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Draken points at the screwdriver by Takemichi’s side. “Give me that.”
The tool is exchanged between the two of them, and Draken turns back to bending his neck over the motorbike. The workshop is silent save for the noises that Draken makes when the tools brush against the motorbike parts.
“Draken-kun?” Takemichi calls.
“Hm?”
“What do you think Mikey-kun is doing right now?”
Draken’s hand does not stop moving. He did not even twitch at the question. There’s melancholy in Takemichi’s voice, disquiet in his question that feels like a vice around his tired, splintered heart. He wishes Takemichi would stop asking questions neither of them know the answers to. He wishes Takemichi would forget that name. He wishes for a lot of things to be different.
“Didn’t you agree when I asked you to never involve yourself with Mikey again?”
They made that agreement when Mikey made it clear he didn’t want to have anything to do with them anymore. When their calls were not picked up and nobody opened the door when someone knocked. Mikey had chosen his path, and so the rest of them followed suit and picked their own. A silent agreement to never interfere with each other again.
“Aren’t you sad that we can no longer see him?”
Of course Draken is sad. And angry. And bitter. And a whole lot of other emotions that have turned into one big amalgamation of feelings he can no longer fathom without turning to drinks. He’d been there far too many times. No more.
“Takemitchy, forget about him, alright? Just focus on yourself.”
The Brahman uniform deep in his closet feels like a rope tied around his neck and his lying tongue.
“Alright,” Takemichi whispers, and rests his head on Draken’s back as if he can see the disfigured heart that beats within his battered body.
Draken wonders, with the familiar, quiet burning fervour that threatens to devour him, what it would feel like to turn around and bury his face into sunflower hair.
Takemichi is the last person he wants to ever be involved in this world again.
Mikey was a fool to think he’d be exempted from Takemichi’s extensive list of people he wants to see happy in their future. The moment his path changed, Draken had felt anger, then resignation, then determination to bring him back. All in the span of one day, because he could not afford the luxury of dallying.
Takemichi, their crybaby hero, had sacrificed far too much for him to end up here again, with more wounds and burdens that Draken cannot see or carry for him. Draken has to be the one to break his body and cry his tears for them this time. Takemichi can rest easy.
His present self is thankfully ignorant to the burden of the knowledge of their future, and he’s so, so radiant most days, like a sun that can be touched if you only dare to reach your hand out and die for it.
Draken walks the tightrope between falling into temptation and falling into despair every day. It feels like his first love all over again. The gnawing feeling in your stomach when you look at someone who you know you can never hope to return, the violent, desirous longing you feel deep inside your chest.
Isn’t that laughable? That he’d fallen in love with someone like Takemichi, who is destined for someone like his best friend?
His bed is made, and now he lies in it and hopes the monsters will not come out to play.
“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”
Draken wants to turn around and walk out of their shared living room. But he’s not built to run away from his problems, so he soldiers on to the refrigerator to get a can of beer. He pops it open with a noise that feels quite too loud and drinks half of it before he turns to his co-worker slash roommate.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, like what someone who has an idea would say.
Inupi is stretched out over the sofa, his feet resting on the table and a magazine in hand. Casual, unbothered, and lazy. Draken wants to go over there and kick his face in. He absolutely knows what he’s doing.
“You’ve joined Brahman for Mikey,” Inupi says, looking straight at him now, with his indecipherable gaze that makes Draken’s skin crawl, for how all-seeing he looks. “You agreed to fix the bike for him. It’s like you’re in a one-man competition to win the prized trophy of ‘the most pathetic man’. Why aren’t you doing anything?”
And what? Betray Mikey? The moment he gets him back, Draken knows with wretched certainty that the thread of romance that had been there between him and Takemichi will be picked up like he never left. Draken knows his place, and it’s not between them. He can never hope to ever be more.
Inupi must have read his face, because next he says, “I don’t know whether to applaud you or feel sorry for you. How does it feel to know you’re destroying your own chances for the sake of someone who might never appreciate it?”
“Grateful,” Draken says, aiming to hurt, to retaliate,“that he will find happiness with someone, even if it’s not me. Grateful, that he will be safe and in love. Grateful, that I will not grow bitter like you did.”
