It had been a few days since Yuki's absence from school, and while he did it only for one day, it was as if everything changed just in those twenty-four hours. All the students suddenly took a glance at him, hushes and whispers following him whenever he was out in the school corridor. Some didn't even try to hide their hostility toward him, which while not affecting his life, was still pretty annoying.
It was as if the residents of the school turned hostile against him.
"Is it him?"
"Yeah. I heard he is the one who did that."
"How could he?!"
"Well, some people were just born to be a bastard like that."
"Yeah. Just ignore him."
"Oh, shit! He sees us! Pretend you didn't know anything!"
Yuki clicked his tongue in annoyance as he heard all of that. He didn't even know what he had done, yet everyone looked at him as if he just murdered the headmaster and danced on his corpse.
He increased his walking speed, getting through the crowds while trying his best to ignore the murmurs. After a while, he finally arrived at the rooftop, the forbidden place in the school where all the delinquents usually met. Fortunately, this school didn't have one, and nothing good could be seen from the highest spot of the building, so it wasn't often for people to come here even during the break.
As for why Yuki went there, he had already made a promise to talk to Riku and Kato privately, and the rooftop was probably the most isolated place in the school that they could ever hope. There, except if they let their intrusive thought take over their body and decided to burn down the school to the ground, no one would be bothered to check them out.
"Oh, Kobayashi! Here!" Riku waved his hands when the blonde boy saw him from afar. There was still a sandwich in his hand while he still chewed some part of it inside his mouth.
Kato also looked up from her book when she heard he had arrived, and with a single nod, she turned her attention back to the thick book she brought here.
"What book do you read right now?" Yuki tried to peek just to be blinded by all the complicated words there, not even the simplest hiragana could be found there. All the words were written in English, something that was beyond his mind.
"It is a book about CMB," Kato said without even batting her eyes on him. "It is the abbreviation of Cosmic Microwave Background, the oldest light that humans could detect up to now. It told us a lot of stories of the time near the Big Bang, where everything began in this world. This book is interesting."
Yuki had a blank expression, couldn't process what he just heard from the girl, and couldn't find anything interesting from it.
"You won't understand the book, Kobayashi." Riku chuckled. "Even I who grew up in Italy and learned three different languages to survive abroad couldn't understand even one page of it, let alone you."
"Wow, it is insulting how you compare me with your intelligence," Yuki said sarcastically.
"Ha?! So, you mean to tell me you are smarter than me?!"
"Of course, I am!"
"Bullshit! I bet you won't even understand the brief synopsis of the book!"
"Well, at least I know it is related to astronomy! I bet you don't even know what astronomy is, right?!"
"Why, you!"
Kato sighed, rubbing her temple in headache as the two boys started bickering again. She coughed loudly, making them stop and look at her sheepishly.
"Sorry about that one, Kato-san." Riku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Yeah. Sorry for disturbing you." Yuki nodded in agreement.
"It is okay." The girl let out a small smile before closing her book. "Anyway, we are here to talk about you, right, Kobayashi-kun?"
"Oh, yeah! I have been poking around for the last few days!" Riku exclaimed in realization.
"So, what happened?" Yuki narrowed his eyes, his expression turned serious. Yeah, all three of them were here after Yuki asked his two friends to inquire about the gossip about him from the other students, and it seemed they already knew what the problem was.
"Well, there are a lot of rumors flying around about you." Riku started to explain. "There is one about you creating trouble in the volleyball team, one about you having a hidden backer to kick out Noriyuki-senpai from his spot as the captain of the team, one about you picking up a fight against the entire senpai, and some outrageous one that I am curious what is inside the mind of the culprit when he spread the gossip."
Yuki narrowed his eyes, looking at the pattern that was so obvious there. "So, it is related to the volleyball team, huh?"
"Yeah." Riku nodded solemnly.
"Wait!" Yuki suddenly widened his eyes as if he just realized something. "If it is about the last game, should you also be dragged into the gossip too? Your action did more damage than my words!" He asked Riku.
"You forget one thing, Kobayashi," Riku said.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Unlike you, I have Akira-jiisan as the backer, so they wouldn't dare to spread a bad rumor about me."
Yuki groaned, clearly forgetting that part. Still, he had a hard time believing that his senpai would be petty enough to spread the rumor as revenge instead of solving this problem faced-on.
"What a mess…" He murmured.
"Well, at least it is not about our triangle love, right?" Kato suddenly threw a joke that cracked a smile on Riku and Yuki's face. "Also, I have called one person from your team to explain to us the situation inside and what your senpai want from spreading the rumor. Ah, speaking of which, here she is."
The moment Kato finished her words, a light step suddenly could be heard from behind, and when Yuki and Riku turned around, their senpai and the manager of the team, Megumi was there with her usual carefree smile on her face.
"Yo~ho~" She greeted them playfully. "It has been a long time since we met, Kobayashi-kun. How are you?"
