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Chapter Text

In the golden timeline, the one they had built together with blood, sweat, and impossible leaps through time, Hanagaki Takemichi’s world had a sun. And that sun was named Sano Manjiro.

They grew up joined at the hip, a strange and inseparable pair. Takemichi, the boy who cried too easily but never, ever gave up, and Mikey, the boy who held the weight of the world on his small shoulders and smiled like he was invincible. Their friendship was forged in the sweet summer heat of Tokyo, in shared popsicles that dripped down their hands, in the low rumble of Mikey’s motorcycle, and in the easy, unspoken understanding that passed between them.

For Takemichi, that profound admiration, the fierce need to protect Mikey’s light, had quietly, inevitably, morphed into love. It was a truth that lived in the quiet spaces: the warmth that bloomed in his chest when Mikey’s head rested on his shoulder during a Toman meeting, the way his breath would catch when Mikey turned that brilliant, unguarded smile on him, the desperate urge to smooth the worry from his brow.

He said nothing. He buried it deep, packing it down under layers of self-doubt. Because Mikey saw him as a friend. As his hero. As the crybaby who somehow managed to save everyone. Sometimes, when Mikey would look at him with a certain haunted softness, Takemichi was terrified he only saw the ghost of his older brother, Shinichiro. Friend. Hero. Brother's shadow. Anything but the one thing Takemichi desperately wanted to be. So he kept his secret locked away, a precious, painful thing. He was Hina’s best friend, her confidant, and she was his. Their bond was a bedrock of platonic love, and she often teased him about the way he stared at Mikey, but he would just blush and change the subject.

They succeeded. They saved everyone. The future was a bright, unbroken horizon.

The world shattered on a Tuesday.

He was just starting the school year that would lead him into high school. He’d been daydreaming about it for months, about walking the halls with Mikey and the others, about a normal, happy high school life he had fought so hard for. His parents sat him down at the kitchen table, their faces grim. A job transfer. A promotion. An opportunity they could not refuse. They were moving.

To Fukuoka.

The word felt like a punch to the gut. It was a different island, hundreds of kilometers away. “No,” Takemichi said, his voice small. “No, I can’t. All my friends are here. My life is here.”

His parents refused to let him live alone. He was too young, they argued. It was not safe. He pleaded, he begged, he even tried to use the stubborn determination that had bent fate to his will, but against the mundane finality of parental authority, he was powerless.

Telling Toman was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. They gathered at the Musashi Shrine, their usual spot, and the news fell like a stone in the ensuing silence. Baji was the first to explode, shouting about how it was unacceptable. Draken’s jaw was tight, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Mitsuya looked away, his expression pained.

But it was Mikey’s reaction that terrified him. He did not say a word. His eyes, those beautiful, dark voids, went terrifyingly blank. The temperature around them seemed to drop. Takemichi recognized the chilling stillness, the faint, horrifying whisper of the dark impulses he had fought so hard to quell.

Before it could take root, Takemichi rushed forward, grabbing Mikey’s hand. It was cold. “Mikey-kun,” he said, his own voice trembling. “Please. I have no choice. It’s not what I want. You know it’s not what I want.” He squeezed his hand, pouring all his desperation, all his unspoken love, into the touch. “I’ll come back. I promise, I will come back.”

Slowly, agonizingly, the light returned to Mikey’s eyes. The darkness receded. He looked down at their joined hands, then back at Takemichi’s tear-streaked face. He nodded, a single, sharp movement. The rest of Toman, seeing their leader relent, reluctantly, angrily, accepted it.

The move to Fukuoka was a blur of cardboard boxes and tearful goodbyes. The city was quiet, the sky felt bigger, and the loneliness was a physical presence, a constant weight on his shoulders. He was the new kid in a school where everyone’s friendships were already set in stone. He talked to his classmates, he ate lunch in the crowded cafeteria, but he was utterly alone.

Then, the unluckiest thing happened. During a crowded festival, his phone was jostled from his pocket. He did not realize it was gone until he got home. He had not memorized a single number, always relying on the convenience of his contact list. Just like that, his lifeline to Tokyo, to his friends, to Mikey, was severed.

The silence of his new life became deafening. To fill the empty hours that stretched into infinity, he started to draw.

At first, it was just animals and plants, simple subjects to keep his hands busy. Then one day, hiding from the rain in a bookstore, he stumbled upon a shounen-ai manga. The art was beautiful, the story full of a gentle, aching romance that resonated deep in his soul. It was a turning point. He bought books on anatomy and perspective, and his sketchbook became his entire world.