Silence rules the room after his declaration. Draken looks out the window and pretends he did not just open the blanket to what had been lying underneath for years. That Inupi once loved the sun known as Hanagaki Takemichi. That he, more than anyone, knows intimately what Draken feels.
“I’m sorry,” he says, caving in to the guilt that coils around his guts. “Inupi, I’m sorry.”
A gush of breath escapes Inupi. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn't have pushed. You’re right, I’m a bitter bastard.”
Draken barks a laugh, relief and rawness mixed into something volatile. “Fuck, you are. Just because you missed your chance doesn’t mean you can shit on anyone.”
Inupi had grown to be so embittered by his unrequited affections that he had turned to scoff at any romantic notions. Draken wishes he had his selfish heart so he could break himself free of this perpetual cycle of torment, but he knows he fears treating Takemichi with indifference more than anything else.
“I’m alright,” he assures Inupi, the hollow inside his chest, and the child in him that cries for what he cannot cry for.
Takemichi is here again, today. He’s grown attached to the shop, Draken fears.
“I won’t be working on your bike today,” he says as he sits down on the floor, hand already rummaging in the tool kit as he looks at where he left off. “Some parts that I ordered haven’t arrived, so I’m putting yours off.”
Takemichi looks beautiful today, as always. He’s wearing the blue, oversized knitted sweater Draken gave him last month. It warms his belly and leaves a distant ache every time he looks at him.
“I’m here to hang out,” Takemichi tells him with a stupidly indignant face. Draken stares at him before he snorts, which Takemichi takes as an offense.
“I just don’t believe you have nothing better to do than watch me for hours,” he answers Takemichi’s demand for an explanation.
When Takemichi comes closer to sit beside him, Draken can smell the fabric softener he must have used. Something clinical. But when he leans in closer, his natural scent invades Draken’s senses, a plethora of fragrance that he has memorized and tucked close inside his heart. He has to consciously move his arms so Takemichi does not see how he devastated him by his mere presence.
“I like watching you work, Draken-kun,” Takemichi says with a bright, warm grin. “You’re so hardworking and focused when you get into it. It’s fascinating.”
His heart skips a beat, before it races like the stupid hopeful thing it is. Draken struggles to keep his face blank even as he can feel his cheeks threaten to bloom in redness in response to such honest, kind words. Trust Takemichi to be so obliviously charming.
He grunts. “Well, go sit somewhere else. I can’t work while someone’s breathing down my neck.”
Takemichi makes a noise like a puffed up chick before he stomps over to the worn sofa on the other side of the workshop. Draken shakes himself mentally off the effect of the impromptu assault before he focuses his eyes on the busted exhaust.
He cannot resist temptation. One peek at his sofa shows him that Takemichi is still watching him. He has no choice. He wanted to give it to him later, but now seems like a good time.
Steeling his nerves, he says casually, “Check the drawer under your seat. I got you something.”
He hears Takemichi scrambling and rummaging around, then a soft wondrous sound reaches his ears, announcing that he has found what Draken had painstakingly scoured the internet for.
“Draken-kun, I thought this was sold out everywhere.”
It’s a re-released first volume of Takemichi’s favorite manga, in all its classic and embossed glory. It had cost a leg and an arm and several shady handshakes before Draken managed to get his hands on it last Sunday.
Like the seasoned liar he is, he explains, “A friend knew someone in the production team, so I asked for a copy. You’re welcome.”
Takemichi thanks him profusely, in between fawning and crying over the gift. Draken doesn’t mind the fuss, not when he can hear Takemichi flipping the pages behind him as they sit together in the workshop in companionable, content silence.
It feels enough.
It would have been better if God had spit in his face, because the next time he sees Takemichi, his worst fears come true.
His grip on the safety handle tightens and his blood roars in his ears as the first word stumbles out of this Takemichi’s mouth.
Draken had failed. There’s no other word for it. He’d failed Mikey. He’d failed Emma. He’d failed everyone. He’d even failed Takemichi, because he’s here again, from another terrible future.
The familiar lies came easy. There’s nothing we can do. Mikey has changed. Leave him be. There’s nothing we can do.
