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Takemichi had never really put much thought into how he looked, and that was just a fact of his life. Of course he wanted to look thuggish—like a delinquent, yes—but he cared for little else. He only did what he saw.
Bleached hair.
Baggy uniforms.
Eye-catching hairstyle.
Takemichi didn’t really understand why people tended to give him sidelong glances, or why the old woman at the convenience store gave him a few sweet buns for free. He didn’t understand that the way he looked brought pity, hatred, resentment, and fear. Well, he could understand why people would be afraid of a guy more plaster than skin, dripping in blood, and groaning with every breath.
The pity thing though? He just couldn’t comprehend it.
Because sometimes the boys would get that gleam in their eye—Draken’s gaze would linger a little too long on the apple of his cheek, or Mitsuya’s lips would part and yet be absent of sound. The other Toman members—the grunts of the other divisions—they always talked about how wretched and weak he was. It didn’t hurt his pride, because every bandaid or roll of gauze he went through replaced the blood of his friends (of innocents).
It didn’t bother him.
(It didn’t, okay?)
But it bothered Hina, so they of course had to talk about it. Not that he minded, of course! Any excuse to sit on one of the pretty little cushions in her bedroom was welcome, even if it was a weird conversion. But… well, it was strange. And a bit mortifying.
“Takemichi-kun,” she said, “I’m worried about you.”
The blonde straightened up, suddenly confused and surprised stiff.
“What do you mean? I’m just fine.”
The dismayed sigh, and eye-contact with the floor on her part did not inspire confidence. And if Takemichi were a betting man—which he simultaneously was and wasn’t, it depended on the situation—he would’ve said that Hina looked pained. Uncomfortable? Seeing adult emotions on the girl’s childish face made it difficult to parse out just what she was feeling. Coupled with the fact that Takemichi hadn’t interacted with a girl on a personal level for a good decade (his boss being the only maybe-exception he could think of), so he was in unfamiliar waters.
Maybe girls just had more emotions than guys? Maybe they were harder to realize? (Maybe Takemichi was just dumb. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone had said it to him, or the first time he’d told himself that.)
“You’re not taking care of yourself!”
Her words came out like a canon, her hands fisted into her shorts.
The confusion must have shown on his face, because she growled in exasperation. “Of course you don’t know what I’m talking about!”
Takemichi couldn’t even get a word in before she was crawling over to him on her knees, a pink hand-held mirror being extended to him. Marred with anger, but also pitypitypity, and sadness, Hina seemed to be serious. Takemichi suddenly felt like he was being studied. (He hated the look on her face more than anything.)
“What are you—”
“—Look at yourself!” she pleaded.
When Takemichi flashed to mirror over his face, his general state of being stared back: split lip, crusted with blood, swollen eyes with the left being an ugly black-purple-mishmash, and lined bruising along his cheekbone in the shape of fingers. A typical day’s damage—almost light, if you asked him. He caught sight of Hina’s hand in the reflection of the mirror, and jumped a bit at how close she’d gotten without his noticing. Was he really that absorbed in the mirror? Did he really have the time to do that? What was he thinking?
“Takemichi-kun, you don’t see anything wrong, do you?” she whispered, fingers just barely grazing the pit of his under-eye.
Words formed and melted on his tongue, his lips moving without sound. “I—uh, I don’t—no?”
He was confused. And ashamed, for some reason. Confused, ashamed, and unrepentantly angry at the expression of pity on Hina’s face.
There was something wrong with him? Well, of course there was—Hina knew that—but there was something outside of himself that was wrong? What couldn’t he see? Was she breaking up with him but he was too fucking braindead to understand? He was the problem. The problem was in him—with him— was him.
His free hand trembled when he pressed her hand against his cheek.
This was either the right thing, or the exact wrong thing to do, because Hina gasped, and her pity washed away into full-blown concern. The chords of his heart seemed to further tie themselves into knots with every single thing that he did. He didn’t know what to do. What should he be doing?
(Why couldn’t he just get a clue, huh?)
Soft hands wrapped themselves around his wrist—the one that had once cupped her hand to his face. His over-large shirt sleeve had fallen, revealing the wicked bruising that snaked around his forearms. It held his skin like vines, eating away at every patch of creamy, unblemished skin with a fervor few plants could manage. It held him like a chokehold, for now and forever, those vines. Chains. (They’re just bruises, jesus.)
“What happened?” Hina gaped. “Where did this come from?”
Shrugging slowly, careful not to ruin everything. “They’re nothing new, they—”
“—‘They?’” she hissed.
Wide eyed and tentative, Takemichi surrendered his other arm. When Hina pulled up the sleeve she was met with a similar image. His girlfriend did not look up from the horror that was his arms, simply holding them with a grip that was gentle yet heavy.
“When Mucho nabbed me,” Takemichi whispered. “They had me tied up, just like Inupi and Koko. And well—you know me—I don’t really sit still.”
He tried to come off as bashful, tried to mask the redness creeping up his neck for no apparent reason, to hide the shaking of his hands. Hina did not look at him for a long time, too engrossed in dancing the tips of her fingers across his skin, mapping out each and every path with a string of spider’s silk that left a wake of cooling flame. He didn’t shiver, but it was a damn near thing.