He drew his parents. He drew his classmates. He drew the members of Toman from memory, trying to perfectly capture Baji’s fang-like grin and Draken’s steady gaze. But mostly, he drew Mikey. Mikey smiling. Mikey fighting. Mikey sleeping. Mikey laughing, head thrown back. His sketchbook was a shrine to Sano Manjiro.

Staring at a page filled with dozens of sketches of Mikey’s face, Takemichi finally admitted it to himself. His feelings were not a schoolboy crush. They had not faded with time or distance. He was in love with Mikey, a deep, hopeless, all-consuming love.

With that admission came an unstoppable urge to create. He started drawing mini-mangas, little what-if scenarios of their life in Tokyo. Then, he started something bigger. He began to draw stories, full-blown shounen-ai narratives. Each series was set in a different universe, starring a different version of Mikey from the timelines he remembered. There was the fierce gang leader with a hidden soft spot. The lonely idol who shone on stage but was empty inside. The broken man from a future he had erased. And in every story, there was a boy with unruly dark hair and blue eyes who loved him unconditionally. He changed their names, of course, a flimsy disguise for a story that was so intensely personal.

He posted them online under the anonymous username "Crybaby Hero." He expected nothing. But his art, filled with raw, genuine emotion, resonated with people. His visitors count grew. Comments poured in. And one day, an email appeared in his inbox. It was from a publisher. They wanted to help him make a physical manga. He said yes.

That was the beginning. Hanagaki Takemichi, the lonely boy in Fukuoka, became a secret, successful shounen-ai artist, pouring his unrequited love onto the pages of manga for the world to see.

High school finished in a quiet graduation ceremony where he knew no one’s name. He had saved a significant amount of money from his royalties, more than enough to be independent. He sat his parents down at their kitchen table, the same one where his world had fallen apart years ago.

“I’m moving back to Tokyo,” he announced, his voice steady. “I’m going to enroll in a university there.”

This time, they did not argue. He was an adult now.

As he packed his bags, a familiar mix of hope and terror churned in his stomach. He was finally going back. He might see them again. He might see Mikey again. A part of him, the foolish, romantic part that drew mangas late into the night, dreamed of a happy reunion. But the logical part, the part that had lived through three years of absolute silence, whispered a colder truth.

They had probably forgotten him.

He was going home, even if home no longer remembered his name.

Chapter Text

The Tokyo Manji Gang was a ghost.

It haunted the corners of their lives, a fond and bittersweet memory of bruised knuckles, roaring engines, and a loyalty so fierce it had bent the world to its will. Mikey had disbanded it himself, just a few weeks after the moving trucks had carried Takemichi away. He had stood before them at the Musashi Shrine, the crisp autumn air carrying a weight that had nothing to do with the changing seasons. The sky above was a vast, indifferent blue, the same shade as the eyes of the boy who was no longer there.

"Toman’s era is over," Mikey had announced, his voice quiet but absolute. He could not, he said, carry their legacy forward when its heart had been ripped out. No one argued. They all felt the gaping hole Takemichi’s departure had left. Toman without its crybaby hero was a body without a soul. A flag without a wind to fly in.

But friendships forged in the crucible of near death and impossible second chances do not break so easily. The uniform was gone, but the bond remained. They were still a family, a loud, chaotic, and fiercely protective one. Draken’s motorcycle shop, D&D, became their unofficial clubhouse, the smell of grease and gasoline a comforting constant. Mitsuya’s design studio was always open, a sanctuary of creativity and calm amidst their turbulent lives.

Even Izana, once a harbinger of chaos, had settled into their orbit. He and Kakucho would show up at the Sano dojo unannounced, usually to find Shinichiro, their shared older brother in every way that mattered, hunched over an engine block, grease on his cheek and a forgotten cold coffee by his side. Izana would scold him with the unique, biting affection only he possessed, and Shinichiro would just smile that gentle, tired smile of his.

The core group, the ones who had been there through it all, made a point to meet at least once a month. Draken, Mitsuya, Baji, Chifuyu, Hakkai, Sanzu, Pah-chin, Peh-yan, and Kazutora. They would gather at the dojo, a place so saturated with memories it felt like the walls themselves could tell stories. They would sprawl across the cool wooden floors, surrounded by the ghosts of their younger, more reckless selves, and talk for hours. They talked about their jobs, their lives, their pasts, their futures. They talked about everything.

Except Takemichi. His name was a wound they had all tacitly agreed not to touch. It had been three years. Three years of silence. After the initial flurry of angry, unanswered calls to the disconnected number, a heavy quiet had fallen. They told themselves he was happy. They told themselves he had moved on. They had to. The alternative was too painful to consider. But the silence where he should have been was a constant, aching presence in all of their gatherings.

