"I still don't get how Peke J is so clingy with Y/n. He just met her."

Chifuyu wondered with his mouth full of food as he watched the black cat curled up close to me, as I was sitting on Baji's bed in a comfortable position. Peke J purred while I scratched him gently, an obvious sign that he was enjoying the contact. Baji got comfortable next to me on the bed, a bit further from me this time as he stuffed his mouth with yakisoba, before placing the cat treats on my knee. I took one and offered it to the cat, which it happily.

"Cats like to pick their favorite humans." He commented, staring down at the cat as he handed the yakisoba to Chifuyu. "And they can tell the good people from the bad people." No wonder Peke J liked her the first moment he saw her.

"You must be a wonderful person if you got Peke J and Baji to like you so quickly." Chifuyu grinned at me as he used his chopsticks to eat. I closed my eyes and smiled a bit. "You are giving me too much credit."

Τhe moment I blinked, the yakisoba appeared right in front of me. I looked up to see Chifuyu offering it to me with a smile. I smiled at him and took it, using the extra chopsticks and started eating.

Looking down at the food made me recall one of the conversations I had with Baji over the phone one time. He told me about how Chifuyu and him would tend to share yakisoba often and how it was some kind of tradition between them. It made me feel a bit guilty, cause I felt like maybe it was intruding for me to be part of something special between the two of them, even if it was something as simple as sharing food. But looking up at the two, they both seemed unbothered by me eating along with them.

------------------------------------------

My eyes brightened up the moment they noticed the adorable bunny plushy inside the claw machine. It was white, it had a pair of pink marble eyes, a pink nose and a cute little red bow on it's neck. It looked extremely adorable.

The perfect gift to surprise Emma with.

Don't take me wrong - it's not like I wouldn't like to gift all my friends something. But knowing that Emma was a huge fan of plushies meant that I could NOT let go of the opportunity to get her the single and cutest plushy in the clawing machine I found right outside of the local arcade store, while I was on my way home.

With a determined look on my face, I placed my hands inside my pockets or wallet to grab my coins and made my way towards the claw machine, as if I had already claimed the plushy the moment I laid my eyes on it. I would win it for sure. For Emma.

-------------------------------------

"Ugh.... It's obviously rigged!"

I groaned in frustration, wanting to punch the machine, break it down and get the damn plushy already. I lost count of how many times I tried to win it, but it kept falling down. Even though I probably played around... well, seven times to win it, it felt like it was a hundred. And the anxiety of someone watching me fail miserably made me feel a bit embarassed but I didn't care.

At first I was fully positively, thinking that it was okay and that the next time I would win it. But the more I kept losing, the more frustrated I got.

"Yeah, you really suck at it."

My heart jumped the moment I heard a deep voice speak beside me, keeping his distance between us.

I glanced at him very quickly, not really paying any attention to his features yet, before back at the machine and let out a low, fake laugh. "Yeah.... thanks. I know."

That moment, the tall figure made his way towards the claw machine, blocking my view as I stared at the black jacket with the random white designs.

I took a step backwards and then leaned my head to the side, to see the guy putting a coin inside the machine as he focused on the target - the bunny plushy.

Both of us were silent, apart from the backround noise and the sound of the mechanics working and the claw moving around. The guy pressed a button and the claw moved down, getting a hold of the plushy. It then went up again and it started moving, my eyes widening as he successfully won the plushy without it falling.

I stood there flabbergasted, as he leaned down and took the prize before handing it towards me.

"..." I slowly took it and looked up at his black, expressionless eyes. "Ah- Thank you, thank you so much..."

"Yeah, don't mention it." He waved his hand off as he turned to his side, giving me a good look of his side profile and hair. His sides were completely shaved and the rest of his blonde hair was tied in a ponytail/braid style.

My eyes lingered on the black dragon tattoo on the side of his face as he started walking away, his hands inside his pockets as he didn't bother to send me another glance.

I stared at him for a while longer, my eyes slightly squinted as I felt like something about him and maybe the tattoo was familiar to me.

But as soon as I looked down at the rabbit plushy that was in my hands now, I smiled happily, thankful for the quiet dude winning this for me, despite his comment about how I sucked at it. Although I felt a bit annoyed at the thought of him just standing there and watching me fail over and over again instead of saving me time and money and not helping me sooner. But hey, he was kind enough to help me out.

-----------------------------------------

I stood right outside Emma, Mikey and-....... and Shinichiro's house.

