Chapter Text
Chifuyu Matsuno was still only twelve years old that spring when he first stepped into the Baji household, trailing after Keisuke like a stray cat who’d finally been given a warm meal. The air inside smelled like soy broth cooling on the stove, laundry that hadn’t finished drying, and the faint sweetness of someone’s fruity shampoo lingering in the hallway. A real and normal home smell—warm, messy, and lived-in.
Keisuke’s mom was working a late shift that day; he’d mentioned it offhandedly, barely looking up as he kicked off his shoes. The apartment carried that lived-in chaos of a family that didn’t have too much but still held everything together with grit and habit. Keisuke was thirteen, but repeating a year after having been held back. That was how the two boys had met, and eventually grew a bond from, after Chifuyu had initially sought the black-haired boy out to verify the rumours about him, and instead finding him in a rather ‘nerdy disguise’. What started with him helping Keisuke out with his writing skills for a letter, ended up with him getting helped back regarding some troubling biker gang about to beat him up.
There’d been a fire in him that Chifuyu couldn’t look away from, something fierce and loyal and terrifyingly real, and respect slammed into him like a punch. Keisuke was tough, loyal, the kind of guy who would throw down for a friend without even thinking twice, and somewhere along the way, Chifuyu had become one of those friends. He ended up helping with kanji lessons in exchange for stories about biker gangs that made his pulse race, and eventually being introduced to Toman.
Their friendship became steady and strangely easy, a tight bond forming, like two puzzle pieces someone had forgotten were supposed to fit. And when they’d found out they were living in the very same apartment complex as each other? It felt like a door to a whole new experience had opened up, and the decision of visiting each other came quickly, settling into place like it had always been meant to happen. Chifuyu looked up to him, trusted him, followed him, and Baji—in that rough-edged way he had—accepted him.
There was only one small problem, Chifuyu was soon to find out, a small, loud, and unavoidable problem.
You.
Keisuke’s little sister, three years younger than him and around two years younger than Chifuyu. A ten-going-on-eleven clingy menace with wide-eyed wonder lighting up your face. One of the reasons he had to start calling Keisuke by his given name instead of his last name, to avoid confusion.
You weren’t spoiled, not in the bratty way some kids were; stomping their feet until they get everything they want and shrieking for attention while throwing tantrums at simply being told no. You were just… there. Always. Like a constant. A tiny, persistent shadow with pigtails and scraped knees, hovering at the doorway of every room as if you were waiting for some sort of invitation that never came. Chifuyu noticed you first as a blur, a flicker of movement, as you were peeking out from behind the kitchen counter while he and Baji laid sprawled out on the floor with their notebooks open and Baji cursing at every stroke of the pencil as if it had personally wronged him.
Your eyes—big and unblinking for a few moments—were locked onto him like he’d invented the stars. “Whatcha doin’?” you asked, voice high and insistent, yet earnest, as you padded closer on fluffy-socked feet.
Keisuke grunted, not even looking up at you. “Homework. Go play or somethin’.”
You didn’t. Instead, you plopped down cross-legged beside Chifuyu, far too close with your shoulder brushing his arm as you leaned in to stare at his neat handwriting with reverent fascination, eyes practically shining in that child-like wonder he would see for the next few years. “You’re good at that,” you’d say, voice quiet like it was a secret, and he’d feel a prickle down his spine. Annoyance, not sharp but laced with something warmer that he shoved down. Kids were kids, right? Harmless.
Except, you weren’t harmless. Not to him. Not for the next few years to come.
It started small. Visits that were supposed to be Keisuke-and-Chifuyu adventures kept turning into Keisuke-and-Chifuyu-and… you. After-school hangouts bled into evenings, the two boys trading manga, plotting stupid schemes, or even practicing punches outside as the chain-link fence rattled like tired bones. Every single time, without fail, you appeared. Materializing from thin air, like a tiny and determined spirit bound to the sound of Chifuyu’s voice. You wouldn’t be clinging to Baji—your own brother—who you’d pester with demands for snacks and stories, yet never invade like you did with Chifuyu. No, it was him you targeted, climbing onto his back mid-sentence as your tiny, skinny arms looped around his neck like a living scarf. You voice high and enthusiastic as you begged him for piggyback rides.
He’d freeze—every time—with his spine stiffening under your weight. You might have been light as a bird but you’d certainly been heavy with persistence. “Hey, get off—I’m not your jungle gym,” he’d mutter, trying to sound stern, yet his voice never sharpened too much. Keisuke treasured you, called you “squirt” with that rare soft grin of his while he ruffled your hair like you were made of glass, so Chifuyu played along, hoisting you up with a sigh that hid the way his cheeks warmed in what he figured was annoyed embarrassment. You’d giggle, your breath hot against his ear with your fingers tangling in his hair like you were claiming territory, messing up his carefully crafted hairstyle every time you did.
God, he’d think, does she even know what personal space is?
In simple terms, you were like a squirrel on caffeine. Always climbing on him, or hovering, or either begging or demanding those piggyback rides as if it were your legal right in the Baji household.
You were fascinated. Utterly, ridiculously fascinated with him, and he never understood why, while your questions tumbled out like spilled marbles.
“Why’s your hair like that?”
“Do you like cats?”
“Keisuke says you read a lot, will you read me something?”
“Can I come with you guys to the arcade”
Always aimed at him, your eyes sparkling like he’d hung the very moon itself, instead of just being your brother’s friend.
Chifuyu tried to be kind. He had to be. You were Keisuke’s little sister, and Keisuke adored you in a way that softened even his sharpest edges. And Chifuyu respected Keisuke, so he’d pat your head awkwardly while mumbling “Maybe next time, kid,” as well as trying to distract you with candy he kept in his pocket like some begrudging babysitter. Internally though? He was exhausted. Done. You’d hover while they ate, stealing bites from his bowl—never Keisuke’s, your own brother—and even draped yourself over his arm like a human blanket. Even Kazutora, the few times he swung by—wild-eyed and grinning, not to mention your brother’s friend long before Chifuyu ever entered the picture—got spared from your clinginess. You’d simply wave at him all shy while you stuck to Keisuke’s side.
