Doorbell

September 9: the day Shindou Mikuru met Kiba Shion and Anjou Tokoha.

Note: Takes place before GIRS CRISIS. Also, if you feel like you've seen this before, you're not wrong. I just hated it a little too much the first time. Not that I hate it any less now. (Just watch me take this down in 24 hours again, lol.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Cardfight! Vanguard.

Exactly seven minutes after the door slammed shut, the doorbell rang.

Mikuru groaned.

Who in the right mind would go and attempt to visit someone before 10am on a Saturday morning? And why did it have to be just after Chrono left?

Mikuru slowly dragged herself off the couch and staggered across the room, slowly running her fingers through her hair in an attempt to look somewhat presentable.

Whoever was there better be thankful that Chrono had made her some coffee before he left, or else she would have never bothered getting up.

Ugh, why was she even doing this? She didn't care.

But, whatever. She was already halfway there and going back would be just as hard.

Leaning against the door, she squinted into the peephole.

A blond boy and a green-haired girl. Chrono's age. The boy was holding an envelope while the girl was carrying a package.

Huh.

A delivery this early in the morning?

Mikuru swung open the door.

For people who had been staring at a closed door for about two minutes, the teens barely blinked.

"Good morning!" the girl started cheerily, "does Shindou Chrono live here?"

Chrono?

"Uh, yeah," Mikuru replied, caught a bit off guard. Did Chrono order something? "Yes, he does, but sorry, he's not home right now."

"Okay, great!" the girl said, a huge smile painting her face.

The boy was also grinning broadly.

Mikuru was more than slightly confused.

"We're sorry for interrupting your morning," the boy stated, "I'm Kiba Shion."

"And I'm Anjou Tokoha," the girl added.

"Shindou Mikuru," Mikuru responded slowly, puzzling over the situation.

Oh wait, it couldn't be, could it?

"We've come to deliver Chrono's birthday present," the girl announced brightly, offering the plainly wrapped package she was clutching.

"We're in a bit of a rush, so unfortunately we can't explain this right now," the boy tagged on, holding out his envelope to Mikuru, "but we hope that this explanation will suffice. Please excuse our lack of courtesy."

Both teens gave a neat bow.

Mikuru simply stared.

"We'd best get going," the boy said, "sorry again, and have a great day!"

The girl smiled and waved.

At that point, Mikuru didn't know what else to do besides nod and shut the door.

From her side of the door, she could hear the teens' footsteps and their fading voices.

"Well, that was awkward," the girl seemed to say, sighing.

"What did you expect? You knew we had three minutes at most," the boy reminded.

"Yeah, yeah," the girl said, and after a pause, "we barely have any time left."

"Iwakura is driving us for a reason."

Mikuru heard the elevator doors open and close, and with that the teens were gone.

Sliding into a sitting position against the front door, Mikuru studied the two items now in her hands.

It was so surprising. But that's why it was depressing.

Today was September 9th.

And for the first time in Mikuru's memory, someone other than herself had given Chrono a birthday present.

Chrono hadn't even been there to receive it himself.

Although, from what they were saying, it seems like they had planned to deliver their present when Chrono was not home.

Why, though? Mikuru was curious.

She set aside the package and carefully tore open the envelope. Inside, a crisp sheet of paper was folded into thirds.

Dear Shindou Mikuru-san,

Hello, we are Kiba Shion and Anjou Tokoha. We are Chrono's classmates, teammates, and friends. The three of us met through Vanguard earlier this year.

Today, we have a surprise birthday party waiting for Chrono. Long story short, we're returning a favour. We told him to come to Card Capital 2 for 10 am this morning. Hopefully he won't suspect anything because Chrono has never told us when his birthday was. Then, when he gets there, all of us surprise him, and the fun ensues.

Of course, you are more than welcome to join us! The more the merrier!

At this point, you might be wondering what the purpose of our visit was. The package we just gave you is a special present that we wanted to let Chrono open after the party. It's just a little something that we wanted him to have.

