“Seriously, where are we going?” you complain after an unsuccessful ten minutes of trying to escape. His adamant grip is tight on your hand making pulling away difficult and unlikely.

“Do you not understand the concept of spontaneous trips or are you afraid of going out in public?” he jokes avoiding your question.

“I go out in public. I’m not some kind of school dependent robot or something.” you retort keeping up with his long strides while pursing your lips.

“When was the last time you went out into the city then?” he challenges with a smirk.

You open your mouth and close it unable to find a clever, or even proper, response.

“Exactly, just loosen up and trust me.”

Really? Trust him? A boy who cuts class and breaks regulation with a horrible attitude that you’ve only just met three days ago? Does he not see the problem here?

“You’re not giving me much of a choice.” you mutter eyeing the gradually heightening buildings the closer you get to the city. Thankfully for students, not necessarily you, the city is within walking distance. This allows the younger students without cars or those who want to enjoy a nice walk if the weather is nice to get around easily. You’ve personally only made the trip three times for supplies, be it new notebooks or some clothes. Just the necessities though, you don’t tend to buy useless trinkets or items for fun or just to buy things.

Disregarding your comment he continues to pull you along behind him, dead set on “apologizing” appropriately. At least it’s not raining. The sky is a dull gray with a layer of clouds shadowing the city but shows no sign of rainfall just yet. Hopefully it doesn’t. Your stiff blazer isn’t exactly the best cover for rain.

“Where are we going?” you ask again. There’s a valid reason to your question this time. He’s completely ignored the center of the city, where the most stores and people reside, and cut through a narrow passage of buildings you’ve never noticed before.

“You’re really bad at these things.” he replies shaking his head in a way that makes his curls bounce like excited springs.

“No, I’m really not. You’re just being difficult.”

“And that’s how I like it.”

“I’m not even going to try and take sense into you anymore.”

“I win this round then?”

“This round? Oh no, we are not having any more of these-whatever they are.”

“Why? It’s refreshing to win arguments with you.”

“I’m not doing this.”

“You’re no fun.”

Good God he is infuriatingly childish.

You think but, you can’t help feeling the same way.

Sure, you’re mad at him, heck, you’re furious. The splash of unpredictable that is Zelo though is undeniably, as he put it, refreshing. Like an involuntary subscription to idiocy you can’t get out of.

Not the best comparison but, something along those lines of being stuck.

Speaking of stuck…

A massive chain link fence peppered with rust looms up ahead that blocks any other way through the narrow passage. Maybe he just came the wrong way, took a turn too early. There’s no way even he could scale the rusting tangle of metal inconveniently between you and your destination. You know for a fact you never could, especially not in your rigid skirt and blazer uniform.

He comes to a stop in front of the fence and gives you a crooked sideways grin.

“Let’s see how well you can climb.”

No, he can’t be serious. He has to be joking. Does he not see what you’re wearing and how tall this monstrous mess of rust is? There’s no way.

Zelo smirks, your doubt blatantly evident on your face, and releases your hand. He approaches the gnarled fence and studies it. Curling his fingers through the blunt diamonds of space he tests the durability of the copper toned metal. It looks like it can barely handle holding itself up, how is the decaying fence possibly going to hold him up at all?

He looks over his shoulder and gives you a mischievous grin before hooking one foot into the fence and hoisting himself up. With precise ease he quickly ascends to the top of the towering fence in a matter of seconds. Throwing his leg over the other side he jumps off, startling you (it’s a good ten feet at least), and lands with enough grace to stay on his two feet.

It’s like he enjoys proving you wrong. He doesn’t have to know what you’re thinking he just does it. His existence is starting to irk you even more.

Yet here you are wondering how you’re ever going to get to the other side without killing yourself in the process.

“See, nothing impossible. Just do what I did.” he says with a grin and shrug as if he just walked through it rather than over it. Walking through it would probably be easier than you trying to climb over it.

“Which is?” you say staring at the angry rust coat warily.

“One hand and foot at a time.” he says pretending to climb in place.

“Wow, thanks.”

“You’re very welcome. Now come on!” he says waving you over to hurry.

Taking the first step toward the fence you pause.

Why are you even doing this?

He’s on the other side of the fence. He can’t stop you if you walked away. Walk away, just walk away and never look back. Get rid of the nuisance in your life that’s been nothing but trouble.

You take another step.

Just walk away.

Another step.

Cut him off for good.

Another.

Don’t look back.

Another.

He’s nothing but trouble. You don’t need trouble in your life.

Another.

He’ll just hurt you again. Even if it’s unintentional, he’ll still hurt you.

“Tokki-ah?”

Ignore him.

“What are you doing?”

Shut up and leave me alone.

“Are you alright?”

Stop it.

“No, don’t.”

Shut up.

“Stay.”

Stop.

“I’ll catch you.”

You look down at the space between you and the ground and freeze.

When did you get up here?

Better question, how did you get up here?

Apparently his distractions are useful in these kinds of situations.

“Uh, no, there’s no way I’m jumping off this thing.” you state firmly, gripping onto the top bar for your life.

Why did you do this?

Why didn’t you just listen to logic instead of your need for the unexpected?

You really hate this jerk for dragging you here.

You hate yourself more for letting him.

Why can’t I ever win?