But Chifuyu? Target acquired. Target locked. Target relentlessly pursued.
By the time you hit twelve, it peaked. Piggybacks weren’t just requested or begged for, they were expected. You’d stand in front of him—impatient—with your arms raised while waiting for him to kneel. It didn’t matter if your brother was in the room, or if Chifuyu tried to distract you; if he didn’t move fast enough then you simply started climbing him like he was a tree offering free real estate. With clinginess like a storm, you’d even barrel into the room the second he arrived at the apartment before you’d launch yourself at him with zero warning. Arms around his waist and your face smushed into his shirt that always smelled like cheap soap and street dust. Your voice would sound giddy, enthusiastic, so damn happy at just seeing him, your tiny body trembling with joy as if he’d just returned from war and not his own home.
“Chifuyu! You’re back!”
He’d gently pry you off—always careful, always gentle—while muttering, “Personal space, kid. Ever heard of it?” but you’d just beam up at him as if he was the sun returning from eclipse, unfazed as always, before demanding piggybacks until his back ached like an old man’s. Keisuke would laugh, every time without fail. Deep and rumbling and mildly annoying, spouting out some nonsense about “child-like crushes” and how he just needs to “deal with it”.
Chifuyu’s face would burn—every time—annoyance and embarrassment mixed together with a sprinkle of something he couldn’t quite name at the time. “Shut up,” he’d grumble back. But yeah, maybe. Child-like wonder, sure, but definitely annoying as hell, he told himself. Not like he’d ever tell Keisuke that though. You were the pride and joy of the fierce boy, and Chifuyu respected him too much to ever voice any sort of annoyance he meant he felt towards you.
Thirteen flipped the script a little, or perhaps just sharpened the fascination further. You still followed them everywhere, a persistent echo in their footsteps, even when they had gang business to handle. You’d even try to tag along to meetings, peeking out from corners and alleys with that stubborn jut to your chin as if you were daring them to tell you no. Which… Keisuke did. Many times; two stubborn kids staring each other down with the same stubborn fire the Baji siblings seemed to be born with, until you eventually gave up. A faint pout at your lips while your shoulders deflated like a balloon as you turned to walk back home—though that never deterred you from trying again and again. Seeing your faintly dejected walk always poked at something beneath Chifuyu’s ribs, a tiny and inconvenient tug which he shoved down just as quick, insisting it was pity. It wasn’t like you were trying to get into trouble; you probably just wanted to be included, to spend time with your brother and his friend. Keisuke didn’t want you to get hurt either so it was obvious that you couldn’t come with them.
Still, something inside him tightened every time you disappeared around the corner.
And then there was the draping…
The draping got worse. Every visit, you flopped onto the couch beside him—on him, really—legs thrown over his lap like it was nothing, as if he was simply part of the furniture himself. You’d lean your full weight against his side as your head bumped his shoulder and your fingers drifted to his jacket.
“Tell me about the bikes,” you would murmur, while your fingers toyed with the hem of his jacket like it was some comfort object, eyes gentle with curiosity and admiration he didn’t think he deserved.
He’d shift away, grumbling, “Ask your brother,” as his cheeks heated with what he decided was embarrassment, but you’d always pout in response; that lower lip thing that made his chest tighten in ways he blamed on indigestion or even allergies at times. Anything but the growing, inexplicable awareness of you.
It was still only him you followed like a shadow. Still not Keisuke, who you’d playfully bicker with but never really smother. Not Kazutora, who you’d ignore like he was background or occasionally share your snacks with, silently, when he looked too spaced-out. Not even Mikey—the few times you saw him, at least—your brother’s oldest friend. The one, statistically, you should’ve felt the most comfortable with considering the years of friendship between the two, someone’s presence you should’ve felt more familiar and safe with. But no, it was just Chifuyu Matsuno, fourteen-going-on-fifteen, who you’d decided was fascinating enough to bother, the unwilling center of your universe.
He didn’t hate it. Not really. Not in the way that someone truly annoyed would. Perhaps it was the quantity of your attention that did it—he’d never been the center of anyone’s attention like that, not in a way that was so focused, so constant, so… warm—or perhaps it was simply teenage embarrassment following him like a curse, being fourteen and ambushed by affection he didn’t know how to process, as well as Keisuke’s teasing at times. The kind that creeps under his skin and settles too deep, making him feel off-balance and twitchy whenever he thought too hard about you.
But god, whatever it was? It got under his skin, into his thoughts, into his walks home. Even into the places he didn’t expect you to reach, places he couldn’t name yet; always tugging on something behind his ribs. Always lingering long after you’d parted ways.
Sometimes he’d rub the spot on his arm where your hand had rested earlier that day, where your fingers had lingered too long, and he’d wonder—irritated and confused—why it still felt warm.
Fourteen, though? That’s when the clinginess cracked clean down in the middle, reforming itself into something sharper and colder at the edges. Something brattier. You no longer launched yourself at him when he came over, no longer draped yourself over him on the couch. You stopped the koala climbs and the constant hovering, and instead? You started to fight him. Not the physical kind—never physical—but with comments being thrown towards him. Petty, sparking like flint on steel. Sharp enough to sting, and sharp enough to confuse him. His given name evaporated from your mouth, switched out for his last name, and he figured that the weird tug behind his ribs were simply annoyance over your sudden stubbornness rather than missing how Chifuyu sounded from your lips.
Toman stuff ramped up as well that year. Fists and oaths, as well as the weight of brotherhood settling on top of their shoulders, and you’d demand to join, eyes narrowed like mini-Keisuke daggers–that unmistakable Baji-fire that proved your bloodline on sight. It was the first time he truly could see the resemblance between you and your brother—not just in your face, but in that stubborn and reckless fire you both shared—as if the hot-headed ravenette had grown out his hair even longer and started wearing skirts.
“You can’t come with us,” Chifuyu said one afternoon, voice firm, standing in Keisuke’s bedroom while the boy himself shrugged into his jacket. “Your mom will kill us if she finds out. Not to mention it’s dangerous.”
