𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑. || 𝐓𝐎𝐊𝐘𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒

PART 25.

SEPTEMBER, 2005

His features instinctively gave a warm smile before he held out his hand to greet her. Sakae's head tilted in confusion since he didn't recognize her in the slightest. That was until Y/n reached out her own hand to shake his, exposing her tattooed palm. It was a distinctive design and a one of a kind request made by a young girl. "Ah, I remember now. Little prodigy turned aspiring delinquent." There seemed to be a sense of lingering regret in his voice when he spoke and even as he looked at her.

"I was no prodigy."

"You look so different than before I almost didn't recognize you," he reluctantly decided to admit. Sakae was rather disappointed in himself for not noticing her because of a few external changes. "What's this about you needing a place?"

Y/n refused to admit to him of all people that she needed help. He knew her when she was pathetic, young, and chasing behind the footsteps of her brother. Sakae warned her against the path she was headed and at the time such warnings were always prone to fall on her deaf ears. He had sacrificed everything to support the twins back then. Y/n held the utmost respect for him for that, but he betrayed them.

"I don't need anything from you," Y/n said and stepped back.

Sakae was the father figure she had needed. Not the one she wanted.

That is what drove them apart in the end.

"You heard her Ken. If she doesn't need help then there's nothing to discuss here."

Draken didn't understand how the conversation had gone south so quickly. Y/n was already on her way out and Sakae just watched her longingly. His lips upturned to a proud grin upon realizing that she had grown and matured well without him. She was no longer the dependent young girl who followed the decisions others would push on her. Even if Y/n hated his guts to the grave, Sakae didn't mind in the slightest. He would never change a single decision he had made up until now whether she approved or not.

Mitsuya left behind Y/n after saying a quick, "Excuse us."

There she was, in the hallway, staring at a frame hung up on the wall. It was a photo of Y/n and Shuji in school uniforms which at that age was a rare sight. Y/n distinctly remembered how Sakae begged and pleaded for the two of them to at least pretend they were heading to school each time they would leave the tattoo shop.

'Kids your age should be studying for tests or something. Not hanging around here in an alleyway tattoo shop,' he would say while scolding us and drawing smoke from his cigarette. 'You two have this spark and with it you could do amazing things.'

Yet, her she was, an accessory to crimes she never thought she would be caught up in and acting friendly alongside the very gang whom she committed against. Y/n even helped orchestrate the downfall of Draken, the very person who is helping her right now. What would Mitsuya think if she were to tell him?

"Y/n, you doing okay?" Mitsuya came up and asked with his usual sweet concern obvious on his face.

What was she thinking?

"Just fine. I needed a bit of air."

She could never tell him about what she had done or what she was eventually going to have to do in the future.

"You know I'm always here for you if you need me," he tried to reassure and leaned forward a bit to come into her line of view as she stared upward at the framed photograph. He immediately noticed who was in it and the guilt that filled her eyes. "I want to hear you say it, Y/n."

Y/n couldn't leech off him anymore.

She laughed a bit and tilted her head when finally facing Mitsuya. "You're kidding, right?"