, how easily and carefully you take care of me. I hate that everything about makes my heart flutter, hate that I can't help that I'm falling in love with you too,"
"Do you- Are you really-" the words seem to be unable to leave his mouth, the hope in his chest climbing up his throat and leaving him breathless. "Do you really love me?"
"I'd climb up to the sky and pluck the sun if that'd make you happy," Shin'ichirō's eyes crinkle at her blunt confession, thumb smoothing over the fragile skin of her cheek.
"I love you, Shizuko," he confesses, a bright smile etched onto his lips. Shizuko feels the air whoosh out from her lungs and rectifies it by kissing Shin'ichirō equally out of breath.
When they announce their relationship - Shin'ichiro calling a meeting of the Black Dragons to discuss details of their last fight, waiting for time to stretch itself a taut atmosphere before solemnly turning to an awaiting Shizuko and kissing her - there's so much cheering it's like they got married instead of dating. When she tells him this, Shin'ichirō's eyes shine like the night sky and he brushes a featherlight kiss against the back of her hand.
"Already thinking of marrying me, Shizuko-kun?" he'd asked mischievously and she'd smacked the back of his head.
The seasons pass and they grow older, this time side by side. They graduate high school, Shin'ichiro plucking off the second button his his black gakuran and professing his love to her once again amidst the fluttering petals of the cherry blossom trees, and Shizuko hands him her own button before dragging him home so they can celebrate with the Sano family and his gaggle of friends.
Shizuko glances at Shin'ichirō one day and realises with a start that it's been eight years since he flirted with her in Masato's diner, nearly five years since she accepted his confession at eighteen. They're twenty three, celebrating their birthdays with their family and friends, and their anniversaries have always been marked by returning to the park where Shin'ichirō held out his hand to her. There have been hundred of kisses exchanged between them - chaste as they walk with the Sano siblings squabbling in front of them, hungry in the dark of the night with nothing but the moon the sole witness of their love -, her fingers branded with the impression of his tangled around them, and she's grown used to waking up to his sleeping face, his arm thrown over her shoulder in a casually possessive gesture.
Long gone are the days where Shin'ichirō would haunt the outside of Masato's diner and peek inside to see if Shizuko was working. Now they spend all of their time together. Shin'ichirō finally owned the motorcycle shop he swore he could have under his thumb one day - S.S Motors, his pride and joy and second greatest accomplishment. When Shizuko asked what the first one was, he grinned at her and kissed her cheek softly. 'Getting you to date me,' he'd said and Shizuko had felt so flushed that she was determined to make him as red as she was. Shizuko too graduated from working at the diner's to being a fresh faced adult in the making, her graduation filled with the forms of the Black Dragons', the Sano family and Mikey's little gang, a smile breaking across her lips at their raucous cheers when her name was called.
The years pass and Shizuko never lets go of love. She is still wary of it because her heart beats like a drum on the night of a Japanese festival whenever she spots Shin'ichirō, because her cheeks stain pink like Emma is trying out different blushes on her at the slightest affection her boyfriend shows her, because she is hopelessly fond of her boyfriend and his family that she lets Mikey drag her around and empty her wallet on buying him sweets. She is wary because Shizuko is wary and suspicious of everything, but she grows to accept it.
What a foolish mistake.
She should have never let love become a part of her, let it control her body and her heart because her organs feels like they are shattering now. The hospital room is deathly silent as the Sano family - which now includes her because Shin'ichirō made sure that his family would involve the girl he decided that he would love no matter what - stand before a metal table, all of them unwilling to see the body that lies under it. Mikey - always strong, always so powerful, because wasn't that what he had always wanted to be? - is the one to step forward, too fast for Shizuko to stop him, his hand trembling as he rips the sheet off to reveal Shin'ichiro's face. Someone gasps, and then wails. It's coming from Emma, the girl collapsing to her knees in a fit of grief because she could close her eyes and pretend that she was somewhere else, anywhere else, but the sight of her brother - now dead - certifies that this is reality.
Sano Mansaku has been composed for his entire life, bearing loss after loss with an expectation that perhaps he will live out his family, but Shin'ichirō's body - corpse - has him letting out a keening noise. ( 'It is the worst kind of pain,' he will tell Shizuko years later, when sweet little Emma has joined her brother in the afterlife, when once carefree and cheerful Mikey has decided that he can not bear the agony of being the cause of such acute losses. 'To outlive your family,' ). Shizuko clamps a hand over her mouth when she sees the gaping wound in Shin'ichirō's head, matting the dark hair that she's run her hands through far too many times to count with blood and crushed flesh, feeling so dizzy.