On one such lazy Saturday afternoon, the air in the dojo was warm and thick with the scent of old wood and sunlight. The conversation was light, full of the easy, insulting banter that was their love language. Baji was passionately trying to convince Chifuyu that they should get matching wolf tattoos, a proposition Chifuyu was politely but firmly rejecting. Mitsuya, ever the artist, was sketching idly on a notepad, occasionally glancing up to capture the curve of Pah-chin’s laugh or the intense look on Kazutora’s face as he argued with Peh-yan about something utterly meaningless. Draken was half asleep against a support beam, lulled by the familiar sounds of his friends.

The shoji screen to the main house slid open, and Emma emerged, her face a mask of determination. She was struggling with a large, heavy cardboard box filled to the brim with books and old trinkets.

"Ugh, this is heavier than I remember," she grunted, shuffling precariously toward the kitchen. She was on one of her infamous spring cleaning kicks, and her bedroom was the current victim. "My room must be completely empty before I can truly cleanse its energy."

Draken’s eyes snapped open. He was on his feet in an instant, his tall frame unfolding with practiced ease. "I'll get it, Emma."

"My hero," she cooed, batting her eyelashes at him with theatrical flair.

As he effortlessly lifted the box from her arms, a chorus of gagging sounds and wolf whistles erupted from the group. "Get a room, you two!" Baji yelled, launching a nearby floor cushion at Draken’s head, which he dodged without even looking.

Draken just flipped him off over his shoulder, a faint blush creeping up his neck as he followed Emma toward the kitchen. As they rounded the corner, their playful bickering echoing back into the dojo, neither of them noticed a single manga slip from the top of the overloaded box. It landed silently, face down, on the tatami mat, a splash of vibrant color against the muted floor.

Baji, however, noticed everything. His energy was a constant thrum, a restless vibration that meant he was always scanning, always looking for the next distraction. He pushed himself up from the floor and sauntered over to the fallen object, his movements loose and predatory.

"Black Dragon's Vow," he read the title aloud, his lips curling into a smirk. The title was embossed in elegant silver foil against a dramatic black background. He figured it was just another one of those silly, cringey romance mangas that Emma and Chifuyu were always gushing about. He opened it to a random page, fully intending to read a sappy line out loud and make fun of it mercilessly.

But the art stopped him. The words caught in his throat.

His eyes, so used to the fast movement of a fight and the blur of the Tokyo streets at night, locked onto the two figures on the page. They were rendered in clean, confident lines, their expressions full of a raw, aching emotion that he could feel in his gut. Two young men, both with black hair. One's hair was straight and sleek, falling perfectly around a face that was both ethereally beautiful and fiercely authoritative. The other's hair was an unruly, stubborn mess, sticking up in all directions as if it had a will of its own. One had deep, void like eyes that seemed to swallow the light. The other had eyes the color of a summer ocean, wide and expressive and swimming with unshed tears.

Baji’s brain, usually occupied with motorcycles and the perfect ratio of noodles to sauce in peyoung yakisoba, kicked into high gear. He had seen that face before. Those eyes. He had looked into them countless times during Toman meetings, across battlefields, over shared meals. He slowly lifted his head and looked across the room at his best friend, his former commander, who was currently trying to balance a dorayaki on his nose out of sheer boredom.

The resemblance was terrifying.

"Hey," Baji said, his voice unusually serious, all traces of humor gone. He held the manga open, turning it so the others could see. "Doesn't this guy look like Mikey?"

The casual chatter died down. One by one, their gazes shifted from Baji’s intense face to the manga in his hands.

"Huh?" Chifuyu was the first to get up, his curiosity overriding his disagreement with Baji. He peered over his shoulder. "Whoa... isn’t this…" he breathed. "I just realize… He really does look like Mikey."

Mitsuya leaned in, his designer’s eye immediately catching the finer details. "That's uncanny. The artist even got the line of his jaw right. Wait a second..." He pointed a slender finger at the character's neck. "Isn't that our Twin Dragons tattoo?"

It was. The elegant, coiling dragon was depicted with perfect, startling accuracy, a detail only someone intimately familiar with Draken and Mitsuya would know. A detail that felt far too specific for a random manga.

Just then, a horrified shriek echoed from the dojo doorway. Emma stood there, a tray laden with snacks and drinks in her hands, her face a mask of pure terror. "Kei-kun!"

