CONNECTIONS, H. Kazutora

08

That voice... Baji?

Everyone turned to the direction from where the voice was coming from and there we see Baji walking towards us with a mischievous grin on his face.

"Things just got interesting!" He said standing behind Mucho and Mitsuya.

"Baji..."

"Ain't you be on house arrest?"

I couldn't say anything. I just froze in place. Suddenly in a swift motion, Baji ran towards Takemichi landing a punch right in the face. He just kept on beating the living hell out of Takemichi but thank god Mitsuya stepped in.

"Cut it out Baji." Mitsuya said as he grabbed Baji's arm stopping him from throwing another punch at Takemichi.

"Let me go Mitsuya, I'll kill you." Baji said with a bored face.

"You wanna go bastard..?" Mitsuya asked Baji with an irk forming on his face. Wait hold on what's happening now? Isn't Mitsuya gonna stop him?

Baji shook Mitsuya's hand away and turned to Mikey who was under the tree.

"MIKEY!!" Baji yelled out making Mikey look over his shoulder.

"Why are you even here Baji? You caused infighting in the gang and have been banned from our gatherings..." Mikey stated.

"I just punched another shitty brat. Well since I ruined your precious gathering, are you gonna throw me out this time?"

"...."

"I'm leaving to join Valhalla."

Wait what? Leave Toman to join Valhalla? The gang Kazu is in?

"You don't need a trouble maker like me around right Mikey?"

"BAJI!!"

Baji started walking away. I don't know what to do. What should I do? My body moved on its own and ran to Baji gripping on the toman uniform he was wearing.

"Let me go (name)." He said without even looking at me.

"Baji what happened? You can't just leave toman all of a sudden..." I mumbled just loud enough for him to hear while looking down at my feet.

"(name)."

"You trust me right?! Just tell me what happened-" He shoved me back causing me to lose my balance and almost falling on the ground.

I opened my eyes after realizing that I didn't hit the ground. I look up to see Mitsuya with his hands wrapped around my back to prevent me from landing on the ground.

"Baji you fucker." Mitsuya scoffed.

"Tch. Whatever bye." Was all Baji said before leaving.

Right after he was completely gone, the other toman members also silently left leaving only me, Mitsuya, Mikey and a passed out Takemichi on the ground from getting punched by Kisaki. I just kept on eyeing the ground and spaced out.

"Let's get you home (name)." Mitsuya said in a gentle voice causing me to snap back to my senses.

"Huh? Oh okay." I replied back and followed him down the stairs.

We walked in silence along the streets not even looking at one another the entire time. When we finally got back to my apartment I turned around and thanked Mitsuya. He gave me a soft smile and walked away to the same path we came from the shrine. Isn't the path to his house the other way?

"Mitsuya aren't you gonna go home?" I asked him trying my best to not wake up my neighbors.

He turned his head looking at me over his shoulder and answered me with another gentle smile "I'm gonna go spy on Mikey and Takemichi, I have a feeling that they're gonna talk about something once Takemichi wakes up".

"Ohh really? Then would you mind recording an audio of their conversation and send it to me right after?" I asked him as I unlocked my apartment door.

He nodded and walked away disappearing into the shadows. An hour later, I received an audio recording from Mitsuya like I asked for and listened to it. In the audio, Mikey was talking to Takemichi about his childhood best friend Baji, how he started Toman along with Baji Draken Pah-Chin Mitsuya but didn't bring up Kazutora, and how he'll kill Takemichi if he doesn't bring Baji back before the Valhalla fight with Toman, blabla you get the point. And of course Mitsuya got caught by Mikey. What an idiot. Then Takemichi became an official member of Toman. After I was done listening to the whole thing, I shut off my phone and went to sleep.

The next day after school, I told Takemichi's friends about Takemichi becoming a member of Toman since they're my friends too and I couldn't help but share that information. The 5 of us went to Takemichi's classroom and saw him spacing out at his desk.

"Takemichi! (name) told us you became a member of Toman!" Akkun yelled out at Takemichi.

"Huh oh yeah!" Takemichi said with a nervous grin.

I just went over to one of the chairs and placed it between Makoto and Takuya just listening to them praising Takemichi but at the same time making fun of him. Takemichi then told the others about the conversation with Mikey. Yamagishi started explaining every single detail about Valhalla as he drew things on the chalk board. He mentioned about this guy named Hanma Shuji and that the gang currently has 300 members. I got a little bored so I wasn't really listening to anything he said but then he mentioned another name, Kazutora Hanemiya.

"Huh?" A voice came from the classroom door causing everyone including me to turn our heads to the side to see who it was.

My eyes widened when I see the figure walking in with his hands tucked in the pockets of his pants.

"Is school over already?" Kazu asked looking at the chairs behind us.

"Kazu what are you doing here—" I got cut off by Makoto who started becoming a disrespectful asshole towards Kazu. Yamagishi has a nervous expression on his face as he ran to Makoto telling him to stop.

"Hey, you guys know Takemichi Hanagaki?" Kazu asked tilting his head to side making his earring jingle.

I couldn't hear anything or do anything else except staring at Kazu who seems to not had noticed me yet. He suddenly ran passed me and went over to Takemichi hugging him tightly.

"Yayyy!! I'm so happy! You're Takemichi right?? I had no Idea there was a Toman member one grade below mine!" Kazu said excitedly still hugging Takemichi.

"Okay Takemichi! Let's go to Valhalla's hideout!" Kazu said again about to drag Takemichi out of the classroom but stopped in his tracks due to his shirt being pulled.

"Hm?" He looked at who was pulling him to see me just gazing down at the floor.

"Kazu where have you been..? I got worried that something might've happened to you—"

"I don't know who you are, please let go of my shirt." He said with no emotions in his sentence.