"Shin'ichirō," she calls once because her boyfriend always replies no matter where he is, body and brain finely attuned to locate her regardless of his own location. His own little 'Shizuko-locator', he'd joke and she'd roll her eyes and press a kiss against his cheek because it was admittedly very sweet.
'Shin'ichirō,' she'd say once she graduated from calling him 'Sano-kun' and he graduated from calling her by ridiculous pet names and instead used her name like it was a song he'd never grow tired of singing.
'Yes, Shizuko?' he'd reply, black eyes gleaming at the sight of her, always reaching for her.
"Shin'ichirō," Shizuko's hand reaches for him instead and she recoils when she feels the cold touch of his body. He's dead, she realises. Really- actually-
He's dead.
Shizuko stumbles backwards, almost crashing to the ground if not for Mikey's firm arms catching her in time. His black eyes - so much like his brother's that it aches to look into them - are glassy but he's being composed. For them, she quickly figures out, and swallows down her wail of pain, bundling him into her arms. Twelve years old yet far more mature than he should be, he startles at the touch of her before abruptly melting, his tears hidden from the view of his family in the crook of her shoulder. His own arms are squeezing around her so tight, as if he's realising that Shizuko is one of the few people he has left, and Shizuko lets her tears spill down her cheeks at the wounded noise that leaves Mikey's mouth.
On the day of the funeral, Shizuko wears the blackest clothes she owns, stares at her pasty skin and dark circles, mirrored on the Sano family's face as they soberly and mechanically perform the rites of the funeral. She accepts all of the condolences - because people knew how much Shin'ichirō loved her, knew how much she loved him, enough to warrant dreams of a marriage and children in the near future - and presses a kiss against Emma's head when she turns away from the picture of Shin'ichirō and sobs, rubs the backs of Mikey's childhood friends who are too young to register death. They stick close to Mikey, presenting a united front with their dark suits and pale faces. She's relieved. The youngest Sano boy has been acting like a corpse himself, skin grey and all of his smiles disappeared like they never existed. Shin'ichirō's friends huddle around her, Wakasa and Benkei's faces awash with grief as they wrap her in their arms one by one and whisper soothing words into the crown of her head.
After it's all over, her feet take her to S.S Motors, dragging her insistently and she stands in front of the shop. The yellow and black police tape is there in front of the wide windows, the gleam of blue and red sirens all gone but when she blinks, the sight of them is not replaced with that of her boyfriend's back. He'd always get lost when tinkering in the shop, not even noticing that grease stained his face until Shizuko pressed forward and wiped it with her hand, squealing when he tried to kiss her still smelling of grease and motorcycle oil.
She knows she shouldn't be here. No sane person would return to the place of their loved one's death, especially not when their loved one was murdered ( by friends of Mikey, which explains why he's cooped up in Shin'ichirō's room, one hand clutching his blanket and the other staring unseeingly at the absence of his brother in his bed ).
But if there's one thing Shizuko's been bad at, it's minding her own business. It's what led to her meeting Shin'ichirō in the first place, had her enraptured with the casual gleam of joy in his eyes as he fought. Shizuko pushes open the door, looks at the neat line of motorcycles and tidied up equipment because Shin'ichirō's grandfather had nearly pulled his ear off when he found out his grandson didn't organise accordingly. All seems perfect, if not for the body marked in white chalk, the slump and the blood staining the floor. Shizuko bends down to her knees, presses a hand against the blood, hiccupping sobs leaving her lips when she sees the indention of the wood where Shin'ichirō crashed down. Shin'ichirō, he never did well with pain. He hissed like a child as she sopped up blood trailing across his knuckles, flinched at every bandage plastered over a cut even though she was as gentle as she could be.
It must have hurt. It must have been terrifying - only 23 with a family you loved and a girlfriend you kissed passionately earlier that morning, who was waiting patiently for you to call her after your shift at the shop, only to receive a call that had her phone clattering to the ground and her heart caving in on itself.
She was right to be wary of love. It took control of her limbs, made her dream and dream only for fate to rip the carpet out from underneath her feet and steal everything away from her.
Sano Shin'ichirō made Yanagi Shizuko love him with everything she had, infected her with the symptoms of love. Now, she'll never know what it's like to love another, live with the illness of heartbreak forever.