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Takemichi was anxious. The visions. He saw them clearly. Something bad was going to happen to Senju. Now, everybody else could think that it was just a head injury. Mikey got hit on the head with a metal pipe a lot of times and he was still alive. However, Senju wasn't Mikey and if someone was looking for an example of the opposite, there were always Emma and Shinichiro's cases. To put it simply, anyone can die from almost anything and another person dying wasn't acceptable for Takemichi. He desperately needed to save everyone. He couldn't disappoint them. "Save everyone, our crybaby hero." It was as simple as that.
He was thinking about anything that could happen. How the hell Senju ended up getting hurt?! There was a certain chain of events and he was totally not getting any of it. He didn't even realize how much time had passed since Senju left for the bathroom. Fuck! How could he be so stupid?! He ran like crazy and finally arrived at the bathrooms.
Some people came up to him. They had guns. Guns! Why the fuck would kids like him bring a gun to a fight?! It was fucked up in every possible way. They were going to kill him. He was the target this whole time? That didn't make sense. At all. He was weak. The weakest of them all. Why would they try to waste their time with him? Before he could continue to think more, he saw Senju coming out.
This was bad. Hell, this was the worst. Senju couldn't die. He won't let it. Just when Senju was about to come up to him, he covered her with his body. A loud bang echoed. After that, everything went silent. Even the sound of rain disappeared. It was scary to not be able to hear. All he could hear was the loud buzzing of the silence and the beating of his heart. It wasn't exactly the beating, though. It felt like he could hear the pressure of his heart beating.
Next thing he felt was the coldness of the wet ground. What happened? He tried to understand but his mind and his body weren't moving in sync. His mind was too slow to catch his body's reactions.
He was on the ground. Did he collapse? His mind had a million thoughts coming through his mind. To say that there was chaos in his mind was underestimating. He was afraid that if he didn't come to a conclusion right now, his brain cells would short-circuit. He finally realized one of the reasons why he couldn't think properly.
He couldn't breathe.
It sounded ridiculous. How the hell do you not realize you aren't breathing?! But ridiculous things happened in Takemichi's life all the time so a minor thing like this wasn't something to make him surprised. He was still trying to understand. Finally, he looked around. He saw red blotches around his chest area. His breath which he already didn't have hitched.
He put his cold hands to his own chest, watched the crimson blood spill from his hands. This definitely wasn't supposed to happen. However, he already knew how it felt like getting shot. (Thanks to Mikey for that, it really was a shitty move even for him.)
The adrenaline of getting shot made his head pound. With every pound he felt himself losing more blood. It really was weird like... He was dying. Really dying. How were you supposed to feel when you were dying? He didn't know. Well, he did know but he was trying to save someone at that moment so it really wasn't his fault that he didn't know what to do. This was his first time knowing that he was going to die and there wasn't going to be any other chance to come back. At that moment, he was just relieved even if it was painful. Which was ironic because the boy everyone recognized with his stubbornness about never giving up was giving up on his life just like that. He never knew he was that suicidal. He kind of knew that he was reckless but not to this point.
He now understood what the black haired Mikey felt like when he was dying between his arms. He wanted to be in the arms of someone he loved, too. It was a selfish request and would definitely traumatize the other person for the rest of their life but he was, at least, allowed to be selfish when he was dying right? He chuckled to his misery and coughed immediately. It hurt. Every breath he took, every blink, just everything hurt.
Something slowly slided down to his chin. It tickled his chin. He wanted to scratch that area. It was warm and smooth against his skin. Its texture was familiar. It definitely wasn't tears. Tears were warm too but they weren't this thick. It's definitely blood, he guessed to himself. With the back of his hand he wiped the thing and saw red. Damn, I really am dying, he thought to himself.
It was at that point he realized someone was with him. And that someone was not Senju. Draken was here. He was trying to not touch his injury. He was saying something. He couldn't hear him and he didn't care either. He watched as Draken cried. It was fascinating to see the tough man cry. Hell, he only remembered seeing him cry at Emma's funeral. To think that he cared this much about Takemichi…
It was scarring in a way. Like watching your big brother cry. (He didn't exactly know what that felt like, though. He was an only child.) He hated seeing him express his emotions so openly like that. Draken was supposed to be happy. He wondered if Takemichi didn't come from the future again like he was supposed to do, would Draken even be here? Not in the sense of, if he would be alive. Would he actually be in here, in front of the toilets on this date? Did he even know this place in the future that was supposed to happen?
