Past collides with present (2)

“You’re so stupid,” the quiet female voice said.

“Heh,” the older Watanabe chuckled. “Sure, call me stupid because you go to-”

“No!” Mami cut her off in mid-sentence. “Not stupid like that. You’re just dumb!”

Suddenly, the younger girl threw herself on her sister, starting to punch her, although anyone around could see that those definitely didn’t hurt at all. Onitsuka, shocked by the sudden outburst by the usually quirky but level-headed girl, turned around to his childhood friend, who was just as surprised as himself.

“Keeping me safe, huh? How was it not ruining my life?! Did you even think about it?!” Mami kept throwing weak punches.

More of the delinquents stopped their fighting once they noticed this bizarre scene of a small girl fighting one of the most feared gang leaders. While the Yokai members looked amused and started cheering, the Herd group was more confused and even slightly scared, seeing how their boss was not even defending herself.

“You were the only one!” Mami’s voice started to tremble, and Makoto could swear he saw her eyes turning glassy with tears forming in the corner of her eyes, but then again, he wasn’t sure; there was a certain distance that made it impossible to see such details. “Only you understood my passion! Only you accepted it! Even when you didn’t understand what I was writing about or you couldn’t read all the kanji! You always pushed me to write more!”

Honoka, not keeping up with the words aggressively thrown her way and walking back all the time, ended up slipping and falling on her back, Mami going down with her but landing on her older sister’s body unscratched.

“But then you just left, and it was me and our mother. Every day I had to listen to how silly my passion is.” The girl’s voice got quieter with every word she spoke, and her hits got slower and even weaker, and tears dropped onto Honoka’s face. “You wanted to protect me. You said that yourself… Then when were you when I needed you to defend me from her…?”

Silence filled the old warehouse. No one was fighting anymore. Everyone was just stunned. On one side, the Herd had to be surprised by their leader’s unexpected lack of response, which lowered their morale. On the other side, the Yokai Gang was shocked at how Mami was speaking just like any other person.

“I...” the older Watanabe spoke out weakly but didn’t continue.

“I even did what you wanted. I found a strong Yokai. The Red Oni is here, isn’t he?”

Makoto tensed up at those words. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to react to that in any way, but he had a feeling that the girl hadn’t said everything she wanted to yet.

“You know, the first time I heard about him, I thought I’d bring him to you and it would all be over, but he was very stubborn,” the raven-haired girl chuckled through her tears that continuously kept falling down. “I started spending more time around him and his friends. Day by day, I really grew to like all of them, and at the same time, I felt worse and worse thinking about how I wanted to just use him as a tool at first.”

So she did feel bad about it all this time.

Onitsuka didn’t notice when it happened, but Tomoya came closer to him, putting his left hand on his back and patting him slightly. Classic Matsumoto move. He and Mai always knew when the scarlet-haired boy needed encouragement. What is happening at this specific moment? You see, Makoto may not look like it, but he was quite an emotional guy. He wasn’t afraid of crying, but there were moments in which he shouldn't, and although everyone stopped fighting, as a leader, he had to keep his dominating posture. His focus got back to the girls once Mami spoke up again.

“That’s why I promised myself that no matter what, I would not leave him and his gang to do things for me. That I will be there together with them and bring you back, said the younger Watanabe, who never tore her gaze away from her sister’s face while talking. “Even when I felt like I had already found a place where I am accepted by everyone for who I am and what I do, Even when I had someone to take care of me when I got sick, Without you, it still felt empty so... Please come back home, Onee-chan.”

That was it. Everything that Mami was bottling up was out in the open, not only to her older sister but to everyone around her. Now, what happens next is all up to Honoka’s response. Will Makoto have to once again fight with her and defend the younger girl? Will she refuse to come back home, and will they need to think of another plan to convince her? With the whole story revealed, it will be easier for them to understand Mami as well as Honoka. But the older girl’s reaction was probably the one that no one was prepared for.

“Ha… Ha, ha… Ha, ha, ha!”

With all the tension and seriousness filling the room, it was so off-putting to hear the Herd leader burst out laughing. It had to be Mami’s broken look that made the older girl try to collect herself or at least explain her strange reaction.

“I’m sorry! I'm not laughing at you or anything you said. I just can’t believe it, you know?” She slowly tried to get up from lying to sitting on the ground, delicately moving her younger sister back to give herself some space to be able to do it. “No one could beat me with even their strongest punches, but you... You managed to defeat me with your words. I’m so lame. And you were also mad enough to find the Red Oni,” Honoka turned to the scarlet-haired delinquent. “Like… Who could have thought you would be able to do that in the most twisted way possible?”

“So… That means…” Mami raised her glasses with her right hand to gain access to her eyes so she could wipe the tears away with her left forearm.

“Yeah. I give up. In the end, it looks like all this time I was a coward, running away from my problems instead of fighting against them. I can’t believe I am admitting that, but you were right to call me dumb and stupid.” She then moved Mami closer to herself and wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug. “And we will together deal with the old hag. Don’t worry about it. She won’t hurt us anymore.”

“Mhm.” The previously wiped-off tears from the big brown eyes started to form once again.

“I guess it’s our win, isn’t it?” Tomoya suddenly spoke up, awakening Makoto from his melancholic state.

He wasn’t sure what to think about everything. Did they win? He wouldn’t say that. They have achieved their goal, for sure. Honoka's giving up meant the disbandment of the Herd. With no power as a group, the members of the gang won’t feel as bold with their acts of vandalism.

There was no denying the fact that the true MVP of this occurrence was none other than Watanabe Mami herself. Almost one year ago, she appeared in Makoto’s life just to bring her sister back, and now she has her happy ending. Although it made the Yokai gang’s leader happy, there was a small pang of fear about what the future holds.

He felt out of it and out of the loop. Had he even done anything to help in the first place? He didn’t know, but all that mattered was that in the end, they were on the winning side, and their peaceful lives of only occasional friendly brawls between the other gangs were going to come back, and everything would come back to how it used to be.

Makoto hoped that not everything would be as it was and that some changes would remain as they were.

For the Yokai Gang, the true end of the battle was always announced by the leader, but Onitsuka just wasn’t able to bring himself to say it was over. The fear of closing a certain chapter and leaving it behind was keeping him from doing that.

No… That’s not exactly right. His true feelings were that he just thought that if he said they had won, it also meant that Mami would no longer have a reason to hang out with them. No more random appearances, jumping out of the bushes, talking gibberish, or slandering some poorly written books that Makoto had never heard of but enjoyed seeing how their existence made the girl frustrated. No more tutoring sessions; no more playing house with Nakano’s sisters, where he had to be a butler and Watanabe was a lady of the house. All of that would be over.

He wasn’t ready to let go of all of it.

Seing his friend troubled, Tomoya knew he had to intervene and signaled to Nakano, who was the one who, for this one special occasion, yelled out as loud as he could:

“The Yokai Gang won!”