Chapter Text
I walk towards the bus when someone rushed past me almost making me stumble, but they were too fast for me to even react. so i shrug and go on my way, climbing up the stairs and putting my card for the money and look forward to find a seat.
To my great luck, there are none. I grab the thing that's hanging for you to hold and not end up falling in awkward places or people as I look outside the window. As always, the buses are crowded as well as the roads.
It is the first day of schools all over the country, and the office workers are on their daily way to work. Nothing new for me either, I'm my way to school too.
"ay old man, move out the way '' I hear a man say as I look to my left but he's saying it to a man that certainly doesn't look like an ‘old man’. He's a teenager, you could tell just by looking at his uniform.
"me? don't you think you're the grandpa here?" He replies and doesn't move. there isn't any space to move either. The bus is already as packed as it is. Moving anywhere simply meant either stepping on someone or pushing at least 5 more people with you, in different directions.
It's a relief the weather is still comfortably cold. Had it been one of the months like August or September, half of us would've fainted right there.
"Are you in the mood for a fight? just get aside when i ask you nicely" he scoffs. Well, maybe I should've been late to school today. Witnessing a thug harassing a high schooler wasn't on my list of things to do on my first day of school.
"I'm always in the mood to fight, what, do you not want those teeth anymore?" Everyone is starting to pay attention to them now.
"Is he your brother? come on, he's still young, tell him to calm down" an old lady says to me as i make a shocked expression.
“Huh? No, he isn—” i stop midtrack as i realise it wasn't actually me whom she's talking to. It's the guy right beside me, I never noticed he was standing here.
He has the same hair colour as the older guy there bickering with the thug. Exactly the same shade of pink, even the undercut. But the shorter hairs underneath are black for both of them.
I'm still taking in how much he and is obvious older brother look alike, if you ignored the apparent height and age gap you'd think they were twins. The guy beside me looked like a middle schooler so his features are still not defined enough. But I'm pretty sure he'll look exactly like his brother when he's that age.
“Nii-san! Just leave him be, he's a bad guy anyways” the younger bro speaks up. His voice is extremely cute for a guy who looks so strong.
Or is it because he looks so much like that older guy that I feel this way? Anyways.
“What did that little shit just call me?” The thug says, but before he can continue the older brother grabs him by the collar. A little gasp leaves my mouth as he does.
“If you utter a single word about my little brother, you're dead meat.” He says. The whole bus seems to be whispering about all sorts of things, but my focus is on the guy beside me.
I can guess what kind of situation he must be in, but being a stranger I can't really do much for him. But to be honest, I'm on his older brother's side. The thug started all that nonsense so there's no need to back off. Bad guys need to be taught a good lesson. Though it rarely ever happens.
"Are you sure?" I turn my head to the thug's voice and the second my eyes land onto the both of them, he throws a punch to the older bro's face. To which I unintentionally flinched too.
But he stops it way before it can even come close to his nose. The grip is so tight you could see his fingers almost stopping the blood flow of the thug's wrist. The thug is so surprised at it he makes a funny reaction, but before he can pull up anything else– another hand pulls his hairs from the back.
And the whole bus’ gaze retracts to that hand like watching a tennis match. And that was a big surprise. It was the guy standing beside me. Now with his hairs in his grasps, he twist it around as whole bus says an ouch, me included.
"want to get off the bus or should i throw you out?" he says as I can only see his back.
“Yuuji. I'll take care of him, you can let his hairs go” the older bro says as the younger one nods at once and lets go.
“And you, if you really don't want to get beaten like a pulp you better get off the bus at the very next stop”
"i get it! i get it! I'll leave, so let me go out" he says in an annoyed voice as he twists his wrist once again to whisper something in his ears before letting go.
but what? he tries to land a punch onto his face but he dodges it again. i would've called it cool if i wasn't the one who almost got my nose broken since from that. I never realised how close we were actually standing.
he quickly slams his hand like a disk onto his neck and he falls down making everyone gasp. The older bro bends down and grabs him by the collar,"this jerk needs a reality check. Now, I'm sorry everyone for this hassle in the morning. I'm sure your life's already stressing enough, I'll take care of this quietly" his says and gestures a sign of apology by bowing his head once.
I'm amazed at the way the driver is unfazed and still keeps going with his job. the older bro takes out his phone and calls someone.
"come over at yuuji's school, there's a jerk that needs to be picked" and he puts it back as he stands up and suddenly turns to me.
