Light Impulse

Yokohama

As soon as they were alone Chifuy's heart dropped. Was she really going to leave? After everything they had learned from Naoto he was convinced Mikey's memories were no figments of imagination at all. If she truly had been his counter-curse all this time, shouldering the burden of Dark Impulse with him, she was as deserving of a happy ending as all of them. But she was understandably scared. Her past had proven Draken's point; things can get awfully complicated as soon as the Yakuza is involved. But she wasn't just some stranger anymore. Would he really stand by that if he knew who she really was to Mikey?

"Chifuyu... Please let me out," she asked as she reached for her coat.

He looked at her, still a little in shock about everything that had been unearthed about her. But when she held out his scarf for him to take back he instantly snapped out of it. "No..." he said hesitantly, refusing to take it from her.

She looked at him with a pained frown. "Let me go," she said, firmer this time, in an effort to strengthen her resolve.

He closed his eyes and stepped out of the booth, allowing her to get up. "Can I at least walk you home?" He asked softly.

"Chifuyu, please don't make this any harder than it already is," she said softly.

"I understand that you want to protect us, Yuuna. But there's no such thing as a risk-free life. We live our own lives, make our own choices. And if there's a risk in walking you home I'll gladly take it. I refuse to let you go like this. Not after everything we've found out," he rattled under his breath.

The hand that was still holding out his scarf fell down to her side again as she watched him get flustered and angry on her behalf. He had always been like this. Easily worked up, naive, emotional. But also incredibly kind-hearted, sincere and fiercely protective over the people he loved or admired. It was already becoming so difficult to step away from him again after the limited time they had spent together. She sighed and felt the soft and warm fabric of his scarf against her fingers and she couldn't shake the feeling she had had in his arms that night. For the first time for as long as she could remember, she had felt safe. She slowly hung his scarf back around her neck and hesitantly smiled up at him. "Alright," she whispered softly.

He was about to jump for joy but she already started walking towards the exit of the bar, and he sure as hell wasn't going to lose her now. He hurried to catch up and beamed a smile at her when he started walking beside her again.

She laughed softly and shook her head when she noticed. "Sometimes you're just like a puppy," she said.

"A tough, badass puppy," Chifuyu growled, flexing his biceps.

"I'm thinking... Golden Retriever," Yuuna said jokingly.

"Oh, come on!" He said disgruntled. "I'm really more of a... German Shepherd!" He tried.

She laughed a little more this time. "Definitely not," she said as she shook her head. "Keisuke would be the German Shepherd, you would be his Labrador side-kick," she nodded.

"I'm so not a Labrador!" He said, shoving her arm softly.

"What about... Dobermann Baji and his assistant Jack Russel Matsuno?" She said, holding up her hands questioningly.

He laughed and looked at her closely. She seemed to know them so well, it was both heartwarming and heartbreaking now that they knew why. "I don't even know where you live," he wondered out loud.

She smiled as she put her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. "It's nothing much," she said softly. "I have been on my own for most of my life, so there wasn't really a place I could afford. And I didn't want to live in an orphanage so I lived off the streets for most of the time. Until I met the owner of the flower shop. He and his wife were never able to have children of their own and by the time they found me they were already of respectable age. In return for helping them in the shop as much as I could, they put me through middle school and high school and let me stay in the little spare room in their house," she explained as they walked on.