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Chifuyu: Mikey may I bring someone to the meeting in a few days?
Chifuyu: He wont cause any trouble I promise, please.
Mikey: you can
Mikey: no ruckus tho
Chifuyu: Of course, yeah
Chifuyu: Thank you
Mikey: :)
—-
Chifuyu rode quickly to the musashi shrine, the arms around his waist tightening slightly when they would get too close to cars or dividers. The older boy smiled, finding it silly his little brother would think he’d allow him to get hurt.
You see, his little brother, Takemichi, had been giving him and their mother reasons to not trust him alone. Hoodies on in the sweltering heat of the summer, the smell of weed and cigarrettes sticking to his clothes and breath, eyes always bloodshot, and fatigue following him everywhere. A few days ago, he was busted by their mom for smoking weed out his window, and a week before that Chifuyu squeezed his forearm a little too hard when they were walking home from school which resulted in a suspicious wince and a red tint to Chifuyu’s hand that washed away.
Bottom line, Takemichi was not allowed to be alone until his appointment with a psychologist in a month. And since their mom is quite the busy woman, he’s usually stuck with Chifuyu. Chifuyu doesn’t mind spending time with Takemichi, he loves him, he does! But recently he’s been getting snarky and he snaps quickly.
It’s been a silent battle between the two brothers, it won’t be long before the cup of their tension overflows and a fight follows. A fight that Chifuyu doesn’t want to have. Takemichi is a sweet thing, always has been. He’s just gotten into bad shit, and Chifuyu is trying to be understanding. But with Takemichi distancing himself from everyone, it’s difficult.
Coming back to reality after a particularly harsh squeeze, Chifuyu sighs and lifts a hand from his motorcycles handles, it falling over Takemichi’s smaller hands and squeezing back. A quiet promise.
—
When they get there, Chifuyu can see the captains gathered, talking amongst themselves, no other Toman members yet there.
“Follow behind me, alright? And be respectful, these are my friends,” Chifuyu tells Takemichi, fixing him with a commanding glare that tells the younger to ‘not fuck up’. Takemichi keeps his gaze on the ground and follows closely behind his older brother, pulling his hood over his hair hoping to look more presentable. He hadn’t brushed his hair before following Chifuyu out the door.
They walked over to the group of guys, one in particular watching them with a smile.
“Chifuyu!” Baji calls, raising a hand to wave and clap the smaller boy on the shoulder. Chifuyu smiles back before looking at his commander.
“Chifuyu, who’s this?” Smiley asks, signature big smile stuck on his face.
Chifuyu looks behind him to Takemichi, who’s busy wringing his hands and hunching in on himself at the attention. The older puts a hand on his shoulder that’s quickly shoved off. Chifuyu scoffed, and looked back at them.
“This is my little brother, Takemichi. He can’t be alone right now so he might be with me for the next few meetings, if that’s alright.”
Everyone nods their head and greets the boy, who shuffles behind his older brother for protection. Mitsuya smiles at the two, feeling sympathy for the obviously overwhelmed boy.
They all have a quick catchup, before walking off and getting ready for the meeting. Chifuyu catches a wiff of something and drags Takemichi off to a far corner, saying he’ll be right back to Baji.
“Why the fuck do I smell weed?” Chifuyu asks harshly, looking at Takemichi dead in his eyes.
“Not sure, maybe your buddies smoked a joint or two,” Takemichi responds, eyes flickering back and forth between Chifuyu’s eyes and the floor.
“Maybe I’d consider that if I knew that nobody was into that shit. You got something to fucking tell me?”
“No.”
Chifuyu glared, not noticing that Baji was coming up to the two.
“You got two damn choices here, Takemichi. One, you can sit outside the shrine and wait until the meeting is over, but if you do that, I’ll turn on the tracker on your phone. Or two, you can sit behind me and my captain and not make a sound.”
Takemichi blinked, annoyance building up at the mention of the tracker. He regrets ever letting Chifuyu have his phone to ‘look something up’. “I’ll sit behind you.”
