Chapter 18: An Amicable Settlement
Golden Week's over, and it's back to the usual grind. On my way to school, I remember the good ol’ days when I did absolutely nothing. Man, school blows. Students around me seem to echo my sentiments—we look like a hoard of depressed zombies.
One quick glance at me is all it takes to change their attitudes, though.
“Hey, isn’t that Tomoki?”
“Don’t make direct eye contact—not if you value your life, anyway.”
“What a crappy way to start the first day back to school.”
I sigh as they scamper to get away from me. Looks like nothing’s changed around here. Of course, the people who didn't help out or participate in the study meet would still view me the same way.
“Hey there!”
Touka emerges from the dispersing crowd, looking cheerful as always.
“Hey.”
“Going to school's a freakin' drag, as usual. But at least with you, I don’t have to commute with everyone else... Y'know, 'cause they’re too busy avoiding you,” she says with a smile on her face.
The main reason she wanted to be with me was because she wanted people to leave her alone, especially the hordes of guys who were constantly pestering her.
“Oh really?”
“Yup!”
I force a smile while Touka grins at me.
Soon enough, we reach the school gate. There’s a crowd around it, but there's one guy in particular who stands out. Everyone's giving him a wide berth as they make their way through the gates to the school. He's bald, and he's got a gauze pressed up against one of his eyes. Weird… Did he get into a fight or something? He looks like the poster boy for an old-school criminal.
“Damn, and here I thought you were the only criminal in town, Senpai. Looks like you’ve got competition now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—I’m an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, after all.”
“I know; I was just kidding.”
She sticks out her tongue playfully, and I sigh in response. I figure I should just avoid that bald guy like everyone else on my way to the school building.
“...Good day to you, Tomoki-senpai. May I have some of your time, please?”
For some reason, he talks to me.
“Oh god…” Touka groans.
“Sorry, but classes are about to start. Can we talk during lunch break or something?”
“Right, how careless of me. I wasn’t thinking about your situation, as I tend to do. Let’s meet at lunch break, then. I’ll be waiting on the rooftop.”
The guy leaves to enter the main building. Who is he again? I don't think I've seen him around here before.
Maybe he’s a freshman looking for a fight? I mean, that’s the only thing I can really think of off the top of my head. He did just brazenly tell me to meet him at the rooftop and all.
Touka looks at me with a concerned expression as I ponder the situation.
“It’s fine—I'm not planning on fighting him. I’ll try to talk it out. If he still wants to go, I’ll just avoid fighting back.”
“I’m going to the rooftop too, okay?” she says while looking away.
I'm grateful that she’s worried about me. I gotta be careful, though: I don’t want this guy to go crazy on me and hurt Touka in the process.
“Sounds good.”
“See you during lunch break, then!” Touka says as she heads for her classroom.
I enter my own and take my seat.
“Hey, Tomoki.”
Asakura comes over and greets me as soon as I sit down in my chair.
“You sure disappeared quickly once the party started. I was looking for you all over the place, man. I was hoping we could hang out some more.”
“Sorry. I had something else I needed to take care of.”
“So you helped out, even though you knew you wouldn't be able to participate in the party later? Damn, dude. You’re a nice guy, all right.”
He looks at me with respect. It's pretty embarrassing, to be honest. Like, how am I supposed to look at him with a straight face when he keeps fawning over me like that? I'll just leave out the part where the thing I needed to take care of was kicking a freshman's ass. That probably wouldn't go over so well.
“I’m sure we’ll have more chances to talk. See ya later, man.”
He returns to his seat. It makes me happy that there are more people approaching me to talk. It makes me feel like I'm a normal student. Today, I've managed to talk to not only Asakura, but even that bald dude. Hopefully, I can convince him that I don't want to fight, and he'll leave me be.
Now Ike's approaching me.
“Hey, Yuuji. You okay, dude?”
He smiles at me. Doesn’t seem like he’s depressed at all about the holidays ending, unlike the others. Anyway, is he asking me because I look worried or something?
“Nah, just the usual stuff.”
“Which means… you’re in trouble, huh? Want me to give you a hand?”
Looks like he read my mind. He sounds pretty worn out, though, so I force a smile to try to reassure him.
“It’s fine. Thanks anyways.”
“Oh, okay. If something happens, and you need my help, just gimme a call.”
“Sure, will do.”
The bell rings, and classes start. Ike quickly returns to his seat.
I begin to zone out as our teacher begins to ramble about something. Probably about returning classes or something like that. I try to reassure myself that everything will be fine during lunch. I'm sure I'll have no issues… At least, I hope not.
☆
“My sincerest apologieees!”
It's lunch break, and I've headed to the rooftop with Touka to meet up with the bald guy. The moment we get there, though, he kneels down on the ground and starts apologizing.
“...Wait, what?”
“Wait a sec… uh, Senpai? When'd you get the chance to beat up another poor, innocent soul? I swear, you wipe 'em out quicker than I can keep up.”
“This isn't really the time to joke about that. I haven’t beaten anyone up, by the way.”
Touka and I start whispering to each other as we glance over at the bald guy. Damn, what did I do to this guy to get him to grovel like this?
“Wait a second, dude—I don’t even know why you’re apologizing to me. Please, at least raise your head.”
