PS: I still can’t get this out of my mind after reading some comments about it. Edited Nijiro’s hair btw. Ahhh, I really love his character in “Alice in Borderland”.
it’s time for my poor baby chota and how he deserved better !
context : i’m reading the aib’s manga and i can’t sleep so i’m over analyzing it and the show
-> spoiler manga and show
first don’t hit me for what i’m about to say plz
in the show i didn’t really like chota…
lemme explain ! he was just the weak boy, and that was his only role. sure his death made me kinda sad but if I had to chose in the game who should survive i wouldn’t pick him
but manga chota… outch his death made me sob
in the manga this guy is, at first, ‘the stupid pervert’ like we can find in any other manga, i didn’t like him bc i usually despite those characters but whatever let’s give the boy a chance
after he get injured in the first game, he started to apologize for keeping his friends behind and i was like </3 noo sweety it’s not your fault
now let me explain his death (major difference than in the show i think) it’s still the 7 of heart, the hide and seek game yk but this time the characters really hate each other for few minutes, karube is ready to kill shibuki, arisu and chota are standing there not knowing what to do,
they all want to survive so bad the drama made this scene softer
then, big mistake, shibuki gives the wolf to chota and the guy starts running away, arisu behind him
due to his injurie he can’t go far and arisu ‘steel’ the worlf’s role and then run away from him with it, telling chota that’s they’re not friends anymore
karube is screaming, saying that he will kill arisu. in this shape of mind, right then, if he could he would actually have done it, believe me, the scene was really soft in the show
and then, chota start : « stop i don’t want it to end like this, yk i kept a secret from you guys even if we’re besties i’m sorry dont be mad but I did it » (talking about shibuki and him yk)
this give arisu is memories of how he became chota’s friend and show him how the smaller boy is a great person,
if, at the end, he wanted to give up on the game it’s not bc of himself but thanks to chota, this guy gave him the small character development he needed, he calmed the anger, the rage of all of his friend and thanks to him arisu did’nt became some asshole who would do everything to survive
and i think chota, in the show, deserved to be a bit more than this weak ass character who didn’t believe in god but knewn only one line of text about him
(again i’m complaining but i’m so in love with the show it doesn’t matter)
i hated shibuki, but i’m reading the manga and wtf, why did the drama makes her such a bitch
-> spoiler manga and show
in the show the literal two seconds of “good shibuki” content were when she hugs chota before…yk…boom
anyways the rest of the time she was a real bitch i swear, okay she had to sacrifice that girl for surviving but she didn’t show any good emotion at all
(i don’t think it’s a bad thing, it’s also a part of the human race and i love this kind of representation)
but it’s just unfair for the character !
in the manga shibuki could survive and become the wolf during the 7 of heart’s game, she could but instead she decided to let arisu live. she is the one who said “live for us” not chota (chota did great things too but it’s another story)
she also had a lot of fun with the guys in the manga, they laughed and all and then a huge fight kinda broke them apart but this is the two faced human perfect representation
i love psychology and in this kind of situation (kinda apocalyptic where they’re life are in the line) the ‘real’ face of the person shows. there would be shibuki in the show’s type of reaction and manga’s type of reaction (+ the ones like chishiya, niragi, usagi etc…)
but i’m really sad that in the show shibuki was just “the bitch” i hated her and i was glad when she died but her death in the manga made me feel bad
i just think this poor lady deserved better (i absolutely love the show dont get me wrong)
okay so i’m reading the Alice in Borderland’s manga (i need answer and more chishiya content dont mind me) and alnsobzksisj there’s of course a few different things but the “ ep 3 ” hit still really hard
i’ll probably make a post or two about it with warnings for the spoilers
“We don’t give a fuck about spoilers, NIRAGI’S ALIVE♥️✨”
Wasn’t he like a near rapist ….?
