My nice view of someone’s thighs was short-lived, because I soon got stepped on by the sole of a shoe.

“Ah, Makoto-kun, you pervert!” The girl panickedly pressed down on her skirt as if she didn’t just flash me on purpose.

“How the hell was I supposed to know it’s you?”

“Who else but me kicks you in the shoulder?”

“...Well, true.”

That auburn-haired girl with the cheery voice and overly cutesy mannerisms was Katou Nanako, though I don’t remember the last time I’ve ever said her name. I usually just did everything in my power to avoid exactly that—like by calling her “dude”, or just yelling “yo” in her general direction whenever I needed to grab her attention. There was something about saying names I wasn’t entirely comfortable with, especially because Nanako always scolded me whenever I tried calling her Katou.

Some guys thought Nanako was incredibly attractive, what with her silky long hair and all, but I saw her as more of a little sister. (For you perverts out there, I mean that in a genuine, non-otaku way.)

She made an exaggerated motion of dusting off her skirt before sitting next to me.

“You picked the worst spot to laze on the roof, Makoto-kun. Over here, the vents are so loud that you can’t hear when people are sneaking up on you.”

“Nah. The constant barrage of noise helps me think.”

“Really?”

Nanako leaned over me with one arm pressed by the side of my head. Her hair spilled over my face, tickling my cheeks, and I could smell the scent of her shampoo. Even she could make her boobs look huge if she was going to push them together so blatantly like that.

“Then what if I kissed you now? Would the sound help or not?”

Her innocent hazel eyes looked so disgusting whenever she uttered garbage like that.

“In the first place, I wouldn’t let you kiss me.”

I pushed Nanako’s face away, then turned to lie on my side so I wouldn’t be tempted by her.

“Aww, you’re so cruel, Makoto-kun.”

“You need to stop reading romance manga. That shit is corrupting your brain.”

“But I can’t help it. Just like I can’t help liking Makoto-kun.”

“Sure you do.”

Just like me, Nanako’s love life abruptly halted on the 24th of December. The fundamental difference between us, though, was that Nanako definitely didn’t give a shit. She was the type of person who ended up with a new boyfriend every month—sometimes from other schools, sometimes seniors, most of the time college guys who had no sense of shame going after a 16-year-old.

On the other hand, I didn’t even have a relationship to get dumped from. I simply got rejected.

Fuck. Thinking about her makes me sick.

Nanako began to trace shapes on my back. “You’re still not over Mari-chan, are you?”

“You very well know that’s not why I won’t date you.”

“I know,” she giggled. “But I’m just saying there are many fish in the sea.”

“Maybe so.”

“And maybe it’s time to start getting over it.”

I thought about telling Nanako about my suicide attempt and the Christmas angel I’d kissed, but decided not to in the end. We simply stayed like that until our break ended, basking in silence with only the dissonant sounds of an exhaust vent to punctuate the frosty winter mood.

When I got back to class, I saw a bunch of girls surrounding Ayane’s table and no one else. Rather than exposing myself, I decided to stay by the entrance and observe the situation from afar.

It was what I imagined your typical girls’ bullying scenario to be. The main girl’s clique of 1-H—led by a blonde queen bee and two side bitches who couldn’t yet afford hair dye—were surrounding the new girl and giving her a hard time just because she looked pretty and admitted to repeating a year. To be honest, Japan was kinda backwards in that regard. A ton of discrimination took place just because of grades.

I realised I couldn’t intervene directly without making the situation worse, so I decided to take my phone out and record everything.

“Hey bitch, where did you get that bag?”

“I ordered it online,” said Ayane.

“Oh? And how many guys did you have to suck off to buy it?”

All this commotion over the bag was piquing my curiosity, so I took a quick glance at Ayane’s bag. It looked designer-ish, but it wasn’t something I would immediately recognise as expensive unless it’d been pointed out to me. Girls truly had a radar for this sort of bullshit.

I also found it hypocritical that they were bullying her for wearing jewellery and generally showcasing an interest in fashion, since… Well, the girl’s clique that was picking on her was basically doing the same thing. Just in a less stylish way. I guess jealousy was one hell of a drug.

“I didn’t suck off anyone,” Ayane said. “I could afford these things thanks to my part-time job.”

“Hah! A part-time job? Don’t bullshit me. That bag sells for 300k on second hand sites. Is your part-time job fucking old men?”

That line elicited a laugh from her clique, but I personally thought it needed a bit more work before you could call it funny. Maybe if I weren’t so personally invested in the entire Ayane situation, I would’ve even been inclined to call it “cringe”.

“And so what if it was? What difference would it make?” Ayane asked.

“You’d be a fucking slut, that’s what difference it would make.”

“And so? At least I’m not the pathetic loser getting worked up over a bag. Between being a hypothetical slut with money and an insecure bitch, I’d rather take the money.”

“Listen here, Ogawa Naoko…”

One of the side bitches was in the process of reaching out for Ayane’s neck—this was a good development, because all I had to do was get it on camera, then walk into the classroom and interrupt their gangbang. I could probably crop the earlier part of the video where Ayane was arguing back, and it’d look like a pretty cut-and-dry case of bullying. Even the most bureaucratic of schools would have to acknowledge this incident with that much hard evidence.

But what I ended up seeing… was completely unexpected, even in my wildest dreams.

In one swift motion, Ayane grabbed the girl’s hand, bent it back against her joints and sent her screaming like a little bitch. Before she could wail incessantly for more than a split-second, though, Ayane had somehow pivoted behind her and smashed her nose-first into her desk.

The sound it made was absolutely grotesque.

It was like a fucking peanut was being cracked open by someone’s teeth.

Chairs slid everywhere. Desks moved. Hell, even my phone slipped out of my hands in my shock. It clattered noisily on the floor and gave away my position.

“Who’s there?!” yelled Ayane.

“U-um, it’s me, Shiba,” I said.

As Ayane and the two girls focused on my entrance into the room, the girl being pinned down continued to focus on her struggle. Ayane had loosened her grip on the girl owing to my distraction, and in the girl’s wild frenzy to break away, she’d managed to claw Ayane across the face before finally getting out of the joint lock.

It drew blood.

It drew so much blood, that even the earlier scene of an exploding nose didn’t seem that bad anymore.

“Ow!”

“F-fuck this shit,” screamed the girl as she covered her nose. “I’m so out of here.”

“Um, totally!”

The three girls scurried out of the room, leaving me with only a bleeding Christmas angel to attend to.