To Toshi, the most shocking thing that happened was that Toshi found himself frozen in fear.
Or rather, he couldn't accept it was fear. He was just stunned, puzzled, slow on the draw, or any one of another hundred excuses as to why he froze up. What was actually preventing him from taking action was the inability to admit he was actually afraid. So as the fight unfolded, he just stood there inside the doorway to the boys bathroom in the basement of the school annex, struggling with the very concept of why he was struggling.
Naora had come out of nowhere. Her friends were with her, but she ran ahead leaving them in the dust. She clothes-lined the black haired girl with her elbow, took out the other one with a sharp kick to the shin, and then landed a solid punch on Takara so hard Toshi's ears were ringing from the sound of the impact. A few moments later Naora's thugs arrived, grabbed the other two and dragged them out of the way so Naora could have room to properly beat the ever living shit out of Takara. Toshi watched for the first ten seconds of the fight doing nothing but think, ~Naora really held back on kicking my ass, didn't she?~
Toshi was jolted out of his fugue state when he heard Monoko cry out, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" from down the hall. Toshi blinked and shook his head, while watching these three get pounded. Takara was on the ground, just holding up her arms to protect her face. Naora had a look that was a combination of joy and rage. Toshi finally managed to process what was going on, ~Naora is going to kill her.~
"stop."
The first word out of Toshi's mouth was weak and trembling. He didn't even believe he said it. He shook his head then took a deep breath, "STOP!" He jumped on Naora from behind to grab her arm, "PLEASE STOP!" Naora struggled for a second to land another blow, but stopped when she turned to look at Toshi. Toshi was surprised to see her face shift from joyous rage to concern in such a short amount of time. Toshi stared at his hands holding her right arm from punching again. Toshi was puzzled by how much his hands were shaking and couldn't figure out why.
Naora and her goons stopped beating the crap out of Takara and her two friends, as per Toshi's request. Not long after the entire computer club came running down the hall to find out what was going on. What they saw was the school bully and her crew beating the crap out of three strangers while Toshi seemed to be standing nearby.
Shaking.
Kyoko's eyes glanced around as she stepped up, "Toshi, what's going on?" Naora slowly stood up, looming over Takara, "What I heard was this bitch saying, 'You can't rape a whore' While she was grabbing Toshi's crotch in the men's bathroom." Monoko spoke softly, "She's dead." Before she lifted her foot to stomp the shit out of Takara. Toshi moved in between and held up his hands, "WAIT!" He held out his hands to everyone, "Just Everyone STOP!" He ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to focus, "I need to think."
Naora slowly tilted her head as she looked at Toshi, "Holy Keanu Christ, you're going let these three off the hook, aren't you?"
Toshi looked at Naora, "This is... complicated." Monoko shook her head, "No it's not. They tried to rape you. We murder them. Fuckin' Simple!" Toshi looked at Monoko, more than a little shocked at how viscous she was talking, "It's not entirely their fault!" Naora gapped at Toshi, "Holy shit. How is any of this your fault? Did you ask them to jump you?" Toshi snapped his head to look at Naora, "NO! I used to date her!"
Everyone paused. Naora pointed at Takara, but looked at Toshi, "Date?" Toshi nodded, "YES. Back at the school before this one, before I lost my memory I used to date her. I also CHEATED on her!" He pointed at the black haired girl, "And I tortured her brother!" He pointed at the red head, "I got no idea how I wronged that one, but I'm sure I did something!" Monoko looked at the three then back at Toshi, "SO WHAT? That doesn't give her the right to... to..." Toshi spun to face Monoko, "Except I took a great deal of money from Takara and promised she could have my virginity."
You could have heard a pin drop.
Choko shook her head, "No." The rest of the computer club started to shake there heads as well and echo her. Kyoko nodded and stepped up to Toshi, "She told you this?" She pointed at Takara, "She's lying." Kyoko put a hand on Toshi's shoulder, "We know you. You are one of the sweetest, most innocent-" Toshi smacked the hand away and backed up, "I had three different sets of social media accounts so I could keep my two girlfriends from meeting one another!" He took out his phone to wave it around for emphasis, "I saw them myself! I'm a two-timing cheating slut!"
The whole time, Takara was curled up on the floor, covering her face with one hand. She was just listening and waiting to see how this all played out. However, now having some time to calm down, her expression started to soften. Eventually she burst into tears, "TOSHI! WHY WON'T YOU LOVE ME?"
Everyone turned to stare at her. She started crawling across the floor to him, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't care you cheated on me. I don't care about the money! Please... please just don't leave me! I need you. please." She put her head to the ground, "I don't care. I just need you. Please. please..."
