Chapter Text
Toman was not any more or less special than the other gangs that were running around Tokyo. They were not any stronger in force than those that dared to fight them, nor were they any weaker in spirit against enemies that they couldn’t beat.
(That they shouldn’t have been able to beat, but did.)
The Tokyo Manji Gang was not blessed or cursed, or any of the other stupid shit that people on the street loved to spew. They were not made by the whispers of the ill informed, and they certainly didn’t bow to what they thought. Unapologetically themselves and their own, they answered only to the people they believed in—and if the brass wasn’t inspirational enough, then Toman wasn’t for you. Grudges were not something they kept, which was something gangsters liked to tease them about, but whenever a real member of the gang was confronted, they’d smile or laugh like they knew something everyone didn’t.
Revenge isn’t good for the soul.
Something like that was probably the work of their second in command, but it was something that was enforced staunchly throughout the gang.
Toman was quirky, and they had their little idiosyncrasies that set them apart from everyone else, but they were nothing particularly special. But they did have a ghost story.
And not just one of those shitty hand-me-down, a dime a dozen, tales. It was something recognized by people who’d been involved in the gang, and those who were around it enough to notice. Even people who had never been affiliated with Toman—who’d only fought against them—would swear up and down, right hand to god, that all the stories were true. Which was bullshit, let’s get that clear. Not everything was true, because about half of it was lies. But some of it wasn’t, though, and that was the important part.
The story, or at least the indisputably true part of it, went like this:
Toman clashed with a group that called themselves Moebius. On a rainy night, in the parking lot of a festival, their second in command and the girl he was with got jumped. He held his own, even as reinforcements on both sides showed up. In a bid for power, internal conflict, or whatever story you subscribed to, a low-level grunt from Toman tried to pull off a half-assed coup’. Knife at the ready, Kiyomasa had thought he was god, if only for a moment. When he made to stab Draken—to take his life, let’s be honest—he didn’t expect the lithe form of a sniveling brat to shove himself in between the two of them. Too shocked to do much other than gape, Kiyomasa let go of the knife. The kid—whose blonde hair seemed to leave negative imprints in everyone’s eyes—took off the second he was no longer held by Kiyomasa, and bolted into the woods. He hadn’t wasted a single breath during the encounter, not a drop of blood on the concrete to show his presence.
With everyone summarily distracted, Draken took care of them with ease. When Toman showed up in force, they were greeted by a sea of concussed teens, and a sobbing Emma. She was in a rough state—not physically, but emotionally—and could hardly string two words together. The only one able to decipher her ramblings took off into the forest. The next morning’s news would have the yearbook photo of a first year middle schooler, whose name was Hanagaki Takemichi. He’d be smiling just a bit too wide for his face, showing off a few extra teeth, but he looked truly happy, and his black hair was pulled into a coif above his head.
The news would say that he’d been killed in the crossfire between gangs the night before, stabbed, and left for dead. An anonymous tip had been left about a boy who’d been killed, but the cops weren’t able to identify the caller (who, luckily for them, had seen the whole thing go down, and told the police exactly who to look for). The chief had begged whoever it was to come forward, as they’d need their testimony when Kiyomasa was put on trial, but that was a good ways away.
And from that moment on, the ghost of Hanagaki Takemichi was said to have haunted the Tokyo Manji Gang. He was more helpful than not, but that was what people tended to say when an undead spirit was breathing down their neck.
And that whole thing wasn’t the actual story. That was just the half of it.
Bleeding out, and too delirious to tell up from down, Takemichi had collapsed somewhere that smelled like fresh grass and reminded him of digging up earthworms in his backyard. The side of his face felt gritty against the dirt, and his arm was pinned beneath him, but laying like this, he almost couldn’t feel the knife between his ribs.
Suddenly there was a girl by his side, who was trembling and oh so scared, and he wanted to tell her to smile. This was not a sad moment! It was amazing—a success! Takemichi had gone and saved Draken’s life—and with that Hina should live too.
(A voice screamed at him that he knew that wasn’t true, but when the stars were dancing in front of his face, he didn’t care for much else. He was so, so tired. The drowsiness overtaking his vision was a blessing in disguise. Endless failed loops that brought him back to the start. New people dying, dropping to their knees at his feet, begging for forgiveness, mercy, pity, hatred. Takemichi couldn’t take it any more. It’s not fair. Why him? He wasn’t himself any more. He hadn’t tried this though—so maybe it would work? Right? And if it didn’t, he’d be dead just like he was supposed to be and it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. It hurt the hole in his chest because he didn’t want to be alone, to leave everyone alone, but maybe it was better to be alone when—)
And then Draken was there!
