#keisuke baji

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Heads and Tails - chapter 2

Pairing: baji keisuke x black reader

Warnings: violence and cursing

Summary: Baji meeting his little boo in highschool.

you felt like a delinquent, approaching the school out of uniform like you had. though, there was really no reason to don the blouse and skirt ensemble… not today at least. the scrap you’d ended yesterday had promptly earned you a week’s suspension. really– what work of destiny got its kicks out of throwing a mindless gaggle of schoolbitches in your face and starting all this? all you wanted was to escape the den of hell your life had become thanks to your older brothers and keep your head low in Tokyo with your mother, so what was the cosmos’ damn problem?

you didn’t know, and could only sigh. at least bestie had been the one party to come away clean from faculty. and your spirits were also lifted from her run down of things, given to you over the phone the night before.

“get the hell outta here, you slid her that quick?”

“oh yeah, you know i did. i know what i’m doing, trust me. she barely got that weak little hit in that she tried before i had her on the ground.”

“bitch tapped out?”

“tappedall the wayout.”

your head was thrown back by now with your laughter. you had been just as taken by surprise by it as her attacker evidently had been. “bitch, that’s my frienddddd!” you sang out, chuckling again as you tipped over onto your bed. she laughed along with you, beaming in her own pride about your performance that day before the mood gave a shift.

“i can’t believe they gave you a week and they only got three days,” she lamented. and she wasn’t alone in that. though you weren’t at all shocked that your punishment was harsher than anyone else’s, you couldn’t help but have your mind linger there. it worried you, too, but while she was fretting over your scholastic impact (too good for this world), your train of thought was still quite singular in all things considered.

on a sigh you admitted back to her, “yeah, that’s what i’m worried about.”

“how do you mean..?”

you clicked your tongue and whined, “i mean they’re some punk ass mean girl wannabes and they’ll try that shit on you again..!”

you could hear her touched gasp, then the endeared little coo on her end of the line, and couldn’t help but smile in return. “shut up.”

“you’re my best friendddddd.” she sang to you, mimicking your earlier tone.

“shut up!” you whined again, cheesing. she probably knew how grateful you were to have her, but the fuzzy feelings you had to put aside for now, “i gotta go anyway, i ain’t made dinner yet.”

“it’s so sweet how you cook for your mom.”

“i hate you, bye.”

you were antsy the entire day over your timing. tactical missions weren’t exactly your strong point, so you were sweating over when the right time would be to be waiting on the grounds: to intercept bestie immediately as school was out, but not so early as to be caught by a morals committee snitch or any other free faculty when you were fresh on a suspension.

when the anxiety had crawled its way high enough to be rattling your eyeballs, you left out for the school courtyard. the way you figured, there would be some place or another to hide out if you caught sight of any potential problems. the possibility of a rebound gang-up was too high in your mind– especially with the added confidence of your absence. those girls could’ve been anywhere. or sent anyone. they didn’t seem like the type to understand a lesson only given to them once anyway. you were so acutely paranoid of a repeat, that you’d spent the entire afternoon and evening adjusting your hair for round two. you hadn’t wanted to use your braiding hair to do feed-ins for a bun, you’d wanted to do box braids. but now they’d have to wait. the bun would be more practical. in the end, your disappointment was short lived. it wasn’t what you’d planned, but the style still was pretty. and this way, your newly gifted hair-tie wouldn’t go to waste.

you’d made it a little after the last bell, from what you could tell of things. students were just starting to come through the doors and spill onto the spacious plain of pavement separating the building from the street. with your eyes peeled, you hurried up the sidewalk to the school’s front commons, moving with light feet–

“oi.”

to be caught before you could even pass the steps.

turning to the intrusive voice, you matched stares with a short and dark-eyed blond, leaning against a motorcycle. and you were swiftly confused. this boy wasn’t on the morals committee, clearly. he wasn’t even in uniform. so what could he have wanted from–

“you’re baji’s girl, right?” his mellow voice asked. your forehead creased, and as precautionary measure, you looked around to see if there had been anyone else he may have meant. but he spoke again, after rubbing a pensive finger over his chin, like he’d known your name but forgotten it. “from yesterday.”

