Chapter Text
Takemichi doesn't really know why they thought it would be a good idea to start a gang. Him, Makoto , Takuya and Yamagishi were all Betas.
Betas.
The kind of people that were mostly the bottom feeders, the ones that followed. Followed the command of Alphas and Omegas, whose instincts, resilience, and senses far surpassed that of a Beta. More than them. Better than them.
Betas were expandable in their large number and mostly the epitome of boring. Both Alphas and Omegas were faster and stronger than Betas, and thus were the foundation of packs and needed their superior physique and abilities to ensure the survival of their young. It wasn’t as if Betas didn't have offspring. It was more so that the inner cycles of packs consisted mostly of Alphas and Omegas while Betas entered a couple constellations, being subservient to the inner cycle. Only Akkun was an Alpha and the only one who could take the beatings with any kind of grace. Resilient. Not like them. He was their leader for a reason. Because they were just a group of dumb naive Betas, who still believed that they could somehow be That. As in: as strong as an Alpha, as fast as an Omega.
At the beginning the first thing Takemichi felt was dread. Masaru lied to them. This was damned from the beginning. The second thing is his throat closing and his palms sweating. His cousin turns around and after that everything is pain. When evening comes, they are laying on the ground, still warm from the sun, with bloody noses and bruised bodies. This is how it started, he realizes days after, not how it ends. They are forced to become Kiyomasa's dogs, doing his every bidding. When he is finally able to pull himself up after the first beating of many, he doesn't want to see his friends faces. They wouldn't blame him, they never do. Still, it feels like he has failed them on a personal level. Fuck this. When he shuffles away, everyone from their little group is glum. They wave goodbye with smiles that surely hurt their faces .
The days go by and the beatings continue on. It gets worse and worse, which means he looks at his friends less and less, can't really look at their faces anymore. They tried, in the beginning, to be optimistic but it falls flat now. And each day the hope that Kiyomasa will grow bored and we aren't that interesting fades.
Takemichi's sense of smell is abysmal. Even for a Beta.
Not to mention that Takemichi's fighting abilities are less than stellar.
The ring is loud and surreal when Takuya is called up.
Even Takemichi can smell the aggression.
So, when he stands up to Kiyomasa for the sake of his friend, he expects to be beaten bloody and broken.
Every step he takes towards the ring seems like his last one.
To no one's surprise beaten bloody is exactly what happens in the next few minutes, seconds. Hours?
The crowd is loud. The only thoughts going through Takemichi’s head are: Not Yet.
He promised himself in the morning and every morning before he wouldn't be such a coward anymore, he will protect his friends. He will fix what he did.
The thing is he wasn't as dumb anymore as when he was little.
Before he might have run into trouble just for the sake of defending the weak and vulnerable but kids grow up. And even before Kiyomasa he knew he wasn't the biggest, baddest person around and he had no place starting fights he couldn't dream of finishing.
But he knows Takuya. And even though Takemichi isn't that much more Takuya was always gentle. Always just this side of not-a-fighter that he can't let him take the fight.
That makes every "Not Yet" echo just a little bit louder in his head.
Everything seems to slightly tilt at an angle, and the nausea is overwhelming. He can't give up. He was done with this. Not mattering, always being used. He doesn't want that for himself but more importantly for his friends. The revolting Alpha spits his cigarette out as the crowd chants. Finish him. He feels mild disgust at the crowd, but Kiyomasa seems to enjoy it. The crowd is excitable and Kiyomasa is too. Sweat and aggression. Kiyomasa smells like violence.
He can't smell it well but he smells it enough to know this is only going to get uglier from here because here he is.
A fool to satisfy the raging crowd. Being swallowed up by the beast. The next thing he feels is a knee in his ribs and a fist to the face.
He stumbles.
Fuck, that hurts.
The crowd is quiet, he realizes. Has quieted down to watch his execution. Wiping the blood from his face and slightly correcting his foot stance to not tumble down, he stands. He feels the pounding headache and the near painful numbness in his face. His ribs ache. They were gonna be bruised to hell by tomorrow. He really hates this. Tears gather in his eyes.
“I ain't giving up! I have a reason to not give up!”
The space is filled with a deafening silence.
Takemichi really feels like curling up right now. His knees are shaking, and his body feels like a giant bruise.“The only way you'll win is by killing me.” His voice rings out. “I absolutely ain't gonna lose.” he says decisively, a smile stretching on his lips as he looks up from underneath his eyelashes.
Kiyomasa is yelling for a bat.
The Beta is peripherally aware of how his stomach drops, when Kiyomasa turns to him and proclaims that he is going to kill him.
Well then. This is how I am going to die.
