Rearranging Fate | Tokyo Revengers x OC

100 • The Fourth Future #2

Takemichi was sure he had seen that earring before. Sure, it was a blurry video, so he might've seen it wrong, but that damn earring kept on nagging his subconsciousness to the point he couldn't sleep without dreaming of that goddamn earring.

"Hey!" Hinata called out, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Are you listening to me?"

Right, he was in the middle of a date with Hinata at Sugoaku.

"Yeah, I am." No, he wasn't, but Hinata didn't need to know that. "The dress, right? It was very beautiful. You'll look great in it."

"I was talking about our ceremony rehearsal."

Takemichi was lucky the food arrived on time. Otherwise, Hinata would pry into what was keeping his mind occupied.

"Whoa, this looks tasty! Which one's mine?"

"The black tonkotsu's 'Angry' and the white one is 'Smiley'," answered the younger twin, busy making another batch of ramen. However, that didn't stop him from blushing ever so slightly when Hinata complimented the mild flavor of his ramen. And as expected, Nahoya snickered when Takemichi complained about how spicy 'Smiley' was.

Gulping down his drink, Takemichi spotted a few pictures framed on the shelf on top of the sink. There were a few pictures he didn't recognize, but there was no way he wouldn't know the picture placed in the middle of them all.

"That picture..."

"Hm? Oh." Souya looked up, realizing which picture Takemichi was referring to. "It's the Toman disbandment commemoration photo."

"I left all my youth back in Toman, y'know," Nahoya boasted, pointing the knife he was using to chop onions at the picture beside it. "And that's when we first visited the Shimuras. Man, really brings back memories, huh?"

"Yeah, it's really too bad I haven't been able to see Rei." Smiling at the rowdy picture Mirai was barely able to take—still, the result was somewhat okay, enough that it didn't scare the customers away—Takemichi asked, "Has she been doing well?"

"Hm? Dunno?"

"Huh?" Safe to say, Nahoya's answer didn't make sense. "You...don't know? You don't see her whenever she's back in Japan? Even if Rei's rich, isn't traveling all the time a bit too much?"

"Yeah, I heard that from Harui too, but maybe she really likes traveling." Souya shrugged, sparing Takemichi a glance before turning back to the pot of cooking ramen in front of him. "And even if she does come back, maybe only Harui, Mirai, Aizen, and perhaps Mikey. Maybe those four are the only ones who've seen her? Cus I haven't seen her for over a decade now."

"A decade?!"

Well, Reina has the money, time, and energy to travel continuously, so it really shouldn't be that weird. Sure, traveling for over a decade sounded a bit much, but he wasn't rich like her, so what would he know? Plus, he knew she had spent a good majority of her childhood being locked up. Anyone, under those circumstances, would want to be as free as possible. So, in a sense, Reina being gone for over a decade sounded normal.

But something kept on nagging at the back of his mind, and he was suddenly reminded of the woman with the red earring.

"That picture with the Shimuras...can I see it?"

In the picture, Reina sat near Akise in the middle, surrounded by her cousins. Izana was standing beside her with an arm wrapped around her shoulder. Perhaps it was because Mikey, who was behind them, wore a red hoodie, but Takemichi almost missed the earring dangling from each one of their ears.

Those red hanafuda earrings.

The same red earring that woman wore.

What's the meaning of this? Slapping a hand over his mouth, Takemichi couldn't make sense of the situation. That earring...Kurokawa Izana's earrings. He...he gave one to her, so...so who is that woman? It can't be...right? It has to be a coincidence.