Toshi stared at her in horror, "Toshi...What have you done?" Nobody stopped him when he stepped forward and knelt down next to her grasped her by the shoulders, "Your Toqshi is dead." Takara let out a low moan and wrapped her arms around Toshi's legs. Toshi took a deep breath and spoke softly, "I am so sorry. He's gone. I don't know you. The only feeling I have for you is pity." Takara looked up at Toshi with red, teary eyes. Toshi bit his lower lip as he wiped some of the tears away, "I pity you, because you loved a monster. He was a terrible and cruel boy. I suspect there were reasons why he was like that. I'm only just now figuring it out." He gently ran his hand over Takara's hair, "But he was toxic."
Takara sniffled, "But I loved him."
Toshi nodded, "But he didn't love you. I don't know why. I don't know what happened to him. I don't know why he was so broken." He snorted and laughed as if he was laughing at himself, "I feel like I'm the protagonist of some Otome game and I have been reincarnated as the villain." He slapped a hand over his mouth and looked away, before rubbing his whole face and turning back to Takara, "What you did... was wrong. I mean... wrong." He touched her cheek, "I also understand I'm to blame for fucking with you so much you became this."
Kyoko stepped up behind Toshi, "Toshi... you can't be held responsible for something you can't remember." Toshi snapped his head around to glare at Kyoko, "If not me, then WHO? If I don't take responsibility, then what do I have left?" He tapped his chest repeatedly, "There's so little of me! All I have LEFT is my mistakes!" He looked down at Takara, "Even if those mistakes cost me nothing but pain, it's better to have these mistakes than to pretend I never existed." He made a fist as he stared at Takara, "They might not be my responsibility, but they are MINE all the same."
Toshi suddenly got a look of dawning revelation. He asked quietly, "Are you WFFW?" Takara's whole body tensed up. She didn't have to say anything. Toshi just nodded his head once, "Ah. It's all making a lot more sense now." He gently caressed the slowly forming bruise on her face, "I'm sorry. I cannot be with you, and I know you don't want to hear this, but you are so better off without me." She opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off, "Look at yourself. Look at how low you have sunk. Look at how our toxic relationship turned you into... " He gestured at her, "This." She slowly sat up and looked at herself as Toshi continued, "You crossed a line back there. A line that under any other circumstances, I'd call my mother the police officer and have her come down here." He leaned in, "Because she is the head of the forensics department and she knows how to make your death look like a suicide."
Takara suddenly went pale as Toshi's tone changed.
Toshi leaned in even closer, "I am taking a fuck of a risk not having you locked up. I am not sparing you out of guilt, or because I still have feelings, or because I'm so naive as to believe in the good in everyone. I owe you. I'm sparing you so now we are even." Takara slowly leaned back, but Toshi kept closing in just as far as she pulled away, "If I even heard a whisper of a thought of a shadow of a rumor that you pulled this shit with any other boy..." Toshi twisted his hand into a claw and hovered it over Takara's face.
"I Will Take Your EYES."
Takara stared at those fingers poised over her face with wide eyes and pin prick pupils. She nodded energetically in agreement to the terms. Toshi then gave her a gentle pat on the cheek, "My only advice is, don't date the one you love. Date the one who loves you. They should do the same. If you both worry about making sure your partner actually cares about you, instead of being blinded by your own love, it'll work out." Toshi stood up, "I think it'd be best if we didn't meet again. I'm poison for you, and you need to find a way to love yourself." He shook his head slowly, "Stop basing your self worth on what someone else thinks about you." He paused then added, "Especially a monster like me."
Toshi turned and started walking away. Kyoko started to say something but Toshi just waved her off and hurried off up the stairs. Naora just gaped at the back of Toshi's head as he walked away. The depths of her confusion existed on so many levels.
Sometime later Toshi was standing outside the Annex as Naora came out. As they walked past, Toshi called out, "Hey. What were you doing in the annex?" Naora stopped, but didn't turn around, "I heard someone was looking for you. Someone from a different school. If they were trying to find out where they could find you, I assumed it was someone who wanted to screw you up." Toshi nodded, "Thanks." She turned around to face him, "Oh. I didn't do this out of the kindness of my heart. You owe me and I need to protect my investment." She stepped up to him and held up two fingers, "In fact, you owe me twice as much now." Toshi eyed the two fingers, smirked and then just nodded, "Of course." Naora turned away, but then turned back to Toshi, "Did I mention you talk like a fifty year old?" She didn't wait for an answer and started walking off with her companions.
The distance between them grew wider and wider.
Thank you for the chapter, continue with the good work!
My vote wasn't wasted on you Naora! Good job.
Somebody can tell me what os wffw?
WFFW first is referred to in chapter 11. It is the login account for someone who appeared to be stalking Toshi. Ruri, with her eidetic memory, has S-God-Tier level power of pattern recognition. She can't comprehend at a glance, but if she studies something, she has a 'copy' that she can study later. She tends to trust her 'instincts' when her 'brain tells her something is up'. So on a hunch she started looking at all the social media accounts where people talked about Honey Whitefox. She managed to find a very old account that was one of the first that Takana created. Originally it was WhiteFoxsFutureWife, but the username was a bit too long for certain chatboards, so she shrunk it to WFFW.