I was very excited and nervous at the same time. I hadn't inform Mikey and Emma that I was back. They still thought I was abroad, cause I never informed them and chose to surprise them instead. I just hoped that I was not coming in a bad time or during a time everyone was absent or busy.

I had called Yuzuha earlier too to let her know I was back, but her phone was turned of. So, I decided to visit the Sanos first and make time for her another time.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, knocking on the door and standing there, clenching the rabbit plushy on my hand and holding my breath.

Standing outside the Sano's house felt weird. Last time I was there was four years ago. I was shorter, the entire atmosphere was different...

And Shinichiro was still here.

I started remembering the times when Shinichiro would open the door and smile down at me. He would greet me, ruffle my hair, give me a snack and act like the sweetest person. It was so comforting.

I greatly missed him. Slowly, all the negative emotions and the intense pain of his loss started catching up to me again.

It felt as if all the life and beauty around me was fading away. As if the birds' singing was fading along and I was slowly being brought back to the day H/n told me about his death.

But before the misery and the agony could absorb me and bring me back to my worst moments of my life, during a period where not only I but all my loved ones suffered by his loss, before I could fall down and have a breakdown just by remembering and remembering Shinichiro's smile, his voice and his presence, the door opened.

And all of a sudden, I was brought back.

A familiar girl with long blond hair let down, longer than what I remembered was on the other side, staring at me with her amber doe eyes curiously, unblinking.

That was the moment everything went back to life and all the beautiful colors appeared in my world once again, as if they never went away in the first place.

"Y/n." Emma spoke quietly, staring at me and her face unchanging. Soon enough, her entire face brightened and she put her hands on her mouth, her cheeks brightening in color as she gave me one of her prettiest smiles I missed terribly. "Y/N?!" She cried out happily and pulled me in for an embrace.

------------------------------------

I never realized just how much I had truly missed Emma. The moment we hugged each other, the moment I heard her voice and saw her again it felt as if I was alive again. This was the effect Emma had on people.

She was a sweetheart. A goddess. There was no way someone could hate this girl. She was the most precious person ever.

Emma cried in happiness and it took her a while to calm down, but the moment I showed her the plushy I won for her -unknownst to her of how many failures I went through until someone else had to appear to the rescue-, she cried harder. At some point it was as if she even wanted to start kissing me. Which I wouldn't be agains---

We were laying on her bed close to each other, sharing so many conversations and catching up to things we didn't get to talk about.

Anything except Shinichiro.

We didn't avoid talking about him because we wanted to forget. We just decided to stick to talking about much happier topics for the time being and Emma even order food and snacks for us to enjoy as we put a movie to play, although we never ended up paying any attention to it.

"Where is Mikey?" I asked, my mouth stuffed with pizza. "He's with his gang... Again." Emma rolled her eyes. "He has been very busy with Toman lately. I don't even know what they are doing there but he spends most of his time outside with the gang and Ken-chan." She pouted. "He barely notices me cause they always fight with other gangs! I don't get boys, Y/n. All they do is fight and get hurt. What is so good about it anyways?"

"Yeah.." I laughed a bit. "I don't know either. But as long as they have fun, not get hurt and... do good things it's all cool... right?" I said, trying to think in a more positive way.

She pouted playfully before she shot me a sweet smile. "Don't worry about Mikey. He's doing okay. I'm sure he will be very excited when he finds out you're back." She then got up and stretched her entire body and smiled. "How about we go out? Just the two of us together?"

----------------------------------------

Emma-chan and I decided to go on what she called 'coffee date'.

She brought me to a cozy coffe shop and we found ourselves seated in a nice place inside. The interior was very nice and comforting with many fake leaves and vines surrounding the walls and corners, along some pictures decorating the place. It wasn't too crowded thankfully, but there were some people of different ages there, mostly teenagers around our age.

We both got the drinks of our choice and allowed ourselves to be absorbed in the friendly atmosphere of the cafe. We both sat right in front of each other. On our left was an empty table and on the right was an elderly couple minding their own business.

Emma was talking about Mikey and clearly expressing her annoyed behavior with his silliness. I took a sip of my drink, a small smile on my lips as I stared inside her eyes, appreciating the moment I was spending with her and thinking about how happy I was to be back and spend time with Emma again. I dearly missed her and I couldn't get over how much prettier she had gotten.