Your eyes narrowed, a quiet scoff escaped your lips before a tiny smirk took its place; that new teen edge sharpening your bite. “What, scared I’ll outrun you, Matsuno? Or worried that I’ll see you trip over your own feet again?”
His sputtering was immediate, ego bruised like a fresh punch. He wasn’t sure why your words got so much under his skin as they did, why it’d make him lose his composure as quickly as he did. “As if! You’re just a girl, so stay home and play with dolls or whatever.”
Your eyes rolled dramatically, exaggerated enough to make him want to pull at his own hair. Just like a brat, your next words came out as petty and sharp as they always would. “Your hair looks dumb today. Like a hedgehog that lost a fight with a lawnmower.” or “You smell like dish soap. Did you even shower this week?”
Petty. Childish. Absolutely ridiculous. And still, they stung. Not the words themselves, but the attitude, the stubborn attitude you only gave him. He’d always fire back—not even proud of it, but god, you got under his skin and he just couldn’t not respond, your tone, your smirk, and the challenge in your eyes made it impossible not to.
“Yeah? Well your attitude’s worse than Baji’s on a bad day, and that’s saying something.”
Keisuke would snort when he bit back, slapping him on the back—right between his shoulder blades—while barking out a comment about leaving her alone, but Chifuyu couldn’t. Not when your sharpness sometimes hit like heat instead of cold, or when arguing with you felt like something his body expected to do. The two of you would butt heads every time you saw each other, especially when he visited the Baji apartment. You’d argue over dinner, over TV channels, over their gang stuff you wanted to be a part of but couldn’t. You’d argue over nothing, over everything. Soft days meant quiet sighs or side-eyes thrown his way that made his jaw clench, while loud days meant sharp words which flew like sparks.
He kept telling himself that it was only whiplash, that your clinginess turning into whatever this was, simply confused him. He told himself he didn’t miss the soft weight of you leaning into him, that he didn’t miss your fingers toying with his jacket and especially that he didn’t miss the way you used to say his name—his given name—like it was something familiar rather than a sharp bullet.
Once, he had arrived at your apartment and caught you mid-argument—the first argument out of many—with your brother; that same Baji fire yet again mirrored in both of your eyes, bright and undeniable. You had shouted something about how you could do anything they could do despite being a girl, and then how you were older now than Keisuke had been when he first joined Toman—founded, really, but Chifuyu wasn’t about to correct you at that moment when it looked as if you were literally seconds away from tearing out your brother’s throat. Keisuke shot it down immediately, jaw tight and voice firm in that protective way he couldn’t hide when it came to you.
“You’re just a kid,” he’d said. “I’m not letting you get pulled into shit like this.”
Chifuyu’s ribs rattled almost as much as the wall had rattled when you’d slammed the apartment door after you.
The same week after the argument, Chifuyu got the worst of your edge he had ever endured up to that point; sharper comments and pointed insults as your words skated the line between bratty and genuinely cruel. There were no smirks on your face, no playful spark in your words or even childish jabs. Instead there was just pure and unfiltered fire he couldn’t get a reading on, as if there was something that had provoked the beast inside your soul and the only one you set your sight on was him.
And still, he snapped back—every time—because he just couldn’t help it when it came to you. He never could.
“Yeah? Well maybe if you stopped acting like a spoiled brat, people would actually take you seriously,” he said one time, and for one single heartbeat it looked as if you had flinched. A tiny, barely there flinch that was gone before he could even be sure he actually saw it, before you bit back harder.
It should’ve been simple. Just a kid being dramatic, teenage hormones putting you on edge. Should’ve just been regular arguments between him and the sister of his best friend. But Chifuyu felt something shifting under the surface, an electric line taut between you, humming with something he just couldn’t name. Every jab carried heat and adrenaline instead of what should’ve been annoyance. Every exchange ended with his pulse racing. And every time you stormed off after a particularly heated argument, he’d stare at the empty doorway longer than necessary, his chest feeling tight in a way that felt dangerously close to loss.
Winning the agreement never really felt like winning though. It felt like losing something bigger, something he didn’t understand yet.
You turning fifteen didn’t soften anything, it just sharpened it, brought more of the same but deeper grooves. You were growing, slowly yes, but still growing. Limbs getting longer, attitude towards him getting sharper than he thought was even possible, that infamous Baji fire flickering in your glare. Chifuyu slowly started seeing you less after this, with school beginning to swallow him up more, as Toman pulled harder, and he and Baji spent more time outside of the apartment complex when hanging out, and with Kazutora lurking around more often.
When your paths did cross, the air itself seemed to turn electric. You’d criticize his every move, every clothing piece, from his Toman jacket, to his school uniform, to how he kept his hair.
“That jacket’s too big on you—makes you look like a wannabe.”
“You wear that like you’re in a school play.”
“Your hair looks dumber today, what did you do with it? Touch it?”
Your tone was all teenage bite, all sharpened annoyance… but underneath it, something pulsed. Something charged, something he either refused to name or genuinely still couldn’t name at the time. At your bratty and petty comments, he’d always retort, always snap back. “Better than your endless questions. Ever heard of silence?”
The two of you were always butting heads, but every retort came with a step closer he didn’t even realize he was taking. Every fight left him breathing harder than he should’ve been, and every glare from you lingered under his skin longer than it had any right to. Petty beef with his best friend’s little sister, a girl younger than him nonetheless, and Chifuyu knew it was stupid, but you kept lingering, like in the twitch of his fingers or the echo of your laugh—albeit rare, especially around him those days, but when it first hit? It almost felt like sunlight through clouds after a rainy season.
He told himself that it was dislike that he felt towards you.
Yeah, that’s what it was.
God, he disliked you.
He kept telling himself that you were simply annoying, that the tight feeling behind his ribs was purely indigestion, or allergies. Seasonal pollen. Something logical.
Anything but what it actually was.
Your arguments with Keisuke got worse that year; louder, heavier, more honest and more painful. You and your brother stood face-to-face in the apartment doorway, that matching Baji fire lighting up your eyes, both of you too stubborn for your own good, as you kept telling him to at least just ask Mikey if you could join, that you’re sure he wouldn’t mind it.
