A tan-skinned man slowly walked up a small set of crumbling stone steps to a wooden door. A small girl followed closely behind him, her bare feet scratching against the wet ground. Even though he hadn't been there in years, he still had the key, which had been stowed away in a cluttered drawer to be forgotten.

  It was only after he met the girl he was now accompanied by that he was pushed to reopen this door, the one he never imagined himself returning to.

  Masao Takeda was a name infamous among the residents of Central City. His reign of terror ended three years ago, and his gang had settled down quite a bit in his absence. It was rumored that the new leader of the gang was a young, inexperienced teenager who didn't understand how city life worked.

  What was most misunderstood, though, was that JumpAHead was not a regur gang. Unlike the usual dangerous and hierarchical gangs, JumpAHead was more like a family. Although they committed crimes, murdered people, and caused trouble in the city, the dynamic inside was close and familiar. They were simply a group of close friends trying to survive and rebel against COT.

  Knowing this, Masao had no hesitation in returning to the people he abandoned three years ago. They knew his situation, accepted it, and had even visited him a few times after the accident happened. Life had to go on, though, and soon they stopped coming from the other side of the marble gates to visit him.

  "Are you afraid?" Yoli asked, sensing his hesitation.

  "No, I'm not. I just...haven't been here in a long time."

  The door was always locked. He knew that because it was a rule he put in pce during their most active years. The rge, four-bedroom house they used as a "hideout" was situated in a secluded section of Central City. The building was five stories tall, but only the first floor was being used.

  It was a special type of building made by COT during the construction of the city. They were meant to house multiple families, and each story was accessed by staircases on the outside of the building. However, these staircases had been ripped off many years ago when the buildings were deemed unsafe to live in. Their structures weren't made to st, and COT was worried that the homes would colpse.

  It never did.

  He first knocked on the door three times to let them know he was there, and then he opened the door. Yoli grabbed onto his waist when the door was slowly pushed open.

  He peered inside. The main room was dimly lit and looked virtually the same as it did the st time he was there. One of the bedroom doors opened, and a boy approached him.

  "Who the hell are you?" he asked, unable to see fully who was at the door. Masao didn't need to see him to know who it was. He had every voice memorized.

  "It's Masao. All this time and you still haven't learned respect, ya little runt," he said.

  "M-Masao? Oh my God!" The boy shouted, opening the door wider for him.

  "Nice to see you again, Kei."

  "Guys! Guys! Masao is here!" he ran to the bedrooms to wake the others.

  Kei returned from the bedroom with a weary-looking man who was rubbing his eyes.

  "Why are you waking me up at this ungodly hour, you freak?" the man asked. He was blond, and Yoli recognized his face from the photos in Masao's room.

  "Hideo, what's up?" Masao nodded to the blond.

  His eyes widened when he noticed Masao, and he immediately ran to him, pulling him into a tight hug that almost knocked them both off their feet.

  "Whoa!" Masao stumbled backwards.

  Yoli gently took his hand and hid behind his back, eyeing the strangers with curiosity. They were Masao's friends, but she seemed hesitant to trust them.

  Kei was a rge, punkish boy with pale skin and buzzed blond hair. He was of average height and much more masculine than Masao or Hideo. Despite his rough appearance, he was only a teenager and was teased by other members of the gang.

  The other blond man, Hideo, had his hair slicked back and wore thick brown goggles on top of his head. His eyes were green, and he wore a bck and red striped, long-sleeved shirt with a white button-up on top. Around his neck was a neckce with a rge silver X on it.

  "What are you doing here?" Hideo asked, with a hint of anger in his voice.

  "Someone wanted me to come 'rekindle my retionships'," he groaned, gncing at Yoli. The others hadn't noticed her until he pointed her out.

  "How in the hell did you get a girlfriend, with you being locked up inside and everything...?" Kei questioned.

  "She's not my girlfriend...it's a long story," he rubbed the back of his head. He was lucky that Yoli had given him a shock a few hours earlier, or he would be too tired to talk to them.

