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It's goddamn cold up on the roof of Hope's Peak. Wind blows stronger up high and chases clouds across the night sky, the pale moon turning them to dirty white dust. Not to mention that it is eleven pm and nights are never kind to Mondo.
Everything except his lips and cheek is cold; his cigarette hangs in the corner of his mouth, almost falling. The rest is cold, empty and dark and the usual things that come crawling around these times. He barely sleeps, spending the nights on roofs rather than inside, he is too tired to talk, so he just scoffs and snaps, prowling down the hallways, looking unapproachable. He is usually sick on these days, a welcome excuse to skip class, because it is so cold and he tends to forget his coat on purpose. He doesn't want to read its embroidery.
If read by the right eyes, it is an invitation to a masquerade. Join us and divide yourself into the parts of emotions and conscience, chuck them into a river and throw the remaining chips on a bike, maybe they'll turn into someone with actual guts!
Mondo truly wants to laugh, hadn't it been for his brother who had grabbed the needle, lost some blood to stitch these words into his jacket. The coat had been a gift for his ninth birthday.
Daiya had convinced the first three of his friends to steal a rusty chainsaw from the garbage dump, take out the motor and screw it onto Daiya's bike. He crashed five times but in essence, it worked and wounds looked cool back then. Quickly more and more boys from their neighborhood gathered around Daiya's unbalanced bike and its bulky motor. Their parents had only time to blink until the garbage dump was scavenged and ten more bikes were modified to bone-breaking machines on two wheels.
Crazy Diamonds. Daiya came up with that name, said he had it from that manga that Mondo never got to read because Daiya thought he was too young. And then Daiya was not around anymore to allow him.
Mondo, eight years old, had grizzled around enough that Daiya's boys threatened to leave for which they received punches and Mondo his coat. Coat in big quotation marks, in the sense that coat was synonymous with his school uniform jacket. Daiya had misspelled a kanji but Mondo couldn't tell and wouldn't care. He cried when their mother forced him to tell the principle that he lost his uniform jacket and when she locked it away in her room. Nobody told the gang.
Mondo, age twelve, joined them too early for usual gang standards. The people, now roughly fifty, moaned about playing his babysitter. He offered them a fight for proof which he lost and they laughed. Mondo spat out the blood and wiped his mouth, asking for a race and he won. Races were his thing, he loved the speed that made the white lines blur and the pebbles, stones and roadkill on the asphalt invisible.
Daiya spent days like these on balconies, roofs were never his preference. Mondo, now fourteen, appeared next to him, stole his beer and asked what's up. The bottle shattered by his bare feet when Daiya informed him that he'll be leaving the Diamonds and Mondo would take over.
Mondo felt happiness, joy, didn't believe it, shook his head and grinned; but mostly there was fear. One hundred twenty-seven men under his wings, on his shoulders. He always had trouble lifting the weights Daiya left laying around. The men met him as the younger brother, would forever meet him as the baby brother that he really was. He couldn't do without Daiya when all eyes were his judges.
Races were the only thing in Mondo's life that he connected with some weird distortion of success and Daiya was happy to give his brother at least that.
The lights were blinding, tires screeched and scratched, the white lines were blurry and Daiya kicked his bike to the side, the truck rushed by him and Mondo heard metal shrieks over his screams. He didn't, couldn't fall unconscious, Daiya was somewhere behind him where his head could not turn, voicing his wounds across the street. Mondo saw the world twice and swimming in tears, blood trickled down his arms and sleeves and temples as he dragged his body over to him, his legs were broken, bleeding, shredded down to the bone.
Daiya closed his eyes on the word "promise" and everything inside Mondo gave up. He awoke in a sterile room, head shaven with a long scar tucked in bandages, bruised, morphine running through his veins. He was one limb short.
The tenth night, Mondo escaped. To the roof that would later become the home of his grieve, his own personal garbage dump. He clutched around his crutch, looking down. The wind blew over the stumps of his hair and whistled an out of tune melody into his ear. His gown fluttered around his legs, or rather the leg that was left. Down, far down, there were cars shooting past the building, their little front flashlights, the pocket drivers. The ground seemed inviting, there was nothing taller than him.
There were people looking up to him, their faces mushed into a single dot, blue uniforms obscured to one mass. Empty shouts echoed over the front court, people in white came running and together white and blue vanished inside the building.
It took them an hour to get him off the roof. The first half, someone that had bothered him since day one with his help, spoke endless sentences, stopped a moment for an answer and continued. Mondo let it fly by, like the whistle in the wind. The second half, they spent waiting. Still, that man talked while everyone else peered at their watches, the young nurse, the two officers, one thin and unpatient, the other tired, wrung out, half-dead. They got him to take a step back, then Mondo passed out; piles of pain and lack of morphine. That was what they had been anticipating.
Since then, it had become a strange form of tradition; visiting roofs, climbing the stairs like someone was after him, standing on the edge as if that was the last escape. Up until now nobody had noticed or nobody was telling and it was better both ways.
Mondo takes a drag from his cigarette, exhales the smoke to the side and watches it race with the clouds. He sighs. Prickling goosebumps has climbed up his arms. He decides to skip class tomorrow. There is no reason for him to be there.
The clang of metal against a wall is the sound of a door opening. He glances over his shoulder and his face is too cold to smile.
"Kyoudai, what on earth are you doing out here?" Kiyotaka puts his hands on his hips. He is still dressed in his uniform, undeterred by the late hour. "You said you'd be back by ten thirty, I finished my studies earlier to be on time for you!" Some swift steps and he is over. With a grump, he snatches the cigarette from Mondo's fingers. "Smoking is not allowed on the premises and apart from that, illegal for people your age! Now, explain yourself! What are you doing here this late?"
"I'll be sick tomorrow," is Mondo's form of explanation these days. "Of course you will! You're almost half-naked!" Mondo turns back around, disregarding Taka's frown and knitted forehead. He lets his prosthetic hang down and for him, it only feels like weight.
"Can you hold this for a moment please?" Taka holds out his hand, the one that keeps the cigarette, Mondo has to smirk and takes it. Kiyotaka unbuttons his jacket and after he has thrown it over Mondo's shoulders, the goosebumps retreats. It's too small for his frame but provides warmth on the skin that it covers. Mondo looks up to his friend and while his face still is wrinkled, something in his eyes has eased. Mondo is proud to be witness of that.
"Why are you up here?" Kiyotaka repeats. "Daiya," is Mondo's only answer. Kiyotaka's hands slip off his hip and his head drifts to the side. "I see." Mondo nods and pulls at his cigarette that has reduced to its half.
"Come down," Kiyotaka says. "It's warmer inside." He extends his hand, Mondo grabs it, holds it tight. "Ten more minutes." He raises his eyebrows, attempts a smile. "Alright." Mondo pulls Kiyotaka down to him, to kneel by his side, slumps enough to rest his head on Taka's shoulders and doesn't worry about the smoldering stump in his fingers until it would burn down to them again.