Sex offender, arsonist, mass murderer, trigger junkie, bullied nerd, the list goes on but we all know we’re here for Dori Sakurada, and as a manga reader, I’m eager to see how they bring his back story to life and how much they’ll elaborate on his story.
no cause this version of niragi will always be attractive af for me
No because I can literally hear the laugh in the bottom panel of the first pic and I know it sounds exactly the same as the way Niragi was laughing on the Pirate Ship ride in Beast Hunt
I am foaming at the mouth, kicking, screaming, discombobulating, pirouetting, somersaulting, high kicking through the roof after seeing Dori Sakurada with manga Niragi on his birthday board
Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose: All Of The Times Aguni Stayed (And The One Time He Left)
Pairing: Aguni/Takeru (Hatter)
Rating: PG-13 (likely to change as the story progresses)
Warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of blood/injury, alcoholism, underage drinking
Notes: This will be a multi-chapter fic exploring the relationship between Takeru and Aguni as they try to navigate their lives, from the fistfights of childhood to the uncertainty of adulthood, all the way to the Borderlands. I have taken many liberties to create what I feel is an appropriate backstory for these two, but it most likely deviates from canon, so keep that in mind. Each chapter will be named after a different song that I feel suits their relationship, so feel free to give it a listen as you read for a more in-depth experience.
Chapter One: “Born To Run” by Bruce Springsteen
It’s the edge of February. Half-frost chill blows through the Tokyo twilight, sweeping through labyrinthine alleyways and tunneling between skyscrapers.
The cut on Aguni’s cheek burns.
“Your mom’s gonna kill you,” he says, watching Takeru fish his keys from his pocket with blood-knuckle fingers.
“She’snot,” Takeru insists, brushing Aguni’s worries off with a breezy tone. Even with a black eye and a split lip, he’s still as jovial as ever—like they had just gone for a relaxing walk by the river instead of getting caught up in a turf-war-turned-knife-fight. “I bet she’s not even home yet.”
“But your dad—”
“Oh, please! It’s nine o'clock on a Tuesday,” Takeru jams his key into the lock, “He’s gonna be half asleep in front of the TV. Probably won’t even hear us come in.”
“He noticed last time,” Aguni reminds him, “He grounded you for a week.”
The lock clicks and Takeru twists the doorknob with a sharp jerk of his wrist. The old metal door opens with a groaning creak, yellow-tinged light leaking out and drenching the wild-haired young man in a sunshine glow.
“Mori,” Takeru says, and it’s in the gaze of his laughing eyes that Aguni can’t help but feel something warm bubble up in his chest, “it’s all gonna be fine. Trust me.”
And Aguni does trust him. Not because he’s a particularly trustworthy guy, but because Takeru has always managed to slip away from any kind of conflict with minimal damage. Charming teachers into giving him passing grades, flirting with girls to get cigarettes and kisses on the school roof—hell, the only reason Aguni was allowed to join the gang is because Takeru had worked his magic on one of the higher-ups.
So Aguni follows him inside. Nearly trips over him as they squish into the tiny genkan, a collection of shoes smushed haphazardly along the far right wall. He tips left, elbow thunking into the wall below a collection of family pictures in mismatched frames—Mr. and Mrs. Danma at their wedding, Takeru’s older sister holding a baby Takeru on her lap, the whole family posing outside of the shop downstairs with toothy smiles and a different hat atop each raven-haired head.
“I’m home,” Takeru calls out, although he doesn’t seem to expect any kind of response, “Mori’s here too. He’s staying the night.”
Aguni lets the door fall closed behind him and takes a deep breath. The Danma residence—a strange little place, with almost as much character as the family who inhabits its gaudy papered walls and scuffed wooden floors—is the closest thing he has to a home these days. The cramped little room he rents with what pitiful paycheck he receives from his part-time job may be where he sleeps, but it’s here where he lets himself rest.
He toes off his shoes by stepping on each heel, and leaves them in line next to a pair of low pink heels. Takeru sits on the floor, tugging at frayed laces to slip his feet from the canvas hug of his red hi-top sneakers.
“Ah. Mister Morizono,” a familiarly slurred voice says, “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Mr. Danma—Takeru’s father, the hat maker, the baseball-watcher, the functional alcoholic—sits in the center of a sagging floral couch with the TV remote in one hand and a half-smoked cigarette in the other. He brings the cigarette and takes a slow drag, unimpressed gaze tossed first to his son and then to Aguni as he blows the smoke from his nose with a low hum.