“I’m older now!” you shouted. “I’m probably even stronger than you were when you started!”
“And you’re still just a kid,” Keisuke shot back, his voice tight with fear and stubborn protectiveness he didn’t bother hiding. “I’m not getting you dragged into this shit. End of story.”
You never cursed—not once—something Chifuyu always noticed with faint surprise considering your brother’s vocabulary, but your words still cut the air like a blade. It became a loop; every time Keisuke shut the argument down, the sting on your face lasted for a heartbeat only before you masked it, and then slammed the apartment door on your way out so hard the wall itself rattled. And like clock work, that same week? Chifuyu took every ounce of the fallout. Your jabs turned sharper as your comments dropped quicker, and your tone turned more brittle as if maybe everything you meant to say to your brother had been rerouted straight at him instead.
He didn’t understand it—never did. Didn’t know why you turned all that fire towards him rather than your brother, didn’t know why you needed to win every argument with him in particular. Never understood why the word kid from your brother’s mouth triggered your anger as hard as it did, or why that same anger got redirected towards Chifuyu as if he’d been the one to provoke you, but he always snapped back either way, too flustered, too much ego-bruised to really stop and think about any of it.
“Better than sitting around waiting to be allowed into places I don’t belong.”
The moment the words left his mouth—too sharp, too careless—you flinched. Tiny, barely there, but still real, just like that other time; when he almost believed he had hallucinated your reaction. Your eyes darted up, holding his own for just one heartbeat; long enough to show something raw beneath that bratty exterior you gave him—something younger, hurting, wanting—before it vanished. Sealed away and buried, as you scoffed, sounding more soft and tired than sharp in the moment.
“Whatever, Matsuno.”
He hated that.
Hated how your voice made his name feel like an insult when spoken like that.
Hated how much it stung—even when it shouldn’t have.
Hated how badly he wanted to hear “Chifuyu” again, the way you always said it back when you were just a clingy little thing still hanging off his back like he was yours to bother.
He hated how every argument he won felt like he was losing something huge, something he didn’t even have a name for.
Chifuyu hated a lot of things that year.
But mostly he hated how often he laid awake at night while wondering why you stopped clinging to him, and why losing that warmth felt like he was losing a piece of himself he didn’t know he’d given you.
He had gotten slowly used to your bratty streak, the same way someone eventually gets used to living alongside a storm; the lighting still startled him every time, but the thunder didn’t throw him off as badly as it used to. Your jabs, your comments, and the fire in your glare didn’t surprise him anymore—not the way it first did when you reached fourteen. That didn’t mean it stopped getting under his skin, or that he didn’t sputter before firing something back, nor did it mean his chest didn’t tighten every single time.
Still he kept telling himself he disliked you, that you were annoying. He kept repeating that mantra to himself like a prayer, but the words felt like ash in his mouth and he didn’t know why. Why did your fire and your smirks and your jabs send adrenaline down his spine, while heating up his cheeks instead of pissing him off the same way Kazutora did when stealing his snacks or even the same way other delinquents did when firing off insults after insults before a fight?
You also kept fighting with Keisuke, and—like clockwork, even then—every time those arguments cracked something inside you, every time your brother shut it down with a firm “kid”, you turned all that leftover fire—the aftermath, the burn, the hurt—straight onto Chifuyu, and still he kept wondering why. He never understood it, that stubborn need to join something like that, to join Toman.
It had been early autumn, just two months before Keisuke’s eighteenth birthday, when everything changed—sudden and drastic. You’d sneaked out, followed him into the evening to some fight. Chifuyu didn’t know when you started trailing them, or even how long you’d been watching. He and Takemichi had been in the middle of a street brawl with the Kawata twins—Smiley grinning as always, Angry solemn but no less dangerous—with fists flying and shouts echoing between the buildings; just another night for Toman.
Until your scream tore through the air.
A sharp and panicked sound that hit Chifuyu like an electric shock as his head whipped around violently, his body reacting faster than his mind, ears somehow tuned to you instantly, as if your voice had been carved into his very bones. He looked up in time to catch the aftermath of what seemed to be you having lost your footing on a rusted metal ledge before practically diving down. Your jacket had snagged on a jagged piece, having failed in catching you as it ripped like a useless lifeline, and then you kept falling.
The thud when you hit the ground was borderline sickening, as your breath got punched out of you for the first second or two, before the first ever curse he had ever heard from you slipped out from your lips.
“Fuck—”
Raw, wet, and absolutely pain-soaked.
Chifuyu’s heart felt like it had stopped, and for a moment it was as if the world itself had stopped. Then everything had slammed back—full-force—and he sprinted towards you, his knees hitting the concrete as he slid beside your trembling form, eyes frantically scanning you. Your ankle was swollen and bruised already, a clean break, maybe, but he didn’t know—he just knew it hurt.
When he reached for you, you snapped at him; upper lip curling like a wounded predator fighting for its life. “Don’t fucking touch me, Matsuno,” but your voice cracked on the last syllable. Half fury, half pain. True Baji fire, even then, with tears forming in your lashes as your body trembled. The same fire that made your brother terrifying.
He ignored the snarl, ignored the bite, ignored the fear clawing at him as if he was drowning. Instead, he carefully gathered you in his arms, hands gentle as his breath shook. You resisted, slightly and weakly, but when the pain flared, you sagged against him instead; allowing him to lift you. Souya had also rushed to help, slow and steady as if he were handling glass–and considering you were Keisuke’s precious little sister, he most definitely was handling glass. Nahoya hovered, hands outstretched and quiet, leading words of encouragement while he made sure no one slipped or dropped you, and Takemichi’s face was pale with horror.
Then you were on Chifuyu’s back; your arms draped over his shoulders, your chin hooked weakly over them, and your breath lingered warm and uneven against his neck, while his hands shook beneath your thighs.