Because Takemichi’s words scare him. “It’s my turn,” he said, as if he’s not the one who kept on giving and giving until all he had was his fractured glory and the regrets of the dead haunting his steps. Draken wants to take him away, hide him somewhere he cannot possibly be hurt ever again. How had he failed this tremendously?
Then, Rokuhara Tendai came, followed by Brahman like they were beckoned.
Draken wishes he’d never taken up the uniform.
The aftermath is still as harrowing as the confrontation.
Draken meets Akashi outside his workshop and slams the motherfucker with all the rage he’s been keeping from Takemichi, rattling the shop shutters with a thunderous noise over the rain.
“You piece of shit,” he tells the legend. “I told you I don’t want any of them involved! What were you doing trying to recruit him?!”
Takemichi? Takemichi of all people?
Akashi grits his teeth and tells him in stuttering breath, “We need him and only him. We don’t need the rest of the– “
He releases him briefly before slamming him against the shutters again, hot rage burning its way through his veins at the answer.
Takemichi bursts out into the rain in all his stubbornness and determination, and Draken loses another fight he’s been fighting without a chance of winning.
He’s at Takemichi’s backdoor, leaning by the doorway and looking at the stars while contemplating what the fuck is he doing.
He’d been thinking for hours in his bed. About what Takemichi told him. Of the implications and the unsaid. He’d stared at his ceiling, mind reeling as he replayed the conversation and reached a conclusion with the force of sledgehammer bludgeoning his head none too gently.
Before he knew it, he’d reached for his jacket and rode here to Takemichi’s door like a possessed dog.
Remembering the impulse that had overtaken him, he puts a hand on his face and sighs deeply. He’s a fucking idiot.
This is what Takemichi had reduced him to. Waiting at his backdoor like an old time romantic. Making stupidly hasty emotional decisions like he’s fourteen again. He flicks open his phone. The 12:07am blinking back at him as if telling him how stupid he is. His thumb pushes the buttons before he can let himself chicken out, until he reaches the contact number of the person who had driven him to this sorry state.
He sends a text, because he’s a coward and a little more than terrified.
He closes his phone and goes back to contemplating the stars so he will not think of the ramification waiting in the wake of this disaster.
The lights by the kitchen are turned on. The door swings open slowly and Takemichi shuffles out with wide eyes and in his pajamas. Draken takes a moment to appreciate this rare sight, before he pushes himself off the wall to let Takemichi know of his presence.
“Yo,” he greets.
Takemichi turns to him, hopelessly expressive in his confusion as he stutters his greeting back. For a moment, they both stand there, Draken staring down at him with his hands in his jacket and Takemichi blinking up at him frantically.
“Draken-kun,” Takemichi finally finds his courage. “What are you doing here?”
Here’s to mortification in ten years, if this does not go well.
“You had me thinking,” Draken begins, staring at something above Takemichi’s head. “Your future sounds like the best you’ve ever seen. You know, with everyone sounding happy and on the career path.”
With a quiet voice, Takemichi adds, “Except Mikey.”
Draken grows tired of that name coming out of Takemichi’s mouth. He’s been here for less than a day but Draken can no longer count by one hand how many times it has been.
“And you,” Draken finishes.
The halo of golden hair snaps up to show blue eyes swimming in confusion.
Draken dares to step closer. Now there’s barely two feet between them and an ocean still to cross. His hands have grown cold in his pocket as his heart beats in steady, big pulses.
“You never said anything about yourself.” Draken finally asks the questions that have been plaguing him, “Are you happy? Are you doing well?” Did you find someone else, lies under his tongue, but he cannot bring himself to ask. It would reveal too much, too soon.
Takemichi shrinks under the questions, solidifying what Draken had suspected of their future.
“That’s what I thought,” he says quietly, even as he can feel his own heart breaking. “Were you still waiting for Mikey?”
Thin arms wrap themselves around Takemichi’s body as if trying to hold himself together like a shoddy patched up work. “I thought - “ He stops, breathes harshly. “I thought there was something between us.”
Him and the rest of the world.
“There is,” Draken answers with devastating honesty. “But like I told you, Mikey has chosen his path.”
To this, Takemichi’s dam breaks.
“I’m going to bring him back!” He says through gritted teeth and pearly tears. “Draken-kun, I swear I’m going to bring him back. I promise you.”