“Dad, it was so cool,” Takeru excitedly explains, shoving his shoes against the wall, “Mori and I got into this fight—”
“Obviously,” the elder Danma scoffs, cracking open a fresh beer. His fourth of the night, if the cans left crunched and empty on the low coffee table are anything to go by. He looks at his son with a disappointed expression, but Aguni can see a twinkle of amusement in his eye. “Looks like you lost, too.”
Takeru rolls his eyes, shrugging off his dirt-smudged jacket with a breathy huff.
“We didn’t lose,” his son insists, letting the limp thing sag on a hook by the door, “we just…decided to leave before things got out of hand. You’re always telling me how I need to be responsible, so, uh, you’re welcome.”
Mr. Danma laughs.
“Right. Getting into fights after school is very mature,” he says. He motions towards the kitchen behind him with a flop of his hand, “There’s leftover curry on the stove, if you want it. You mother told me to make sure you got a good dinner.”
“She working late again?”
“Yeah. New show starts next week, so it’s crunch time for the costuming department,” Mr. Danma takes a gulp of beer and sighs, “If you’re gonna go out and get your ass kicked, make sure you don’t rip your clothes. The last thing she needs is to mend her idiot son’s school jacket for the five-hundredth time.”
“Dad! I already told you,” Takeru shouts, “I was the one doing the ass-kicking! Tell him, Mori—he’ll listen to you.”
“It wasn’t your best fight,” Aguni answers truthfully, much to his friend’s dismay, “but you held your own, I guess.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Takeru snaps, swatting at Aguni’s shoulder angrily, “I was the best fighter out there! My right hook is the stuff of legends. I broke, like, three noses today!”
“And you’ll break your mother’s heart if she sees you looking like that,” the elder Danma says, swigging from the can with an audible gulp, “Go get cleaned up in case she comes back early. I’ll make sure our friend Mister Morizono doesn’t burn your dinner while you’re gone.”
It’s as if Takeru suddenly remembers himself, bruised and bloody and dirt-smeared, because his shoulders drop a few centimeters. He side-eyes the pot on the stove, no doubt hungry after such an exciting scuffle. Of course, Takeru is usually hungry—and pencil-thin, despite the way he can snack his way through an entire bag of potato chips in one sitting.
“I’ll handle it,” Aguni says, nodding towards the kitchen, “You look terrible. Worse than normal, even.”
“Hey!” Takeru snips, but his voice is drowned out by Mr. Danma’s raucous laughter. With pursed lips and a pouty flip of his mussed-up hair, Takeru turns on his heel and makes a grand show of stomping off to the bathroom.
“Still better looking than you,” he calls out over his shoulder, mirth in his voice squashing any bite the insult may have had. The door to the bathroom slaps shut with a level of panache that only Takeru could muster, and Aguni smiles smally to himself.
And he’s not much of a cook, but Aguni at least knows to turn the stove to a low heat and let the curry heat up slowly to a bubbling simmer. He takes the lid off of the pot and admires the rich color of the sauce, how richly deep and velvety it looks, with potatoes and bits of chicken and onion and orange carrots cut into star shapes floating in the delectable thickness.
Mrs. Danma always cut the carrots into stars. A little touch of whimsy, even in the smallest and most inconspicuous of places—perhaps it’s because of her that her son is so vibrant and playful. She’s certainly why he knows how to get the blood out of their school shirts, scrubbing at stains with an old toothbrush and daubs of hydrogen peroxide from a brown plastic bottle.
Does she truly not know what Takeru is getting up to when he’s not at home? Doubtful. For all her laughter and sunshine, she’s a clever and calculating woman—as quick with her wit as she is with her sewing machine, the tip-tapping of the old thing the thrumming heartbeat of her family’s charming little home. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t comment on the empty beer cans in the recycling or the tears in her son’s uniform, knowing the seams of her beautiful and troubled family might begin to fray if she didn’t keep the machine going…
A whistle catches Aguni’s attention. Musical, like a birdsong, but inside the house. He places the lid on the pot and turns his attention away from the stove.
