Shunsui and I had just finished taking our lunch and were taking a walk around the circuit of the school's outdoor playground when, we were intercepted by a horde of girls who came running towards us, crying out Shunsui's name.
'Shunsui! What did we hear? You went out with a group of girls from our school yesterday and left us behind?!' they complained, mobbing around us. 'How could you do this to us?! You're going to have to take all of us out tonight!'
Uh-oh! The girls looked pretty angry to me, and I decided not to stick around for too long and leave Shunsui alone to deal with them, before things would degenerate and the girls would start hitting on each other.
'I'm going to get back to class to put this away!' I said to the reddish-brown-haired young man, rapidly, making a gesture at him with my bentō box, but he was hardly listening. He was speaking to the girls, trying to convince them that it was not possible to take all of them out at a time, only to suggest, with a devastating smile, that he could take one to three of them out on different nights.
I cringed. What a playboy!
The girls would then start to bicker amongst themselves about who would be the first ones to go out with him, before they closed in around Shunsui asking him pressingly to decide, crushing me along the way.
I think I'd better get going now!
I, literally, had to get down on my hands and knees on the ground and crawl to get my way out of the mob. I thought I'd never make it, but at last, I was breathing some fresh air. I didn't wait around and went off immediately.
The moment I reached our classroom and slid the door open, I jerked to a stop when I caught sight of Hiyori Miyatsu and her two friends. The room was desert, apart from the the three of them. They were standing at Natsui's desk and one of them was holding the ginger-haired girl's bag open in her hand, while Hiyori Miyatsu was putting a bunch of money notes in it.
The three girls froze into place when they saw me, their expression alarmed but, very quickly, Hiyori Miyatsu made a sneering face, and putting the bunch of notes in Natsui's bag and closing it before putting it back into its place, she came up to me with her two vassals.
I was petrified. Is it... what I am thinking?
Seizing my jaw with her hand in a painful grip, the dark-haired girl forced me to look at her, telling me in a hiss, 'What we did to you yesterday was nothing! If you talk about this to anyone, I swear to you that we're really going to put you in a pitiful state!'
My heart trembled.
And on these threatening words, the three girls walked out of the room, laughing wickedly.
Oh Natsui...
***
A short while later…
When the bell rung announcing the end of lunchtime, I had already taken my seat at my desk, and soon, all the other students had arrived, including Natsui.
I stared at the ginger-haired girl from behind, with my hands clamped in front of myself on my desk, my heart filled with trepidation. I didn't even notice Shunsui as he went past me and it was only after the teacher had arrived that I took a glance behind me and saw that he had already taken his seat. The reddish-brown-haired young man was watching me with the same serious look as from this morning.
Just as the teacher was about to start today's lesson, suddenly, Hiyori Miyatsu jumped to her feet calling the latter's attention.
My throat tightened. I hadn't thought she'd act this quickly.
She announced to the teacher that her parents had given her a large sum of money this morning to buy a gown for an upcoming party and that she couldn't find the money in her bag anymore, only to go on to propose, with great strain, that the bags of the other students of the class should be searched to find the thief.
The fact that there might be a thief amongst us created agitation in the class, but Moroboshi-sensei- another one of our teachers- arrived in the nick of time to bring everyone back to their calm.
'Miyatsu-kun, Kirigakure-kun has found this lying around in one of the corridors of the school earlier and has handed it over to me just before the bell rung. I would ask you to avoid bringing so much money at school and to be more careful with your belongings from now on!'
The man handed the money back to Hiyori, who thanked him. After he had left and his female colleague had turned her back on us to look at the blackboard again, calling everyone's attention to today's lesson, the dark-haired girl turned her head fiercely around to look at me with a murderous look.
I shuddered.
Her two friends were watching me with the same look, and I knew that they would make me pay for this, but I didn't care as long as I could avoid Natsui any problems. I noticed that the ginger-haired girl was looking towards me too, and I had a feeling that she had guessed what Hiyori had been up to.
