The Dragon's Girl | Taiju Shiba | Tokyo Revengers

Chapter 23

Later that night, I woke up from sleep to go use the bathroom. It was around two in the morning when my feet dragged my fatigued body across that hallway. Even though the hit I received was mainly on my face and my jaw bones were still aching, along with the dried cut over my lower lip, my body felt like I had just got out of a boxing ring with massive body injuries. Because every bone and muscle there was in me hurt and ached. And I didn't know if it was because I exhausted myself emotionally there in that park, or the trauma impact of what had happened was only now showing its affects on my body. All I knew, I was in deep pain.

When I looked at myself under the bright and harsh light of the bathroom, I saw that big and round shaped spot of haloed dark red that was cupping my jaw had turned into an ugly purple. Looking like a totally new and different skin texture that had formed there on my face. It didn't belong to me. It didn't fit me. It looked disgusting and painful and the more I looked the more I wanted to close my eyes and cry at how hideous it was. As if I wasn't seeing myself back in that mirror anymore, but someone I loved and cared for who got injured and the sight of them hurt this bad was too gruesome to see. I wanted to just turn my face and feel sorry for them, for me. I was feeling sorry for myself...

When I walked out, same as what I did when I came to the bathroom, I held my breath and tiptoed my way down the dark hallway. Making as little noise as I could so no one hears me. So Taiju doesn't hear me.

I knew I missed him and I knew my body needed nothing more than his comfort at this moment. But I wasn't ready to see him. To confront him about what happened in that park and to hear whatever excuse he'd have to say. Me, my body and my brain were too drained for it.

Slowly, when my feet reached and were about to pass the stairs, going back to Yuzuha's room, I heard deep and low murmurs coming from downstairs. My curiosity getting the best of me, I stopped instantly and stood at the first step. And as I stood there, my breathing low and my heart pounding in my ears, I noticed there was a dim light coming from the kitchen, along with those murmurs that kept rising and lowering in there.

And that curiosity, like another kind of a magnetic force, pulled me by the hand and made me slowly and carefully descend those steps and, still tiptoeing, made my way towards the dimmed kitchen. Just a few feet away from the entrance. I quietly pressed myself against the wall and pressed my hands behind my back, as if that would somehow make me invisible. Like I was a part of that wall and no one would see me. Then my ears started listening sharply.

"Don't start that bullshit with me again now..." a deep voice said, the same voice I knew and memorized too well by now and could recognize it literally anywhere I'd go and I'd know it by heart as his voice. Taiju's. After I heard him say this, I heard the click of a glass. And out of my sight, I imagined him in my mind's eye sitting at the kitchen table with a beer bottle in his hand.

"No, I will. Because you need to fucking realize this has gone too far, Taiju..." That was Hakkai's voice. His tone was lower and lighter than Taiju's. Almost whispering, but agitated at the same time.
"How many times will it happen again for you to realize you need to let her go!"

What?!

"This's our family, the shit that happens to us we can deal with it. This's how we knew life. But she's not part of this family! She's a stranger! And yet, because of you, she keeps on getting dragged into unnecessary bullshit that doesn't concern her!"

I pressed my lips, which caused my cut to sting, and pressed my hands harder against the wall after hearing Hakkai's words about me. Just like my jaw and the cut on my lip, his words hurt. I knew Hakkai cared for me, but what he just said hurt me. The way he said I was stranger... Was I really?