“Come on, kid.”
Mr. Danma’s attention hasn’t left the game, but he holds a beer up in Aguni’s direction—an invitation, the young man realizes, for something more than just a drink.
“Thanks,” Aguni says, taking the lukewarm drink from the man’s hand and holds it in his aching fingers. Before the older man can suggest it, he sits down on the sofa, the squeaking creak of the springs a testament to both its age and years of use.
There’s a moment where neither of them speaks, the tinny sound of a television crowd filling the sound space between them. The Carp are down. They’re Mr. Danma’s favorite team, even though he’s a lifelong Tokyo dweller. Aguni wonders if he’s ever been to Hiroshima—maybe he just likes the team colors? Aguni tends to root for the Hanshin Tigers because of their cool logo.
The pitcher throws a fastball. The batter misses.
“I’m a lot of things, Mister Morizono, but a fool isn’t one of them,” Mr. Danma drones. He flicks the tab on his can of beer dispassionately. “You two aren’t just fighting schoolyard bullies. It’s bigger than that.”
“I, uh—”
“No need to deny it,” he continues, shifting into a deeper slouch, “I know my son. And I know you, too.”
Aguni doesn’t respond. The batter swings and misses—strike two, and Mr. Danma spits a curse as the crowd boos.
“You’re a good kid,” Mr. Danma continues, “A little stupid, maybe, but you’re—what? Seventeen?”
“Sixteen.”
“Even worse. Being a dumbass is a requirement at that age. My boy’s more than adequate in that department. Sure, he’s smart enough, but…”
He takes another drink. Aguni copies the movement, even though he doesn’t really want to. He had planned on taking the beer with him to share with Takeru, as they always did when they were luckily enough to get ahold of one.
“I don’t need to tell you that, though. If anyone knows him, it’s you. Might as well be a brother to him,” He smirks to himself. “Had one of my regulars come in the other day asking why I don’t make my other son stock shelves, too. Said I didn’t know what he was talking about—turns out, he meant you.”
That makes Aguni frown. Perhaps he was a nuisance, always hanging around Takeru and his family. In truth, besides school and work, he didn’t have elsewhere to go—not enough money and not enough patience for arcades and cafes and wherever else people his age frequented in the evenings.
The television crowd cheers—finally, a hit. The Carp player breezes through first base and heads to second, landing on the plate with a showy little hop.
“So, I told him,” Mr. Danma says pointedly, “that my other son had a part-time job at a landscaping company, and that I don’t want him getting dirt all over my inventory.”
Aguni freezes. Hell, he would’ve dropped his drink entirely if hadn’t been gripping it so tightly just a moment before.
“I,” he starts, but his voice dies in his throat.
Another hit for the Carp. The man on second slides into third just before he can be tagged out.
“Let’s not ruin this with words, son. The point is,” He says, pausing to take another gulp of beer, “You’re family, whether you like it or not. Now I know you don’t have the best history with that sort of thing, but we Danma’s take it very seriously. It’s more than just having dinner together and fighting over the remote.”
For the first time since they started speaking, Mr. Danma looks away from the television and stares at Aguni directly. Aguni meets his gaze, albeit cautiously.
“Family looks after family. Blood or not, you’re one of us now. And because you’re one of us, you gotta make me a promise.”
Mr. Danma has tired eyes. Watery eyes. But not hazy eyes—the drink hasn’t dulled the sharpness in his pupils just yet, and he stares at Aguni with every ounce of seriousness a worn-out hatmaker can muster.
“Okay,” Aguni says.
“You have to promise me you’re not gonna leave him. Not out there. Not ever. I don’t care if the cops come, I don’t care if one of you gets hurt—you stay together.”
Mr. Danma breathes in heavily. Gulps against his own throat.
“I can’t protect him forever—I know that, but I,” He pauses, voice rough as gravel, “A man’s gotta fight his own battles, but that doesn’t mean he’s gotta fight alone. If he’s got you in his corner, I think he’ll be alright. So don’t you dare leave him, Aguni Morizono. Not for a second.”
