Chapter Text
Humidity.
It tickles his nose.
"In the old house down the road, the mint painted one whose gates are always open. Let’s meet there, Mikey-kun."
Weird, but that was what Takemitchy said over the phone, and as confused (and mad) he was hearing the monotone voice of his friend not explaining anything and only asking him to come, he didn't complain and obeyed his wishes. As far he could tell the one he talked to was Future Takemitchy. The other one, the present one, had been dead tired to go out with him for a ride to get food when he asked earlier. Yesterday. It's past midnight.
Doing homework all evening with Hakkai and Chifuyu tired me, he said, then added a lame apology and promised to hangout the next day with him and pay for whatever he (Mikey) wanted.
Gang leader privileges.
So Future Takemitchy is back. Figures why.
They, Touman, haven't been in any other conflict after Emma's deaths, nor have met any other gang that defies them. A kind of unspoken rule that has let them peacefully… recover.
"Why no?"
"Because it implies that something is left, there, somewhere, to be picked up once your memory catches up with it. I didn't forget, I haven– haven't forgotten Emma, I won't forget Emma. Recover is not the right word, there is nothing to pick up. Emma is gone, not forgotten. What's even there to pick up? She is gone. And her memories are with me. I don't have to recover, there's nothing to recover. Recover is not…"
Silence.
"Are you sure you have all Emma's memories? Isn't that an egocentric thought?"
Silence. A beat. Another. A paper with blue lines slides into his view with a pencil.
"What was Emma's last wish, Mikey-kun?"
He takes the pencil.
"You suck."
It's the witching hour. 3 AM. The witches are playing their dirty tricks on the awakes. He wouldn't have that kind of flashback if he were asleep as supposed to.
That memory is from 2 months ago, when he met a psychologist dropout and said fuck it. The dude wasn't that bad (he didn't have any other to compare to), the meetings were in an empty cafe of his with free food (bonus point to Takemitchy offense) and slowly, while talking about it, he stopped feeling the void… dragging him.
Breathing didn't come as hard, waking up wasn't a battle, existing didn't feel imposing.
He goes to him every week to talk. Everyone's proud. That's good.
Will Takemitchy be too?
The night is dark, little to none stars are visible with the pollution, the light posts are a gamble blinking to life and dying the next second. No house offers any sign of living form too. As if they were all d– Yeah, he's gonna punch the Wannabe Hero when he sees him.
The house he mentioned is not far away, is (curiously) 1 block away from his house. He would have woken Draken otherwise to drive him up, Takemitchy privacy be damn.
Actually, no. If it is Future Takemitchy, as he has been assuming the whole walk, he's kinda glad, proud, to be his first contact. It means he sees him as trustworthy, no?
Trustworthy for what? Why can't it be at normal hours? What happened?
The chilly air has him shuddering.
It's dark, it's freezing, and he only has his light pajamas with his go-to sandals. His hair isn't even done as usual but in a ponytail he quickly made while exiting the house. That's something he learned to do when accepted Draken's other life outside of his, independent one, no babysitter bestfriend privileges just… Draken. Hair. Right, hair up in a ponytail wasn't the best idea, his neck is freezing and air finds its way down his back under the thin layer pajama shirt.
Wet season is undervalued for a reason, for multiple reasons. Is the worst time of the year and he despises it with all his might. There is the rain, the humidity, the rain but no rain scenery (the inverse of that one), the pool of water on the sidewalk, the pool of water on the road that dickheads press on to water you for no reason but to be dicks.
The coughing too, seasonal flu and jelly body. All that.
Is the worst. He's been free of coughing fits and fever for a day and a half to casually summit himself to another round of mucus, but here is. Tickling nose, occasional shudders, dry lips and in front of said gates Takemitchy mentioned over phone.
That was fast.
Maybe he can ask the next lottery number as compensation. (Granpa would be happy for some vacations in the Caribbeans.)
The house is a two-story building and, as night allows, he can tell the old pale green paint is fading. The undergrowth is eating up the foundation too, windows are nonexistent and the door is wide open.
It's a heavy contrast to all the other houses.
It's haunted , Baji's memory says, giddy over the possibility of living his terror movie moment.
"He died, didn't he?"
Shut up, it's a form of speech. Shut up. He is living for him and all the others. Shut. Up.
The psychologist dropout is a student dropout, not a full certificated dropout. Sometimes he says stupid thing, press on the wrong ones and add more food to his plates to compensate his errors. Mikey is not mad at him though. Circumstances have to do, looking for a legal certificate not-dropout psychologist could take him away from his guardian, his Granpa, for negligence something something.
Present Takemitchy vouched for him too. (Takemitchy found him out of nowhere and under his skeptical eyes made an appointment for him –yes, appointment to an always empty cafe to talk with a dropout student. Mikey has had better days.) And Draken and Miysuya, the first ones to know, agreed that the worst it could happen was emptying Draken's pocket for him not liking it. (That actually wasn't that far away from the norm but Draken promised to buy him whatever without making any sassy comment about it.) (Talking about Draken, he ended up liking the dropout and been talking to him ever since.)
To everyone's surprise he ended up liking it. He wanted to tell Future Takemitchy all about it. He once said that his memory overwritten itself and gives him headache so he tries not to trigger them. Telling him wouldn't trigger them, right? He hopes not, is his biggest achievement for the past year.
Why did he come back?
It's a big scary question he has tried to avoid thinking about.
Not now, he pleads.
He starts moving again, steeling his nerves as he moves toward the porch.
He can do this. He is glad Takemitchy reached out for him. He can do this. He can do this.
Does he want to?
Mikey stop.
Do I want to?
"Being selfish is the norm for human species, to all species. It's a survival correlation ."
"Pretty sure he used the wrong term there." Mikey says to the night just to break the quietness. "Survival, huh." He chuckles humorless.
Is not as Shinichiro, Keisuke, Emma and him were all together, at the same time and place, confronting a bear to his survival mode turn on. The awful truth is that, in a hypothetical bear situation, he's not confronting the bear, nor near the bear or know the bear. He only gets to the hypothetical bear victims once they're gone. Then Mikey's survival response kicks in. And. He. Doesn't. Know. How. To. Turn. It. Off.
Is killing the hypothetical bear the turn off?
He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know. He's a child. An almost grown up one, but the dropout guy gave him the green card to refer himself as a child, so child it is. (Reason A: Trauma [...] Amygdala brain [...] [more fancy words] chemistry brain aaand yeah, you can say that. It can be Peter Man syndrome... Did you at least hear half of what I said? Reason B: He's 3 years away from stopping being one according to the Japanese laws, might as well overuse it.)
Damn witches.
He is a child, ghosts on his shoulder. Does he want to hear Takemitchy out? Fuck no! His brain goes all mayhem with whys and how to fix it. Is it his fault? Is it someone he knows?
Do leaving help? When do I leave? Where do I leave?
Future Takemitchy is bad news.
He wants to run to his house, to his room, to his bed and hide under his bed sheets. Pretend that now doesn't exist. Cut the phone cable and all. Then maybe, maybe, hear whatever suggestion the cafe guy has to offer the next day. More yes than no it works out.
But he doesn't, he doesn't turn back and go back, he stays.
Mikey stayed where he stood looking at the dark void the open door led to.
It's survival instinct , he reason, I don't want to lose anything more, much less my progress. Whatever he has to say will take it away. After wanting all those years to fight the bear...
Against his will he moves forward.
The bear knocks my door.