“…i’mwho?” you asked, glaring at him like he was undeniably crazed, before your neck nearly snapped to search the grounds behind you. you were here for bestie– this boy had distracted you far too easily.

“relax! hey,” he chuckled, far too chill. it reeled in your highly skeptical attention, and slowly, you turned to face him again. now you found him smiling, “i gave your friend a lift, she’s home already.”

your brows furrowed deeper than you’d ever felt them, and he responded with a closed-eyed grin before adding, “safe and sound.”

you had to interrupt your own careening train of thought with your voice, and when it came, it was a tad snappier than you’d presumed it would be. “–who are you..!”

he didn’t seemed fazed by it, when you were actually kinda positive you were starting to look insane your own self.

“i’m your ride,” he answered, still unnervingly chill… and cheesing his ass off. and your time to ask questions was being cut short, as he began to mount his bike just after that non-intro he’d given you. as bound as you clearly still were to cluelessness, he held out a helmet for you. with that, it seemed he was finished with explanations for now, save for one. “baji had something he wanted you to see.”

you stood, dumbfounded. maybe even with your jaw hanging. but he just gently nudged you a little further, voice still even and tepid– as though there were nothing at all troubling with a stranger offering a motorbike ride outside of school.

“come on, I’ll take you, it’s quicker by bike,” his heel nudged the kickstand free. and some unspoken force made you sure that there was no way to get out of going along. “i’ll ride smooth for you, that helped your friend.”

you wanted to decline, but some hypnotic inclination compelled you. this was the second mysterious boy to appear from nowhere before you, and your reaction was two for two. silently, you reached for the helmet he offered, and took a wobbly, unsure seat at his back.

“hold on to me, okay?” he said softly, waiting until your headgear was snugly secured. the engine exploded on, making your entire body rumble with its massive vibrations, “nice and smooth.”

your arms curled around his lithe waist, and you could hear him laughing when the sudden motion and building speed drew a squeal out of you. yet, to your surprise, he kept to his word of making the drive as smooth as possible for you. his braking was gentle and his turns easy. on top of that, the ride was shorter than you expected– maybe five or six blocks from the school.

what really caught you by surprise, though, was the destination. you’d expected to arrive outside of someone’s house, or a park… some sort of meetup or hangout spot. this dude stopped you both at a sidewalk just at the side of some random street. granted, it was a street you hadn’t been on, but still… you couldn’t really fathom what could be shown to you here that couldn’t have been shown to you at school.

it as only when you saw two other blonds– one far taller than anyone else present, and another with an undercut– both looking around your age, that you began to make any sense of this.

then, a bit ahead of the rest, you saw a head of raven tresses that effortlessly caught your eye.

“come on, come on,” your driver ushered you along with no real hurry to his tone, “he’s already gonna talk shit about me bringing you here late,” he cut the bike engine and cut through your scattered thoughts, letting down the kickstand and dismounting. the greetings of the others to him sort of flew over your head– you were too busy trying to not fuck up your brand new installed style with this fucking helmet to pay any attention to them. and trying to piece together who the fuck baji could be. but when the thing finally popped from your head, you inadvertently matched gazes with the same, amused set of golden eyes that had been grinning at your scraggly headed self slumped on the floor, just the previous day.

the look he wore changed almost immediately– from what looked like a resting bitch face, to some kick over seeing you, to a dazzled and taken aback double-take once he saw your hair. his reaction made you feel like you were blushing; below a surprised frown his lips formed a tight ‘o’ in a silent wolf whistle, while he smoothed a hand over his hair– gesturing just how much he liked your new braided up-do.

but he stood at a distance from the others, his body angled more up the street as he faced the bunch you were near. what was he doing? waiting for something?