She immediately shoved the tray into Draken's surprised hands, nearly sending a pyramid of senbei flying. She stormed over to Baji, snatching the manga from his grasp with a protective fury. "Don't open it like that! You'll break the spine! This is a first limited printing!" she scolded, cradling the manga to her chest as if it were a wounded bird.

Kazutora, never one to miss an opportunity for chaos, snickered from his spot on the floor. "Didn't know you were that interested in your brother's love life, Emma-chan."

Emma shot him a look of pure disgust, her face flushing a deep red. "What? Ew! Why would I even do that?! It's a work of art! It's not about him!"

"But Emma-chan," Pah-chin chimed in, his eyes wide with fascination as he stared at the manga in her hands. "One of the guys in there looks exactly like Mikey. See for yourself."

Emma hesitated. Her protective anger warred with a dawning sense of dread. She glanced down at the cover, then reluctantly, she opened it to the page Baji had found. She stared. And stared. Her eyes widened, and the color drained from her face. Then she shrieked again, a sound of pure, mortified realization that was music to Baji’s ears.

"Oh my God! You guys ruined this masterpiece for me!" she wailed, her cheeks now a furious shade of crimson. "Now I can't see Ren-kun's face without seeing that dorayaki demon's face!"

A wave of laughter filled the dojo, the tension momentarily broken. Everyone, that is, except Mikey. He had been silent this whole time, his dark eyes fixed on the manga with an unnerving, unblinking intensity. He pushed himself to his feet and walked over to a still distraught Emma, his movements fluid and silent.

"Let me see," he said quietly.

Emma, startled by his serious tone, handed the manga over without a word. Mikey took it, his fingers tracing the outline of the character, Ren, the one everyone was comparing to him. He studied the fierce set of the jaw, the commanding presence, the subtle sadness in the eyes. Then, his gaze shifted to the other figure on the page. The boy named Yuu. The boy with the unruly hair and the ocean blue eyes that seemed to hold a universe of unshed tears.

A heavy, profound silence fell over the room. The air grew thick with unspoken words. Suddenly, Mikey spoke, his voice soft but clear enough to cut through the stillness and pierce every heart in the room.

"The other guy," he began, his gaze still locked on the image of Yuu. He finally looked up, his dark eyes meeting the eyes of his friends one by one. "Isn't he... doesn't he look like Takemitchy?"

The name hung in the air like a ghost. The last vestiges of laughter died in their throats. It was the forbidden word, the name of the hole in the center of their group. Three years of silence, of pretending, of trying to move on. Shattered by a single question prompted by a drawing in a manga.

They all crowded around, a silent, somber circle, peering at the page. Now that Mikey had said it, it was impossible to unsee. The stubborn set of the jaw, so often a sign of his refusal to give up. The slight pout of his lips when he was concentrating. And the eyes. God, those eyes. They held the same raw vulnerability, the same wellspring of tears that was always just below the surface. They were Takemichi’s eyes.

Sanzu, who had been observing from the sidelines with a detached sort of curiosity, chimed in with his usual lack of tact. "Yeah, he kinda looks like him." A few of the others winced. Sanzu never could read a room.

"But why are you and Takemichi in a manga together?" Peh-yan asked, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. He pointed at the page. "They look like they're about to... look at each other very respectfully." He got a sharp smack on the back of the head from Pah-chin for his trouble.

Chifuyu, however, was in another world. He gently, almost reverently, took the manga from Mikey's hands. His expression was one of dawning, horrified awe. He knew this art style better than anyone. He had followed the mysterious artist, "Crybaby Hero," for years. He owned every manga, had read every interview where the artist answered questions via email, always maintaining their perfect, impenetrable anonymity.

"Crybaby Hero..." Chifuyu whispered, the name a breath of disbelief. His heart started to hammer against his ribs. He started flipping through the pages frantically, his mind racing. "The main character, Yuu, he's always crying but he never gives up... he's a total crybaby hero..." His head snapped up, his eyes wild with a crazy, impossible, wonderful theory. "The artist... no one knows who he is. He's a total mystery. He appeared online about three years ago."

Three years. The same amount of time Takemichi had been gone.

Chifuyu looked from the drawing of the Mikey lookalike to the real Mikey, who was watching him with a strange, unreadable expression. He looked back to the drawing of the Takemichi lookalike, with his familiar, stubborn cowlick and his ocean eyes. The pieces began to slam together in his mind with the force of a physical blow.

A boy who left. An artist who appeared out of nowhere. A story about a fierce leader and his crybaby hero. A secret identity. The perfectly rendered tattoo. The nickname.

Chifuyu’s blood ran cold. The implications were staggering.

