The Three Bullies...
I run all the way to the school, purely fuelled by embarrassment.
It worked a little too well; the school was right in front of me. No one will judge me if I take a moment to catch my breath… a couple of moments, alright, a lot of moments. You know what? Who cares if people judge me?
Alright! I can’t wait to see Mary! I step into the school…
And as soon as I do it, I feel someone pulling my arm. Assassins? I take my fighting stance.
“Hey…” wait. It’s Nari.
“Oh… it’s… you…”
“Yes?”
I openly sighed.
“Oh come on! You don’t have to be that disappointed that it’s me!”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have been if you didn’t pull me like this, do you even have a knife?”
“What…? I just wanted to talk to you…”
“You know…” I slump my shoulders and look at the bright sky, what beautiful weather.
“You could’ve just talked to me…”
“Oh, right!” she slapped her forehead gently. What is she? The comedic relief?
“Alright… fine. What did you want to talk about?”
“The arc, how is it going?” her eyes glistened.
I look at her for a while, “Did you wait here for me? How long have you been waiting here for me?”
“Don’t try to change the subject!”
“It’s only been a day… what do you even want to know?”
She puffed her cheeks, “Are you going to study to Hinata’s house tomorrow?”
Why would I do that?
“No…?”
“Then what are you doing tomorrow?”
Hopefully spending the entire day with Mary, but you don’t need to know that.
“It’s a secret.”
“Oh come on…”
I see three girls in the background looking at us, did someone finally pay attention to Nari’s antics. I can’t wait to see how she deals with this.
“Hey Nari! Who’s that short stack!”, the girl in the middle chuckled.
Nari turned around nervously. Short stack? Who could they ever mean…
“Ah… No one…”, Why is her voice trembling?
“Isn’t that the football prodigy?”, one of them whispered to the others.
“You’re right! Can’t believe he’s that short though…”
Akari’s the short stack? Wait… I’m the same height as him!
Nari slowly walked towards them.
“What are you doing here… guys…”
“We were looking for you!”, all three of them smiled. Something feels off.
“Hey!”, I walk towards them, “What are you guys doing?”
Their smiles don’t vanish, “We were just looking for our friend.”, they place their hands on Nari’s shoulder. She doesn’t look comfortable.
“Yea, right. Friends?”
“Yes!”, Nari suddenly screams, “It’s alright. We’re friends!”
No you clearly are not…
“Nari…”
“Let’s go guys.”, she smiled nervously.
They started to walk away, Nari turns back towards me, “I’m fine… I’ll talk to you later.”, she whispered. If I can hear it, so can they...
Was I wrong? Were they really friends?
I do not know. I’ll have to keep an eye out…
Maybe I should follow them… but I doubt I’d find much now.
Going to class is probably the best idea for now, the class was almost full. Except Mary’s seat…
“It’s empty…”
I sit down on my seat and wait for her to come, but she never does.
“Mary’s called in sick.”, the teacher spoke suddenly during attendance. There goes my hope.
Should I message her and wish her to get well soon?
“Put your phone away Akari!”, the next teacher had already come to the class. How did they even notice?
I’ll message her during break time.
No sooner did the bell ring, I had “Hey. How are you feeling? I heard you were sick, I hope you feel better soon.”, typed in.
I just need to send it… I hope it’s alright. I don’t know…
“Hey…”
I sent it.
Alright… that scared me but…
I look up and see Hinata.
“Hey. Thanks.”
“Thanks for what?”, I look at my phone, she hasn’t read it yet. Hopefully she’s resting.
“Nothing. Do you need something?”
“No…”, she looks at Mary’s seat. “Your partner’s absent today?”
My checks go red, “Partner…?” I do like the sound of that.
“You do remember the bet, right?”
“Right…” I look at her awkwardly, “The bet…”
She places her hand on Mary’s table and looks at it.
“Do you have something against her?”
Hinata chuckled, “I wonder…”, she then proceeded to sit on Mary’s chair. That’s not her place to sit…
“Did she tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I assumed since you guys were pretty close right now…”
Really? What is she even trying to do?
“You did tell me that we were close too and yet…”
She put her hand on her forehead, “Right… I’m sorry.”
She got up from Mary’s seat, “We went to the same middle school.”
“Alright?”, Good for you? Why would Mary tell me that?
She then proceeded to walk away… That was something…
Suddenly I could feel two hands on my shoulders, I screamed loud enough for the entire class to hear. Thankfully it was mostly empty due to break.
“Dude…” I look back. Of course It’s Kuroki.
“You really…”, I stand up, “Need to stop doing that!”
“Sorry…”
I have a feeling that’s he’s going to keep doing that… and not even on purpose.
“What are you guys doing?”, Looks like Hinata’s back.
“Practising for the horror drama”, I rub the back of my neck.
“I see… Alright, I forgot but do you want Mary’s address by the way… I could give it to you if you want me to, since she’s sick.”
Can I? Please!
I take a deep breath, “No…” It would be wrong. It feels wrong.
“You sure?”
I nod.
Hinata smiled, “I’m glad some things never change…”
Kuroki gently fist bumped my shoulders, “Yea. I’m glad too.” He also smiled
Yea, this feels extremely wrong.
“I…”, I take some steps back, “If you’ll excuse me.” I walk away from there as fast I could.
“Aka-“
If you don’t hear them completely say your name, are they even calling you?
I need some air… The rooftop probably has a lot of air!
I open the door, the gentle breeze welcomes me. I really like how it feels around my fingers.