“Good choice.” Chifuyu ends the conversation there, grabbing his wrist and turning to come face to face with Baji.
Baji bounced on his heels for a moment, feeling awkward due to the fact he just witnessed a very private moment that he should not have been around for. But whatever.
“Hello Baji-san,” Chifuyu nods. Baji smiles.
“Hey, Chifuyu!” Baji feels an odd feeling in his stomach looking at the youngest boy, “Takemichi,” he greets.
Takemichi doesn’t respond, just nods and yelps when Chifuyu whacks him behind his head.
“Come on now, sit behind us,” Chifuyu held Takemichi’s wrist and led him over. Baji followed close behind, noting that Takemichi stuck his hand in his pocket and took out a piece of rectangular foil, unwrapping it and popping gum in his mouth.
Baji bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing when Takemichi leaned forward and popped the gum in Chifuyu’s ear. Chifuyu jolted and swatted blindly at his little brother.
“Cut it out,” he mutters, glaring at the youngest boy.
—
The meeting went by swiftly for Chifuyu, but slowly for Takemichi, who was overwhelmingly bored.
Once it all was wrapped up and all lower members have left, the captains and vice captains meet and converse between each other. Chifuyu sends Takemichi out next to his bike, saying that he’ll be right there. The undertones of his voice carry a warning, daring Takemichi to try and run away. And surrounded by strong and intimidating guys that were all his older brothers’ friends, Chifuyu and Takemichi both knew that he wouldn’t dare try.
Takemichi sighed and walked outside the shrine, ignoring the looks and whispers following him. Who woulda’ thought gang executives would be gossipers.
While Takemichi walks away, questions are thrown at Chifuyu regarding his little brother.
“Hey, what’s up with your little brother?”
“Little man looks sickly.”
“What’s his deal?”
Chifuyu rolled his eyes, “He’s a little troublemaker is all. He’s fine.”
“Little troublemaker that reeks of weed and cigar smoke, huh?” Smiley jabbed, smiling big. Angry punches him in the arm, frown deepening.
“Sorry about him, Chifuyu. But are you sure he’s actually okay? I’m worried about him,” Angry’s face betrays his soft and kind voice, like usual. But Chifuyu finds that it doesn’t amuse him as much as it makes the ache in his chest get worse.
“I’m not completely sure, to be honest I’m worried too.” Chifuyu rubs the back of his head, closing his eyes to tilt his head up and roll his neck. But then he smells something and agitation grows. Cigar smoke. None of those around him are smoking, nobody is outside tonight.
He snaps his eyes open and he turned on his heel, swiftly walking outside the shrine and immediately finding Takemichi sitting against his bike. Unsurprisingly, he’s smoking.
“I thought I got rid of all your fucking lighters, what the hell, Takemichi?” He storms forward, snatching the cigarette out of his hands and stomping it out. Takemichi glared up at his older brother, raising to his feet.
“You can get lighters everywhere, stupid,” he bites, staring at Chifuyu dead in his eyes.
“Yeah! But you know damn well you aren’t supposed to be getting any! Why do you insist on fucking up your body so much! This shit isn’t going to do you any good!”
“Fuck you, Chifuyu! You don’t know shit!” Takemichi yells, attempting to get past Chifuyu but failing as Chifuyu shoved him back and held his shoulders.
“Let me go.”
“No! You’re gonna answer me! Admit it! You’re fucking ruining yourself for no damn reason!” He shakes him and Takemichi squirms.
“Let me the FUCK go! Chifuyu!”
“Why do you fucking hate us! What the fuck did we even do to you?! Why are you such a goddamn fuck up!?” Takemichi gasps and Chifuyu squeezes hard enough to bruise. And it will, knowing Takemichi’s sensitive skin.
“Chifuyu stop!” Chifuyu felt hands pulling him back and he was torn away from Takemcihi, who he only now noticed started crying silently.