"Guys," he said, his voice barely audible, choked with emotion. "I think... I think Takemitchy draw this."

Chapter Text

Chifuyu’s words, choked and barely audible, fell into the dojo with the weight of an anvil. "I think… I think Takemitchy draw this."

Silence.

It was not a peaceful quiet. It was a vacuum, sucking the air from the room, pulling taut the strings of disbelief and dawning, impossible comprehension. The lazy Saturday afternoon sunlight, which had been painting golden stripes across the wooden floor, suddenly felt like an interrogation lamp, pinning them all in place. Three years of unspoken grief, of carefully constructed denial, of a wound they had all tacitly agreed not to poke, had just been ripped wide open by a boy’s love manga.

The collective processing of this information was a fragile, terrifying thing. Baji’s hand, which had been reaching for the manga, froze midair. Mitsuya’s sketchbook lay forgotten in his lap, his pencil held in a white-knuckled grip. Draken, who had been leaning against a post, stood up straight, his entire body suddenly rigid with tension. The name, Takemitchy, hung in the air between them, a ghost summoned back into their midst.

And then, the vacuum imploded.

“EEEEHHHHHHHH?!”

The scream was a symphony of pure, unadulterated shock, a multi-tonal explosion of sound that rattled the very shoji screens. It was Baji’s guttural roar of disbelief, Emma’s high pitched shriek of vindicated horror, Hakkai’s wavering, tearful gasp, and Draken’s deep baritone of absolute astonishment all rolled into one. Peh-yan just made a noise like a confused goose.

“No fucking way!” Baji snatched the manga from Chifuyu’s trembling hands, his eyes scanning the pages as if they held the secrets of the universe, which, at that moment, they kind of did. “Our Takemitchy? Crybaby Takemitchy? made… this?” He held up a page depicting the Mikey-lookalike, Ren, tenderly brushing a stray tear from the cheek of the Takemichi-lookalike, Yuu. The scene was so soft, so intimate, it felt like an intrusion to even look at it.

“The timeline fits,” Chifuyu was rambling now, pacing back and forth, his hands flapping uselessly. “The artist ‘Crybaby Hero’ debuted online three years ago, right after Takemitchy moved! And the main character, Yuu, he’s always getting into fights he can’t win but he never gives up, he protects everyone even though he’s terrified… he’s a crybaby hero! It’s him! It has to be him!”

Every new piece of evidence was another nail in the coffin of their denial. The art style, so full of raw emotion. The impossibly accurate details, like the Twin Dragons tattoo. The story itself, a thinly veiled fantasy about their own lives, their own leader, their own lost friend.

Takemichi. The boy they all missed with an ache that had never quite dulled. The boy who had vanished into a three-year abyss of silence. He was the artist of this manga? This story about two boys falling in love? A story about Mikey, and about him?

In the center of the chaotic storm of revelation, Sano Manjiro was unnervingly still. He had not joined the collective scream. He had not moved a muscle. He was staring at the manga in Baji’s hands, his dark eyes wide, the pupils blown so large they almost eclipsed the irises. He saw the page, the tender gesture between Ren and Yuu. He saw the love, so painstakingly and beautifully rendered, pouring out of every line. It was a love he recognized. It was the love he had been crushing under the weight of his own fear and loneliness for years. A desperate, hopeless, all consuming love for his crybaby hero. A love he was certain had only ever flowed in one direction.

But this. This manga. This was a confession. A three hundred page love letter sent from a ghost, from a memory. A quiet, earth-shattering admission that spanned years of silence and miles of distance.

A choked, broken sound escaped Mikey’s lips, a single puff of air that was almost swallowed by the noise of the dojo. He asked it to no one, and he asked it to everyone. He asked it to the universe that had taken Takemichi away from him.

“Fuck… he likes me back?”

The whisper cut through the noise like a blade. Everyone froze, their heads whipping around to stare at their commander. They had all known. They had all watched Mikey orbit Takemichi, had seen the private smiles and the possessive touches. They had listened to endless, gushing ramblings about his ‘Takemitchy’. Everyone knew Mikey was catastrophically, irrevocably in love. But to hear the fragile hope in his voice now, after all this time, was devastating.

Draken was the first to recover. He let out a long, suffering sigh, running a hand over his shaved head. He looked at Mikey, who was still staring into space as if he’d seen a divine vision, and shook his head. He picked up a bag of snacks from the floor, the crinkling of the plastic unnaturally loud in the renewed silence.

“All that gushing,” Draken said, his voice a low, dry rumble. “All that simping. All that acting like it is the end of the world if you confess. Turns out he likes you too.”