Nahoya joked—poorly—about how Keisuke was absolutely going to slaughter them, and then resurrect them only to kill them again, voice lighter than his eyes. Takemichi almost whimpered in agreement. It was more truth wrapped in humor; Keisuke would murder them. Slowly. Lovingly. Chifuyu didn’t listen, he couldn’t, because all he could think about was the sound of your scream as you fell, the thud, the curse, the way your body shook against his.
The walk to the hospital felt endless, and he tried—once—to ease the air a little.
“Hey… it’s gonna be okay. Doctors will fix it. You’re tough.”
You tried to bite back, more habit and reflex than an actual jab. “Shut up, Matsuno.” Sharp, yet shaky. Less heat and more tired, as your voice cracked on the edges. “Just—just don’t drop me,” and the bite wavered as your words trembled and your breath hitched. Chifuyu felt every tremble, every inhale, every quiet and shaky exhale into the crook of his neck, and when he dared to tilt his head just slightly? Just enough to catch you out of the corner of his eye, your cheeks were tear-streaked as your eyes glared at nothing while your lips curled in a snarl too weak to be real anger. Your whole body trembled with pain and humiliation and something heavier.
He didn’t say anything else—couldn’t—as his throat had closed up entirely in emotion he didn’t question. He only walked faster, and the other boys followed, picking up their pace. Your fingers curled weakly into his collar, and he felt your breath hitch whenever his steps jostled you, felt the warmth of those silent tears of yours sliding down before disappearing into his shirt.
You’re just worried, he had told himself.
It’s just guilt, fear of what Keisuke’s gonna do when he finds out.
He’d repeated this to himself all the way to the hospital because the truth was too terrifying to look at.
Chifuyu was lying worse than ever.
The hospital lights were too bright, and the waiting room smelled like antiseptic and fear alike. Nahoya paced, restless and twitching as the grin flickered on and off while minutes passed. Takemichi apologized every few minutes, even though none of this had even been his fault. Souya sat beside you once the doctors set your ankle, offering that quiet and soft comfort only a blue-haired twin could offer someone.
The doctor said you had been lucky, that if the angle had been different, if you’d landed any harder, things could've been much worse.
Chiuyu stood against the far wall while they’d been waiting for your brother, with his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on the floor as the guilt gnawed at him until it reached bone, and as the fear curled hot in his stomach, tightening with an iron grip. Lucky. He’d hated that word then, and never stopped hating it since. Lucky, as if it could’ve been one wrong angle and then there would’ve been no more you. No more stupid smirks or petty jabs or warm adrenaline shooting down his spine.
Lucky. He’d never hated a word as much as he did that day.
Eventually, Keisuke finally arrived. Having practically slammed the hospital doors open, and they’d cracked against their rails, rattling in a way that made the nurses look up. He must’ve sprinted the entire way there, Chifuyu was sure of that. Nahoya and Souya had been the ones to call him some time while the doctors casted your leg, giving him just enough information to keep him from combusting over the phone, with enough urgency that he dropped everything and ran.
At his arrival, Chifuyu had stepped forward instantly, intercepting him halfway down the hall with his head bowed as shame pooled low in his stomach. The guilt remained on his shoulders like weight plates. It didn’t matter that he literally hadn’t even known you’d been there, it didn't matter that any of them had known until your scream cut through the air. He still felt responsible, like he should’ve sensed it, like he should’ve somehow stopped it. Lucky. The word stayed curled sourly around his ribs. He was supposed to keep you safe—even if he hadn’t known you were there, even if you’d snuck out like a shadow refusing to fade.
His words tumbled out before the other boy could speak.
“Keisuke,” he began, bracing for the worst. “We didn’t know she was there. Not until she fell. I heard her scream, and—” He swallowed. Hard. It felt like he was swallowing literal sandpaper. “The break’s clean. Doctors said she’s lucky.”
Keisuke hadn’t spoken at first; hadn’t interrupted or yelled at him for not keeping his sister out of harm's way. He’d simply stood there in silence, listening, and when Chifuyu finished, he’d reached out and patted his shoulder. Once, with a slight curl of his fingers. The motion was firm, yet it hadn’t felt angry, nor forgiving. A single pat, a silent I heard you. Thanks. Move, before he brushed past, speed-walking towards the waiting area. Chifuyu had caught it though, the split-second profile before Keisuke turned away; with his jaw clenched and his eyes wide-open, brows furrowed deep in that panic you’d expect to see on someone when they heard how their younger sister could’ve just as easily died because of her stubbornness. The kind of panic that strips the delinquent armour clean off and only leaves a scared kid underneath who just wants his sister whole and alive.
Your casted leg was propped up on a pillow, and your head was bowed as your hair fell forward, shadowing your eyes. Souya had remained beside you, posture soft and protective. Nahoya’s pacing slowed at Keisuke’s presence, and Takemichi looked like he’d been crying while also trying to pretend he hadn’t.
He stopped right in front of you, mouth open—to scold? To yell? To explode with that usual Baji fire they all were used to?—but nothing came out. There was no lecture regarding your stubborn stupidity, no fury at your constant push-backs on wanting to join Toman. Instead, he crouched down, fast, and carefully yanked you into his chest, making sure he didn’t jostle your injured leg. Ferociously, like someone terrified of losing what he was holding. One arm wrapped around your shoulders while the other came up to cup the back of your head, fingers gently ruffling your hair with a kind of feral, brotherly panic Chifuyu had only glimpsed once or twice in his life.
You didn’t fight it, not that day. You simply folded into him, instantly. Small and quiet and exhausted, as your arms slowly slid up to clutch the back of his jacket, fingers trembling.
Souya’s blue eyes had softened like melted glass.
Nahoya had stopped pacing entirely.
Takemichi sniffled in the corner.
Chifuyu? He stood frozen in the middle of the floor, seeing how Keisuke’s shoulder shook, once. The kind of tremor that comes from fear instead of anger. He saw how your tear tracks caught the hospital lights, saw the way your brother’s thumb brushed the back of your head as if making sure you were real.
And he felt something burning underneath his ribs.
Something heavy that twisted hard at his soul. Not guilt. Not just guilt. It felt heavier. Warmer. Scarier. Something he didn’t really dare examine during that time.
