“You’ve only ever made my life worse, Seishu.

I did so much for you without second thought,

but you never even said so much as ‘Thank you’.

What did I do to you, for you to despise me so much?”

Just before Akane could continue to speak she combusted. The echoes of Akane’s screams rang through his mind. But they didn’t come from this nightmare. As his brain processed the pain in his face, he found himself back in the kitchen.

He watched Akane frantically search for a solution to put out the fire until she caught fire. She screamed in pain. He called for her, but the closer he tried to get, to take her hand, to pull her outside, the more she backed away from him. She was horrified, yelling at him: “SHU, NO. GO. DON’T TOUCH ME. RUN AWAY.”

Seishu’s skin had run pale, and his heart rate had spiked. He didn’t know where he was, but he had to leave, to run. But he couldn’t move. He was being held tightly.

Their hand held the back of his head against their shoulder. “Calm down, Seishu. You’re safe. You’re okay.” She whispered to him. “Please, calm down.” His mother pleaded.

Seishu tried to free himself, but he had run out of energy by then. He was left in pain, confused and crying.

“How are you feeling?” his mother asked him shortly after he woke up that same morning. She prepared a painkiller and some water for him, which he gladly took.

“My head hurts.” Seishu whispered.

His mother sat next to him on the bed. Her hand gently felt for the bump on the back of his head. “You hit your head.” She explained. “I was afraid you’d hurt yourself more seriously.”

Seishu didn’t reply. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened. He knows he had a nightmare, but how did he end up back in the kitchen?

His mother wasn’t quite sure what to say either, so the two of them sat in silence for a while until Seishu asked: “Where’s dad? Is he—"

“With Akane. At the hospital, yes.” His mother interrupted him. She looked tired—drained even. Not just physically but mentally, too. Understandably so

Looking at her, Seishu hesitated with his request. But his nightmare was still possessing his mind. He felt terrible, guilty. In his dream Akane had been so bitter towards him that he wasn’t sure anymore whether it was real or not. He needed to see her, to apologize, to reassure himself that she would really be okay and that she didn’t hate him.

“Can we go see her?” he muttered.

His mother shook her head before she explained: “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You—and I too—I don’t think either of us could bear to see her in her current state.”

“Please.” Seishu insisted but his mother rejected his request again with a simple shake of her head. “Please! I need to see her. I want to talk to her.”

“No.” his mother replied firmly.

“I’ll go myself then.” He pushed her aside—much rougher than he meant to—and got off the bed to get dressed.

His mother tried to get a hold of him, but he was quickly out the door, running through the hallway, through the hotel lobby towards the exit.

“Seishu! Stop!” his mother called after him trying to keep up.

As Seishu was just about to run out the entrance he encountered his father, who was just coming back from the very place he wanted to go to.

His father didn’t react to him right away, only when his mother called out again did the man run after his son.

Seishu’s lungs were already burning. He hadn’t realized just how much damage they had suffered by the smoke he had breathed —or by the sudden cold right after.

He didn’t get much further than a block from the hotel before he collapsed wheezing and coughing. He tried to get back up but every muscle in his body failed his will as he struggled to breathe.

His father finally caught up with him. Seishu struggled in his grip. “No!” he croaked. “Let me go.” But he couldn’t free himself, neither from his father’s grip nor from the constraints imposed onto him by his injuries. And he couldn’t help but cry as his father carried him back to their hotel room.

The salty tears stung on his burned skin.

[Chapter 2 End]

~

…No, I’m not Akane…

Despite the weakness that made his entire body feel much heavier than it used to be, Seishu tried to reply: “N-..”  but with his entire body fighting against shutting down, the single letter remained the only thing he could mutter out. He zoned in on the person speaking to him. It was Koko, his friend- his best friend. He had saved him; dragged him out of the burning house. But he looked…

…disappointed? Why do you look disappointed…

…Where are you going?

Shortly after Koko had run off, leaving Seishu alone in the cold, Seishu lost conscious again.

He heard people uttering instructions at each other. He felt every bump in the road, as he was transported to the hospital. Then he felt relief. He was still a little dizzy, but his headache was gone. He felt that his body was hot, slowly being cooled down. And he heard the slow, steady beeping of a heart monitor.

The next thing Seishu remembered was waking up. There was heat emanating from the left side of his face, his head. It was hot. It was burning. He reached up.

“Don’t touch it.” a familiar voice warned him. A warm hand carefully caught his wrist, stopping him before he could touch the bandage any further, bringing his arm back down.

“Mom?” he whispered. It felt like he hadn’t talked for ages. His throat was dry, it felt a little scratchy.

“Yes, I’m here.” His mother replied. She gently touched his face. “I’m here, Shu. You’re okay. Everything is fine. You’ll be okay.” She looked into his eyes to reassure him, but her mind was obviously somewhere else. She might have been trying to convince herself that everything was okay.