Instantly, I lowered my eyes to avoid the ginger-haired girl's look. I knew that she didn't want to talk to me or have anything to do with me anymore, but it was impossible for me to close my eyes and shut my ears to what Hiyori Miyatsu was doing to her.
Sometimes later, when the ginger-haired girl approached me during Osoji, I tried to avoid her and had been about to turn around to move a distance away when, she caught hold of my two hands in both of hers to stare at me directly in the eyes, her expression tearful.
'You've protected from Hiyori again, haven't you?' she asked, and against all expectations, she sent her arms around me in a hug.
I stood frozen for a few seconds, before I asked her, in puzzlement, 'You're not angry?'
She shook her head, and released me.
'I'm sorry about my behavior of this morning,' she said, her eyes lowered. 'I just don't want Hiyori to hurt you.'
'And I don't want you to be hurt either,' I told her. 'It's funny, isn't it? You want to protect me and I want to protect you. I guess that makes us friends, right?'
A smile came to her lips at my words, and bobbing her head up and down while she tried to contain her tears that now reflected positive feelings, she replied, 'Yes. We're friends.'
I smiled back, my heart filled with joy.
***
After school was over, Shunsui and I didn't leave for his house right away; he decided that he wanted to attend the Kendō club today.
I was with Natsui in the changing room of the gymnasium, preparing to get changed into our Kendō uniform when, the ginger-haired girl received an alarming phone call from her mother. There was an emergency at home. Her brother was having a terrible fight with the woman, and Natsui had to rush home immediately. She was completely panicked and distressed when she left. This situation left me deeply worried about the ginger-haired girl and her mother, and I felt completely restless during the whole training.
When the final bell rang, announcing the end of extracurriculars, I wanted desperately to call her, but only to realize that I didn't have her phone number.
I'm so stupid! How could I forget to ask her her phone number?! I berated myself in my mind. All that I could do now was to pray that nothing happens to her or her mother.
After I had changed into my school uniform again, I came out of the gymnasium in search of Shunsui and began to make towards the gate of the school to see if he was waiting for me there for us to leave for his house.
The reddish-brown-haired young man had not told me anything about what we would be doing after the end of extracurriculars, and I wondered if he has a rendezvous with some girls of our school today as well, and has forgotten to inform me about it.
As I was about to take out my cellphone to check if he has left me any message, out of the blue, somebody pushed me violently from behind. I fell to the ground, bruising my knees and one of my elbows along the way.
Wincing, I started to push myself off the ground and had been about to raise my head to look up when, I received a powerful kick at the gut that sent me back on the floor, writhing with pain.
And that's when I heard their voices. The voice of Hiyori Miyatsu and her two friends.
The dark-haired girl ordered them to pull me to onto my knees and they obeyed. At this, the pain in my gut swelled, making my eyes sting with tears.
'I had warned you, hadn't I? Hiyori Miyatsu spat at me. 'This time, we're really going to make you suffer!'
My throat constricted as she lifted her bag up in the air, preparing to hit me with it at the face again like on the previous day. But just at that precise moment, out of nowhere, came a hand, which seized her by the wrist, stopping her.
My heart skipped a beat.
Everyone was stupefied with shock.
Shunsui!
I stared at the reddish-brown-haired young man breathlessly, as he came around the dark-haired girl to place himself in front of me, without releasing her wrist, his expression wrathful.
'I would never have thought that there could be a type of girl that I could hate, but you really are the type of girl that I hate!' he gritted out. 'The malicious type that likes to take on other girls!'
'What's up with you, Shunsui?' she demanded at him, agitatedly. 'Stay out of this!'
'I'm warning you, Hiyori Miyatsu,' he told her, in a threatening tone, 'If you take on Hime again, you're going to see the worst of me!'
My heart skipped another beat. Oh... Shunsui!
She clenched her teeth, putting on a fearless front. But her hands were shaking, giving away her real feelings.
Shunsui released her wrist in a shove.