He was saying stuff, and trying to flip Takemichi over, but Takemichi didn’t want to move, so he batted at the man’s hands. The buzzing in his ears told him that the next few moments weren’t spent in silence, but Takemichi believed that they were, so that’s what it was.
Draken’s voice broke through the din. “What in the hell did you have to gain out of all this?” he sighed. “A vendetta?”
Takemichi’s lips were numb and wet, so the words tumbled out effortlessly. “No, revenge isn’t good for the soul.” He was very adamant about that. “I was jus’ trying to save you.”
And as if that very declaration had pulled the life from his lips, he died with his eyes wide open, and a relaxed smile still clinging to his cheeks. Draken hadn’t even gotten the kid’s name.
It put a pit in his stomach everytime he thought about it, but there was no way around it. Hanagaki Takemichi had died from blood loss, face down in the dirt, and had the audacity to smile while he did it. And the more he thought about the kid, the more Draken wanted to forget his existence entirely. Remembering his joy also meant remembering the vacant look in his eyes, the glaze that persisted, even when the kid had mindlessly whispered things that Emma refused to repeat.
Though he held up a conversation for at least a moment, he wasn’t all there. Takemichi had died alone—like everything and everyone did eventually. By the same time the next day, it was as if the kid hadn’t ever existed. There were cars parked not more than twenty feet where he’d taken his last breath, people walking no more than a yard away.
No one left flowers or started a memorial, like they usually did for goody-two-shoes kids who died unexpectedly. In fact, there weren’t really many people at his funeral. Just a handful of his friends, their parents, and the pretty faced gal who was (apparently) his girlfriend. Takemichi’s mother showed up—the only family he had—and sat stoically in the front row, not speaking to a single person nor acknowledging their presence. (Draken would know, since he actually went.)
The kid’s friends were nice—delinquents, more than he’d ever been—but nice nonetheless. They’d said he was a fanboy of Toman’s, if a gang that was barely even a hundred people counted as something worthy of having fans. “Takemichi didn’t hate people,” the redhead had whispered to him, eyes leaking and with a snarl on his face, “but he hated Kiyomasa, and Kisaki Tetta.” The name is spat like a broken tooth.
How the blonde had judged the character of those two boys was beyond him, but he’d been right thus far. Draken wasn’t superstitious by any stretch, but the smile on that kid’s face made him want to believe in a higher power. No one should be that happy to die.
Death came to Takemichi like a friend, it seemed.
Death was a friend, and with Takemichi being six feet under, he too was a friend.
Sitting on the steps of the shrine, long after everyone had been dismissed, Mikey and Draken were knee to knee as they processed everything that had occurred. Kisaki Tetta was their new third division captain, and with Baji gone, their first division’s head was gone. It was a night that was meant to be spent in solemn silence, with only the occasional question, until Mikey eventually got too hungry to keep his mouth shut and Draken inevitably ended up taking them somewhere to eat.
They were the worst kinds of nights, but they were quiet, so they were a necessary evil. Hanagaki Takemichi didn’t seem to agree.
“You guys are walking a pretty thin line, don’t you think?”
Mikey and Draken were both shocked to see a kid with a horrifically bad hairstyle standing a few feet behind them. Hands in his pockets, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, Takemichi looked at them with raised eyebrows. When neither boy spoke, Takemichi shrugged his shoulders—the epitome of calm and collected—a slight chuckle falling from his lips. “Don’t look at me like that!” he equivocated. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
Their friendship was a thing that was meant to be, apparently. And Takemichi seemed to know everything that was going to happen. He didn’t show up on command or anything, nor did he stick around for very long. The two of them had thought they were the only ones who saw Takemichi, however regularly one could call his appearances, until Mitsuya mentioned seeing Emma walking home from cram school with a boy he’d never seen before. It was late, he explained, and had she been alone, Mitsuya would’ve escorted her. But he’d heard her laugh, so he assumed it was fine—just something they ought to know.
The next time she was scheduled to stay a bit later than normal, the boys staked out the part of her route where Mitsuya had seen the boy, knowing that asking Emma point blank about boys would’ve just been asking for trouble. Lo and behold, when Emma traipsed by, Takemichi was at her heels, talking about this and that and everything in between.
