Kuromura Aki

"See me in the art room after school today. I'm quite busy now but will most probably finish evaluating your artwork by then," the art teacher said as I handed her my completed pieces.

"Okay." Lunch break had started just a few minutes ago, which left me plenty of time to stroll back to class and eat something before the next lesson started.

"So?" Torikawa asked when I sat back down at my desk. He was stuffing himself with rice balls so what I heard was actually something like, "Orh?"

"Please speak human," I said as I dug into my bag for food.

"So?" He repeated after swallowing. "How did it go?"

"Dunno," I fished out a bar of chocolate and started unwrapping it.

He gave me a questioning look. I absolutely hated it when I had to speak when I obviously did not want to.

"She's not telling me anything until after school," I relented for a short while before biting into the brown bar.

"Oh?" Torikawa raised an eyebrow.

I turned to look out of the window, ignoring him and continued to enjoy my glucose intake.

"Hey! Are you going to look for the teacher now?" Torikawa caught up with me along the corridor. Damn, I was hoping that I could lose him if I walked out of class fast enough.

"No..." I breathed in sharply. "I was going to find her next year. Of course now, aren't you asking the obvious?"

He shrugged and fell into step with me.

"You wanna die?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "Stop following me."

"You can't threaten me with death because I know you don't have your penknife with you. A certain someone hide it somewhere, knowing that my life can end in your hands," he grinned.

"Give it back."

"Don't know where it is," Torikawa grinned harder, feigning innocence.

"You wanna live longer, give it back." He turned away and whistled softly.

Not wanting to show my frustration, I pretended to be unconcerned and continued the trek in silence with Torikawa following closely behind.

How in the world did I get myself into this? Yet it was not everyday that he voluntarily shut up so I might as well enjoy the silence while I could. Alas, good things never last long as I collided with someone much taller than me the moment I rounded the corner to the corridor outside the art studios.

"Watch where you're going..." He growled as he turned to face me. That voice sounded familiar. But before I could ponder any longer, the guy yelped the moment he saw my face.

What? I was not very particular about how I looked but I sure did not look that bad. Did I?

"You!" He pointed at me while taking a few steps back, and bumped into Torikawa.

"You!" Torikawa's eyes widened and it was his turn to point at the guy.

All right, what was going on? I stared at the guy with his hair tied back in a ponytail and a stud on his nose. Hmm...

"Don't you remember who I am?" His voice screeched to a falsetto. He looked almost comical, to say the truth, so tall and yet so scared.

Am I supposed to know some guy with a nose stud?

"You..." I said as I continued to stare.

Silence.

"Who are you?" I threw my hands up and gave up recalling.

Torikawa cut in and explained to me that this was one of the two guys who I had beaten up here on my first day of school.

Oh... No wonder. I did not have a habit of remembering redundant people.

"What are you doing here? There are only art studios here, no fighting rings," I asked sarcastically.

"I was waiting for-"

SMACK!

Torikawa and I jumped back in surprise as someone taller than me by two heads with chicken-like hair hit Ponytail across the back of his head with a thick book of some sort.

Chicken-head pushed the back of Ponytail so that he was bowing and he followed suit. By then Torikawa and I were extremely shocked and confused but we remained where we were, rooted to the floor.

"We are very sorry for what we have done!"

"Uh..." I raised my eyebrow and Torikawa looked like he was going to laugh.

"And we won't pick another fight or else the DM will haul us in for castration."

I swore that if my eyes were any wider, my eyeballs are so going to roll out. Torikawa choked on his own breath in agreement.

The two straightened up, "This is Kentaro," Chicken-head gestured towards Ponytail. "And you guys can call me Takagi."

"Kuromura... Aki..." I responded slowly, still in a state of shock.

"Torikawa Sekai." Torikawa tried to grin as normally as he always did.

"I'll be going. See ya, Sekai-kun! Aki-chan!" And he walked off with Kentaro.

"What was that? Aki-chan?" Torikawa teased.

"Shut up if you don't wanna die."

"AKI-CHAN!"

And I whacked his head with the thickest book I have in my hands.

It was the end of my art-elective lesson (yes, I got in) and I had just stepped out the door and walked-

-Straight into Torikawa and Takagi.

"Yo, Aki-chan!" Takagi put up a hand and Torikawa grinned.

"Stop doing that, it makes you look more retarded, if possible," I said as I smacked Torikawa's face with my sketchbook.

"What are you doing here?" I turned to face Takagi.

"Lessons." I raised an eyebrow. "Art-elective."

"Ha! Bet you didn't know that! I-"

Torikawa got cut off by another slug of a book from yours truly before I asked, "And why are you here?"

"Waiting for you. We still have to clean the kendo room after school," he said as if I had the worst memory on this planet.

"I don't need anyone to chaperon me there."

"But I'll be bored waiting there all by myself," Torikawa argued. I gave him a glare.

"Are you two always like this?" Takagi asked.

I turned my glare to Takagi and he kept quiet, but kept watching us with a very amused expression as Torikawa and I bickered all the way to the kendo room.

"Happy cleaning, losers!" A girl in my class from the kyudo club, Rika, snickered as her group ran into us outside the kendo room. The rest of them laughed along.

Torikawa tensed up and if I had sneered any harder, the place would freeze all over.

"What? Too scared about getting punished to retaliate?" They continued to taunt.

The horde of snickering teens was such predictable cowards. They had never liked me and could not be bothered with Torikawa either so this was the only chance they could show how little they thought of us, thinking that I would not risk creating more trouble for myself by rising to another fight.

"Try me," I took a step forward but Torikawa held me back by my wrist.

"They wouldn't be worth getting punished for."

"As if Takagi and Kentaro were," I hissed at him and wrung myself free of his grasp.

"I resent that!" Takagi protested.

"I challenge you to a kyudo competition!" Rika proclaimed suddenly.

Huh? We froze in the middle of our argument.

"A fair way to show just how weak you actually are so you will have to stop putting on that attitude as if you're so great!"

It seemed quite clear just how much she could not tolerate my presence. Too bad she had no idea who she was dealing with.

"Fine," I stepped in front of her. "I accept your challenge."

...To be continued

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