When Hina met his eyes, hers were so close to overflowing that Takemichi’s eyes welled on instinct. He opened his mouth, but he thought better of it: everything he said caused pain, Hina obviously didn’t need anymore. (She didn’t need him.)
“Takemichi-kun, let’s wrap these up, alright?”
He stared at her dumly, but nodded.
“Boys these days!” she laughed, though it sounded more like a sob. “You don’t know how to take care of yourselves.”
He didn’t know who the other boys were, but in lieu of asking that burning question, he simply rose to his feet when she pulled gently at his hands.
(Gentle, gentle, pitiful, disappointing: everything about him poisoned the people around him.)
Socked feet padded silently across the wooden floors of her home, and as if he were a robot—or some kind of doll—Hina maneuvered him to sit on the lid of the toilet. As she busied herself with gathering whatever it was she planned on using, he took careful note of the lack of singing, of how she stood flat-footed instead of swaying along to whatever song was stuck in her head at the moment. It was silent and still. (Because of him. He’d done this.)
Hina, pleased with what she had gotten, knelt in front of Takemichi and started rolling up the blonde’s sleeve. Her cheeks did not blush, nor did she meet his eyes. All of her attention belonged to the bruises painting his skin. Applying the lotion was quick, but every so often when she really massaged it into his arms, he’d get a twinge of pain. The angel that she was, Hina always seemed to pick up on it despite Takemichi’s lack of reaction. When he’d hold back the shudder and keep the muscles relaxed, the furrow between Hina’s brows would deepen and she would whisper an apology so light he could barely hear it.
When she was done, and started to put away all of the bottles she’d moved around to get the one she needed, Takemichi stood to help put the bottles away on the higher shelf. Ignoring the entire situation, the build up of emotions in his lungs, and the cold feeling of the air on his semi-wet arms, the blonde was utterly taken aback when Hina wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest.
Takemichi didn’t dare breathe while Hina sobbed. He didn’t want to hold her close and squish her too tightly, or rub off all the lotion onto her pristine clothes—but doing nothing was just as bad.
“Why do you hate yourself?”
It was muffled and broken, but the words were clear enough.
“Hina, what are you talking about?”
With a viciousness that Takemichi didn’t know she had, she ripped herself away from him, eyes dripping with liquid rage. A hand that had the capability to heal and hurt grabbed his wrist, waving it back and forth in front of his face.
“Look at yourself! Look what you’ve done!”
“I didn’t do this! I already told you, it was Mucho and the first division.”
"You say that like you had no way of knowing you'd get beaten to hell!" She breathed in air that seemed to shutter as it went. “And your face, then? What happened there?”
“Same thing.” Takemichi didn’t dare hesitate, even when his lips started to tremble.
“And your ankle?”
Exasperated, and feeling like he was being attacked, Takemichi’s face twisted. “Just because I don’t remember how it happened doesn’t mean that I—that I hate myself,” he spat.
“What about those bruised knuckles and wanting to die?”
Every thought that was flickering in and out of Takemichi’s head simply vanished. Like smoke, no matter how he tried, he could not anchor himself on a single thought—they slipped right through his fingers as if they’d never been there in the first place. He could feel a warm body pressed against his back, the kiddy slide unforgivingly cold below him.
His mouth was dry.
“I know that you’re not my Takemichi,” she whispered, snot dripping down her chin, “But you are killing yourself, can’t you see it? When was the last day your arms didn’t ache, or you didn’t have a bruise? When was the last time you ate a meal that didn’t come from a box or a bag? I don’t have to love you to want you to stop being in pain.”
“But it’s not me!” Takemichi hiccuped. “It’s not my fault!”
He didn’t mean to shout, but when his emotions finally boiled over, the water spilling across his cheeks and burning against the heating element, he didn’t intend to be mean. He didn’t want to scare her off—didn’t want her to hate him. The blonde winced at the thought, trying to imagine a world without Hina (and not having to look far into his memories for the truth to hit him plainly).
“Hanagaki Takemichi, don’t you dare lie to me—does it hurt?”
He couldn’t breathe.
(His arms hurt.)
His face felt like it was swollen to the point of bursting, skin taut and warm to the touch.
(His heart was being carved out of his chest.)
He whispered, a sound so pitiful he hadn’t thought she’d heard. “All the time.”
Fingers wiped away at the tears rolling towards his collarbones before they tilted his face down to meet warm brown eyes.
“Then why do you go back? Why do you break yourself over and over again?”
“It’s for you,” he mouthed. “It’s always been for you but now there’s more. If it’s not me, it’ll be so much worse for everyone else. I can’t stop.”
(I’m chained to it, he thought, I'm bound. I can’t escape. You’re the reason I’m like this—why I’m broken, why Baji’s dead, why Draken had been stabbed. Won’t you set me free? Would I even want that?)
Hina’s arms were pulling them close again, but this time she was tucking his head to her shoulder, rubbing soothing circles across his back as he cried his last tears. She smelled of wildflowers, just like the ones on his arms.
“How do you do it?”
Closing his eyes and imagining a future where everyone was happy, and Takemichi got to see them, he let out a shaky sigh.
“I don’t know.”
And Takemichi did not sleep for the rest of the evening, rolling that very same question over his brain a half dozen times.
(He just remembered the phantom sensation of her hands and his cheeks, eyes red, but smile wide, as she saw him off. “Take care of yourself,” she had whispered, as if it were a secret.)