Sex Bucket List • Tokyo revengers

Part 4 - Chapter 17

"Oh my god..."

I collapsed onto the porch steps beside Takemichi, burying my face in my hands.

He'd just told me everything.

It had started with Mikey cheating on me, and somehow, that ended up being the least devastating part.

Then came the sex bucket list.

And then, like a dam breaking, the rest had followed in a tidal wave.

Baji... dead in a fight.
Me, joining Toman.
The war against Tenjiku.
Izana: gone.

But none of that compared to what came next.

Me and Mitsuya had been engaged?!
I'd joined Bonten?
I'd run it with Mikey?

And then... Rindou.

We were married.
We had a little girl.
A daughter.

And then I'd died. Giving birth.

I guess that was one true thing Mikey had told me about. That, and that we'd had children together. But the rest?
God...
The rest had been a performance. A carefully constructed lie.

"Oh god," I breathed again, the world tilting slightly as nausea curled in my gut.

Beside me, I felt Takemichi's hand rest lightly on my shoulder. Hesitant, unsure.

"Are you okay?"

Was I okay?

No.

I wasn't fucking okay.

I was shattered. And furious. I had thanked Mikey — thanked him — for being honest with me, and all the while he'd been feeding me the pieces of a story carefully cut into shapes he knew I'd be willing to believe.

Would he have ever told me the truth?

I lifted my face from my hands, my voice low and raw. "Would you have done that to Hina?"

Takemichi stiffened beside me.

I turned my head slowly, meeting his eyes. Mine were burning. "If she'd been happy with someone else... would you have lied to her? Just to get another shot with her?"

His hand slipped away, folding uselessly into his lap.

"No," he said quietly. "I don't think so." But then he added quickly, "But Mikey and you... it's different, you know? I mean, your connection, your love for each other — it's not like anything I've seen. It transcends time, that's why we're even here."

Love.

I almost laughed.

How could Mikey say he loved me if he'd looked me in the eye and lied to me?

I couldn't just sit here. I couldn't wait for the night to pass like a good girl, waiting for the next lie to come to light.

I turned to Takemichi, my resolve slicing clean through the fog of betrayal.

"Take me to the race."

His eyes went wide. "I can't! Mikey would kill me if I brought you—"

"It wasn't a question."

I stood in one smooth motion, snatching the motorcycle keys from his hand before he could stop me.

"Take me to the race," I said again, "or I'll take myself there."

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The motorcycle rumbled beneath us as Takemichi and I reached the edge of the city, the skyline falling away into shadow and industrial sprawl. The road grew darker, narrower, and eventually disappeared into cracked pavement and gravel as we followed the flicker of distant lights and the muted roar of engines.