When the son of the head of the Tokyo forensics department gets attacked, you'd be surprised how much budget gets freed up to investigate said case.
Asuka, Toshi's mom, would not be allowed anywhere near the case, because of obvious bias. She agreed with this and assigned the absolutely best investigator she had to the case. The investigator had already discovered the connection (admittedly much later than Ruri), and tracked down WFFW, discovering Takana. However, even though Takana was obsessed with Toshi, Takana was out of country on vacation that weekend. With multiple witnesses, as well as a frickin' passport indicating she was in Hawaii, it became obvious that Takana was not the attacker.
The investigator also was very cagy and never told Takana exactly what was going on. Takana knows that Toshi went to the hospital and that SOMETHING happened, but she doesn't know the specifics. The questions indicated that it was a crime and in some fashion drug related. This prompted Takana to go absolutely insane with terror and try and find out what happened to Toshi.
Toshi, due to his absolute cringe at the very idea of 'Honey Whitefox', avoided his social media accounts. Toshi only knew about the social media account his father told him about, not about his two sets of spoofed accounts. Toshi also didn't know that he had started using his father's family name when his parents broke up, so everyone at Old Toshi's school thought his name was actually 'Oh Toshi'. And while Toshi was technically a member of the Oh Family, the Oh Family did not see Toshi as such. The Oh Family was close mouthed at the best of times, and certainly some rando, even if she was well connected, contacting them about Toshi would run up against a stone wall.
From Takana's point of view, Toshi went into the hospital, then he dropped off the face of the planet, all of his social media went dark, Honey Whitefox vanished, Oh Toshi never technically existed, and Takana was getting screamed at by her mother for talking her into allowing Honey Whitefox to set up performances using their family's network of concert venues.
Then Takana's mother stopped complaining and Takana found out they had gotten compensated for the cancelations with insurance money.
Takana assumed it was LIFE insurance and that would only pay out if Toshi had died. Toshi was a narcissistic pathological liar, but it was extremely unlikely he'd fake his death and commit insurance fraud, so Takana assumed that Toshi was dead. In her grief, she told everyone else that she had heard that Toshi had died of a drug overdose.
So you can imagine how much of a complete and total mindf*ck it was for Takana when she stumbled across Toshi walking into the food court without a care in the world.
So for those of you thinking that Takana is some cartoonish stalker, while it does require a bit of reading to infer everything I just explained, it's all in the story SOMEWHERE, either directly or implied, although I'm filling in a bunch of the details so it is much clearer what's actually going on.
Takana isn't a sociopath who figured that she was 'gonna jump Toshi'. Takana was pushed and pushed and pushed, fell in love, lost her love, and then found her 'ONE TRUE LUV' (tm) had returned from the dead and (from her point view) was just pulling another one of his elaborate scams. I am not justifying her actions, but I am pointing out that if you play with fire, eventually you get burned. Old Toshi thought he was much smarter than he was and was far luckier than he knew. Every time he got in trouble, he'd just smile, look cute, and someone bailed him out.
What happened to Old Toshi wasn't 'punishment' or 'justice'. It was just Toshi's luck finally ran out. New Toshi, unfortunately, has to deal with the fallout from Toshi's previous choices.
I hope that explains what WFFW is and gives you the full context.
@TheEldritchGod Wow, this make more understandable why Takana reaction was so desperate. That was really infomative about things on the whole novel and show how much messed up past Toshi was.
Not really good with words in english, but i am really thankful to you for explain this whole situation outside Toshi point of view in such detail.
@antoniogn1 - I thought about putting Takana's PoV in as a chapter, in and of itself, but I didn't think about it until it was too late to include it, plus I don't know if Takana 'deserves' one. It is easy to fall into the trap of over explaining yourself when you are a writer. You have all this cool sh*t and, of course, you want to share all the cool shit. It took a long time to learn 'less is more' when it comes to explaining things.
At some point I hope to go back and do a full rewrite of the whole story and fix all the mistakes. I might include said chapter at that point. For now, I'm content to explain in depth certain background characters upon request. That way I answer the questions people want answered without spamming everyone with a deluge of trivia. Alternate PoV should be reserved for important recurring characters, not every NPC that strolls past the MC.
@TheEldritchGod I think all the explanation was good, but as you say, I too dont think that Takana should have a whole chapter just for her (i would like one for Naora, his Sister, Mother, etc). I like more information in general, even as trivia, but i know that it would make the novel go in slow pace and that would not be what everyone likes.
@TheEldritchGod one author once explained to me, if you can't write the story in a way that the readers have little difficulty understanding and you have to explain it to them in the comments then you have failed as an author.