Don't Wait For Me | TakeMikey

Chapter 1

The sun had just started rising, rays slowly peeking from the distance, showering over mountain peaks and clouds. In the peaceful morning filled with the sounds of distant birds chirping and a few loose roosters crowing, the sound of a motorcycle noisily running down the streets could be heard, drowning out any other sound in its wake. If this had started recently, the neighborhood would have complained with how loud it is but it hadn't. It's been years since they started hearing this motorcycle travel the streets all alone without the company of the many other bikes they used to hear along with it and they felt nothing but pity towards the owner.

They all knew what had transpired to the lone Sano boy.

Left with no one but an adoptive brother who held no proper brotherly feelings for him, his friends and family had left him one after the other, taken from him by death's hands.

Everyone knew.

Sano Manjirou was alone in the world.

.

Mikey's Babu slowed to a stop as he turned up into his deceased brother's garage. There parked were three other bikes that he took upon himself to keep and maintain. And as he passes each and every one of them, he greets, "Good morning". He registers answers to his greeting in the same old, youthful voices of his deceased friends and brother. Kazutora's being younger than most. He parks his bike next to Draken's beloved Zephyr. He had to fight with Mitsuya just to be able to be the one to keep it after the orphan's death.

He doesn't quite remember what happened the day they fought it out but in the next day, Mitsuya had given him the bike, his body littered with cuts and bruises, eyes filled with pity and worry.

They don't talk about it again.

When Mikey got his dragon tattoo, Mitsuya was there, watching as inked needle pierced the thin skin of his neck. Mikey neither flinched nor winced. He was calm and seemed to feel nothing. It was after Baji left to join Valhalla and he wanted Draken to guide him. When Mikey showed up on a meeting with his newly-inked dragon tattoo, nobody said anything.

They acted as if nothing had changed.

As if no one had died.

As if no one had left.

Baji died a month after that from Kazutora's hands and Kazutora from his.

Mikey entered the house through the back door. Faintly, he could hear Emma greet him as he passes through the laundry room. He knows better than to look back to the empty rooms after doing so in the first few weeks of his return. He hears clunking of dishes and plates from the kitchen and he misses Emma more. He missed so much of her life.

Her growth.

Her achievements.

Her graduation.

Her death.

Her funeral.

Emma died on her way to visit him in prison from Shinichiro's grave and Mikey blames himself.

Stepping past the threshold to the kitchen, he sees a mop of black hair behind the countertop, presumably rummaging for a bowl that's gone missing. Mikey's feet pads through the wooden boards of the kitchen floor, making his way to the table where his bowl and plate was placed, food steaming and egg cooked exactly the way he wanted. Something that he always ate in the mornings for the last two years since returning from prison at age 25. Sitting down and expressing his gratitude for another meal in his miserable life, he thought of a way that he could to make the black haired man behind the counter to stop whatever he was doing and be on his way already. A few more minutes passed and Mikey has finally had enough, his short temper shorter than his below average height.