Chapter Text
Everything had ended swiftly.
They were just on the road 5 minutes ago, laughing and reminiscing about the past when a truck drove right in front of them. There was the choice of going left or right, but it would end up with one of them being in critical condition, maybe even passing death's door.
Being put on the spot, Miyuki could not decide. His eyes shook as the blaring horn and bright light seared themselves into his brain, body frozen in horror. His seatmate, on the other hand, took the reins, swerving to the right to take the brunt of the crash.
The car skidded and the sickening sound of crushing bones got softer. The truck travelled a few more meters before stopping but that was a few more meters of dragging the body, a long trail of blood following and coated its tires.
It did not take a doctor to know that his seatmate was dead, that half of the car was long crushed under the weight of iron pipes loaded truck. Flattened and immobile.
Eyes wide, Miyuki pulled himself out, his body covered in cuts and bruises but he continued to stumble to the crash site. Standing before the car he saw the blood pool underneath it, seeping into his sports shoes, he felt no happiness from surviving the crash.
In the midst of creeping despair, he flopped, knees onto the ground. Miyuki took the sight in, and when it finally sunk in, a loud scream of dread followed. "YOUICHI!"
It was the first time in a long time they saw each other, but it too was their last. His best friend, -a title that he had begrudgingly gave Kuramochi- was gone in a blink of an eye and he will never see him again.
"It is a miracle that you survived." Miyuki looked up to see Sawamura Eijun, he was a friend but he was not like Kuramochi, not a lot of people are.
It was as if Sawamura inherited Kuramochi's ability to see through him like glass, for he immediately sat down beside him, an arm around his slackened shoulders.
"You need to move on Kazuya, You-nii wouldn't have wanted you to beat yourself up like this."
The eye bags on his face made his dark circles more evident. He noticed that even his body became sluggish with passing time, proving Sawamura's point. However, he could not just move on so quickly.
Eyes moving from the arm around his shoulder to the coffin in front, Miyuki could only feel the guilt creep up on him even more. "I could have saved him though, saved us both even! But I. Didn't. React. In. Time!"
"You still can't take all the blame Kazuya." Sawamura was rarely on the giving advice spectrum but there was no other choice. Everyone had given Miyuki their own ways of encouragement to move on, but they got brushed away.
It was times like this that they wondered what kind of power Kuramochi had over him to make Miyuki do anything.
"What's stopping me?" Miyuki brushed the arm off him, more aggressively than he intended to and stood up, walking away from the funeral. "Oh I will live on for Youichi, but this guilt? I can't let that go, not that easily."
He stayed true to his words, or at least he psychologically did. It was ruining his health, he knew, but his dreams were haunted by the nightmare of losing Kuramochi.
Time and time again the scene would replay in his head. It would not only be limited to a car crash, as long as Kuramochi died, in the end, but it also seemed his brain would be happy enough to play it on repeat.
It was not like they had anything special together, they were not in love or were secretly siblings, but the bond they held was tight. So much so that Miyuki think that maybe he could see some sense from his friends calling them inseparable. Still, it does not matter now that his other half was gone.
He slowly turned insomniac, unable to sleep at a routine timing. He relied on caffeine and sugar to keep him going, it was unhealthy but it worked, lasting him for another few decades before he eventually passed away as well.
All he could think of as he felt his life fade away, was about how he could finally go back to seeing and antagonizing Kuramochi for the rest of their undead lives.
However, things did not go ahead as planned. It never does.
For better or worse, Miyuki woke up from his sleep to see the familiar dormitory of his room, one that reminded him of Seido's. A spark of familiarity and happiness bloomed in him as he pushed the blankets off, running to the room he knew belonged to you-know-who.
Slamming the door open, Miyuki's eyes searched the room. There was a shocked, pudding eating Masuko Tooru and the two other extras in the room. He did not bother to greet them, uncaring whether they were his seniors or not. This was his only chance to see Kuramochi again, and he was not going to drag their meeting chances.
His eyes lingered at the top bunk, noticing a body bundled under familiar blankets. "Oh, you searching for a new member to irritate, Miyuki?" one of his seniors, Katsuda said, though his face showed slight annoyance at being barged in on so suddenly.
Miyuki ignored him once again and climbed up the steps of the bunk bed, throat clenched up in both excitement and anticipation. "Youichi?" he whispered, hands touching the bundle.
"Who is it?" the voice was not one registered in Miyuki's brain, he expected a higher-pitched, playful voice but this one was stoic and gravelly. As he expected, the bundle unravelled to show an unknown teen.
He was not Kuramochi.
'Where... Where is he then?' Miyuki thought, body frozen in shock. His brain started to create questions, many of which indicated his time travel without Kuramochi, but that was something he wants to avoid.
"Oi, Miyuki, you okay?" the senior watched the usually rambunctious and cocky teenager hyperventilate, grip on the bed frame loosen as he fell to the floor. "MIYUKI!"
The second time he woke up, it was to a clinic of some sort. Jumbled up sentences can be heard from his left, making out things like. 'Trauma' and 'Overworked'. Both of which did describe his situation perfectly considering he had just been tossed through a whole roller coaster of events.
Trying to sit up, Miyuki felt his bones groan under his weight, making him wince and alerting the people in the same room to his awakening. "Miyuki Kazuya, you lie back down now!"
Takashima Rei went to push him back down, she was a sight for sore eyes, Miyuki held no offence to Masuko but after Kuramochi, Rei and Takigawa Chris Yuu would be the next people he wanted to see. 'Oh, and Sawamura too I guess.' He mentally added after his back touched back down the bed.
"Rei-chan, could you fill me in on what happened?" Miyuki remembered it all but it would always be good to have some confirmation. Especially when he found out that he reincarnated -preferring this over time travel because there was a difference in... People- it was also best to make sure he is not going crazy.
Sighing, Takashima took her seat and recalled what happened including a repeat of the doctor's words to Miyuki. "You fainted on us and the possible reasons are either trauma or exhaustion."
Looking at Miyuki, she saw how his muscles tense at the diagnosis. "It is only your first week here and you already fainted, I'm wondering if you even know how to care for yourself..."
"Hm, is that so."
"This is a serious matter Miyuki, you can't just brush off fainting in the first week!" Takashima could not understand why would people work themselves to death. She hates seeing one of her players, ignoring the needs of his body to train, believing that there is always a better time and place for everything.
Miyuki knows it all, he was quite close to her during his time in Seido after all but something else has taken first place over his well being. "Hey, Rei-chan, do you know someone called 'Youichi'? I think his last name was Kuramochi."
"Miyuki, please don't brush my concerns away." Her shoulders slumped in an effort to keep the conversation on track but knew that look of Miyuki's meant that he was long gone. "I tried to scout him but he turned me down."
Miyuki hummed at the information, it left him with more questions than answers. Though the biggest one would be, "Which school did he go to then?"
"Yakushi High School."
'...What?'