She stared back into his eyes for a second or two daringly, before she let out an angry sound, turned her eyes away and flung around to flounce out of sight, with her two vassals following right behind her.
'Can you walk?' the reddish-brown-haired young man asked me, as he turned to face me, his expression softening. 'Come! I'm going to take you to the infirmary!'
Grabbing my hands, he helped me to my feet and kept an arm around my shoulders as we walked.
'I think the nurse has already left,' he said, when we arrived into the infirmary, only to find no one there. 'It's alright. I'm going to take care of your injuries.'
He ushered me to the examination bed, which was situated against the wall on the left, and making me sit there, he began to clean the bruises at my knees and elbow. There were bits of stones that had entered into the bruises and the blood had already started to clot around it.
After he was done, he took off the dressing over my left cheek just a bit to have a look at the injury I had there. He winced, and told me that it was going to take a day or two to heal.
As he was about to turn around to put everything that he had used back into its place, I gripped the front hem of his shirt gently to stop him.
'Thank you,' I murmured, gratefully.
'I've done well to follow Mizoroge and you this morning,' he stated, and my eyes widened at him a little.
'You heard us?'
He nodded. 'I also know about the money. I didn't see or heard what happened, but I could easily guess it, judging from your expression and that of Miyatsu.'
'I see,' I whispered, lowering my head, feeling completely dejected at thought of the dark-haired girl.
I began to tell him about her behavior towards Natsui, the episode with the camera recorder, and the problems the ginger-haired girl has at her home, which made everything all the worse.
'Why is she doing this?' I asked, almost to myself as I stared at the floor, filled with angst. 'Is money... that important in this world? Even when it comes to family?'
'It's not only a question about having money or not. There's more than that,' he told me, his tone grave. 'I know girls like Miyatsu very well. It's about good fortune.'
I looked up at his face, confused.
'She takes great pride in her good fortune. She has everything that any person could wish to have. She has a loving family; her parents are deeply in love with each other. She has never known domestic violence or abuse of any kind. Her father is the owner of a company; they have a lot of money, which means that she doesn't have to worry about her survival or that of her family. She is healthy, pretty intelligent and is liked by many boys. As such, she considers that everyone should envy her. All bliss should be reserved for her. She takes keen pleasure in crushing people that she considers as being inferior to her because they have been less lucky than her in life. In fact, she is selfish and conceited.'
I looked down at the floor again to ponder over what he had just said for a minute, and I asked myself sadly how such a person could exist.
When a person has never been confronted to the dark sides of life, they have not been damaged by life, we tend to expect that person to have a certain tenderness, because they haven't had to harden themselves with time and shield their heart to protect it. But it was the whole contrary here. We find in Hiyori Miyatsu an insensitive, unfeeling person, devoid of all compassion, who likes to crush others and will go back on nothing. Her heart was filled with the flames of hell.
'Don't worry,' he told me, reassuringly, tipping my chin up with his hand so that I was looking at him again, 'If she ever tries anything again, she'll find me in her way.'
I stared at him in the eyes, moved.
'Thank you,' I whispered, and he smiled.
***
Meanwhile…
Kenren Shoran took an anxious glance at the teenager sitting next to him in the car while he was driving. It had been an hour now since they had left the cottage in direction of Kokubunji and ever since, they had not spoken a single word with each other.
After the episode of this morning, an uneasy and tensed atmosphere has settled between Gōjun and him. When the teenager had realized what Kenren had been trying to do, he had closed on himself like an oyster; he has completely barricaded himself behind his walls.
Kenren was more anxious about bringing their relationship back to how it used to be than improving it now. He wondered if he had not taken a step backward; that, would be the most terrible outcome of this voyage.
As he stared at the road in front of himself again, more pessimistic thoughts came to his mind. He asked himself if the day that he expects so much, the day when Gōjun would come to him on his own, would ever arrive. His hands tightened on the wheel of the vehicle; the thought of non-materialization troubling him.
But he has already come to a decision, and he decided that he's going to abide to it.
Thank you for reading!