The crack of a baseball hitting a steel bat. The crowd cheers again. The curry on the stove has begun to simmer, the lid of the pot rumbling in time with the bubbling of the liquid below.
None of it matters.
“I won’t,” Aguni says. How silly he must look, with his eyes hard-set and his jaw squared—still just a child, barely old enough to know what it is to promise someone something, but promising all the same. “I won’t leave him. Not ever.”
The elder Danma stares. Directly into his pupils, looking for the dance of doubt or perhaps a flicker of wavering intent—but Aguni doesn’t have anything of the sort.
Not when it comes to Takeru.
Mr. Danma nods.
“Go check on dinner,” he says, turning his attention back to the game. The Carp are still losing, but not as badly as before. “He’s already gonna be pissed about the beer, but burnt curry’ll send him right over the edge. You know how he gets.”
Aguni doesn’t argue. He picks himself up off the sofa and scuffles off to the kitchen. The curry had begun to stick a little to the bottom of the pan, but it’s nothing a few scrapes of the ladle can’t fix.
The game is still on, and Mr. Danma has gone back to watching as the grainy ghosts play a game already lost. Just like he always does, and just like he’ll continue to do until either the booze runs out or he does, slumping onto his side and snoring along with TV static into the wee hours of the night. It makes him wonder what he’ll be like in the future—will he have a family of his own? Will he have a wife who cuts carrots into stars and a son with bloody fists?
He sips on the rest of his beer. Finishes it, before he can stop himself. The alcohol content is low, but he still feels a loose buzz. Like he could fall asleep and have empty dreams. Maybe that’s why people do it. Maybe that’s why Mr. Danma does it. Maybe that’s why his father…no. No, no, he’s not thinking about him. Not now, not ever again.
“Hey,” a snippy voice snaps. Aguni looks up to see a wet-haired Takeru standing in the hall, skinny arms crossed over his too-big, too-old Queen sweatshirt. “Why does he get a beer?”
“Because he doesn’t lose fights,” Mr. Danma says. He turns to look at his son and smirks. “I’ll tell you what, son. You can open up the freezer and choose any bag of frozen vegetables you want as an ice pack.”
“Aw,Dad!”
“I know, I know—I’m the most generous father to ever live, and you’re so lucky to have me,” He laughs, “Now, go on. Get something on that eye before the bruise sets in. The ladies like a man who’s rough around the edges, not all the way through.”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me what women want. I’m basically an expert…”
Aguni starts dishing up their meal as father and son talk. Two bowls, filled with rice, then curry ladled on top of that. The little cut-carrot stars, the noise of the two Danma men in yet another ridiculous exchange—it’s happiness. Happiness in a way he didn’t think he’d ever feel.
He has a family. He has Takeru.
And he’ll do whatever it takes to protect that.
Thank you so much for giving this a read! In chapter two, we’ll be exploring Takeru’s early days as a host–and, yes, Aguni does play into that somehow. I think we deserve a little humor before everything gets angsty, don’t you?
If you ever have any comments or questions regarding this fic—or any of my others, which can be found on my tumblr tagged as #writingsandsuch—please feel free to drop a message in my inbox!
Thank you again, and I look forward to seeing where chapter two takes our favorite boys…
haro aso, while creating the cover for manga vol.5: ooh. should we leave them alone? should we back off? should we play it safe? NAHH, ya think- let’s make them ✨B I G G E R ✨
and that, fellas, is why chishiya got them badonkers in here.
I have just finished watching Alice in Borderland on Netflix, and I loved it so much!! But also, I’m curious, how does it compare to the manga? I’m actually seriously considering reading it now but I would love to hear other people’s opinions on it as well?
![Niragi Likes To [redacted] My [redacted]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/dbf73b5326dfbbbb0baa1fff124bdf19/43e2d0ffca70bacc-7e/s30x30u_c1/5d042b4d24e598f92b9936714382a26d89140c1e.jpg){kind=small}