"Fabulous, as you can see," Yuki answered sarcastically. "Still, I feel honored though. It is not often a freshman is ganged by his senpai, being plotted from behind the scenes to ruin his reputation instead of confronting him directly. To take this cowardly approach, they should be frightened by my name, right?"
His words were full of venom, making Megumi wince on the spot. The older girl pondered for a second before letting out a deep sigh, her face seemed to age a few years suddenly.
"The team is a mess right now." She spoke. "Honestly, most of their anger was for Akira-sensei for-"
"Wait, for my uncle?!" Riku interrupted, asked in surprise.
"Yes, Riku-kun. It was directed to your uncle." Megumi nodded. "At first, it was because of his hurtful words. However, they couldn't do anything about it since Akira-sensei is… Well… A sensei, as you can see. And they didn't dare to target Riku-kun for the obvious reason, so, they directed it to you, Kobayashi-kun,"
"Wow, lovely," Yuki said, starting to get tired of his sarcastic tone. "Well, nothing we don't know before. It is just confirming our guess, no more and no less. Still, what is Akira-sensei's reaction? Speaking of which, what is his reaction after I decided not to go for training anymore?" He asked curiously.
Megumi and Riku stared at each other confusedly for a second before realization suddenly hit them. "Of course, you don't know! Akira-jiisan had some urgent matters outside, so this week's training would be handled by ourselves." Riku explained.
"Further give them the authority to do anything there. Lovely." Yuki said wryly. Then, he turned to Riku and asked, "What about you? What is the treatment you received from them all?"
"Eh, I don't know." Riku shrugged. "Since Akira-jiisan is not here, I decided to skip the team training and do it alone. It is not like there would be a big difference." Hearing Riku's tone, Yuki was glad that he wasn't the only one who had a negative impression of the team.
"So, now that we know the cause of it, what should we do?" Kato suddenly asked.
Megumi blinked a few seconds before her hand moved fast, pinching Kato's cheek as if she tried to reassure herself that the younger girl was still her little sister. "Wow, Kato-chan, I don't expect you to be this open so quickly. Where was the shy little sister who would hide behind me whenever she was meeting new people? Girl, you grow up so fast!"
"Stop it, Megumi-nee." Kato slapped her sister's hand in annoyance. "Please, focus for a moment! What should we do now that we know the cause of all this problem?"
"What is there to do, Kato-san?" Yuki threw his hand helplessly. "Ask them for an explanation? Apologizing? Forcing them to apologize? No matter what to do, it wouldn't change anything!"
The atmosphere turned somber as everyone knew Yuki was right. The problem was the rumor had already spread wildly among the students, and just like how any rumors worked, once one person believed that, no explanation would be enough to kill that rumor completely. And while of course, Yuki could ignore it, if the entire school had a negative impression on him, of course, it would make his future as a student here difficult. Just in the last few days since this all started, no one but Riku and Kato were willing to get closer to him anymore.
Megumi put her hand on her chin, racking her brain hard to figure out the solution to this problem. If no rumors were flying around, it would be easy to solve all of this. Just put Riku and Yuki in front of the senior members and force them to talk about it, and maybe, the word 'sorry' would come out from both sides to ease the tension. But this time, just like Yuki said, even if the preparator was punished, it wouldn't change the minds of those who believed that.
"Let's lay low for the next few days first." Megumi sighed, finally giving up on thinking of a solution. "Let's wait for Akira-sensei to come back first and let him handle the rest. No matter what happened, I am sure Sensei could treat it fairly for all of us."
Yuki and Riku stared at each other for a second before their shoulder slumped helplessly. Even though Yuki had a hunch that nothing would change even with Akira's intervention, this was the best thing they could do. If even a teacher couldn't help him get out of this shitty situation, then, Yuki could probably say goodbye to a peaceful high school life he was imagining of.
-0-
Akira rubbed his temple in headache when he saw the message on his phone from Megumi. Currently, he was still in the middle of a meeting with his old friends when he received a long three-paragraph chat from his manager containing all the troubles that happened on the team while he was away. When he finished reading it all, Akira couldn't help but feel angry and wanted to smash something on the ground.
'What the hell are those brats doing there?! Damn! Why are they doing it right now after the headmaster's ultimatum? Is this how they wanted to drive me out of the team?'
"Anything wrong, Sir?" The one friend in front of him asked in Italian language.
"Don't worry about it, Mattheo. Just a school-related problem." Akira waved his hand nonchalantly, replying to the question in fluent Italian too.
The one Akira called Mattheo was a handsome Caucasian man with a tall and athletic body that would make any girl droll. He was also a former student of Akira when he was in Italy and currently, Mattheo was on a holiday with their family.
Hearing the nonchalant tone from Akira, Mattheo just raised one of his eyebrows for a second before turning his attention back to a plate of spaghetti in front of him. Akira furrowed his brows, kept reading the message Megumi sent before. His mind was spinning so fast, trying to think of a solution. And when his eyes suddenly landed on the man in front of him, a crooked smile suddenly formed on Akira's face.
"Say, Mattheo. How about I invite you and your wife to see my current team? Maybe, you could also help solve this troublesome situation."