I almost forget how to blink for a moment and my breath is held unintentionally. It's the first time I'm seeing him face to face, and I can finally take in all the details on his face.. his eyes are crimson red. It's not the kind of colour you see anywhere, they're almost unreal.
They're so red I can feel them burning even though his expression has changed. sparkling like some show of fireworks during the new year's eve.
He has… some sorts of tattoos on his entire face. But they don't look weird. It's as if they were meant to be drawn on his face, and of course the pink hairs that are messier than mine. I used to think I had the most horrible hair.
I blink as I look at him, but he breaks off my train of thoughts.
"You too, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. you almost got a nosebleed because of me, this won't happen again" he puts up his hand in the air and gives me a slight smile
At that moment, everything went slow as I looked at her fierce eyes with that sweet smile after just making someone collapse a few minutes ago. I couldn't comprehend what to say as time stopped for me. It felt as if i could keep staring at him forever if i didn't pull myself out of it.
"oh, it's okay. you were helping all of us anyways” I say, though I'm not sure that is right. I stayed quiet for too long and panicked when I realised I had to say something.
he laughs to h8mself and nods as the bus finally stops. But the first thing I do is not leave the bus, instead I look at him dragging the thug with him followed by his younger brother. I think his name is yuuji.
After them, I got off too. I noticed earlier that the yuuji guy has the same uniform as me so we were going to the same school indeed.
I do want to walk away but I also want to see what happens next. i can be late to school for once, i guess
Soon enough a police car arrives where we are. oh, so it was the police he called. but that was way too informal to be talking to the police. he might have a relative or someone.
"This loser threw a punch at me first" he says standing up and facing the guy that came out of the car first followed by another guy who was driving.
"And you decided to knock him out?" he asks back. no, he doesn't know the full story. but the older bro shrugs, why wouldn't he explain himself?
"Sukuna, think before you do something" he shakes his head as the other guy picks up the old man and takes him into the car.
“But onii san was right. This thug was causing problems for everyone "Yuuji chimes in and explains the whole thing to that police guy but he still seems reluctant to believe it.
“You can ask this guy right here! He was there too” he now points at— me? Ah well, it is true.
I nod a few times,”they're right. Older bro— this person here was only doing the right thing. That old guy was causing a nuisance for everyone on the bus. He even called this pink haired boy a little shit. We all had trouble because of him, and even now we're getting late for our school because of him”
I say as the police officer listens to me. He looks a bit surprised, probably because I said something he wasn't expecting. Anyways it is true.
“Alright, thanks for telling us. We'll get going now. You guys should go too now. Sukuna, pick up the phone when i call you later”
The said sukuna, that is, the older bro rolls his eyes as says,”yeah yeah” and the police soon enough goes away.
Yuuji now turns to me, and thanks for saying what I did. I just tell him it was my duty and start walking away when another voice calls me.
“Hey, little guy with cute hairs”
Am I supposed to turn around..? Is he talking to me? I stop in my tracks.
“Yeah, I'm talking to you.” But before I can really turn around I feel a hand on my head. It's him. The crimson eyes.
He pats my head not so lightly, infact does it in a way I can feel my head wobble as he stands in front of me. Now that I can clearly see him– look up at him. I can guess he's around 190cm.
Well that's really tall. Considering I am only 155 myself. He feels way too huge standing right in front of me. He crouches down to meet my eye level as i do nothing but blink, his hand still on my head.
“Thanks for today, you summed it up so well. I can see you're in the same school as my yuuji, so i hope you'll be good friends. I'll give you a treat later for today” he ruffles my hairs.
I can hear Yuuji talking to someone else as my senses shift from that to only the person in front of me. His eyes are yet so mesmerising.
“Will you not give me that treat if I don't become good friends with your brother?” I ask back, looking straight into his eyes.
He giggles at that,”pfft. No, that's fine. I'll still give you a treat even if you don't. Hahaha, kids these days are so clever”
“Alright” I nod. Waiting for him to remove his hand from my head but he keeps resting it there like he owns my head or something.
“See you later then” he smiles at me and leaves.
with that I'm left staring into nothing. It's the first time my heart has reacted to anyone or anything like this.
I could even talk in whole sentences when he was talking to me, it felt unreal. My heart was beating in my ears and my eyes were so captivated by his I could barely focus on his words.
I hope he keeps his promise of giving me a treat later.
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He did. He kept his promise that day, and for years. I'm in my last year of highschool now, wearing the same uniform as him from years ago.