“Fuck you, man. Fuck you,” Takemichi mutters, before turning and running away from the shrine. Angry, who was stood at the entrance, gasped and ran after the younger boy. Someone had to make sure he was okay.
Chifuyu stood, eyes wide and tears building up in his eyes. Mitsuya, who was holding him back, smacked him on the back of his head.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Mitsuya sighs out, looking in the direction Takemichi and Anrgy ran with concern.
Chifuyu mumbles something, lips squeezed tight. Baji, who was holding his other arm, leaned in closer, “What was that?”
“I called him a fuck up,” Chifuyu stated, tears making their journey down his face. His lower lip trembles as what he actually just said hit him fully.
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean it! I didn’t!” Chifuyu cries, repeating the words like a mantra as Baji sighs and hugs him tight.
“You still said it, Chifuyu, now you gotta live with it,” the taller boy says, glancing at Mitsuya who is judging very hard.
“I gotta go apologize. Go and find ‘em,” Chifuyu moves to start running off but gets stopped by a hand on top of his head. He looks up to see Draken.
“Give him space. Angry’s with him so we know he won’t get hurt or lost. They’ll come back soon enough. For now lets work on calming you down.”
Chifuyu looks off, and blinks his tears away,
Yeah, sure. He can do that.
—
“I don’t fucking understand why he doesn’t love me!” Takemichi wailed, sitting curled up against a closed store front. All of the lights on the street were off save for a few lamposts dotted around. Nothing was open.
Angry stood leaning against the walls, legs pressed against Takemichi’s shoulder. His hand was pressed on Takemichi’s head, softly patting the soft strands.
“I’m sure he loves you very much, Takemichi, don’t say things like that. He talks about you with such care, I’ve never been more sure of anything!” Angry soothes, crouching down and wrapping an arm around the boy.
“Then why does he hate me?! I’m just trying to stay out of his way- I don’t wanna cause him any trouble, I promise! I just can’t fucking handle any of this without it. It’s the only thing that calms my mind.”
“Handle what?” Angry is getting somewhere, he’s getting somewhere and he has to keep pushing.
Takemichi spilled everything wrong with his mind. Constant nightmares and sleep paralysis, night terrors and migraines. People pushing him around at school and mocking him loudly. And the constant tension at home. Angry listened silently as he said how he was frightened to sleep, frightened to go to school, and frightened to come home. Fear followed him everywhere and ruled his life, it seemed.
Angry hums, hugging him tightly.
“You ever talk to your brother or mom about this?”
“No. Never. Should I?”
“I think it might help Chifuyu get to understand you better. Help him help you, you know?”
Takemichi nods, mind blanking as Angry picks him up and piggy backs him back to his older brother.
—
As soon as Chifuyu sees Takemichi, he breaks out in a sprint. Angry sees this, and to avoid getting body slammed by all 5 foot 5 and 127 pounds of a distressed Matsuno Chifuyu, he sets the younger boy down and jumps away just in time. Takemichi braces himself as he gets bear hugged by Chifuyu.
“Takemichi. Oh, Takemichi, I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean any of it I was just angry and-”
“Shut the hell up, dude. You’re embarrassing yourself,” Takemichi mutters as he wraps his arms around Chifuyu, face red from having a private moment in front of about ten people.
“We can talk at home. I just wanna sleep, Chiffy, I’m tired,” he mumbles, bringing out the old nickname to rush Chifuyu.
It definitely worked the way Takemichi wanted it because Chifuyu immediately picked him up and plopped him on his bike. Chifuyu could hear his friends giggling in the background but he just flipped them off as he got on, started his bike, and sped off.
As they were driving through the night, Takemichi’s arms tightened around Chifuyu’s waist again. And like every time he does, Chifuyu wraps a hand around Takemichi’s and a silent promise goes out into the wind. One that he intends to keep always.
I will protect you forever.
—
Mikey: you caused a ruckus
Mikey: you suck so bad
Mikey: but your little brothers seems nice please bring him again
Chifuyu: Respectfully, commander, absolutely not.