Chapter Text
Aren sighed with relief as Shun emerged from the bathroom without the ugly spiral glasses and his usual roughed up clothing back in place. He almost hadn't recognized him with such a put together uniform if not for his unmistakable stature.
"I can't believe she almost tried to take my arm wrappings off," Shun grumbled. "That would have been a disaster."
"Did your mom think that it would make you want to study harder or something?" Aren asked. "I thought you already got good grades."
Shun cast him a helpless look. "It's not just about the grades, Aren. She would go as far as almost destroying the world with the power in my arm just for a perfect son." A small shiver at the idea wracked Shun's small frame.
As far as he was aware, Shun's mom was far from expecting perfection from him at this point, but she was a persistent woman. He was glad his mother was nothing like that.
"Despite everything," Shun continued with a grin, "Jet-Black Wings has prevailed once again in the face of the forces of evil."
He didn't know what he thought of Shun calling his mother a force of evil for making him wear some nerdy clothes, but he gave a chuckle nonetheless.
"Well, Jet-Black Wings, I wouldn't say you've won yet."
"Huh?" Shun looked around the hall nervously as though preparing for an attack.
Laughing a little, he reached out to ruffle the blue hair back into its usual spiky do. "There you-"
Aren stopped dead in his tracks, hands lingering over Shun's head feeling as though his limbs had been shot through with ice.
"Shun..." He looked over his pale face littered with several cuts and bruises. They didn't look too deep or even that bad, but his stomach was heavy with dread. They looked fresh enough to be from this morning, and that somehow made his chest constrict even further.
"Shun, what-"
"It's nothing!" Shun blurted out before widening his eyes and hiding his face behind a wrapped hand, his usual 'Jet-Black Wings' persona taking over. "I mean, it's nothing that you have to concern yourself over." He let out his weird condescending laugh which somehow aggravated him even more.
"Did you get in a fight?"
"It's just the usual Dark Reunion business," he said curtly, not meeting his eyes and stubbornly keeping up the facade.
Maybe he had tripped and scraped his face and was too embarrassed to talk about it, but those wounds didn't look like a head-first meeting with asphalt. He didn't like to talk about fights anymore, but Shun was a different case. Surely he wasn't winning them if he was being so quiet about it, and that was a cause for concern.
He placed a hand on his shoulder, careful to be gentle in case he was injured under the uniform. "It looks pretty serious, Shun," the bruises weren't life threatening, but that wasn't what he was concerned about.
"It's just a couple of bruises."
"Shun," he heaved a sigh, bringing out the big guns, "I'm your friend, aren't I?"
Shun froze under his hand, biting his lip at the magic words. "I-" he stuttered out, before his expression shuttered off completely. "I can take care of myself."
He really wasn't going to get anywhere with this, was he?
"Okay," he changed tactics. "Wanna do something together after school? We can go grab something to eat or something."
Shun blinked at the sudden suggestion and was probably picking up on the not so subtle change in his tone of voice as well. Ah well, no one ever said he was a good actor.
He watched Shun's mixed reaction of sparkling eyes and conflicted body language and took that as a 'I'm so happy that my friend is asking if I want to do something together but sadly my mom is forcing me to go to after school studying'.
"I can't, I have some Dark Reunion business to take care of." Ah, so he was right then. Well, he wasn't gonna let that stop him.
"Wanna walk home together then?"
"Sure!"
He smiled and followed Shun back to the classroom.
Despite having the assurance of being able to walk him home he couldn't help how his brain was lingering over how Shun had probably been dealing with this on his own for a while. By the time the end of school bell rang Aren couldn't have been more relieved for his fretting to come to an end so he could finally have a chance to do something about it.
"Hey," Shun laid a hand on his desk. "Let's go before Nendou asks us if we wanna go eat ramen with him."
Aren speedily agreed, taking notice of how Saiki was nowhere to be seen. The guy had probably sped off ahead of them so he wouldn't get caught up in whatever Nendou wanted to do. He was funny like that.
They didn't run into any trouble until they were a street away from Shun's house.
"Oi, shortie!" One of the four guys leaning up against a wall called out, a self confident smirk marring his face. Aren really hated guys like that, all uppity for no reason.
Shun aimed a look over to the punks from his place next to him, obviously nervous.
"What was it that your little brother was saying?" The guy who he figured was the leader leered, probably thinking he was gonna be fucking hilarious. "Something about this being your territory?" They all laughed, and Aren wanted to roll his eyes. This situation was so Shun it was almost funny.
"We should teach you another lesson about talking a big talk, eh?"
Red flooded his vision as the words clicked, a loud rushing going past his ears as he struggled to maintain a calm demeanor. He opened his mouth to issue a warning.
