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The text that Kazutora had sent earlier rang alarm bells through Baji’s head.
I’m at the spot. Come get me.
Baji’s lungs burned as he ran up the stairs, the echo of footsteps clattering off the concrete walls of the building. He skipped two stairs at a time — up one floor, then the next.
He just hoped by God he wasn’t too late.
When he reached the top, winded, he slammed the door open, only to see a familiar figure wearing a white hoodie teetering on the very edge of the world; looking down into the cacophony of the Tokyo night streets far below. The cold breeze raked at Baji’s face; sunk its teeth deep into his skin; pulled harsh fingers through his long, black hair.
“ Kazutora!! ” He shouted over the brutal howl of the wind, his voice ricocheting across the top of the building.
And Kazutora — his best friend — turned to plainly look over his shoulder, the bell on his ear giving a delightful jingle. He was ethereal; haunting, even. The bleached highlights in his hair seemed to catch the faint gleam of the moon — barely visible from its place above the clouds — along with the light pollution from the cityscape of skyscrapers that filled the horizon.
Instead of taking any action to remove himself from the ledge, he just smiled, waving. Though, even from here, Baji could tell that it wasn’t a genuine one.
“Oh! Hey Baji!” Kazutora called back in return, before returning his hands into his pockets. “Took you long enough. I was starting to think you would never show up.”
Baji slowly let go of the door knob he had been holding and started to carefully inch forward, like any sudden movement would startle Kazutora into jumping off the ridge like a skittish, wild animal. His best friend, meanwhile, didn’t move a muscle; just tracking Baji with his eyes alone.
“…why.” He croaked as he got closer. “Why are you doing all this?”
Kazutora gave a low hum, the sound like a throaty, drumming purr as he thought over his answer.
“Hmmm… to put it simply…” His friend began to walk along the ledge, pursing his lips and dangerously close to slipping down into the abyss below. “I wanted to see if you would come for me. That’s the short answer.”
He snipped the statement casually; almost too casually, before kicking some little pieces of broken gravel over the ledge. The fragments disappeared far into the night, never to be seen again.
“And the long answer is — I heard that Takemitchy and your former vice captain paid you a visit at the hideout a couple days ago.”
The statement caused a cold fear to strike in Baji's chest. On the surface, Kazutora’s tone was deceptively thoughtful. However, his words still held a subtle, malevolent undercurrent to them that couldn’t be ignored.
“Stupid, isn’t it?" He mocked playfully. "Like a pair of mice wandering directly into the maw of the lion’s den.”
Baji remembered the commotion that Chifuyu and that Takemichi guy had caused just earlier that week as he was hanging out in one of the back rooms, demanding to see him and threatening to blow his cover.
Chifuyu had been on the verge of starting a pretty large scuffle, with the jeering mob beginning to swarm loosely around him and Takemichi like a pack of hungry hyenas.
However, the chaos had instantly quieted the moment when Baji entered the room; and everyone waited with baited breath as the former captain of Toman’s first division cut across the crowd.
Chifuyu had let out the sound of Baji’s name so longingly, like the name belonged to someone who still deserved to be admired.
However, Baji was quick to shut him down — slugging Chifuyu across the face and sending him lurching backwards, which in turn caused a wave of audible hollering to ripple through the surrounding crowd.
Maybe in another timeline, the founding members of Toman wouldn’t have been caught up in all this mess with Mikey and Kazutora, and Baji would have been able to properly reciprocate the way Chifuyu felt about him.
Not in this one though. Not when he had other people and more pressing issues to worry about.
“I told you I’m an enemy of Toman, didn’t I?” He glared back coldly; ruthlessly.
Baji just couldn’t fucking believe that Chifuyu had been stupid enough to come back and think that confronting him right here, right in the depths of Valhalla’s hideout, would ever turn out to be a good fucking idea. It was like backing him into a damn corner with that one.
When Chifuyu started to protest, insisting that Baji was doing all this for Toman, Baji just gave him another taste of his goddamn fist — this time to the stomach, right underneath his sternum — sending him down to hunch onto the cold, concrete floor.
It was like they were in a competition of who could be more stubborn — with Chifuyu insisting on helping Baji whereas Baji just wanted to fix things on his own — but the thing was: Baji didn’t come here to fucking play.
So, he yanked his former second command up harshly by the scalp, his hand fisting in Chifuyu’s hair.
“I only made you vice captain because you could fight.” He had snarled — voice low and intimidating — before throwing him back towards the floor. “Don’t get carried away!”
“Still, what were they doing there in the first place?” Kazutora mused, breaking Baji out of his thoughts. The wind caused his bangs to drift across his face. “Did they think they had the chance to figure out whether or not you were a spy? Why so? Especially when you already chose my side over Mikey’s ."
Kazutora sharply turned towards him, planting his feet on the ledge in tandem with the bell earring on his lobe making a distinct ringing sound into the night.
“Makes me question your loyalty to Valhalla’s cause.”
The look he was giving him was downright chilling.
“Are you wavering , Baji?” He questioned analytically. “Is that it?”