Draken and Emma hadn’t known Takemichi for anything more than six minutes combined, which really was no time at all, but people like him tended to stick to you no matter how many days had passed between the last time you saw them. They knew the face they would always remember would grow years out of date, and that they might never recognize Takemichi if they saw him walk down the street, but they could still imagine what he’d be like—doe-eyed, cheery tempered, a presence too big for the space he managed to fill, and more love in his pinky finger than their entire gang combined.
“The third movie is the best, I’m just saying,” the blonde tutted, much to Emma’s chagrin.
“No way,” she laughed. “The third movie hasn’t even come out yet. You’re just saying that because you think it’s gonna be good.”
Takemichi smiled knowingly, something that was a habit if anything, before changing the topic to music. He was very passionate about music of all kinds, from every era. As the boys came to the realization that Emma was safe, they heard his voice prattle on.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had big aspirations for the future. Never thought too much about it. But a music store would be nice.”
Despite being dead, there was still warmth in his voice. Distant, as if he didn’t want to fan the flames of desire too much, but just enough to seem alive.
Despite being dead, Takemichi seemed alive.
For the first few months of his existence as a ghost, Takemichi only appeared to the people who’d seen his body: Emma, Draken, and Mikey. Or so they thought.
When Draken caught sight of a glorious head of red locks, followed by three other guys, he instantly recognized them as Takemichi’s buddies. They didn’t approach the gang, didn’t so much as look at a single member. They had eyes only for Draken and Mikey. Sitting at the bottom of the shrine, just off to the side enough to look curious, the four of them were making their intentions clear. They wanted in.
There was no way, in good conscience, Draken would give them his blessing, but that didn’t mean he had to run them off. And if he thought he saw Takemichi sitting with them, every once and a while, he didn’t think much of it.
The kid already knew enough to be a division leader, so angering him was probably a bad deal. He’d just tell his buddies everything anyway. There was no harm in letting them stick around, right?
(What Draken didn’t know was that Takemichi had been explaining everything to the living members of the Mizo Middle Five, and they were all preparing themselves for what needed to be done to protect everyone. And who knows, if everything worked out the way it was supposed to, they just might become honorary Toman members because of it.)
After the events of Bloody Halloween, Baji—who was once again the first division’s captain—admitted something. “That fuckin’ blondie. The one without a uniform? He warned me. Annoyed me about it for days.”
The other captains, most of whom had no idea what he was talking about, crinkled their noses. “All of our members have uniforms,” Chifuyu spoke. “We’re not short any.”
Baji rolled his eyes. “Well, you’re missing somebody, because the runt wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Everyone’s eyes eventually ended on Mikey, looking for some sort of explanation that Draken knew they wouldn’t get. In true Mikey fashion though, he managed to make it work.
“Oh, you must be talking about Takemitchy,” he drawled. “He’s the head of our sixth division.”
When people were demanding answers, with all of their attention on Mikey, no one noticed Takemichi materializing behind them. Neither blonde made any indication that things had changed.
“Geez, everyone, calm down. It was an executive decision,” Mikey announced. “There’s only five guys in it, and they’re all in plain clothes. Takemitchy’s been running intel. His boys have been listening in on the other gangs, trying to put together the big picture. That’s why nobody knows about it.”
Surprisingly, Draken noted, it made sense. While everyone was stunned into silence, Takemichi made his move. He clapped his hands once.
“I mean, without the ghost division, imagine what could’ve happened! I’m just glad everything worked out.”
A few captains slack jawed, but most of them with wide eyes, nobody was expecting the twig of a boy to actually be there. And with most of them priding themselves on their inability to be snuck up on, it was even more rattling. (Draken also wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The Ghost Division? Really, Takemichi?)
Mikey laughed something bright, while Baji growled—both of them accustomed to Takemichi’s antics by now. “Thanks for stopping by, but you oughta get back to your duties, right?”
The whole conversation was choreographed, it was painfully obvious, but that wasn’t on the forefront of the captain’s minds. Especially not Kisaki’s, who was practically shaking where he sat. He was reacting worse than Draken, and he’d seen the kid die. Perhaps he knew he was seeing a ghost too.
“You got it!” Takemichi beamed. He made to walk away before pausing, turning back to Mikey and the rest. “Say, you didn’t forget about our deal, right?”