“You’ve drawn quite the crowd.” A bored drawl echoes in an almost superficial silence. A tall blond with a long braid and a tattoo on the side of his head that makes him look like a yakuza more than a middle schooler. Takemichi doesn't have to be able to smell to know that this person is an Alpha. An Alpha, capital. An Alpha, terrifying. An Alpha, presence. He continues to talk in a lazy voice, his eyes almost black, black and bored.
The crowd starts whispering but Takemichi can barely hear a thing over the pounding in his ears and the pain in his lungs. Another blond, smaller and with eyes even more dead speaks up.The atmosphere in the crowd shifts and a loud ‘Good Work’ whips though the park that Takemichi can feel in his bones. Shaking. Aching.
Kiyomasa topples over and the smaller blond, a quiet ‘the president’ whispers in his mind, drags his feet past him. Kiyomasa, who was a wall, unscalable.
Just a foot in the stomach and the wall tumbles because of disrespect of all things.
And the president continues like nothing happened. Directly towards Takemichi.
Face to Face. Nose to Nose.
So close Takemichi can taste the powerful Alpha pheromones from the smaller blond, from Mikey. He doesn’t know if it’s the beating he took or the sheer overwhelming presence that makes him fall on his ass.
“What’s your name?” his voice is clear. A stuttered breath of “H…Hanagaki Takemichi” leaves him and he feels he might die here still, not beaten to death by a bat but by the Toman commander himself.
What an honour, oh what an honour.
“…I see…Takemitchy.” Just that sentence is so jarring that he gets catapulted from terrified to flabbergasted in the span of not even a second.
Draken, the guy with the braid, the Vice Commander, the Alpha, capital, shuts down any protest before they can make it up his throat and out his mouth. With a fell swoop the Commander of Toman has placed himself snuggly on Takemichi's chest, grabbed his hair and declared him his bitch in a tone of voice way too playful. Takemichi is pretty sure he is choking to death on his own saliva.
Mikey, Commander, Alpha, stands up and kicks Kiyomasa so violently that Takemichi's own neck cracks in sympathy. The potency of the pure aggression, violence, murder pheromones rise to a level that even stings Takemichi's nose from where he is sitting meters away. With the worst kind of nose around. He doesn't have to check to know that everyone is frozen. Movement might alert the predator of their presence after all.
The park is quiet.
Even the birds seem to respect the wild animal in their midst. Mikey's eyes are unhinged and wide, clawed hand buried in Kiyomasa's short hair. "Who the fuck are you?" The voice is dead.
And then the beating starts. The blond Commander punches Kiyomasa's face. Over and Over. One hand holding him still.
Sheer Animal Brutality.
Takemichi is pretty sure that the strength necessary for that is something he would never want to experience firsthand.His eyes wander to the tattooed boy who stands and impassively watches as his Commander gives Kiyomasa a dental rework.
Terrifying.
Takemichi is getting hysterical. The amount of force behind the punches makes blood gush from his tormentor's nose. "Huh...?" Mikey huffs.
When Kiyomasa drops to the floor, Takemichi is convinced that he is dead, because how the fuck would you survive that?
His ears are ringing and the last that he sees of Mikey is a vaguely intrigued smile before he ambles off.
What the fuck?
His vision blacks out for just a second he is sure and the next thing he perceives is Makoto and Yamagishi monkeying around and in front of him.
I will die.
The Toman commanders have taken note of me.
I 'm dead.
Comes a hollow thought that only vaguely registered as a thought. When he looks up to Akkun his smile is relieved. "You know, I would have killed him if you hadn't stepped in." He says it surely and unshaken. Except Takemichi can see the minute shake in Akkun's hands and watch his face contorted in a distant kind of anguish.
And maybe, Takemichi thinks, I'd die a hundred deaths for them.
____
The next day Hinata greets him joyfully, and asks to meet after school. The girl of his dreams. The woman he will fight and die for. They have been friends for a not-long time. It started with a love confession and ended with one of the best confidants he ever had.
Once upon a time he thought they could be it. As in a pair. But he was pretty sure Hinata liked women more and wasn't yet aware of it. So he held his breath and ignored the hope of what could have been and broke it off. Takemichi still thinks it's one of the best choices he ever made.
They talk until class and then he sits and listens half-heartedly. Sometimes his own mediocrity surprises even himself.
The teachers words enter his ears without understanding. It would surely do him good to pay attention in class now that being a delinquent hasn't worked out for him. He does make a miserable delinquent, he can admit in retrospect. Weak and inexperienced. No idea how to fight. Cries. A lot. No instincts. Nearly died once already.
And ouch, the bruises all over his face still ache and smart.
He sighs.