Later, once the paperwork was done and Keisuke had promised the nurses that he’d tell your mother everything, they had finally discharged you. Your brother hadn’t hesitated before picking you up, carrying you as your arms looped around his neck, with your cheek pressed against his shoulder and your casted leg awkwardly sticking forward. You looked… small. Tired. Fragile in a way Chifuyu had never seen you.
The bratty fire was gone, as well as the sharp teen glare and the little shadow with big eyes who climbed him like a tree at twelve. Instead, you looked wrung out; drained, and not just from the pain, but from something deeper—something older—the same thing that made you constantly fight with Keisuke, the same thing that made you beg to join Toman, the same thing that made you lash out towards Chifuyu every time your brother called you a kid. Left in its wake at that moment was just a hurt fifteen year old girl who trusted her brother to pick up the pieces.
Chifuyu walked beside him, carrying your crutches while his gaze kept flickering to you; again and again. He hadn’t known what you had been thinking that day, hadn’t understood why you wanted this so badly—the danger, the fights, the belonging.
Didn’t know why it hurt him to see you so defeated.
All he knew was that the hospital hallway felt too bright, too cold, too quiet as they walked, and that he had never hated anything as much as the sound of your body hitting the ground.
The days after the hospital had blurred, at first. You’d been told the cast needed to stay on for six to eight weeks; with minimal weight on it, no pushing yourself, no running or climbing. He knew you obeyed the doctor’s orders only because breaking the same ankle twice hadn't been an option to you, and because your mother’s lecture had been so sharp it could’ve sliced steel itself. Even Keisuke had been silent, and that was rather rare during those days.
You were still stubborn, of course, pain meds having dulled your bite but never erased it.
Chifuyu was around constantly, as well. Having claimed it was because you lived in the same apartment complex, that it was because Keisuke would need help with you, that it was duty, or guilt, or convenience; he stopped by for his friend anyways, it wouldn’t have taken too much of his time anyways, wouldn’t be too big of a deal for him, right?
He lied every single time.
Chifuyu chose to be there.
He chose to climb the stairs, chose to knock quietly, chose to hover in the doorway before Keisuke inevitably grunted, “Well? Get inside, idiot.” Chose to use the easy excuse of “helping,” as he carried groceries, grabbed water bottles, and propped pillows, even opened doors you could technically open yourself.
You hadn’t really made it easier for him either.
One might’ve expected you to bask in attention, to command like some spoiled princess while making the boys act like teenage butlers. But no, you fought them. Fought him. You snapped and snarled and pushed their hands away when they tried helping you adjust your pillows. Once, you nearly bit his head off simply for offering you water.
Too bad for you, he was even more stubborn than you during this, and guilt still coiled around his ribs like barbed wires every time he remembered the shriek, the thud, and the first “fuck” out of your mouth.
Then there were the softer moments; rare and fleeting and absolutely pain-medicated. He’d gotten so used to your stubborn fire and your sharp jabs that seeing you like this, with your eyes half-lidded, your posture drooping, and your voice softened into something warm and worn-out, had tugged at his ribs harder than before. You said “please”, sometimes even “thank you,” though the words were usually accompanied by a faint growl, as if they’d personally offended you.
He remembered one day especially clearly. It had been an afternoon, soft rain tapping at the windows after he and Keisuke had gotten back from the store for you, after a particularly difficult day where the pain—and perhaps the stubborn streak being drowned by humiliation—had been suffocating you. You’d barely been awake as you looked at him with a pout that was more snarl than sweetness when he lingered in your bedroom doorway, eyes darting over your frame and your position and the pocky next to your water bottle at your bedside table, having wanted to make sure you were all set before he left.
“Get in my bed. I need a pillow,” you murmured, voice quieter than he’d ever heard from you, yet still sprinkled with that bite that usually sent a bolt of lightning down his spine. He’d choked, actually choked; on air, on his words, on the tug behind his ribs making it harder to breathe. Allergies, he told himself, though it felt more like a lie.
“W-what? No. No, that’s— that’s weird. That’s—” He could practically hear Keisuke murdering him in seventeen different imaginary scenarios that day. “You have pillows! Actual pillows!”
You’d simply blinked at him, eyelids moving slowly over your eyes, and your voice had come out in that tired, drained tone; the same one when Keisuke had carried you from the hospital. “...Please.”
His brain had bluescreened. He muttered something about boundaries and childhood nonsense and how this was stupid.
Then he climbed in anyway. Movement slow and careful, body stiff when he laid down on your bed—the bed that smelled the same fruity scent as your shampoo that lingered in his nose longer after you parted ways.
You’d flopped down onto his chest almost immediately, carefully maneuvering your body so as to not cause any discomfort towards your casted leg as one of your arms slinked around his waist, and your weight had settled against him; warm and familiar, like echoes of the younger you pressed into the present, the you who draped yourself over him or played with the hem of his jacket while murmuring soft questions to him. Your bite had softened even more once you got comfortable, and for a second, he could’ve sworn you nuzzled into him.
His ribs tugged again that day. Harder than ever.
He blamed nostalgia, blamed whiplash from the shock of seeing fragments of your clingy childhood self resurface. Because the alternative, the idea that you wanted him near, the idea that he didn’t mind being near—that maybe he wanted to be near you—was too dangerous to consider. So instead, as always, Chifuyu lied to himself.
He lied a lot when it came to you.
Toman also filtered through the apartment like migrating birds, mostly on the days your mother was busy at work—which was most times. Of course they dropped by, despite you not being in Toman, you were still Keisuke’s precious little sister; and in a way, that made you theirs, especially when Mikey had practically seen you grow up—seeing you as his own little sister, next to Emma.
Mikey had been the first to arrive, Draken and tow, plopping down onto your bed as he stole your snacks before he scribbled a “Heal fast,” followed by a crooked crown and a “♡” on your cast. Draken had ruffled your hair, hands gentle, as he told you to stop giving everyone heart attacks, and signed with a doodle of a dragon.
When Mitsuya had stopped by, he’d brought some homemade onigiri with him, signing with a little doodle and a quiet “Get better, sweetheart,” before he left.