With that, all eyes fell on Mikey, who was grinning something fierce. “Not at all!”
Dark eyes found their way to Kisaki, who was sweating more every moment. Voice dripping with kindness, and with no room to argue, he said, “You’re fired!”
No one was speaking, just turning their heads between the two of them, as if they were watching a match of tennis. The score was skewed in Mikey’s favor.
“What the fuck?” Kisaki spoke. When he realized Mikey wasn’t budging, he turned to search Takemichi’s face, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. When everyone looked back to where Mikey and Draken were sitting, Takemichi was standing comfortably a few feet behind them. The smile on his lips was cruel. He didn’t say a word before turning and walking out the only door at the shrine, a single hand thrown over his shoulder in a wave.
“You’re no longer welcome here, Kisaki,” Draken added. “You’d best get going.”
Draken didn’t question why Mikey was keeping Takemichi’s existence a secret from everyone, but he didn’t really blame him. He wouldn’t want to be the one to break the news to them anyways.
So word spread that there was a secret division in Toman, manned only by the craftiest and most clever of people. Delinquents wondered why Toman—one of the most headstrong and morally driven groups—would suddenly start picking up on the art of stealth and espionage, but were ultimately drowned out by the mantra of every gang’s got their clever ones, right? And so the Ghost Division, as Toman called it internally (or The Analytics division, as the general public called it) was born.
Baji did not like Takemichi one bit. He’d known the kid was fucked up from the second he’d laid eyes on him, but this was a new level of fucked up that he didn’t want to be within twenty feet of. He’d been out with Mikey that morning, the two of them going about their day, when the younger mentioned needing to make a pit stop. They were in front of a few convenience stores, with a cemetery at their back, so Baji did the smart thing and started taking out his wallet in preparation for a doriyaki buying spree.
What he was not expecting, was for Mikey to look both ways before scuttling across the street and into the cemetery.
Into the fucking cemetary.
A thousand thoughts were running through his head and rolling down the back of his neck in beads of sweat as he followed solemnly behind his friend. When they walked by the Sano family grave, which had Baji almost sick with guilt, it felt like his stomach dropped out.
When he hesitated in front of the name, Mikey shrugged. “We’re not here for him today.”
And so that was apparently that.
They ended up in front of a dilapidated shrine that read Hanagaki in faded kanji. Mikey pulled incense from his pocket, and began dutifully brushing the leaves and debri from the shrine’s front. He didn’t touch the good luck charms, or the puzzle coupons, or the movie tickets that rested at its feet, Mikey simply placed his incense in the holder, and put his hands together in prayer. He was quiet for a moment, before he asked, “Takemichi?” to the open air.
Baji was about to ask him what the fuck he was going on about when Takemichi materialized atop the name marker. In between the several heart attacks Baji had experienced that morning, Takemichi was another.
God, he hated that kid.
The sun seemed to pass through him, lighting skin that was a bit too blemish free and porcelain to be real. His terrible hair-do was cemented in place, no matter how much the wind moussed Baji’s own locks, Takemichi was forever unaffected. The blonde didn’t blink, either. Nor did his clothes move when he breathed—which Baji wasn’t even sure he was doing.
“Mikey? What are you doing here?” The question is innocent, and if Takemichi were a regular person, Baji would have thought he was frazzled.
“I wanted to formally introduce you to Baji.”
Stiffening slightly, but not enough to notice, Baji met Takemichi’s unrelenting stare. He’d heard of westerners calling angels things of white and blue, that weren’t really people, with lots of fucking eyes. He considered Takemichi one of those things: deadly pale, not quite person-shaped in terms of personality, and with a set of eyes that felt like you were being looked through. Takemichi was something else entirely. (That didn’t sit well.)
“Oh, we’ve met before,” the blonde said lightly. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
Mikey crossed his arms, petulant, like the child he was. “I don’t have to do anything.”
Sensing that Mikey was getting close to throwing a tantrum, the blonde raised his hands in surrender. “Of course, of course.” He turned his gaze on Baji with ease.
When he didn’t say anything for a moment, Baji realized that Takemichi was waiting for him. “You expecting me to say something?”
A smile that felt too old for the kid’s middle school face seemed to light his features. “I don’t really know what to expect from you,” he grinned. “You’re quite the wildcard, you know. I haven’t really planned for you yet.”