“I knew it. I knew you wouldn’t accept my apology.”
His face droops, and he gives us just about the most depressed and dejected look ever.
…Actually, the more I look at it, the more familiar it seems.
“Wait a second, Touka. Have you seen this guy before? Doesn’t he look like someone else?”
“Uh, not that I remember, no. Can't say I know any baldies, to be honest.”
“...Huh? Oh, I get it. You guys don’t recognize me. It’s me, Kai Rekka,” he says while pointing at himself.
“Oh, right. Kai…”
Oh, yeah, I thought he was familiar. So it's Kai, huh... Wait, he’s freakin' Kai?!
“WHAAAT?!” Touka and I shout.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, Touka. I mean, we’re in the same class, after all. You definitely must've noticed me at some point.”
“I… I, uh, was too busy daydreaming about Senpai, so I didn’t really pay attention to anyone in class today, and...!” She flinches almost immediately after she realizes what she's just said, and she covers her mouth with both her hands. Her face turns beet red as she awkwardly looks at me.
Wow, she was really that worried about what would happen to me today? Damn, that’s nice.
“Thanks, Touka.”
“Huh?”
Her expression turns to anger. She’s just trying to hide the fact that she’s embarrassed, so I smile in return.
“Nevermind,” I say, and she just sighs in return.
“I’ve been wrong this whole time, Tomoki-senpai—you’re not the bad guy I thought you were, and I can see that Touka really loves you.”
It actually is him. I still can barely believe it, but, sure enough, that’s his voice, and that's his face. Plus, his face is all bandaged up where I hit him the other day.
What’s up with him, though? Why would he do this? And what's up with him saying that Touka really loves me? I look at her for a response, only to be met by the side of her head—she's blushing and looking away. Maybe she's pissed by what he said, but can't bring herself to counter to keep up appearances? She remains silent.
“Sorry, Kai… Did your head hit the ground too hard when I hit you? If that's the case, I'm sorry for not helping you out.”
I’m just worried about him; he’s not being himself at all. I mean, he just owned up to his mistakes and accepted that he was wrong. Clearly, either that fall did a number on his head, or something else happened.
“No, my head wasn't damaged by the fall. When you took my punch head-on, I realized how great you really are. Then you knocked me down… That gave me time to really think about the whole thing. I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, I was the one who'd been wrong this whole time; that maybe everything Touka had said was the absolute truth.”
“Took you long enough!” Touka exclaims, looking down at him.
“Please go on,” I urge him.
Kai looks like he's on the brink of tears, but he continues his explanation.
“I realized how wrong I was about everything. I even attacked you with a knife. I’m a coward, just a pathetic coward. I know it's too late to make things right. Once I'm done here, I'm leaving the school. That way, you guys will never have to see me again.”
Man, I actually feel bad for him. It looks like Touka doesn’t feel the same way, though.
“Yeah, dude, you're seriously too late. You wanted to hurt Senpai so badly, you just pulled any excuse you could out of your ass to misunderstand the situation. You’re a hypocrite. You think 'sorry' is gonna cut it? You think that's gonna make you feel better?”
“...It's just as you said—I'm just a hypocrite who wants to make myself feel better by doing this,” he says, hanging his head in shame.
His reply only makes Touka angrier. She’s about to roast him again, but I step in.
“Enough, Touka. Thanks.”
“You don't really need to thank me for that…”
“It’s fine. Just leave it to me now.”
She nods silently. I’m sure there are lots of things that she wants to tell him, but she's holding her tongue for me.
“There’s something I wanna tell you, Kai,” I say.
“...Yes,” he replies and braces himself for the worst.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover. Instead of deciding what's right and wrong by yourself and making up all that self-righteous crap, just listen to what other people tell you.”
“...Yes.”
“And that was a good punch you threw at me.”
“...Yes. Wait, what?”
“Now we’re even. We've fought, we've cleared everything up, and I've said my piece. Now let's just go back to being normal students. There’s no need for you to leave—I mean, all the teachers would just get the wrong idea and come after me for bullying you, anyway. That'd be a huge pain to deal with. I’ll help you if you need anything, so just give me a call.”
He raises his head at my words, surprised.
“Wh-What are you saying, Senpai? Are you an idiot, or have you just conveniently forgotten what he did to you?! Is your head all right, Senpai?!” Touka shouts at me.
I get why she can't understand why I forgave him. She got dragged into this, too. She warned him over and over again about what would happen, and she worried like crazy about me, as well. The fight really scared her. I get it, but...
“Even if he was completely off the mark, he still faced his fears and risked his own life to try to help someone else out. He tried his hardest to leave you out of it. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive him if he’d somehow hurt you, but he decided to face me alone. I don’t even really care about the knife. Besides, Touka…”
I scratch my cheek bashfully and say, “I'm a fucking idiot.”
Touka and Kai react at the same time.
“Senpai!”
“Senpai!”
Touka glares over at a teary-eyed Kai, who, in contrast, is looking at me with admiration.
“Tomoki Yuuji-senpai! I admire your sense of honor! Your greatness! Please, become my Senpai! No, please become my boss! My don! I beg of you!”
He throws himself on the ground and grovels once more. I don’t really know how to react… I’m glad he feels that way about me and all, but I'm also kinda at a loss here.
