Takemura Itsuki
“Shit!”
My eyes widened as I looked at Katsuki’s back walking towards Haruto lying on the ground. Haruto had his eyes wide open in terror as he moved his back up and started to crawl back a little. “N-N-No…” He murmured in terror as he moved his right hand up in a vague defense.
Katsuki moved his sword up in the air, and then rested it upon his right shoulder. He looked down at Haruto with his serious streamlined expressionless eyes full of anger. “I’ve played enough, Shiratori-kun.”
***
“This is the guy who killed Tachibana-san, right?” A boy wearing his white shirt upon black pair of trousers said as he walked past the little figure of me, who had his head tilted down, to another boy beside him wearing the same school uniform.
I had my hands in my pockets and I continued to walk, minding my own business, as I crossed them and went my way. I had my head tilted down, and my eyes were covered by my large hair. As I walked some steps away from them, I heard the other boy, “He is so mysterious.”
“Yeah, and he’s come out of the juvenile after just two years!”
“If he were not a kid, he’d go for well about a decade!”
“We should keep our distance from him.”
I continued to walk with my hands in my pockets as I heard those words. I turned to the right in the corridor and continued to walk beside students who were standing in the corridor, walking and discussing stuff, some even with books in their hands, and others just the bags. As I walked through the corridor, students in front of me suddenly turned their heads to the back at me, and then stepped beside to give me way. As I walked further and further depressingly, everyone stepped aside until I turned to the right towards my classroom. As I stepped inside, the chattering inside the class suddenly stopped, and everyone had their eyes tilted at me. Then, the chatter started again as I turned to the left and started to walk towards the back seat of the classroom. A group of girls chatting, who stood in the middle of the path, turned their heads at me, and their smile disappeared as they stepped to my right to give me way. I walked from behind their backs silently. I turned my head up to the front as I walked past them and they stepped back at the path again. “He literally gives out such a… a specific depressed aura…”
“He smells of a murderer, right?”
“Yeah, like he’s so angry and sad from within.”
“We gotta stay away from him. Who knows we upset him unintentionally and then he runs to kill us too?”
“That was just it. I had just come out of the juvenile after I’d killed Ichika, and in the outside world, I was suddenly seeing a new image of mine being formed. Eventually, everyone in the middle school started to shun me out and try not to get into any kind of conversation with me.”
I stood in front of the last seat of the row, turned to the left at it, and moved my right hand out of the strap of my schoolbag.
“I was depressed. I didn’t know how to react, how to see them in their faces again, how to talk to them directly, or even how to live my life. What was I supposed to do in the future? What’s gonna happen next? Will it all be this way always?”
“The heck…” I murmured.
“But, I forgot that I was never alone in this world…”
“Yo, pal!” Someone patted on my back. I put my bag down on the ground, straightened my back, and turned to the back again. It was the smiling face of Haruto. “Pal, you seem so depressed!”
“Till now, I still think that it must have been better if he wasn’t with me all this time—at least for him, that is. The way he’s stuck with me, and the way he’s normalized this situation for both of us was just admirable. I never thanked him for all he’s gone through, maybe because in those times, I really needed him. I never got the courage of telling him ‘Leave me, and go’, maybe because in those times, I really needed him.”
***
I quickly got up on my feet again. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!” I chattered with my closed jaw as I quickly dashed towards Katsuki’s back some steps away from me. As Katsuki heard my loud footsteps dashing towards him, he calmly turned back, and looked at me with his angry eyes. I suddenly jumped up with my legs spread up, and my right hand having the same broken sword in it pointed up, about to be slashed at him. He moved his sword up horizontally at me in defense. “ARGH!”
SLICE!
TRAM. A large piece of sword metal fell down on the ground. From beneath Katsuki’s shockingly wide open eyes, a cut suddenly emerged and blood started to come out.
“I guess I had forgotten about all my past days and my past life all the way here.”