A gust of frigid wind, one that spelled the slow death of summer and the less than anticipated arrival of winter, blew through the cemetery. It kicked up leaves and dust, pulling at the smoke from Mikey’s almost burnt out incense. Baji blinked and Takemichi was on his feet, the two of them planted firmly atop of the shrine.
“But either way,” the blonde prattled on. “I suppose I haven’t been entirely honest with you. Hi, I’m Hanagaki Takemichi; I’m dead. Nice to meet you!”
And then he blinked out of existence.
Baji actually let the surprise show on his face, at which Mikey let himself smile.
“He’s a lot of fun, isn’t he?” Mikey beamed.
Baji clapped his hands in a quick prayer before looping his arm over Mikey’s shoulder. “He’s a pain in my ass, is what he is.”
In the distance, a store’s windchime sounded at just the right time to sound like laughter.
Baji did not believe in higher powers, or angels, or even life after death. Only the things that he could see and touch were what he dealt with—Toman and its affairs, and his friends. But Takemichi was all three of those things at once, and he just made the wheels in Baji’s mind spin. So he didn’t think about it too hard. Didn’t let Takemichi get all caught up in his head.
(But he did find himself acknowledging the impossibly dead boy. When Chifuyu was in the hospital, he’d found himself sitting with his back against the Hanagaki family shrine once again. There were more movie tickets collected, and someone had left a ukulele that somehow managed to never accumulate snow, despite the heaviness in which it was falling. There was a bottle of something tucked between his hands, which had been shaking from something entirely unrelated to the booze.
When he tilted his head back, eyes closed and face pointed towards the darkened sky, he felt more than he noticed Takemichi’s arrival. Whenever the kid was around Baji always felt like his sinuses were full, as if he’d just finished crying and his face was all swollen. The kid also smelled of smoke and sweat—a bit like ozone. His presence was like the moment of anticipation before a bomb exploded.
Baji’s eyes opened to find Takemichi’s face a few inches from his—the boy sitting atop the marker like he’d been on the day they’d “met.”
His eyes were glassy and leaking, and so blue that they seemed to glow.
His words didn’t so much as twitch, but Baji heard him speaking nonetheless. I’m sorry, he cried. I didn’t know. I should have known better, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault, please. Blame me, don’t be mad at him—this was my doing. Please don’t leave him because of this. He’s not weak, it was just my fault. He’s still the same person he’s always been. I’m sorry.
It was a steady stream of apologies and words laden with information Baji was sure that Chifuyu didn’t even know. He didn’t question how Takemichi knew, because if he was being honest with himself, the blonde knew too much. And painfully, not enough.
Baji didn’t say it was okay, but he didn’t make the boy stop. He listened as the quiet pleading and murmuring surrounded him and blocked out the howling of the wind. He was able to pretend that the tears rolling down his cheeks had simply dropped from Takemichi’s face onto his own.
I’m sorry that you have to suffer, the blonde wept. You weren’t supposed to live, and I wanted you to, and now you have to pay for it. It’s my fault.
Baji noticed that he never asked for forgiveness. It said a lot about him.
I promise that you’ll get to share yakisoba again. I promise.
And just as Baji was getting ready to speak, heavy footsteps came pattering through the cemetery. They echoed until they stopped in front of Baji. Angry and Smiley helped him to his feet with an air of determination and worry, hissed words being shared between them. As they hustled him away from the grave and towards where their bikes were idling, the only thing that really got his feet moving was the assertion that he’s awake.
Absently, as he tried to get his feet to walk straight, he realized he’d left his bottle at Takemichi’s shrine. When he turned to look back, a pang of almost-guilt for littering at the dudes fucking grave, he was met by Takemichi waving once again. Except he was taking a big ass haul off of what was now Takemichi’s bottle of vodka. The blonde shouted at the top of his lungs, “You promised!”
Baji was puzzled, until his eyes landed on the light of the only convenience store that was still open. Takemichi was gone when Baji looked back, and both brothers hadn’t even heard or noticed.
Baji bought some noodles before Angry and Smiley could tie him to a bike. His hands were bright red with cold as he cradled the carton to his chest. Smiley seemed to take the turns a bit wider for that reason. He tactfully neglected to comment on Baji’s state of mental breakdown. Baji owed him a few favors.
When they spirited him into Chifuyu’s room, they deposited him in the chair next to his bed and practically locked the door behind them as they left.