  Hideo furrowed his brows and looked down, as if seeing Masao was painful for him. He hugged the magenta-haired man again, harder this time, and wrapped his hands around him as if he would never let go.

  "So you're still sick?" he asked.

  "Yeah, but I found a way to work around it. That's why I'm here right now," Masao answered. Hideo clung to him, unwilling to move apart.

  "I don't remember you being this clingy..." Masao ughed awkwardly. He flicked Hideo's forehead, and the blond backed away, rubbing the spot. "You guys go to bed early these days?"

  "Dude, it's 1 in the morning," Kei pointed out.

  "Exactly, what happened to all the parties? Laaaame."

  "Things aren't the same without you. No offense, but Kei can't get any of the guys pumped up about COT like you did," Hideo said, gring at Kei. The two boys had always had a small rivalry because they were both quite attached to Masao.

  "So what you're telling me is that the whole gang fell off? You guys just sit around all day like me?" Masao sighed, pressing against his nose bridge with frustration.

  It was understandable that he would be upset. He had worked hard to build their reputation as a dangerous rebellion against COT, and in his absence, they had seemingly done nothing to continue his work.

  "We don't just sit around! But you know that I can't lead like you do, Masao!" Kei clenched his fists. "You can't just...show up and act like everything's how it used to be. Things change."

  Yoli lightly grabbed the back of Masao's shirt, frightened by Kei's voice level. He rested his hand on her head to calm her, lightly combing his fingers through her hair as Kei chewed him out.

  Another bedroom opened, and a taller woman with long, messy hair stepped out. "Would you boys shut up!?" she shouted.

  "Kaho? I'm surprised you're still around," Masao ughed, waving to the woman. Yoli tilted her head and peered around his back to take a look at the new person.

  She was wearing a revealing set of leopard print pajamas. Her nails were long, pink, and had flower charms on them. She looked like a toned-down version of a gyaru. Her hair was wavy, dark brown with blond highlights. Yoli noticed that Masao was staring at her, specifically at her chest, which was rger than her own.

  "Who let the bck hole in?! You've got to be joking!" she pointed an accusing finger at him.

  "B-bck hole?" Yoli repeated, speaking for the first time in their new location.

  "Yoli, she's kidding," he ughed, patting her head. Kaho called him a bck hole all the time to tease him about how much money he sunk into gambling, and eventually it became somewhat of a nickname. Kaho stepped closer to him, peering at Yoli.

  "Who's this you brought with you?" Kaho looked back at Masao, who looked towards Kei and Hideo for help. "Did you kidnap her?"

  "No! I didn't kidnap her," he defended. He wrapped his arm around Yoli in a protective manner, shielding her from the interested older woman. "You're scaring her."

  "Oh, don't you start that. She should be scared of you," she ughed, lowering herself to get a better look at the girl. Kaho was quite a bit taller than Yoli. "My name is Kaho, what's yours?"

  "Yoli. I live with Masao," she answered without thinking.

  "Gahhhhh!"

  "She lives with you?" Kei and Hideo said unanimously.

  "Oh, you poor thing!" Kaho scooped Yoli into her arms, giving her a sloppy, but enthusiastic embrace. "How long has this pathetic excuse for a man been keeping you hostage?"

  Masao was too overwhelmed to defend his name, standing there in shock as his three friends crowded around Yoli and bombarded her with a mirage of questions. She answered each one with careful thought, expining their entire situation in detail. By the time they were done questioning her, they were all sitting on the couch in the living room. Masao had zoned out, staring at the wall as his life's details were spilled.

  He was just gd that none of the others had woken up.

  "If you need anything, just call me. I understand that a woman can only survive for so long with a man until she gets fed up!" Kaho said, petting Yoli's hair.

  "She won't be leaving me, and she will not be calling you," Masao grumbled.

  "Oh, you don't have any shoes on! Shame on you, Masao, forcing your disgusting kinks on her," she shook her head in disappointment.

  "W-what the heck? You think my shoes would fit her? She didn't have any shoes on when I found her. What was I meant to do?"

  Kaho went into her bedroom and returned with a pair of white boots. They had fur around the top and sparkling ces.