There’s no one here… Thankfully. I don’t know many realize that you could just walk into the rooftop.
I look at my phone, she hasn’t replied yet. I shouldn’t check it more… Maybe I should’ve taken the address but it felt so wrong.
I walk towards the railing and look down. I wonder if she’s going to get better and come tomorrow… maybe I should text her and postpone it.
The school grounds are mostly empty. Where even are the students?
As soon as I think that, there’s three girls dragging along another girl in the school yard. They’re taking her behind the warehouse, I think? I focus on them as much as I could.
“Wait… Is that Nari?” No! I have a bad feeling about this. I wish she was here…
I ran back to my class and thankfully find both Kuroki and Hinata there.
“Hey!”, they’re both sitting together so this should be easy.
“This is the first time you’ve come talked to us on your own.”, Kuroki looked at me, smiling.
“Yes… But I need your help.”
I pause for a moment, “Remember Nari?”
Kuroki nodded, “That girl from that day, right?”
“Yes…”, I look towards Hinata “More specifically I need your help. I think Nari’s being bullied behind the warehouse…”
“What?”, Kuroki jolted up his chair., while Hinata stayed deep in thought.
“You did say you were the class representative… and I know that Nari isn’t from this class but I want you to represent me…”
Hinata smiled, “I would’ve done that even if I lost the elections.”, she got up from her seat and patted Kuroki’s back, “I need you both to go there.”
“What are you going to do?”
She smiled, “Trust me.”
“I-“, Kuroki pulled my hand and led me out of the classroom, “Wait!”, I screamed but he didn’t stop.
“Trust Hinata.”, I could see a smile forming on his face, “Let’s do what she said.”
“Alright, fine!”, I pull my hand away, “I can run on my own!”, and I started a race against him.
“Now you’re talking!”, he sped up.
We raced till the warehouse, where we found Nari and the other three girls surrounding her. Thankfully it looked like she was alright.
I gestured Kuroki to keep quiet and turned on the phone’s recording and put it back in my pocket.
“I don’t care!”, one of them screamed. “Did you bring the money?”
“No… It’s not my money, but we can-“
The other one slammed the wall near Nari’s head. “We don’t want excuses.”
Alright, I can’t listen for any longer.
“Hey!”, I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Leave her alone!”
They turned back, “Oh? It’s the shortstack!”, and walked towards me. Kuroki was still hiding in the corner.
“Do you have our money?”, they laughed before turning their eyes on to Kuroki, “Eeek!”, one of them fell behind.
Someone else who got scared of him other than me.
“Who’s this?”, the middle on asked.
“Kuroki.”, he almost growled, “Stop whatever you’re doing.”
She smirked, the girl besides her whispered something to her ears, “Bought your friends along?”
She then walked towards Nari and slapped her head from behind, “I didn’t know this loner had friends.”
“Hey!”, we both screamed at her. Why was Nari taking it… No… her eyes, they remind me of someone…
I walk towards her but Kuroki was faster, he held her hands back, “Stop!”
“What can you even do?”, she pulled her hand back.
“Aren’t you a popular kid?”, she rubbed her hand, “Why are you protecting this loser?”
“What you’re doing isn’t right!”
“Oh?”, she looks at Nari, “Do you see her complaining?”
Nari…
“Nari…”, I have trouble getting the next words out, “You know we’re friends right?”, I give out an awkward smile.
Nari’s eyes lit up, “You don’t need friends like these!”, I look at the other girls.
“Yeah!”, Kuroki screamed, “We’ll be your friends!”
“Really?”
We both nod. The main girl, whom I assume to be the bully leader stood there and laughed.
The bully leader then smirked, “Now you can get beaten up while having friends…”, she put her hand up and was about to hit Nari.
“Stop!”, Hinata screamed and came out of the back corner of the warehouse.
“Who are you?”, the bully leader screamed.
“The class representative…”, she then pointed towards her phone, “Who recorded all of this!”
“Damn it.”
I took out my phone out too, “I have the audio recording of this as well.”
Why did they assume that no one would record this?
All the backed up, “Now what?”
“Now…”, she looked at Nari, “What do you want to do?”
“I… I don’t know…”
Hinata let out a small smile, “We have all the evidence!”, she walked towards them three, “Now play nice.”, the three walked back and ran away.
“Thank you.”, Nari smiled while Hinata went to hug her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“You did well, Hinata!”, Kuroki looked at me, “I told you to trust her.”
“Yeah… Yeah.”, I smile and look towards Hinata, “Thank you.”
“Your welcome.”, she looked at her clock, “The bell’s about to ring. We have to go to class.”
Kuroki nodded and they both ran away too.
I was about to follow them but Nari pulled me aside, “Thank you…”
“No problem, it was mostly Hinata…”
“You asked her to help me right?”
I nodded, “She’s the main protagonist of a manga that you like…” I looked at the sky, “Isn’t that a dream for many.”
Nari smiled a bright smile, “Thank you!”, tears welled up in her eyes , “Thank you… really…”
“No problem…”, I start walking away, she probably needs some alone time to process this.
I wave back while walking forwards, “See ya later.”
“Friend…”, that took a lot of willpower for me. I don’t know if I do really consider her to be my friend but… well, we are acquaintances from probably the same world.
Nari probably didn’t hear me, but I hope she’d be alright. I probably need to check on her from time to time. Hopefully the bullies stop their act but is it ever really that easy in any world?
I look at my phone, she has my read my text!
“I’m feeling better than before. Thank you! :)”
It’s just what I needed right now. I go back to the class, hopping while staring at that message.