Baji’s face was swollen from Not-Crying, and his chest was full of ozone. But his hands held onto a package of noodles more important than any of those things, and the heart monitor’s beeping, as well as featherlight laughter filled his ears.
Baji came to the conclusion that he did not hate Takemichi.
He was still a pain in the ass though.)
Mitsuya asked Draken one morning, seriousness folded into every line of his being, “Is Takemitchy someone we can trust?”
Draken laughed, deep in his gut, as he recalled how offended Takemichi had been when Emma told him his favorite move sucked.
“Definitely,” the man nodded. “And even if he wasn’t, he’d be better to be kept a friend than an enemy.”
Mitsuya nodded once, but seemed displeased with the answer.
“Why do you still stick around?” Emma asked Takemichi one evening. “After everything that’s happened? Why are you still here?”
Takemichi fiddled with one of the buttons on his gakuran, unable to make eye contact with the girl.
“I haven’t done everything I need to do,” he said quietly.
“And that involves walking me home every night?” Her hands rested on her hips as she glared at the boy. “I can take care of myself, you know!”
The blonde nodded, slowly though. He still wouldn’t look at her directly, which was starting to get on her nerves. He scratched at a scar on his hand that seemed to appear some days as opposed to others. That was something unique about her ghost—how he sometimes had more scars, his hair was black one day and blonde the next, how his hair usually stayed in its coife, but came undone when he was stressed. He looked older sometimes too, but she thought she was the only one who saw it.
“I know that you can take care of yourself,” he said quietly, the wind his voice. “But I’ve got to make sure nothing happens to you, or else this all would’ve been for nothing.”
Emma’s heart sank at his words and the way he seemed to grow dimmer. She watched as he flickered for a moment, snuck a glance her way, and ultimately straightened out. When he met her eyes, his expression held a kind of trepidation. Foreboding.
“I’ll leave you be. But you have to promise to be careful when you cross the street, okay? Even if you’re on the sidewalk. Not all bikes are Toman’s—you’ve gotta watch out. But you can do that, since you can take care of yourself.”
His eyes fell to the ground, as if he were seeing something she couldn’t.
“Take care of yourself,” he pleaded before disappearing.
Emma walked home from cram school alone that night, and by the time her feet found the front door, there was a pit of anxiety in her stomach like she’d never felt before. She was watched the entire way home, not by Takemichi, but by someone else. She couldn’t see who—she couldn’t even verify if it was true or not. But it felt like there were eyes on the back of her neck, and her skin was covered in goosebumps.
She regretted asking the ghost anything.
Hina stood alone in a park, snow falling lazily on everything around her. She and Takemichi were supposed to come here and celebrate the holiday together, but as of a few months ago, he wouldn’t be able to share any more of his holidays with anyone. She wasn’t going to cry about it—not any more.
She wasn’t surprised that she was the only one out at this hour, not even a car willing to brave the snowfall. As she stepped further into the grass, a set of fresh footsteps caught her eye. They traveled right up to the handrail that overlooked the river, and Hina stepped in their indentations to avoid getting any more snow on her clothes. When she reached the handrail, a small chain was wrapped around it. It seemed too delicate to be treated that way, and from its silver length a four leaf clover dangled. When she touched the necklace, the metal was warm, as if someone had just left it. As she worked on untangling it, she noticed a second set of footprints in the snow. Just two—right beside where she was standing.
She could’ve sworn she stopped in the last ones.
By the time she pulled the necklace from the handrail, her fingers had gone numb. Just as she was about to turn and head back home, those mysterious second prints seemed to glitter. She leaned over them to get a better look and found an identical chain sitting at the bottom. She plucked it from the snow as if it’d burn her if she didn’t.
It couldn’t have been Takemichi, because he was dead. And his friends weren’t clever enough to do something like this for her. But as she stood there, wind freezing her cheeks, two identical necklaces in her pocket, and a set of footsteps in the snow where her boyfriend ought to be, she could think of no one but Takemichi being able to pull this off.
She smiled as she walked home. (She cried too, but that was neither here nor there.)
And the very next morning, she went to his grave. She draped the silver chain over the top of the name marker, prayed, and waited. Nothing magical happened, but for a moment the sun broke through the clouds, and it felt like maybe Takemichi had rested a hand atop her head—the warmth welcome, yet foriegn. Just as quick as it started, it stopped.
But Hina smiled.
(She had a feeling that Takemichi was too.)