The teasing comment, so quintessentially Draken, was the pin that popped the bubble of tension around Mikey. His head snapped toward his best friend, the vulnerable shock on his face instantly replaced by a familiar, petulant scowl. The invincible Mikey was back online.

“Yeah, as if you would be with Emma if I and the rest didn't set up that date, you coward beanpole.”

Draken’s eyebrow twitched. “Huh?! You wanna go, shrimp?!”

“Anytime, you overgrown telephone pole!”

In an instant, the two of them were a flurry of motion, a theatrical brawl of flailing limbs and expertly dodged, half-hearted kicks. It was a familiar dance, a way of communicating that went beyond words. The rest of Toman, relieved by the return to some semblance of normalcy, started cheering them on, the heavy emotion of the last few minutes momentarily forgotten in the chaos.

Just as Mikey was attempting a flying kick that Draken easily sidestepped, the heavy shoji door to the main house slid open with a soft rattle. Shinichiro Sano stood there, a tool rag in one hand and an expression of long suffering amusement on his face. He let out a theatrical sigh as he surveyed the scene of his younger brother’s antics.

“Oi, Manjiro,” Shinichiro said, his voice calm and steady over the din. “Someone is here looking for you.”

Mikey, now tangled up with Draken on the floor, did not even bother to look up. He just rolled his eyes, his breath coming in short, laughing pants. “Tell them I'm busy fighting this damn beanpole.”

Shinichiro let out another sigh, but this one was different. Quieter. A strange smile played on his lips. The rest of Toman, who had been shouting encouragement, slowly fell silent. Their eyes were fixed on the space behind Shinichiro, a sixth sense telling them something had shifted.

And then they saw it.

First, just a tuft of hair peeking out from behind the doorframe. A mop of unruly, black hair. It was a familiar silhouette, a shape etched into their collective memory.

Then, a face. It was older, but the boyish roundness of his cheeks is still there. It was him. Utterly, unmistakably him.

And finally, the eyes.

Ocean blue. As wide and expressive and full of a universe of emotion as they all remembered. The same eyes as the character Yuu in the manga. The same eyes that had cried for them, fought for them, and looked at them with a belief that had single-handedly saved all their souls.

Time stopped. The playful shouts died in Mikey’s and Draken’s throats. The dojo, which seconds before had been filled with noise and motion, was plunged into a silence so profound it was almost painful.

The first to move was Hakkai. A strangled, guttural sob tore from his chest. He scrambled to his feet, tripping over his own legs in his haste to cross the floor. “Takemitchy!” he wailed, the name a prayer of relief. He launched himself at the figure in the doorway, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in his shoulder, his large frame shaking with the force of his sobs.

Hakkai’s cry broke the spell. It was a tidal wave.

“Partner!” Chifuyu was next, his voice cracking as he joined the hug, his own tears streaming freely down his face. Emma let out a choked gasp, dropping the manga as she rushed forward, her arms squeezing around them both. Peh-yan, to everyone’s surprise, was right behind her, his face red and blotchy as he roughly pulled them all into a massive, uncoordinated group hug, his own tears dripping onto Takemichi’s shoulder.

Even Sanzu, who had been watching from the wall with a detached curiosity, moved with a silent, fluid grace. He did not join the crushing embrace, but he came to stand directly beside Takemichi, close enough that their shoulders brushed. He gently, almost reverently, rested his chin on the top of Takemichi’s unruly hair, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, as if the very scent of their returned hero was the only thing that could ground him in this impossible reality.

Takemichi, overwhelmed and trapped in the center of the emotional vortex, was crying too. He was laughing and sobbing at the same time, his hands patting backs and clinging to arms, his voice thick as he mumbled their names over and over again. He was home.

In the middle of the dojo, Mikey and Draken remained frozen, their mock fight completely forgotten. Their eyes were wide, twin mirrors of shock, relief, and a profound, soul deep longing that three years of absence had carved into them.

It was Draken who moved first. His long legs carried him across the floor with a steady, measured pace. He stopped in front of the tearful huddle, waiting for a small opening in the wall of bodies. When he found one, he reached out and gave Takemichi a light, affectionate punch on the shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, a greeting that spoke volumes.

“Long time no see, Takemitchy.” His voice was low and rough, a steady anchor in the storm of emotion.

Takemichi looked up from the hug, wiping at his perpetually leaking eyes with the back of his hand. He gave Draken a watery, brilliant grin. “Yeah. You too, Draken-kun.”