At some point, Emma started telling me a bit about 'Toman' ... Mikey's gang.

She told me something about a serious conflict that had happened recently. She mentioned to me a rival gang called 'Moebius' and how dangerous it was. She told me that apparently that gang did some terrible things that caused a war. Moebius hurt a friend of someone named 'Pah-chin', a friend of Mikey's.... and they stole from him, hurt and killed the family of that person and even raped the girlfriend of Pah's friend. I was beyond disgusted as she told me those things and she herself noted that Mikey and Draken would try to keep Emma away from anything assosicated with the gang issues as to protect her, but she still found her ways.

She mentioned that during a fight, Mikey won but Pah stabbed the leader of Moebius and he turned himself in. This caused Mikey and Draken to have a fight because of some of their different opinions... But in the end, everything went well in the end, thanks to a blonde idiot named 'Takemitchy' or whatever, so Draken and Mikey made up. She even told me that she made friends with Takemitchy's girlfriend, a very nice girl named 'Hina'.

Obviously, there was a lot of detail in the story and the conflict and I found myself being so absorbed in it. I was both disturbed and shocked by what I heard from her and how much violence there was, but I also felt my admiration for Mikey increase with how much he was there to support his friends based on what Emma said. His acts were very heroic and he obviously cherished his friends and was willing to fight to death for them and their justice.

Emma had so much more to say about the story in further detail that I was more than willing to listen. However, this very serious and deep conversation was unfortunately cut before I could hear the rest of what she wanted to share with me.

Our focus shifted away the moment the entire backround noise and people speaking quietened down almost fully. I turned my head slightly behind me and noticed a few shocked and terrified faces, whispering to each other.

"Shit, we need to leave."

"Is it them?!"

"What are the Haitani brothers doing here?!"

"No way!"

I was extremely confused over what the fuss was about. Along with the quiet mumblings, two pair of footsteps were heard, the heels of the shoes clicking and getting louder, as if getting closer.

And then, two peculiar, yet very handsome boys appeared on my sight. One tall one, who had shoulder-length black and slightly blonde dyed hair, seperated in two pigtails in front of him, the other a bit shorter, his hair blonde with light blue dyed streaks.

Both looking completely unbothered by the amount of attention they were getting from the crowd, decided to take their seats on the empty table on our left.

Great.

Emma and I glanced at them as they sat on the table next to us. I was sitting right in front of Emma, making us face each other. The blonde and blue haired guy was sitting almost on my side while the taller black and blonde haired guy was sitting on the chair close to Emma.

We both exchanged looks, both not knowing how to feel. They both looked rather interesting and quite the characters and the reactions of everyone around us seeing those two confirmed just that. I was not sure whether Emma was clueless on who those two were, but on my part, I had no idea why everyone looked so shocked and terrified.

The two got comfortable on their seats, both crossing their legs as they calmly talked and looked through their menus.

The entire cafe was completely silent, except the relaxing music playing in the backround.

The waiter approaching them was trembling on his knees and fixed his glasses, fidgeting the pen he was holding. The poor guy looked ready to collapse.

"U-Um-Uh-how-What-uh-" The waiter stuttered and swallowed harshly and forced a smile on his face. "H-How can I help you today-What-"

The blonde and blue haired guy did not even glance at the waiter and he ordered two drinks calmly. The waiter flinched and nodded, saying a 'Coming right up!' and immediately running to give their order.

Emma and I, along with everybody else remained silent, before Emma quietly took a sip of her drink. She looked at me and smiled a bit nervously, trying to strike a conversation with me. "So, uh...." She was definitely struggling to find something to talk about. "The drink is nice, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," I nodded, smiling and averting my gaze. "Totally."

And then... uncomfortable silence again.

That was before Emma accidentally dropped her lipgloss on the ground, as she took it out, intending to use it.

That caught the attention of the two guys next to us who immediately looked down at the fallen object, which happened to land right between the feet of the braided guy. "Hm?" He hummed before slowly smiling, leaning down and taking it. He took a look at it for a moment, before he gave it to Emma really slowly.

"Um..." She slowly reached out to take it from him. "Thank you..." She muttered, before extremely quickly stuffing it in her bag, not feeling like using it at that moment.

He looked at her with his violet eyes and gave her a smile, one that didn't sit very right with me for some reason. "You're welcome~" He spoke, uncrossing his legs and focusing on her. "What's your number, cutie?" He asked. His brother chuckled and shook his head. "Not again.."