And when the twins stopped by, Nahoya had scribbled, “Don’t fall again, menace :)” while Souya wrote something soft and thoughtful, blue eyes lingering on you with worry heavier than steel. Your fall had probably lingered a little in their own minds as well, it had been a pretty nasty thud, and Chifuyu wondered if one or both still feared a possible Keisuke-murder-spree.
Kazutora, though? He’d turned your fall into a myth, boasting about how “You probably fell like a badass, like some incredible hero trying to save the day,” before signing with a rather badly drawn tiger. Everyone knew he tried to make you feel better in his own way. No one stopped him, not even you.
Takemichi had been one of the last ones to stop by, joining Chifuyu after their class one day. He’d apologized to your plushie laying in the corner first (the one you swore didn’t exist yet never got rid of either), before shakily signing “Get well soon!!!”
Bit by bit, your cast got filled with colour and warmth, like armour written in ink. Chifuyu had signed last, one small and neat doodle, hidden on the back like some secret. He’d claimed it didn’t matter, but his hands shook while writing.
The arguments between you and Keisuke started up again once your pain meds lowered and your energy returned, the last fight Chifuyu ever heard between you two—especially regarding the subject, at least. You tried, again, to convince your brother to let you join Toman, begged him to ask Mikey at least, and that you were sure the blond boy wouldn’t mind letting you prove yourself if that was what it would take.
“It was just a miscalculation,” you insisted, as if falling multiple meters and breaking a bone was the equivalent of misplacing homework.
Keisuke shot you down immediately, harder than before as fear clearly sharpened his tone. “You’re still a kid, end of the story. I’m not letting you near that shit.”
It should’ve ended there, with the usual movement of you slamming a door after you—cast or no cast—before turning the fire onto Chifuyu the same week. But this time, Chifuyu had stepped in, backing up Keisuke from the corner of the room while he pretended his hands weren’t slightly trembling at the idea of you getting hurt again.
“Your brother’s right,” he’d said. “You could’ve been seriously hurt, and that wasn’t even in a fight. You’re too stubborn for your own good, just let it go kid.”
The nickname had slipped out by accident, a habit from hearing it from Keisuke’s mouth so often. A nickname Chifuyu hadn’t used ever since you were twelve and climbing him like he was your personal jungle gym.
Saying it was the biggest mistake he’d ever made when it came to you.
The moment the word left his mouth, the air had shifted. He would’ve expected some explosion from you, that usual fire in your eyes as you shot out sharp jabs towards him, but there was none. No snapping, no glares sharp enough to cut steel. Instead, your gaze turned to him, and flickered.
A flicker that he felt in his ribs like a heavy impact.
A flicker full of something layered:
Hurt.
Anger.
Longing.
Something unspoken; something he didn’t have the tools to understand yet but which he still felt yank his very soul out and leave him breathless.
Your voice came out soft, but it wasn’t the softness of that past childlike wonder of yours, nor was it the softness of medication haze. It was softness wrapped in something heavy, and the words were quiet, as he’d personally been the one who drained the fire out of you.
“You always take his side.”
It rattled him more than every fight you two had ever had, rattled him more than every physical confrontation had ever left him. The words felt like they carried double-meaning, yet his mind hadn’t been very helpful that day.
The room had gone still; Keisuke’s shoulders tensed as Chifuyu’s breath had caught, but you hadn't looked away.
He had opened his mouth, only to close it, because what could he say? That he took Keisuke’s side because the thought of you in a real fight—bleeding, broken worse than this—twisted something vital in him? That “kid” tasted wrong even in his own mouth? That every time you softened under meds, every accidental touch, every tear on his collar, had chipped at the lie he’d built? He didn’t say any of it, just stood there with his chest tight as his ribs ached like they’d finally named the thing living there. Your words lingering, hollowing him out, echoing long after you turned your face away, and for the first time, Chifuyu started to slowly understand that the thing behind his ribs wasn’t allergies—it had never been allergies. If only the full realization had hit him a bit earlier.
Your fire had blossomed again after that day, despite your eyes growing colder and your words turning more aimed, though you also spoke to him less when you didn’t have to, as if you genuinely tried to stay away only to bite at him when your paths crossed. His name had vanished from your mouth completely. Neither Matsuno nor Chifuyu were ever uttered again after your broken ankle and the last argument he ever heard between you and your brother.He told himself he didn’t care, that it didn’t matter to him what you called him—if anything.
He lied.
Weeks bled into months and months slipped into a full year or so. Your cast had come off, your limp had faded, and your ankle had healed. Your birthday came and went, sixteen sharpening your edges more than before; except this wasn’t the childish and petty way of fourteen, wasn’t bratty comments about his hair or how he smelled like “dish soap”. No, your words at sixteen carried edge rather than bite. Aim, instead of chaos.
The questions got sharper, your tone got sharper, hell, even those glances that lingered one second too long before snapping away like you’d touching something hot had gotten sharper. Every jab of yours landed cleaner and quieter, more intentional rather than your past petty chaos; like he’d genuinely offended you for some reason he hadn’t caught on to.
He felt your words in his ribs before he felt them in his pride, but he also didn’t see you often enough to understand the pattern itself.
That was the year he saw you the least, especially before Keisuke eventually moved out later on. The two of them were drowning in their final year of high school, with late study nights, part-time jobs, looming graduation, and the slow adult panic that starts in the soft space between youth and responsibility. Toman had already disbanded by then; Mikey and Draken were working on their own adult futures, the twins had turned twenty and were choosing the dream of their ramen shop, Kazutora drifted in and out, healing and rebuilding himself. Life had begun its slow and inevitable shift towards adulthood.
Everyone was growing, changing, moving.
You were as well.
The times Chifuyu stopped by the Baji apartment were different now; your shoes were often missing from the entryway, your laughter was muffled behind your closed bedroom door or drifting faintly from the street below where you walked with your friends. Your presence—once unavoidable—existed only in traces:
Your bag tossed on the couch.
A hair tie forgotten on the coffee table.
Music humming from behind a closed door.
The soft murmur of your voice on a phone call.
