Chapter Text
You’re ten years old and your brother is nineteen and you won’t remember how this conversation is brought up, just that it was, and that it wasn’t long after he started working for Yggdrasil.
“You know in Catholic traditions, most Christian traditions, really, wine and grape juice represents the blood of their God’s chosen son and savior,” Takatora says. He’s been changing, lately, ever since he started working at Yggdrasil, but you could never dream of why. “He beared humanity’s sacrifices, to save those he could.”
“That sounds like a lot of responsibility,” you reply. “I hope he had friends.”
Your brother smiles, just a bit.
“I suppose so,” he says.
(Years later you will look back on this and laugh until you cry, the grape that spilled a god’s blood.)
“I hope he took care of them, too,” you reply.
It’s one of the last conversations where you’ll feel open with your brother in a very long time, so it sticks with you.
But maybe it was better when you didn’t know why.
You’re ten years old and your brother goes to work and whatever it is he’s doing, it’s changing him.
Whatever it is, it leaves you missing him.
It’s not like he never had a sense of duty before, you remind yourself. But now it’s become everything to him. You’re an afterthought to his duties, and what could those really be that they change him so much?
Noblesse oblige are his admittedly less than new favorite buzzwords, your father had said them too, and advice that maybe doesn’t make sense.
At first, you try to listen, and then you realize that he doesn’t seem to much care, either way. You see him less and less.
Eventually, you stop caring.
(Or so you say.)
(Looking back, the first person you lied to was yourself.)
When you’re fourteen you challenge yourself: don’t go home for a day. See if he notices.
It’s so easy to be careful and crafty.
It’s so easy to fool your brother because he doesn’t even notice.
(But later, you’ll wonder… does that say more of him or you?)
It’s so easy to fool everyone, and you like it more than you should. You like the power that comes from manipulation and secrets.
You catch sight of the Beat Riders at age fifteen when you take a wrong turn home from school, and they instantly entrance you. Team Gaim, you discover when you look it up, excessively. The best team, in your opinion. You love the way they look so together and happy and free , and from that very first day you’re entranced by the girl with pigtails and the boy always by their leader’s side. You later learn their names, learn Kazuraba Kouta and Takatsukasa Mai.
You think about how empty your life is by comparison to the teens up dancing on that stage, and you start finding places to practice. You learn Gaim’s moves, their dynamics showing even in the videos and rare live shows you can make. You learn to make your own dances with the movements, even.
(It’s still copying, a part of you points out later.
But it was also still something of yours, once, you’ll reply to yourself, all silently within your own head but they’re better than the thoughts that were there because they only hurt you.
It was still yours… once.)
It’s not enough.
You want more than anything to be one of them.
“It has been a few months since someone new joined us,” Yuuya says. “We could do it on a trial run.”
You smile.
“You’re really good, too,” Rat adds.
“Yeah,” Chucky says, supportively. “How did you learn to dance like that?”
“Watching you,” you admit.
“Well, it’s impressive, either way,” Kouta says.
More nods of agreement. It feels so incredibly good to be appreciated for something you chose.
“Welcome to the team,” says Mai, with a smile.
The team becomes a family and the garage a second home and you want it to last forever.
You don’t realize you never introduced yourself and perhaps this is your earliest choice that leads to everything, to betrayals and lies and injuries and most of all regrets you can’t undo, because now you can be anyone you want. You can be more than what your brother wants you to be.
You can be more than Kureshima Takatora’s shadow.
You don’t have to be Kureshima at all.
You stammer out Micchy when they ask, another representation of your future. A lie that barely makes the cut.
But you don’t care at the time, merely smile and repeat with confidence.
Micchy.
You like it. It’s you .
Before you know it, the trial run is over early, because you’re good and dedicated and the team all love you.
They don’t know who you really are, but they love who you want to be, and it’s perfect.
Micchy, the Beat Rider and the normal kid, becomes your real self more and more. You go to school. You go to your house, do your work, and only then can you go to your home.
And you dance, and you’re good at it, and your team is on top.
And Kouta is your best friend, and so kind and protective. And Mai continues to be the most amazing girl you’ve ever met. And them and Yuya and Rat and Rica and Chucky and the others are your family.
You never want it to change.
(But that was always your problem.)
“Do you ever have a day so wonderful you wish it would last forever?” You ask, one day, and Mai, standing next to you and watching the sunset, laughs.
“Sometimes,” she says. “But I could never pick just one.”
You suppose you couldn’t either, though. You could choose a life, though. Micchy before Kureshima Mitsuzane.
You think if you could kill Mitsuzane, to live as Micchy, you probably would.
(If only you were ever good at killing the right people.)