“Where’s dad? And Akane?” Seishu asked. He didn’t expect the tears welling up in his mother’s eyes. It was worrying.

His mother took a quick breath to catch herself and put on a smile. ”He’s talking to the doctors. And she’s here, too. Akane; she’ll be okay” She nodded, though the quiver of her lips gave away that she didn’t believe a word she was saying. “They’re taking care of her. You’ll be okay. Both of you, Shu. Don’t worry. Okay?” She rubbed his arm, like she always had, when she was comforting him. And like Akane had learned to do in her stead, too. It felt odd though.

Seishu looked at his arms. The blond hair on his arms had never been very visible, and it didn’t look different optically, but he felt the intensity of his mother’s touch, and it felt off. The boy sat up, touching his own arms, to find that the hair had burned off. He touched his right eyebrow. Gone. His head. Every single bit of hair was gone.

“They had to cut it off, to treat the burn. It goes all the way up to your scalp.” His mother explained. “Most of your hair burned off. There were a few patches left but I asked them to cut it all off.” She hesitated to continue. But the sheer bewilderment in Seishu’s expression begged her to continue. “It won’t grow back for a while.” She admitted. “They said that’s… to be expected.”

“Did her hair burn off, too?” Seishu asked.

His mothers face morphed in grief for her daughters current state. She turned away for a moment to hide her true reaction. When she turned back, she nodded. “Yes.” She still nodded, staring at the blanket Seishu was under, holding his hand tighter. “Her hair… it burned too.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him just yet. But…

I saw her.

I heard her scream.

I saw her burning alive.

Are you lying to me?

Where’s Akane?

[Chapter 1 End]

Chapter 2 →

-

It was neither usual nor unusual for both their parents to be gone this late. Sometimes their working times overlapped, which meant that Akane would have to look after both, herself and her younger brother. This was one such day; an ordinary day. She would pick him up on her way home, make sure he did his homework - though he defnitely tried to avoid it, and if they had no leftovers, she would cook for him.

I was wrong for asking.

Akane set aside her book "Sure." She smiled and got up to prepare something for the two of them.

In the kitchen she gathered the few ingredients she needed, sat the pan on the stove and turned it on. Seishu hovered by her side, watching her impatiently.

I took her for granted.

She kept a watchful eye on the vegetables in the pan, stirring them every once in a while so they wouldn't burn, and never letting her attention divert for too long. Except when the phone rang, she looked away. "Can you grab it?" she instructed Seishu. He quickly grabbed the speaker. Then just as quickly the call was over.

"They're late." Seishu informed her. Evening traffic. Akane's shoulders sank as she sighed. That's all it took. One moment of inattentiveness.

She hit the handle of the pan. The hot, oily vegetables landed on her. The pan laid upside down on the stove, still slick with oil.

"OW! SH- Fff- NO!" Akane exclaimed in pained panic. She moved hastily, wetting a towel with cold water to cool her scalded skin- the oily pan still laid on the stove. "Shu, take the pan off the stove-" she instructed him, quickly regretting it. When Seishu lifted the pan a flash of fire emerged.

Akane roughly grabbed the burning pan, pushing her brother aside. She didn't know what to do.

She didn't know what she was doing. She knew oil burns, but she didn't know just how high the flame would burst, if she threw it into the running sink - until she did it.

The siblings shrieked in terror, frozen in place until the counter caught fire, then the courtains.

"Shu. Get out." Akane pushed him towards the kitchen door. She tried to keep a calm voice, so he wouldn't know just how terrified she was. But it shook, and he almost listened, until he noticed she wasn't following him. She was still in the kitchen, trying to figure out if there was anything she could do. Seishu rushed back into the kitchen. He called out for her. He tried to pull her out of the kitchen.

I didn't try hard enough to save her.

[Prelude End]

Chapter 1 →

— 

Note: woah, hello? thanks for reading! I know it’s not much, frankly this is the first fanfiction I'm writing lol

I’m thinking about posting on AO3 and on here, with not too much of a delay, but I can assure you, they’ll be on AO3 first.

The first few chapters are probably going to be quite short still. I have a rough idea of what I want to write, but as I said, this is my first time writing - anything ever actually. So bear with me please <3

If you have any tips or constructive criticism, feel free to share! Writing is a skill I’d like to practice and I know I for sure have a lot to learn still.

(I’ll just be rambling now, you don’t have to read these notes lol)

Basically, I love Tokyo Revengers. I was kinda (super) disappointed by the ending, because it felt very half-assed - no disrespect to Ken Wakui or anything, he created something really cool and I get that it has to end at some point and writing a conclusive satisfying ending is hard, I imagine.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about writing my own ending. I don’t want to divert from canon too much, but I’ll have to see how that works out qwq

On the side I’ve also thought about other characters, some of them and their dynamics I felt deserved much more depth than they got.

And so I plan to write quite a few sort of seperate works, one to rewrite the ending and some about characters and their dyamics, set in their backstory or maybe during canon too?