"She's taken." I spoke in a low, unemotionless tone, staring at him and taking a sip from my drink slowly to calm my nerves and anxiety. They increased the moment I gained everyone's attention.

"Oh?" The braided guy tilted his hair slightly, smiling at me and staring at me, before the other guy also turned his face towards me, the pair of violet and brown eyes penetrating through my soul. "Are you her girlfriend?" He spoke slowly and softly, as if he was mocking me.

"That is none of your business." I replied, slowly putting my drink down and closing my eyes.

I was not looking for trouble. But with the way everyone around us was reacting, these guys were not good news. And seeing this guy trying to even flirt with Emma, whether it was serious or as a joke was not something I would let happen. Especially when they did not look like good news and Emma already liked someone.

"...." The brown eyed guy kept staring at me sideways with no expression. I couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling because he didn't show any emotion.

The braided guy smiled at me and rested his chin on the palm of his hand, staring at me. "So protective~ It almost feels like we are unwanted here, Rindou. Don't you think so?" He teased. The blond and blue haired guy, named Rindou hummed and kept staring at me. That moment, the waiter brought the two their drinks with trembling hands, but nobody paid attention to him. "Very much so."

I stared at them with narrowed eyes for a moment, before looking back at Emma and taking another sip of my drink. I did not want any more attention drawn on us. I just wanted Emma and I to be fine, safe and relaxed and not interact with trouble.

Although the two kept staring at me, Rindou unexpressionlessly and the other guy with a peculiar smile, they eventually went back to their own things, drinking their drinks and forgetting about us.

At some point, Rindou looked over at a random group of boys and raised his index finger and motioned them to get close. "Hey, one of you guys come pay for our drinks, or we will beat the shit out of you."

The boys flinched, and they instictively pushed one specific boy towards them. The poor boy who looked a bit younger than us slowly walked close to them and placed the bills on their table, before running away.

The two guys grinned and took the money before stuffing it inside their pockets.

Emma glared at them. "Hey! What are you doing?" She said as if scolding them. My blood ran cold. "You can't steal people's money! Give it back to the kid." Emma said, but it only resulted in the two guys smiling and looking unbothered.

The guy flipped one of his braid backwards dramatically. "We already did, sweetheart." He said, unbothered.

Personally, I was very bothered by this behavior. Just who were those guys anyways? And how low could they fall to threaten a bunch of kids just for some money?

But no matter how annoyed I was, the last thing I wanted was for Emma to get in trouble, even though she was right to get angry. "Don't you have any shame?" Emma glared at them. "What kind of people just do that? Man up, return the money and pay for your drinks. We'll call the police!"

My face numbed the moment Emma said those things.

Emma, no-

"Oh?" Rindou asked, casually taking a sip of his drink and looking at his brother. "Are we being threatened, Ran?" "We most certainly are, dear brother." Ran replied with a smile, looking at Emma. "We'd kindly suggest you keep out of our business." Rindou replied calmly. "Don't take us wrong," Ran continued with a smile. "We don't tend to threaten or scare girls. Though I would advise you and your pretty girlfriend to sit back, relax and let us do our job in peace. We don't want any cops involved now, do we?" Ran's pretty violet eyes narrowed slightly and his chesire like grin stretched as he twirled his braid playfully.

Emma was about to say something, until I immediately got up from my seat. Seeing as we had both finished our drinks and payed and we were already planning to leave soon, I focused my attention on her. "It's fine, Emma. Let's go." I spoke quietly. Emma stared at me in the eyes, not saying anything else.

Ran hummed in amusement. "See, Emma-chan? Your girlfriend knows what's best for you two."

I turned and looked Ran inside the eyes and just froze, staring at him.

Rindou stared between me and his brother calmly, sitting like a distinguished gentleman and quietly sipping his drink. Ran smiled at me. "Don't look so stiff. I won't do anything to your girlfriend and steal her away. Although it would be fun to see the reaction on your fa-"

SMACK!

A few horrified gasps were heard around us the moment I stepped forward and gave Ran a slap across his face, my face expressionless as his cheek started to form a soft red spot, where my hand came in contact with.

Rindou froze in spot, his eyes and eyebrows a bit widen as he stood there with the cup of his drink mid-air, as if he also stopped breathing.