If you were curious about how we found your home, we did a little investigating through the school and pieced together details Chrono had mentioned offhandedly. We hope that we didn't scare you.

If everything goes as planned, Chrono will be back around 5pm.

Sincerely,

Kiba Shion

Anjou Tokoha

P.S. If you ever feel the need to contact us, we've listed our numbers down below.

Mikuru felt her lip curl into a smile.

Not only had Vanguard allowed Chrono to make friends, but said friends also cared enough about him to go out of their way to plan a surprise party for him.

After her older brother's accident, Mikuru was never sure if Chrono would be able to live a normal life. He practically raised himself in that orphanage, and even though Mikuru managed to adopt him a few years ago, she was too busy to be a real parent. Besides, he shied away from her care because he was too used to being an adult.

That mature behavior isolated him from his peers. Mikuru remembered back when she was a teen, walking to and from school with her best friends, bringing them over for dinner and staying up all night at sleepovers. She remembers the banter, the laughter, the comfort.

Chrono never had any of that. He never smiled unless it was for show, never asked for help, never relied on others. It was like he believed that his sole purpose in life was to make a decent living for himself so he could stop being a burden for Mikuru.

He didn't know that that thinking itself was the true burden.

Then, there was the day where everything changed.

Somehow, Vanguard changed everything. Again. But this time for the better.

"I'm going out with friends," Chrono would say, with a smile on his face.

Such a normal, foreign sentence.

And then one day, Chrono suddenly brought a friend over. An older, European boy, who was cheerful, airheaded, and everything else that Chrono wasn't.

"Huh," Mikuru had thought.

Huh.

Mikuru had never really thought about what the other friends Chrono could have would be like. Considering his track record, one friend was impressive enough.

But huh.

Mikuru thought about the pair who had just shown up at her door. Chrono's age, polite, and cared enough about him to plan a surprise party.

She wondered what they were like.

Mikuru didn't have to wait long.

At 4:58 pm, the doorbell rang for the second time that day.

In the hallway stood three people. Through the peephole, Mikuru recognized Chrono's distinctive red hair and the familiar blond and green.

Really, that was all there was to recognize. The rest of their bodies were obstructed by loads of colourful boxes and gift bags.

She opened the door.

"Good afternoon, Mikuru-san," Chrono's strained voice called out from behind some boxes, "sorry about this, but do you mind if we, uh, just kinda dump this in the living room? I'll explain later and clean up, I promise."

"Of course, of course! Come on in!"

Mikuru stepped aside to usher Chrono and his two friends in, noting that the two gracefully slipped off their shoes and chimed a "pardon the intrusion!" before coming in, despite the inconvenience.

Carefully setting the packages and bags onto the living room floor, the three teens took a moment to let out a long sigh.

"That," the girl declared, eying the packages, "was a lot of stuff."

"Well, that's because two certain individuals didn't seem to understand how to stop inviting people," Chrono said, giving the girl a dramatic glare, "and the people they invited didn't seem to understand how to stop buying presents."

"And that's why we helped you carry it all back," the blond boy justified, with his arms crossed and a playful smile, "and if we knew that you were going to be this ungrateful about it, we wouldn't have gone out of our way to invite everyone. All that time I spent hunting down Takeru-san, totally unappreciated. Sad."

"We even had to hide Jaime's 14 humungous presents somewhere," the girl pointed out, shaking her head like a disapproving parent, "yet you don't even appreciate us. What a shame."

"Shion lives in a mansion! He could have picked any random closet in his house to stuff them in, no problem!"

"Shameless, Chrono. How shameless."

Mikuru watched the three converse in amazement. To think that this was the first time she had seen Chrono have a fun conversation like this with his friends, it was just –

"Oh wait. I should probably introduce you guys."

And so began the formality of Chrono introducing his friends to Mikuru, then Mikuru correcting their "Shindou-san" to "Mikuru-san". Neither side bothered mentioning that they were already sort of acquainted. Chrono then gave a brief explanation about how they planned a surprise birthday party for him and that was why he was home so late with this many presents.