"You're gonna wish you were dead." Alright, that worked as a warning.
"What?" They were all looking at him like he was crazy, but he couldn't be faulted for trying.
He laughed and took that as his cue, taking wide strides forward and cracking his knuckles as the adrenaline inevitably rushed through his veins. He probably looked like his insane punk self from back in his old days but he had more important things to worry about.
He barreled right at the punk holding the bat like he was tough shit and landed a blow to his jaw with a crack, sending him flying into the wall. He felt a tingle at the back of his neck and quickly swiped behind and caught the jacket of the shithead trying to hit him from behind.
He kicked his knees out from under him and used his elbow to hit him in the face, sending blood spraying out of his nose. Letting him slump to the ground at his feet, he turned to the others with badly contained excitement.
They were visibly shaking, but one of them was bravely holding out a bat that must have been picked up from the first guy.
"I warned you," he reminded him, before promptly grabbing the end of the bat and shoving it into his gut and toppling him backwards.
"Where the hell did you guys learn to fight?" The style was sloppy and it almost made him feel bad about having the advantage like that. But then again they were abusing their strength against a defenseless Shun earlier, so fair was fair.
With a swift kick he quickly sent the second sprawling in the street.
"Jeez," He sighed, cracking his neck as he turned back to Shun who was standing at the end of the street where he had left him. "You good back there?"
"Y-yeah." He looked a little pale but otherwise unharmed.
"C'mon, let's get you home before your mom decides to drill me on multiplication tables or some shit." He steered him by the shoulder, muscles beginning to relax as the adrenaline slowly wore off, bringing the usual shame and guilt with it as well.
He was glad to have been able to prevent Shun getting hurt again, but he knew that it wasn't a pretty sight. He could still feel the strain on his face from smiling so much during the fight and it made him sick. Shun was probably feeling the same way.
After a moment of silence he gave in. "Sorry you had to see that."
Shun's shoulder tensed under his hand before letting out a low chuckle. "I've seen worse. It was a good thing that you've never seen what happens when my full power is unleashed."
As dumb as it was it did make him fell a little better somehow. Power of friendship or some shit.
Shun shifted to look up at him with a grin. "Thanks for beating them up in my place though."
A weird feeling was curling itself around his chest and he was suddenly very warm, looking into Shun's wide and honest eyes. His grip on his shoulder slackened and he looked away with a small affirmative grunt. He didn't usually get like this after a fight, but maybe he was more tired than usual since he wasn't getting into trouble as frequently.
The rest of the walk was silent, and he was weirdly aware of his every move, sensitive to how close their bodies were. He felt like a live wire, body jolting slightly if Shun got too close. Maybe the adrenaline after not fighting for a while really was affecting him somehow.
Aren stopped Shun at the gate of his home and cleared his throat awkwardly. He hated to make him late but he really had to clear things up and he didn't want to be up all night worrying himself silly.
"Shun..." he cleared his throat again. "Those guys have hurt you before, right?"
He watched as Shun's eyes widened and ignored the stab of panic at the reaction and continued. "I heard what that guy said and I'm not exactly stupid. You just have to say the word and they won't bother you anymore."
Sweat dripped down his face at Aren's offer and his whole body froze up. "A-Aren... you're not offering to k-kill them, right?"
"What?! No! I was just gonna beat them up for you!"
"Oh," A relieved sigh escaped Shun before he tensed up again. "You don't have to get involved like this, I can handle myself."
He was doing his best to contain the vein on his forehead from popping out but he doubted he was doing a good job of it. They both knew that he couldn't fight for the life of him, and he couldn't figure out what was stopping him from taking up the offer.
"If it gets too serious I can just unwrap my arm," he smirked.
"Shun, this is serious."
"They're just a bunch of bullies. It's fine, Aren." His attitude about this was so flippant he wanted to rip the gate off of its hinges and throw it across the neighborhood.
There was no shame in needing help and asking for it. So why did he always have to hide behind the stupid Jet-Black Wings front?
"Look, I can make them sorry for ever messing with you, you don't have to keep getting hurt like this." He couldn't believe that he had resorted to just short of pleading, but only Shun could be frustrating enough to bring out this side of him.
An unreadable look crossed Shun's face and he immediately knew that this discussion was useless.
"I can handle myself." With that he ran up and into the house and slammed it in his face.
He ran a hand down his face with a heavy sigh and turned away from the house. He was really a idiot for thinking that he could talk some sense into him. He knew that Shun hated to acknowledge his own weakness and yet he had still pushed.
He had probably not liked how Aren had been treating him like some kind of damsel and had gotten upset. But going ahead without any heads up that he was going to scare the snot out of those guys was probably not a good idea either.
He'd have to wait until tomorrow to figure something out then.