Then, his eyes moved. Past Draken’s towering form, past the tear-streaked faces of his friends, past Shinichiro who was watching from the doorway with a gentle smile. His gaze traveled across the dojo and landed on Mikey.

He was a statue. A solitary island in the middle of the room. He was staring, his dark eyes so wide and intense it felt like a physical touch. He looked at Takemichi not as a person, but as a hallucination, a mirage born from three years of desperate, lonely hope. He looked as if, were he to blink, Takemichi would dissolve into dust and memory. The vibrant, noisy dojo seemed to fade into a dull, distant hum, leaving only the two of them suspended in a fragile, silent bubble that stretched across the polished floorboards.

The others felt the shift in the atmosphere. The world seemed to contract until it contained only the two of them. Slowly, instinctively, the group hug unraveled. They gave Takemichi’s shoulder one last squeeze, a final pat on the back, their tearful smiles now aimed at their frozen commander. One by one, they began to filter out of the dojo, a silent, mutual agreement passing between them. First a grinning baji shoved by kazutora, then Mitsuya guided a still sobbing Hakkai. Chifuyu shot Takemichi a look that promised a thousand questions later. Emma gave her brother a soft, encouraging glance.

Draken was the last one to leave. He paused at the door, his hand resting on the wooden frame. He looked from Mikey’s paralyzed form to Takemichi’s anxious, hopeful face.

“He missed you so much, Takemitchy,” Draken said, his voice quiet and heavy with an understatement that spanned years. Then he slid the door shut, leaving them alone in the sudden, echoing silence.

The only sounds were the distant chirp of cicadas outside and the frantic, riotous pounding of Takemichi’s own heart in his ears. He took a hesitant step forward, his hand twitching at his side, wanting to reach out, to close the distance, to prove he was real.

“Mikey-kun…”

Mikey took a sharp, reflexive step back.

The movement, small as it was, was a physical blow. It lanced through Takemichi’s chest with a pain sharper than any punch he had ever taken. He let his expression crumble, all the hurt and fear of the last three years showing on his face. He had dreamed of this moment, and in his dreams, Mikey had always run to him.

“Mikey-kun,” he said again, his voice trembling now, on the verge of breaking completely. “I’m back.”

For a split second, Mikey’s face twisted into something that looked like pure, undiluted anger. It was the fury of three years of silence. Of staring at a disconnected phone number until the screen burned into his retinas. Of the gaping, festering wound of his absence. It was the rage of a boy who had felt abandoned by the very center of his universe.

But it was just a flicker. A fragile dam holding back an ocean of emotion. And in the next instant, it broke.

Mikey’s face crumpled. The carefully constructed mask of the invincible Mikey, the leader of Toman, shattered into a million pieces. A sob, raw and ragged and ugly, tore from his throat. Tears, hot and furious, began streaming down his face.

He ran.

In two short, desperate strides, he closed the distance that had felt like an eternity. He did not slow down. He crashed into Takemichi with a force that knocked the air from his lungs, his arms wrapping around him with a bruising, desperate strength. He buried his face in the crook of Takemichi’s neck, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had just been torn apart and put back together.

And then they were both crying, great, shuddering sobs that shook their frames and echoed in the empty dojo. It was a deluge of three years of unspoken grief, of profound loneliness, of missing each other with an ache that had become a part of their very bones. Takemichi wrapped his arms tightly around Mikey’s back, his own tears soaking Mikey’s shirt, his fingers digging into the fabric. He could feel the frantic, wild beat of Mikey’s heart against his own, smell the familiar, comforting scent of his shampoo mixed with the salt of his tears. He was real. He was here. This was real.

“Takemitchy,” Mikey choked out, his voice muffled and broken against Takemichi’s skin. He kept repeating it, a desperate mantra against the terrifying fear that this was just another dream he would wake up from. “Takemitchy, you’re back. You’re here. You’re real.”

“Yeah,” Takemichi whispered, his own voice thick with unshed years of sorrow and longing. He pulled back just enough to hold Mikey’s face in his hands, his thumbs stroking away the tears that streamed from those beautiful, broken dark eyes. “I’m back. I’m here, Manjiro.”

Hearing his name, spoken with such tender finality in the quiet of the dojo, seemed to finally anchor Mikey. His violent sobs quieted into shuddering breaths. He leaned into Takemichi’s touch, his eyes searching every plane and angle of the face he had longed to see for so long. The face he had memorized from photographs, the face that had haunted his waking moments and his dreams.

A slow, watery, brilliant smile spread across his lips, full of a relief so profound it was almost painful to witness. “Welcome back, Takemitchy.”