"Draken-kun…" he tried to stop Draken's crying. He didn't like it. "Please stop crying. I'm okay." He tried to reassure him this time. What he didn't expect was him to snap. "What do you mean 'okay' Takemitchy?! Do you even get the situation?!" Draken yelled at him.
"Draken-kun," He smiled. It was a pathetic smile. It didn't even look like a smile. Too wobbly and bloody to count as a smile. "I'm dying and it's okay." Yeah, that didn't exactly sound good. Way to reassure. The absolute broken face Draken made would probably hunt his dreams for a long while, if he could be alive that much. He looked really hurt, like even the thought of Takemichi wanting to die could cause him to throw up.
"I… I'm sorry, Takemitchy." Tattooed man really was stunned. Never in a million years did Draken think that Takemitchy could even want to die. Takemitchy was a hero. Heroes didn't give up. Heroes saved everyone. How could someone like him give up? Why did he want to give up? And the most important question, why did no one notice that? I should have, he thought to himself.
"Why are you sorry? This was all my fault. I let this happen to me the moment I choose to come back again. So, don't you ever try to feel guilty about my stupid and reckless decisions. Okay?" Stupid crybaby and his dying speech! Why the hell did he speak so much?! He was already dying, why did he speed up his last moments on earth?! Draken couldn't handle this. This couldn't be happening, right?!
"I called the ambulance but I don't think they're going to be here shortly because of the rain." Senju came hurriedly. Where did she even go? Her breathing stopped when she saw the pool of blood under her shoes. Is this some kind of joke? Because there is no way that much blood came out of Takemichi in such a short time.
Takemichi couldn't die. That means she failed and couldn't keep her promise as a leader, as a friend. "Oh no, no, no…" She started to freak out. What was she supposed to do?
"What are we supposed to do now?" She asked, her voice filled with panic. "Should we start to like… I don't know, press the wound or something? Or would the pressing make things worse?" Not knowing how to do something was worse than being too weak to do something for her. And this was the worst of what could happen. "I… I really don't know." Something about Draken's voice made her shiver. She has never seen him this hopeless.
"Hey, it's okay! I know I'm not going to make it so you don't have to try this hard for m-" He finished his sentence with a coughing fit. Why is he talking like that, Senju thought. He was talking like he gave up everything. This didn't make sense. They're just kids, they shouldn't have seen this much violence.
"Shut the fuck up!" She yelled at him. Because all the things happening right now didn't make any sense at all. She knelt down on the ground. She felt the coldness and wetness of the ground. Even though there was so much blood on the ground, it was still cold which made her kind of shocked. She cupped Takemichi's face and caressed his cheeks. "Please Takemichi… Don't do this to me." She was crying now, too. Man, Takemitchy hated to see them cry but at this point there was really nothing he could do.
Takemichi felt the biggest shiver of his all life as he started to lose the feelings on his foot. And at that, he understood his time was ending. He was not going to be alive in a few minutes.
"Draken-kun, please tell Hina that I love her." He started to say his goodbyes. "You tell her yourself, asshole!" He was gritting his teeth and crying at the same time. The cracks in his voice broke Takemichi's heart, too. "Yeah, you're probably right. Tell Mikey-kun to stop being alone, too. I know he's in a lot of pain right now. And also tell him that I really wished I could hug him one last time." His hands were getting numb every second he spoke.
"Draken-kun please don't blame yourself for this. I don't have any regrets coming back. Senju please don't blame yourself, too. You're not responsible for my actions and you're not obligated to protect me. You did everything you could so this doesn't count as breaking your promise." He didn't know how he could talk so much without coughing. He blamed it on adrenaline. "I know I'm asking too much but please tell Mikey-kun I really loved him. Probably more than Hina now that I think about it. Does this make me a cheater? I don't know. Tell him that it's okay to let other people help him."
His heart was beating rapidly now. Like in any minute it could break his chest and fly away. He really sucked at dying speeches, didn't he? His breath hitched like all the air in his lungs just got vacuumed. This was it. He was going. It really was the end. No time travel or anything. Everything hurt but he couldn't feel the pain anymore. Finally, he isn't going to fuck another life up. He smiled as he said his last words.
"Take care of yourselves, okay?"