Not taking any other moment to see how things would escalate and how the two brothers would react, I took Emma by the hand and dragged her out of the coffee shop, as she quickly grabbed her purse with her free hand.

----------------------------------

As we exited the building and started walking away, my face remained expressionless and I was quiet, not letting go of Emma's hand and dragging her away.

Emma stared at me, shock written all over her features as she allowed me to drag her away. "... Y/n... are you okay?" She asked quietly.

I turned to look at her, my face blank.

"..."

"..."

"..."

My eyes were locked with her soft amber ones for what seemed like forever. Then, I clunged onto her arm tightly and brought myself closer to her.

"No Emma, I was terrified!" I said, closing my eyes tightly and hugging her. "I was so scared and I don't know what I was doing! I-I acted on instinct!" I said, my anxiety suddenly taking over. "I was afraid that they would continue bothering you and I thought they were going to do worse-!"

Emma, who had a surprised look on her face, suddenly covered her mouth as she started giggling, making me shocked and glance at her. "... Huh? What-What's funny about this? I could have angered these weirdos and right now they could have started following us and try to hurt us!" I exclaimed and quickly looked around to make sure that they were indeed not following us.

"Aw, you're amazing!~♡" Emma giggled and hugged me, a soft reddish color appearing on her cheeks. "You're my hero, Y/n.♡ You should have seen yourself when that idiot was bothering us! You were so protective of me!" She giggled, before her eyes softly narrowed and looked down, leaning her head against my shoulder by my side and hugging my arm. "I felt so safe with you." She said softly.

My heart and face warmed up by her words as we kept walking. I averted my gaze, swallowing hard and smiling nervously. "Eheh... I just- I kind of acted on instinct, you know? I didn't want any bastards harass-"

"Language!" She glared at me.

".... Losers. I didn't want any losers harassing you." I corrected myself.

Emma smiled to herself, leaning on my side comfortably. She truly admired my behavior and my courage to stand up for her against anyone like that, even if they did not initiate any violence in the first place. Although she noticed how anxious I really was, I still stood up and put a brave face on, took her away from those two idiots and even slapped one when I felt he was getting intrusive. Was that a smart move on my part? No. Would I do it again? Most definitely, and Emma knew that.

Emma also couldn't help how her heart fluttered when Ran thought her and I were dating. 

She turned behind her, before back at me with a smile. "You don't need to worry, I don't think they're following us." She giggled again. "That slap was very personal though."

I blushed and looked away, scratching the back of my neck. "Jeeeezz, if those two see me again outside I'll definitely have my ass kicked!"

"But they said they don't bother girls." Emma mumbled. "Then you'll have to be really careful and stay away from danger! And maybe have company wherever you go, too. But I doubt you'll see these two weirdos around again." She said with a small shrug. "I haven't seen them two around this area before, I doubt they'll come again. Unless they really like this area."

"Yeah, you're right there is NO way I'll be seeing those two again. Problem solved, I don't have to be worried." I agreed, as if trying to make myself feel better. But yeah, there was no way they could remember me and find me again.

Right?

Emma locked eyes with me, giving me an adorable and kind smile that made me see pink and glitters all over the backround. "Just be careful, okay? I really don't want you to get hurt or be in danger for me."

I looked away from her, blushing. ".... Can't promise that."

"Hey!"

I snorted and we both started laughing, before we noticed we were still holding hands. However, Emma just smiled and squeezed my hand a bit tighter with a smile, not minding this. As a response, I squeezed her hand gently and we kept walking.

".... Mikey needs to hear about this."

"Emma, please."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NEXT UPDATE: May 31st.

From the next chapter, we'll finally see Mikey again but also Toman for the first time, which means more characters and stuff will appear. :)

I was originally probably going to add a few more chapters before we would jump to the story plot, but I kind of wanted to speed things up a bit, so after the next update we will FINALLY follow the Tokyo Revengers plot. At least on the most part. Because in some scenes of the anime Y/n will not take parts in, however these parts will be filled with other things and interactions happening outside of the story, if you get what I mean.

And the moment we do jump in the story plot, although updates may be slower, the chapters will most likely be a lot longer than I usually write them.

By the way, have you checked out Ken Wakui's manga 'Negai no Astro' and the anime Windbreaker? I personally am loving them so far and especially Windbreaker. Looking forward to each update. I'm in love with the characters and some of them really remind me of TR's characters 🥹 what are your thoughts?

Thank you for all the support and your comments ! 💖💖