Everyone has something. A special talent. Takemichi wonders what he has.
Outside his classroom is a commotion. He ignores it to finally focus more on the teacher.
He should have paid more attention, he thinks not a second later.
Because the next thing he sees is a satisfied Mikey, Commander, Alpha, ignoring his teacher and classmates to drag himself towards him. Draken, the fucking giant, has his arm looped loosely through the top window of the doorframe.
A giant.
"Come out and play, Takemitchy." comes the jovial voice of the Toman commander. Takemichi is pretty sure his jaw nearly dislocated with how hard it drops open.
There is a short moment of his teachers eyes meeting his own while he is being dragged out of the classroom.
It is a moment of confusion, shock, judgment and a silent plead that goes unanswered.
It passes and the door closes.
When he looks down the hallway he feels his soul leave his body a little.
Nearly every third year, Alpha and or boy, was laying beaten down on the floor. He really, really hopes they wouldn't take that out on him, once they were able to move again.
And Mikey plus Draken weren't positioned next to him.
When he reaches his locker Hinata places herself squarely in front of both Toman leaders. He loves her, he does. But his heart jumps and freezes the moment he sees her. Because Hinata would surely not survive a beating like Kiyomasa had to. Not because she was frail but because she was a Beta and had no prior fighting experience.
Takemichi doesn't count. He was sturdy more so than other Betas. Maybe that is my talent. He thinks triumphantly and completely out of place.
But Hinata wasn't used to getting beaten up. Hinata didn't fight or get bullied.
Hinata just slapped The Commander.
That thought makes all his other thoughts screech to a halt and his body shiver through a wave of dread and cold sweat.
A strangled sound escapes him when Draken's, the Giant, face contorts and he struts up to her.
And Hina doesn't care. Doesn't see. She grabs his arm and drags him away.
Her hand shakes.
"You can't let these guys push you around. I'll protect you."
He could kiss her, he really could. After he was done dying inside.
Because courageous Hina just started a fight with both commander and vice commander of Toman, as in monsters, Alphas, violence and blood.
Draken's hand closes around her arm.
"You're dead, brat."
His heart jumps. He doesn't want Hina to get any attention from Toman. He doesn't want her involved.
"Think you can just hit someone and walk away? Don't fuck with me, bitch."
And wow. He really had bigger problems right now but a righteous anger bubbles up in him. Because Hina was no bitch or brat. But then again Hina doesn't get the memo that things could get worse. Because she shakes and shakes and says: "I'll make you pay."
Like a promise and Hell hath no Fury, except it's Toman and she is 14 going on 30 and picking fights like Takemichi did.
And Takemichi can't by all the gods above let anything happen to Hina, so he prays he didn't delay his death by just one day and slides in between Draken and Hina.
"Let her go."
He can feel Draken's glare searing into his skin. "What did you say?" It's asked like a rhetorical question, like it was a second try to make a decision about his continued existence. And Takemichi knows for a fact he'd cut his own legs off for Hina.
"Let her go!" His voice rings clear.
The Alpha pheromones crescendo to a point where he can smell them, spicy and violent. And huh, is Draken really an Alpha? "You little shit." Draken leans in and leans down because fuck it all if that boy wasn't a monster. His face is so close to Takemichi's, breath tickling his nose. "Who the hell do you think ye're mouthing off to?"
He looks at Draken, eyes clear and determined. "There are some people I won't let you harm!"
Mikey smiles and simpers before he turns to Takemichi with a promise in his eyes.
"How do you want to die?"
The shiver that crawls over his body feels numbing and he hopes Hina doesn't watch. "Promise me one thing. You won't lay a finger on Hina." Mikeys smile is indulgently empty when he draw back his arm.
"Huh? Like I care."
He really, really hopes this will be over fast. His eyes close and he tenses only for a breath to tickle his face again and a "Sike."
"Takemitchy, you dummy! Like I'd hit a beta girl." Mikey says as if he knew the Commander. Draken lays an arm around his shoulder and puts his weight on him. An uff leaves Takemichi's mouth.
"You threatened me."
Takemichi can feel an embarrassed flush crawl up his cheeks. "I'm sorry."
"It's cool." Draken's face drags into a smug look.
"Saying things like that, no one does that anymore. You surprised me."
"Takemichi.... are those your....?"
Hinata, after bowing vigorously in apology and promising to not slap any more gangsters waves Takemichi off. Her cheeks are still red from the flustered blushing she just did.
She is glad that Takemichi has found someone who could protect him. She just wishes that it wouldn't bode so much trouble. With a determined huff she struts back inside. Maybe she should take martial arts lessons?
Surely there must be a way to protect Takemichi from the hurricane he just invited into his life knowingly or not.