  "You can keep these. I outgrew them years ago," she handed the boots to Yoli, who happily put them on. They cshed with the masculine clothes she was currently wearing.

  Masao rested his head back, staring at the ceiling and trying to block out the sound of the others talking. It had already been a few hours since he got his st shock from Yoli, and he was starting to come down from it. He could feel a slight headache coming on, and his energy was slowly waning.

  He didn't want to ruin everyone's mood, but it was like they had forgotten that he quite literally had a heart condition. That was the reason they were separated to begin with. After his accident, he decided to move away so he wouldn't be a burden on them. Living as he does in the company of others would only cause them stress and annoyance.

  As he was zoning out, he felt something snuggle against him. Yoli hugged his arm, resting her head against him like a pillow.

  Apparently, during his zoning out, Kei and Kaho had returned to bed. Only Hideo was still awake. He sat on one of the stools at the makeshift bar in the corner of the room. Yoli shut her eyes and yawned, nuzzling her head against him.

  "Still got a drinking problem?" he asked Hideo without looking at him.

  "Yeah," the blond replied pinly. "Still got a smoking problem?"

  "I do. I wonder which of us is worse, the alcoholic or the chain smoker..." Masao chuckled. "Haven't had a cigarette in a few hours, though, is that a good thing?"

  "I'm surprised. I was actually a little confused when I saw you without one in your mouth at first," he said. "Is that girl changing you?"

  "Yoli? Hell no," Masao sighed, looking down at the girl sleeping against him. He took out the pack of cigarettes from his neighbor's and lit it. "You don't mind the smell, do you?"

  "Nah. I kinda miss it, actually," Hideo ughed, his tone lightening a bit. "I scrubbed the walls after you left, but they're still stained. It did help with the smell."

  There was a long silence, one of them blowing out smoke, the other staring at an empty cup. Hideo didn't need to say a thing for Masao to know what he was thinking. They had been best friends since they were little, and Masao knew better than anyone what Hideo was feeling.

  "It's changed a lot since you left," Hideo finally said.

  "I don't know how to feel about it. At first, it felt like you were just on a vacation, but then...all those little things that you did to this pce started to fade."

  "Did they, now?"

  "I didn't visit because they all told me you were too sick for visitors," Hideo picked up the empty gss and rotated it in his hand. "But...what did you expect me to do? Just come see you whenever I want to?"

  The gss rolled out of his hand and fell onto the tile floor, shattering into pieces.

  He banged his fist on the counter over and over again. Masao winced as he heard Hideo's choked sobs that barely made their way out of his throat. "Why'd you have to go ruin your life like that?!"

  Masao didn't reply, waiting for Hideo to quit his shouting. Eventually, he wrapped his arm around the girl and picked her up bridal style. He didn't care if he was tired. He was going to get her home.

  Hideo followed him to the door and opened it for him without compint.

  "I'll be back another day. Take care of the others like you have been, okay?" Masao requested.

  His friend nodded, eyeing the girl who was sleeping peacefully in his best friend's arms. She was pretty, but something about the pair made his blood boil.

  Masao walked out to his motorcycle and set Yoli down on it, making sure she didn't fall over. He put his jacket over her shoulders to shield her from the cold. A sharp wind swept past him, and droplets of rain fell around the two of them. He looked back at Hideo, who was standing at the open door watching him. Masao sighed and walked back towards him, taking a cigarette out of his pocket and handing it to Hideo.

  "If you miss me so bad, then smoke. That's what this pce used to smell like, remember?" he said with a smirk. Hideo nodded bnkly, watching the magenta-haired man walk back down the steps and get on his motorcycle. They rode away, vanishing into the pitch-bck night. After a few minutes, he closed the door and retreated inside.

  There was only one man he had ever smoked with in his life, many years ago. He wasn't into cigarettes like Masao was. He was a raging alcoholic with anger issues. Despite his issues, that one man had never judged him. He was invited to spend those days by his side. Because of that night, Masao was the only person he would ever obey. The only man who had his respect.

  It was on a cold night like this one in a pce not far from that hideout where he met his best friend.