second hand (maitake / takemikey)

the one where they meet again

The last thing he remembered was falling off a building- or being shot?.. His memory was a bit unreliable due to blood loss.. There was one thing from that future permanently carved into his memory: The promise he made to Manjiro Sano.

That promise and the face Mikey had made when he'd called out to him. The darkness around his eyes a stark contrast to his lighter skin and blonde hair, "You always put all the burden on yourself!"

"Just say it once!" Even without it, he would have tried to save him, but thankfully Mikey's promise became the trigger to go back in time again.

Before he met Mikey, he never thought much about time, but recently it was one of the things he thought about the most. Time was an interesting thing. Who even decided on time? Why put numbers on existence? He didn't have a lot of time to help Mikey, but he wouldn't waste a second of it.

Takemichi had come to realize; he had a very... interesting relationship with time. It wasn't a push and pull, or a twist or turn... It was similar to a coloring book, time gave him a blank page and he filled it. Even if he'd been given the same blank before, he'd fill it in a different way- eventually it'd be correct, right?

When he woke up in the past, he was back in the train station. He'd been given more time.

"Oi! Takemichi!"

Akkun was looking at him like he was crazy, which in all honesty is exactly how he felt. "Hurry up."

July 4th, 2005, a flip phone and 500 yen in his pocket, he was back at the start, before he even met Mikey .

It was both a blessing and a cruel twist of fate in a sense because getting close to Mikey in the first place had been a very lucky break, let alone getting it to happen again. He didn't know Chifuyu yet or Draken... but he did have that extra time.

When his friends mentioned trying to beat up the 'trendy city boys', he cringed- he knew after doing this two times, this wasn't going to go well, but of course he didn't argue. It was necessary. A couple hours of painful deja vu later, he was in front of Hina's door. She looked at him the way she always had and it made his stomach flip. He felt horrible for giving up everything he'd worked for, everything he and Naoto had worked for to save her... but he had to save Mikey. He wouldn't be able to live happily if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to live without Mikey.

"All you do is get into fights-" He almost laughed because this was nothing compared to the fights he'd eventually (try to avoid). She sighed and put her hands on his cheeks, "As your best friend, I want to know when something is wrong."

Best friend? He felt both a weight lift off him and something inside him twist. He knew the uncomfortable feeling, but he wasn't sure how to place it. Currently: it was bittersweet. While he didn't have to worry about her being in danger, it still left him with an empty feeling. It piled on with the emptiness of knowing he didn't have Chifuyu to lean on or Draken- maybe it was less about losing the relationship and more about losing his bonds and sense of belonging.

"Well?" What if he just tried to tell her everything right now? What if he just said 'Hey so I'm Takemichi from the future who time traveled back to the past, then the future again and then the past again and I'm very fucking stressed right now bestie' .