Later, after the tears had subsided into hiccups and shuddering breaths, the others had filtered back in. They brought cushions and snacks and drinks, their movements gentle, their voices soft, careful not to break the fragile, sacred atmosphere that had settled in the dojo. They ended up in a comfortable pile on the floor, a tangle of limbs and quiet conversation. Mikey refused to let go of Takemichi, arranging them so that Takemichi was seated between his legs, his back pressed firmly against Mikey’s chest. Mikey’s arms were wrapped securely around his waist, his chin resting on Takemichi’s shoulder, his breath warm against his neck. It felt like coming home.

They caught him up, filling in the three-year gap with stories of their lives. Mitsuya’s design awards, Baji’s pet shop, Draken and Emma’s disgustingly domestic bliss. They talked about everything and anything, a low, happy murmur of voices filling the dojo.

Finally, after a lull in the conversation, Mitsuya asked the question that still hung in the air, his voice gentle but firm. “Where were you, Takemichi? We were so worried. We looked everywhere.”

Takemichi’s breath hitched, and he felt Mikey’s arms tighten around him, a silent, supportive pressure. He stared down at his hands, which were nervously twisting in his lap. “I...,” he whispered, his voice thick with a shame that had been eating at him for years. “I’m so, so sorry.”

He took a shaky breath, the story tumbling out of him in a rush. “A few weeks after I arrived, my phone was stolen at a festival.”

His voice cracked. “I didn’t have any of your numbers memorized. I know it’s so stupid, but I always just relied on my contact list. I was completely cut off, my parents are too busy with their work and they said no when I want to visit here. It felt like I was drowning. And the longer it went on… the more ashamed I felt. How could I just show up after months, after a year, after three years, with nothing? I felt like such a failure.”

The dojo was silent, everyone absorbing his quiet, painful confession. There was no anger in their eyes, only a deep, shared sadness for the struggle he had endured completely alone.

“You idiot,” Chifuyu said, his voice choked with emotion. “You absolute idiot. You’re our friends. You think we care about any of that? We would have come for you. We would have helped.”

“He’s right,” Draken added, his voice firm and unwavering. “You should have just called collect from a payphone, you dummy. We would have been there in a heartbeat.”

Fresh tears pricked at Takemichi’s eyes. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Emma said softly. She had retrieved the manga, which had been abandoned on the floor. She held it in her hands like a sacred text. A mischievous, determined glint entered her eyes, a deliberate attempt to steer them away from the sadness. She crawled over to where he and Mikey were entwined.

She held out the manga and a pen. “Enough sad stuff. We have more important business to discuss. Please sign my manga, sensei!”

The sudden shift was jarring. Takemichi stared at the manga in her hands, the cover illustration of Ren and Yuu, his secret heart laid bare, looking back at him. A hot, furious flush crept up his neck, spreading across his entire face until he was certain he was the color of a ripe tomato.

“E-Emma-chan!” he stammered, his hands flying up to hide his burning face. “Wh-where did you get that?!”

A wave of relieved laughter erupted from the group, the heavy atmosphere finally lifting completely.

“We’re your biggest fans, Takemitchy!” Hakkai declared, giving him a wobbly thumbs up.

“The romantic development is a little cliché, but the emotional core is strong,” Mitsuya critiqued with a thoughtful, professional frown. “Hakkai keeps bursting my ears with them."

“I cried at the end!” Chifuyu admitted, not a hint of shame in his voice.

Takemichi wanted the dojo floor to swallow him whole. This was a thousand times more embarrassing than any fight he had ever lost. He risked a sideways glance at Mikey, who had been completely silent through the whole exchange. He braced himself for the teasing, for disgust, for an awkwardness that would shatter this perfect, fragile reunion.

But Mikey was not looking at the manga. He was looking at Takemichi. And he was smiling.

It was not his usual cocky grin or his wide, boyish smile. This was something else entirely. It was a soft, gentle, private smile that reached all the way to his dark eyes, making them crinkle at the corners. It was full of an unshielded, overwhelming affection so potent it made Takemichi’s breath catch in his throat. There was no mockery in it, no teasing. Only a profound and gentle understanding.

Mikey shifted, resting his head on Takemichi’s shoulder so he could look into his impossibly blue eyes. He reached up, his fingers cool against Takemichi’s burning cheek, his touch feather-light. He leaned in, his voice a low, intimate murmur meant only for Takemichi, though the entire room held its breath to listen.

“Instead of Ren and Yuu,” Mikey whispered, his smile widening just a fraction as he saw the dawning, terrified hope in Takemichi’s wide eyes. “Let's make it to Manjiro and Takemichi?”