“oi, baji. special delivery!” the blond called to him in english, making him chuckle lowly. you couldn’t help but think that he was referring to you.

“uh-huh. it took you long enough! what–did you two stop at the salon on the damn way?” he barked back.

“you’re one to fucking talk.”

you were already about to yell over their shit talking and ask what the hell you had been delivered here for, but the short blond addressed you again.

“baji told us about your fight at school yesterday.”

you felt your face crumpling in confusion– especially seeing the muted grins of the other two at the mention of the day before, but he kept on as though this were a normal conversation. “he says your brothers taught you well.”

that now counted two times that your brothers had been brought up by a complete stranger. it was well past uncomfortable to you, now.

“… what am i here for..?” you asked. a ton of dread suddenly hit you, feeling like a flush of ice. were you being auditioned for some sort of underground fight club? did these boys have a group of their girlfriends coming to jump you so you could replay the scrap yesterday to their satisfaction? or had your brothers somehow made enemies of a rival gang even overseas? because you certainly couldn’t recall ever seeing any of these faces at school before…

“to watch him put on a show,” the tallest blond of the trio droned you answer. his voice was low and mature, and though the sides and back of his head were completely shaven, vaguely like someone would do for a mohawk, he had a long plaited ponytail of the hair that was left. he sounded *over* whatever this was before it even started. but you were too distracted to be entirely certain, eyeing the dragon tattoo he had edging below his hair. “you impressed him so he wants to do the same.”

you wanted to ask more, but that familiar, deep voice caught your attention by calling out from down the sidewalk, drawing your eyes to him and maybe five other dudes approaching behind him from the other end of the street.

“gotta show you what kinda ass-kickin’ you can dish out when your hair ain’t in the way.”

his voice was only elevated enough to reach the four of you; aside from that, he seemed totally collected. and with five guys coming his way who looked more than hostile, you weren’t sure whether to be impressed or terrified by him. without even fully facing the approaching group, he pulled another hair tie free from his pocket. he chose then to look you dead in your eyes, making your heart stall as he bit down on the elastic to gather his hair. he looped it into a high pony more slickly than you’d ever seen done, releasing it with a chuckle leaving his lips just as the opposing boys had approached him. “eyes on me, punchy fights.”

that drew full chuckles from the others. you remained in the dark yet again, unaware of just how much you had been discussed by these four.

“so it was a good fight?” mikey asked, hearing baji bring up the scuffle the school grapevine had been murmuring over.

chifuyu pressed with his own questions, too, “at ourschool?duringschool?”

“and a two on one…” draken probed.

“hell yeah, american girl’s nothing to fuck with. stomped their asses pretty shittin’ good,” he continued to brag, cheesing til his cheeks were sore. “and got brothers, too. you can tell they taught her some solid shit.”

mikey hummed. highschool was boring on most accounts– having a girl or two around that helped things stay less mind-numbing was a prospect he welcomed. “damn. i’m kinda mad i missed it, now. i haven’t seen a good fight with girls in a long time. there’s too much hair pulling most of the time.”

“there’ll be another one. she embarrassed some girls that were trying to build a rep,” draken insisted. he knew of the levels of pride and pettiness in highschool kids wanting to make a name for themselves, even outside of the underground world.

“and with plenty'a punches,” baji assured, “all hers are gonna be punchy fights, guaranteed.”

he had barely turned when he took out the first one. it was an impossible act of physics: his arm extended straight out with a fist at its end, gripping the guy to snatch in for a headbutt and sending him to the ground, unconscious. now you were sure that the right response was to be terrified by baji. the next he took down while dodging a fist they threw, locking their arm to his side in a spin that turned his back to them, then throwing an elbow into their nose.