Draken can’t watch him like this, tearing himself into pieces for Mikey and leaving none for the rest of them. He reaches out to undo Takemichi’s grip around himself, takes his hands into his and slots them together to stand front-to-front. He finally buries his face into the sunflower hair and holds onto it as he says his next words.
“Listen to me.” Takemichi has gone stiff in his hold, his breathing warm against his chest. Draken waits for him to nod before he continues.
“That future sounds like a terrible train wreck, if you ask me, because how could I ever let you suffer in silence?”
Twelve years of lost chances. His future self was either a coward or a bastard of the highest degree.
“Just for a while, forget about Mikey. Can you do that for me?” Takemichi’s body shakes as if he’s holding back a sob. Draken brings him closer. “Forget about Mikey and turn around for someone who’s been waiting for you to look at them.”
Takemichi goes still, then he tries to push himself away but Draken does not let him, does not want to face the rejection before he can even get the rest of this terrible confession out.
“Let me say my piece, please.” He waits for Takemichi’s nod. “I’ve been in love with you for a while, and if I know myself, I think I still loved you in that future.”
He lets that sink in as he straightens up to hold Takemichi against his chest more comfortably. His hands are shaking, he realizes. “I never wanted to let you know because I was convinced I could bring Mikey back by myself and you two can run off together. Leave the rest of us behind. But now I know it’s never going to make a difference unless you’re here.”
Swallowing his fears, he whispers his next words, “So I’m asking you, right now, can I change your mind? Do I have your permission to convince the you of this time to turn around and see that I’m the one who have always been by his side, and always will be?”
“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out with Mikey, but I don’t want to take the chance of leaving you to suffer for ten more years when I can do something about it. So please, do I have your permission?”
This time, when Takemichi pushes him, he goes. Silent tears had been running down Takemichi’s face this whole time, and he wears the look of a miserable man when he meets Draken’s eyes.
“Don’t look like that,” Draken tells him, heart breaking anew. “I’m not asking for forever right now. Why do you look like that?”
“Draken-kun.” Trembling hands cup his face, and he finally realizes he looks as miserable as the man he’s just confessed to. “I’m sorry.”
This must be what it feels like to have the world pulled from underneath you. Falling and falling without knowing where the bottom floor is and you’re screaming so loud but nobody can hear you in the void, only you and your own terrible company. It echoes back to you and strips you down of the last vestige of dignity you have left.
His chest hurts. He can’t breathe.
“Look at me,” Takemichi orders, and helplessly, he does. Takemichi still has tear streaks on his cheeks, but his eyes have cleared and he has the familiar determined furrow on his brows. He says, “I’m sorry I never knew how you felt in that future. I’m sorry we both suffered quietly. I’m sorry for a lot more, but I can’t be sorry for how you feel.”
He dares not to hope, not when he feels this chafed under his skin.
“You can,” Takemichi says with surety. “Draken-kun, of course you can.” He chortles wetly. “I think you’re well on your way already. My memories of this timeline are coming back, and I can’t believe how I never saw it. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait a little more for small me to catch up.”
Oh.
Oh.
This is real.
Slowly, with his big clumsy hands, he takes the small ones on his face and covers them like a prayer. Bending over, he brings them to his forehead as a faithful believer would.
“Thank you,” is all he could say. He’s exhausted his words, and all he has is this. Tears prick at his eyes, so overwhelmed he is. He thinks he would have fallen to his knees if Takemichi is not holding him up by the hand.
“Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?” Takemichi asks. “I should be the one who apologized to you. I never knew.”
Draken doesn’t know if it would have made a difference, but at least they are here, together. They can redo this now. He lets go of Takemichi’s hand and tentatively, he reaches out to fold himself over his much smaller frame. Takemichi wastes no time wrapping his own arms around his waist, stupidly trusting as always. Draken squeezes him, feeling raw still from his confession.
“It doesn’t matter,” he tells him, promises him. “You are going to return to a different future. A happier one. I swear.” Even if he has to drag Mikey back by the hair kicking and screaming.
Takemichi’s answer is small and full of feelings he cannot possibly ever explain. “Alright.”
Draken breathes in deeply. “Alright.”
Far away, the stars shine on.
The battle is not over yet.