As Chrono's friends (now dubbed "Shion-kun" and "Tokoha-chan") wished him a final "happy birthday" and left, Mikuru went back to her room to get two packages. The first was her own present to Chrono, and the other –

"Chrono? Here's another present for you."

"Oh, Mikuru-san, you got me something? You didn't have to."

"Actually, this one is not from me."

"Huh?"

Mikuru watched curiously as Chrono torn apart the brown wrapping paper.

She would be lying if she said that she hadn't been dying to open that package all day herself.

Chrono ripped away the final piece of paper to reveal a small black binder.

"A Summer to Remember," the cover read. The characters were neatly printed in alternating red, blue, and green marker. 30 or so colourful pages sat in plastic pockets.

It was a scrapbook.

Chrono gently lifted the cover to find a small card. As he opened it, Mikuru saw that both sides had writing, one side in precise, blue script and the other in bubblier green.

"Those guys," she heard Chrono murmur, as a fond smile spread across his face.

He set aside the card to flip open the scrapbook. A group picture was pasted on the yellow paper. From their facial expressions and the falling boy on the side, they were clearly not ready for the photo to be taken. From the group, Mikuru recognized Chrono, Shion, Tokoha … and wait, was that a banner with a drawing of Chrono in the back?!

"That one party," it was labelled.

The second page had a few pictures of just the three of them posed together, with labels such as "team formed!" or "team name decided!" posted under them.

These pages went on, each featuring some sort of theme. There was everything from organized group photos to selfies to random candid pictures.

Flip. Chrono and a group of people posed in front of a takoyaki stand.

Flip. Chrono wearing the most ridiculous gray wig and lopsided black wings.

Flip. A cute, idol-like girl hugging Chrono, who was smiling awkwardly.

Flip. Chrono, Shion, and Tokoha wearing matching bug costumes

Flip. For some reason, a very sleepy Chrono with black marker all over his face.

Flip. Chrono flipping okonomiyaki while arguing with Tokoha.

Flip. A group of people in front of a tall, yellow and blue building, centered around Chrono and a younger boy, labelled "United Sanctuary Victory!"

Flip. Chrono shaking hands with Shion, who looked like he had just spent the day in a pigsty.

Flip. A selfie featuring Tokoha holding up a peace sign, Shion smiling pleasantly, and Chrono looking very caught off guard, with the Tokyo Skytree in the background.

Flip. Flip. Flip.

With each flip, Mikuru was introduced to another piece of Chrono's life. Another part of the boy she had practically raised herself that she was somehow unfamiliar with.

Another piece of proof that he was happy.

To think that these were the type of moments that Vanguard had created for Chrono. These were the type of memories that he formed while she hadn't had the time to pay attention to him. These were the type of people he spent his time with.

Chrono flipped past a photo of himself climbing a tree to the final page, which featured Tokoha, Shion and him each holding up a Vanguard card, smiling at the camera.

"Thanks for the memories," the caption read, "and here to many more adventures to come!"

As he slowly closed the book, Mikuru noticed that Chrono was smiling wider and brighter than she had ever thought was possible.

And oh god, Mikuru had never been more excited for him. She had never been more thankful for the existence of Vanguard.

Now, to assume her role as the doting parent:

"So, tell me about them. Shion and Tokoha. All your friends."

Note: A bit different than my other TRY3 stuff, I know, but this was the type of story I started out with when I started posting like 2 years ago… so… #throwback?

This was supposed to be a three-shot. I'm just going to put this up since this part works pretty well as a standalone, and hopefully one day I'll write the next 2 parts. Sorry about the quality, I basically wrote this to finish it.

Have a fantastic day! And Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians out there :)

EDIT (2020/07/18): Hello! If anyone out there is still reading this, then woahhhh because it's been ages! I've migrated most of my stuff to AO3, where I have a few new TRY3 fics that I think you'd really like if you enjoyed this! You can find me under the same username.