…he was fighting like how stuntmen performed choreography in action movies. none of it made sense– nothing like that should have: no strength level, no fighting technique, nothing conducive to a dude winning a five-on-one should have ever existed. but within the next thirty seconds, he had.

two he had taken out at once, too quickly for you to register just how it happened– but a beast-like throw of one he caught by the arm into the other laid the both of them out cold.

when the last lunged at him, he swung them round in a headlock, facing you with a thrilled grin shining on his face. it was the energy that belonged to a boy showing off a new action figure to his friends, not flaunting his next victim in a melee. this boy, you realized much much too late, was beyond dangerous.

“ne, punchy fights. recognize the face on this asshole?” he asked you, laughter clear in his voice. well, you assumed he had meant you, but you couldn’t make out any resemblance and could only shake your head 'no’, half in shock. he laughed again, socking the kid in his chokehold… once, then twice, then a third time. he kept at it, his cheshire grin stretching wider with each blow. when he’d crunched his knuckles into the bones of their face a seventh time, he stopped. “how 'bout now?”

you still drew a blank. but he didn’t keep you hanging too long.

“those two you took on yesterday. they got brothers, too. the girl your friend beat down’s got a cousin. and alllll three of 'em ran home and told on ya,” he finally announced, like you would get the grandest delight from it. “so these asswipes were on their way to try some bullshit on you for fuckin’ em up like you did and gettin’ their little sisses and cousin suspended. ain’t that right, you fuckin’ pussy?” he asked the pulped up face leaking in the crook of his elbow, “thought you could come fuck with some girls cause you didn’t teach your own blood how to fight for shit…” the guy didn’t answer– he’d been out since about the third or fourth hammer to his face.

with no further use for him, your twisted black haired vigilante threw him to the ground, no longer bothered with any of them now that they were smeared across the pavement, beaten.

when he’d reached the rest of you, none of the blonds acted as though this was out of the norm at all, and it put you I’ll at ease. truthfully, you had been rattled to your core just hearing that one word come from him, as buried as it was in the rest. it echoed in your head the second he said it, and wouldn’t stop. blood.

hearing it shook you like you’d seen a ghost. you couldn’t even place your attention where it should have been: whatever this plot was that had been foiled by baji.

his smile was directly on you now, close enough for you to see those sharp canines clearly. “you tied that up with the one i gave you?” he asked, nodding to your new feed-ins.

your face heated up in a blaze when you remembered you had.

“yeah,” you answered, “you said quit brawling like i had short hair.”

a feral smirk crawled into his lips slowly, and the drawn out chuckle he responded with made you terrified again. something about the consequences of gaining this dude’s attention boded negatively with you. it felt too familiar, and now, too close.

“looks good.”

“maybe you can help ken-chin, he braids sloppy,” the one who drove you said, making the tallest blond sneer.

“shut up, mikey.”

you observed the four of them as they fell into a banter among themselves, trying to make out their connections to one another. and it didn’t slip your notice that mr. five-straight-knockouts was closest to you, nearly shoulder to shoulder as you all collectively loitered there.

“that’s your name for me, now? punchy fights?” you asked him coolly, trying to stay below enough on the radar so as to not interrupt the others. he blinked, eyeing you sideways, so intensely that your heart kicked against your chest. he gave it a moment to calm, though, slipping the tie from his silky head and shaking out the tightness left behind.

there was no answer he gave. in fact, there wasn’t a word further at all that he directed to you. instead he called out “chifuyu” (who you learned to be the blond with the undercut), before suggesting that they go eat, leaving you bewildered as they all then left you alone with your ride.

“ah, no invites yet,” he turned to you, beaming with his hands in his pockets, “i’m still your ride. ready for me to take you home?”

you snorted, “i can walk home right from where you picked me the fuck up, mikey-san,” you answered with a brow cocked, causing him to blink. it caught him by surprise– but after a tense, quiet moment between the two of you, you could see to your relief that it was a pleasant surprise.

“you’re smart. i see why baji’s impressed,” he commended. you had just met him and been introduced to his delinquency, and thought that through before accepting his offer to take you home. why that didn’t offend him was beyond you, but he was very pleased.

“so let’s get you outta here, then, punchy-chan.”

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