“Tora…” Baji called out cautiously. “Listen to me. I need you to get down from there.”
“You want me to get down?” Kazutora stared him dead in the eye, his black eyes wide, empty. Challenging. “ Then take me down. ”
Seconds dragged into what felt like minutes, and minutes dragged onto what seemed like hours as Kazutora wavered on the precipice of life and death itself.
Then, after what felt like an eternity had passed, Kazutora let out a long sigh of disappointment out through his nose, his shoulders lowering slightly.
“Hmmm. I guess you really are going to let me fall after all.” He said, narrowing his eyes coldly before taking a step backwards into the empty air behind him.
The bell earring rang one last time. Then his body began to drop.
“ Kazutora!!” Baji raced forward, his pulse rushing against his ear drums as the movements of Kazutora falling before him seemed to play out in slow motion.
He caught him around the middle, firmly wrapping his arms around Kazutora’s waist before pulling him away from the abyss. The soles of Kazutora’s vans scraped against the concrete, scattering pebbles off the edge and into the night below. The wind whistled loudly in his ears as gravity threatened to swallow them, but Baji — straining with effort — managed to haul them both back from the brink.
“Fuck, I got you.” Baji grunted out through clenched teeth, refusing to let go of him until they were both safely away from the drop. Damn, his sweat was making him feel cold up here. “Don’t ever fucking do that again. Shit .”
From Baji’s angle, Kazutora’s bangs were falling over his eyes, making it near impossible to interpret his expression. Even so, there was this slight curve to his lip as his chest unevenly rose and fell, like he still found this whole situation to be amusing somehow. He swallowed dryly, the bold, intricate lines of his tiger tattoo bobbing on the side of his throat.
Then, his smile fell.
“Hey Baji.” Kazutora said again after what felt like an eternity of silence, his voice dropping any pretense of its previous playfulness.
Baji swallowed. His heartbeat still pounded heavily in his ears, but the adrenaline was already beginning to fade now that Kazutora wasn’t in any immediate physical danger. “…yeah?”
“You would do anything for me, right?” His best friend asked as he looked back up again, meeting Baji’s gaze and their noses only centimeters away. His empty, black eyes were eerily unfocused, as if Kazutora were looking straight past Baji and into another plane of existence entirely. “Absolutely anything?”
Baji hesitated. Despite already knowing what he was about to say, the words were stuck in the back of his throat; because in the end, Baji knew that he could never ever bring himself to say no to anything Kazutora wanted.
After all, watching Kazutora was like watching a thin glass vase teetering on the edge of a shelf, oscillating back and forth and just waiting to shatter on the floor. And Baji? Baji would always be there underneath to catch him, even if it meant cutting his fingers on jagged shards to pick up the pieces.
He remembered the day Kazutora broke — the day that they tried stealing a bike for Mikey and the night they ended up killing Mikey’s brother instead. The sirens wailed loud in his memory as he and Kazutora were dragged away. Mikey, meanwhile, could only stare on with his feet rooted in place behind the police tape and tears subtly rolling down his cheeks.
Kazutora had lunged for their friend — crying out his name — but Baji honestly wasn’t sure if he had been trying to reach out to ask Mikey for help, or if it had been in an attempt to strangle him. Knowing Kazutora’s fractured state of mind, it had probably been a convoluted, contradictory mixture of both.
Baji didn’t know how to help either of them — not with Kazutora and preventing him from trying to kill Mikey, nor with Mikey mourning Shinichirou’s death.
Before Kazutora was released, Mikey assured Baji over and over what happened was an accident; that none of it was his fault. Though, Baji couldn’t help but blame himself, or view himself as responsible for what happened.
Because maybe — just maybe — if he had pushed back harder against Kazutora’s whims instead of following along, and maybe if they had realized earlier whose shop it was that they had broken into, Baji would have been able to prevent anything bad from happening to the people he loved.
He remembered the haunting way Kazutora stared off into space in his seat next to Baji’s in the car as they were arrested; the unstable way he broke down in Baji’s arms with Shinichirou’s body bleeding out next to them.
He just… didn’t want to see Kazutora crash like that again.
“Of course.” Baji cocked his head to the side, trying his best to offer a sharp, supportive smile. “With you until the end, aren’t I?”
“Okay.” Kazutora said in response.
He gave an almost innocuous head tilt, followed by his fingers trailing up the front of his Valhalla jacket. The sound of the bell on Kazutora’s ear rang out into the night.
“…okay.” He repeated, as if trying to reassure himself of something before challenging Baji some more with: “Then kiss me.”
Baji’s smile fell into its usual, slight scowl; confused. What?
His body then had half the mind to make him aware of their current positioning, with Kazutora’s hands possessively grasping onto his chest while Baji’s were still at their place on Kazutora’s waist. In the midst of all the adrenaline, he had somehow missed how physically close they had gotten; how physically close they continued to be, with Kazutora’s breath lightly fanning over Baji’s lips.