Chifuyu told himself that he wasn’t listening for you. That he didn’t pause outside your door, or tilt his head to catch the sound of your laugh or footsteps, or that he didn’t feel disappointment settle under his ribs whenever he realized you weren’t home. Told himself he was just glad you finally had other things to do, other people to spend time with, rather than constantly hovering around him.
He lied, every single time.
He told himself he didn’t miss your clinginess when you were twelve, didn’t miss your soft draping when you were thirteen. Told himself he didn’t miss your bratty fire or the stupid way your comments rattled him, that he didn’t miss your arguments, your pout, your constant presence at his side like a living, breathing storm.
Chifuyu told himself he didn’t miss you.
He lied.
He told himself he was just relieved that you’d finally put your stubborn obsession with Toman on the shelf. Of course he should’ve been relieved, sending you into that world was unthinkable. Your fall had proved it; you’d nearly gotten seriously injured—he’d nearly lost you, but he quickly shoved that thought away as fast as it arrived—and that hadn’t even been during a fight.
Chifuyu should have been relieved. He told himself that every time he felt that same, strange tug under his ribs when he thought about you. You were just Keisuke’s little sister; sharp-mouthed and annoying, now growing into your own world filled with school clubs, friends, and after-school activities. A high school life blissfully far from delinquency.
You weren’t his responsibility.
You weren’t his problem.
You weren’t his anything.
…
So why did it hurt?
Why did he feel… left behind?
Why did he keep replaying how your voice had sounded that day, quiet and trembling with something he hadn't understood?
“You always take his side.”
It echoed even louder during this year of your slow-building absence, in the silence between the brief encounters and the lack of his name leaving your lips. Questions had kept him up late at night more times than not, even if he had tried to tell himself that none of it should’ve mattered.
Why had your words stung?
Why did it still sting?
Why had you gotten meaner after every fight with your brother, turning that fire towards him when you were upset with Keisuke? Why had you chosen him every time all these years—to cling to, to fight with, to glare at? Why had it only been open season on him whether that was your affection or your anger?
Chifuyu never asked, never got an answer to the questions that were slowly eating away at him. And now that you were growing away from him instead of towards him, he feared he never would.
The next few years didn’t break cleanly; they eroded, slow and steady and inevitable.
He didn’t see any more of you than he already had after he and Keisuke finally graduated high school, just the occasional glimpse when he did swing by before Keisuke eventually moved out; a blur of you passing the hall, a flash of you laughing with your friends outside the complex, a silhouette hunched over textbooks at the dining table. Most days he never saw more than just the echo of your presence, like a bag in the genkan or a half-finished mug of tea, or your room light glowing beneath the door crack.
When he did see you? You were buried in schoolwork, with assignments practically stacked around you as you scribbled as if your life depended on it, oversized hoodies swallowing your frame as your sweatpants hung off your hips, and your hair were up in either a messy bun or a ponytail, with loose strands brushing your cheeks. You looked older in the way your face was starting to get more defined from puberty, yet older in the way your bratty jabs had cooled and your eyes had gotten colder. You looked tired, but you also looked real.
He told himself you weren’t cute.
That you weren’t cute when you narrowed your eyes at him, or when you rolled them. That you weren’t cute when you sighed quietly before padding back into your room. He told himself that he absolutely did not imagine, even once, that the oversized hoodie you wore was his, that it could have been his.
He told himself he wasn’t disappointed when you didn’t appear for the short moments he was inside the Baji apartment, and that he wasn’t listening for the sound of your voice drifting from your room, and especially that he wasn’t waiting for soft footsteps that never came.
Yeah, Chifuyu told himself a lot of things, lied about a lot of things, because he always did when it came to you.
Your sharpness never vanished, not really, but it did soften; muffled by exhaustion, by studying, and by teenage life swallowing you whole. Sometimes you did still snap at him, but it was gentler, with less fire and more… habit.
He recognized the difference; he pretended he didn’t.
You’d already stopped hovering, stopped lingering, stopped poking or prodding or picking fights with him and your brother. Instead, you kept growing into your own world—friends, clubs, from your first year of high school, over to your second year, then your third. You slipped out of the apartment complex in the mornings with untied shoelaces and a piece of toast in your mouth, only to come home late with tired eyes and in-stained fingers. You laughed more with classmates than with the boys who once formed your orbit, and yet… every time he stopped by the apartment, his eyes always did the same traitorous scan:
Hallway.
Kitchen.
Door to your room.
Is she home? he caught himself wondering, while also telling himself the scan meant nothing.
When adulthood arrived in the ways that mattered, he didn’t see much of you again. Keisuke had been the first one who had saved enough to get his own place. Small and cluttered and loud, but very him. Chifuyu moved out not long after him, sharing a cramped apartment with Kazutora until they both got steady enough to live alone. They’d all started working part-time at the pet store, and routine settled around them like a new skin; the kind that doesn’t quite fit at first but eventually molds to the shape of your very bones.
Suddenly, Chifuyu had no reason to stop by the apartment. No reason to pass your doorway, or hear the creak of your floorboards, or check whether the light beneath your door was on. Your presence, which used to be constant and irritating and magnetic, slipped out of his daily life without ceremony. All he kept were fragments, flashbulb memories he clung to without meaning to, memories he clung to while telling himself he didn’t:
You, brushing past him to grab your shoes, murmuring a soft and distracted “Excuse me.”
You, tightening your ponytail while telling your brother you’d be home late.
You, standing at the stove in another oversized hoodie as you stirred ramen and humming faintly.
You, stepping past him in the hallways with your eyes meeting his for a split second—older, unreadable, fire more dimmed—before sliding away.
Simple moments. Glimpses, really.
Yet not enough.
Not for someone who once used to be the center of your attention, no matter if it was in affection or fury because both were just as intense, and both were impossible to ignore. Your presence faded from his routines like the slow dimming of a light; first warm, then faintly flickering, then gone. He told himself he didn’t miss it, that he didn’t miss you.
He lied then too, and he would keep lying to himself, because Chifuyu Matsuno wasn’t just a liar when it came to you; he was a coward.