“Kiss me, and tell me you want me.” He repeated, this tiny hint of desperation beginning to bleed into his voice. “Tell me it’s just me and you don’t want anyone else. Not Draken. Not Toman. Not Mikey—”
Something indescribable twisted sickeningly in Baji’s chest at the bitter sound of Mikey’s name being spat so viciously out of Kazutora’s mouth, because in the end, Baji knew that he was not the one that Kazutora was really asking for.
No, because even though now his worldview had been so warped, the person that Kazutora yearned for — the person that he still longed for — was Mikey.
After all, Kazutora’s obsession was still oriented around Mikey .
His hatred from feeling betrayed, his desire for Mikey’s love and approval, and his vindictive, yet misguided thirst for vengeance — all of Kazutora’s emotions had become tangled together into this indistinguishable mess; situated with Mikey at its center.
The horrified pit in Baji’s stomach sank even further as Kazutora interrupted himself by sucking in a breath through his teeth. When he spoke again, his voice was forcibly calm, and eerily controlled.
“Draken came over to talk to me earlier, did you know that? Right before I came here. Tried to talk me into changing things into us not fighting — said he was my friend — but in the end he still chose Mikey’s side. ”
The thing about Kazutora’s mindset was that decisions were always either one or the other; black and white with no room for any shades of gray. Not only that, but he always had to be in the right, because he could never handle the idea of ever being in the wrong.
Meanwhile, the remaining Toman founders caught in between in the Valhalla conflict — Baji, Draken, and Mitsuya — had to choose between Mikey or Kazutora. There just wasn’t any in between, because Kazutora refused to allow it.
Baji knew that Mitsuya would not be afraid to throw hands with either him or Kazutora if things really came down to defending Mikey. Even if that meant he would have to fight them, he would view it as protecting their leader and their friend.
Draken, on the other hand, would definitely try to mediate and play the role of the diplomat; attempt to find that impossible middle ground because he didn’t want the friends he cared about to try and go for each other’s throats.
And Baji? Baji would figure out a solution eventually. He didn’t have a solid plan yet — other than targeting Kisaki in the upcoming conflict, because that guy was definitely up to some shady fucking shit — but somehow he would be able to find a way to prevent his loved ones from trying to kill each other.
“They don’t know what it’s like.” Kazutora’s voice began to rise again like a crescendo, brittle and choked and broken. “They don’t know what it’s like to be locked up for the past two years. I don’t care if Mikey vouched for me; he was the one that abandoned me in the first place. It was his fucking fault! I did it for him. And he stood there, while I was being dragged away and he did nothing!! ”
Kazutora was really unraveling now, all the threatening, sadistic and violent undercurrents to his behavior coming up to the surface in tandem with his body beginning to shake and his chest starting to heave.
“I’m going to kill Mikey. I’m going to kill him!”
His fists clenched on the front of Baji’s jacket with white knuckles as Kazutora stared wide into his best friend’s eyes like he was trying to force an agreement out of him; absolutely fucking crazed.
“Right, Baji? So you’re going to choose me, right? You always choose me. I need you to choose me.”
Somewhere in the back of Baji’s mind, he thought about Chifuyu. Chifuyu — his vice captain — who looked at him with so much blind faith and adoration that it made him sick; who was stubbornly and stupidly trying to help him despite the fact that Baji didn’t want to be fucking helped; who kept coming back like a dog no matter how many times it had been kicked.
Then, Baji thought about Mikey and Kazutora — his best friends — that he would always choose over Chifuyu; that he would sacrifice himself for; the two that were currently trying to murder each other in cold blood.
…Maybe after all of this was over, he and Chifuyu could go out for a bite to eat, and maybe then Baji would get a chance to apologize.
However, he didn’t want to think about Chifuyu right now. So, Baji just didn’t think.
Instead, he pressed his mouth against Kazutora’s in a searing kiss, firm enough to keep him grounded; enough to keep him from fragmenting at the seams.
After a brief moment, Kazutora kissed back — his hands shortly letting go of Baji’s jacket, if only to go up and desperately clutch the back of his head, tangling his fingers through Baji’s long, dark hair and pulling him even closer. It was as if Kazutora were floundering and about to drown, while Baji was the nearest lifeline he could latch onto.
And the thing was, Baji let him — let Kazutora kiss him; let him tilt his head to the side and deepen it.
Wrapped up in grief and denial and the ugly fear of abandonment — the bitterness on Baji’s tongue tasted more like a mixture of complete desperation and codependency rather than any healthy form of love. When they finally separated, Kazutora rested his head against Baji’s shoulder, if not to let out a muffled, broken sob against the fabric of his jacket; the faint sound of it almost lost to the wind.
Baji, meanwhile, just wrapped his arms around him and squeezed.
“Yeah.” He breathed out. “Of course I’ll choose you, Kazutora.”
After all, he had sworn to be with Kazutora until the end, hadn’t he? Even if that meant falling into hell, he would not let his best friend fall alone.
So, between Baji trying to prevent Mikey and Kazutora from murdering each other and trying to figure out an actual plan, the whole conflict with Valhalla and Toman was just turning out to be a goddamn mess, but… as he held Kazutora in his arms on that cold rooftop — away from the rest of the world far down below — Baji resolved that he would find a way to fix everything on his own.
Somehow.