After the elements class ended, a couple of the girls were asking Daiki if he would like to join them for afternoon tea. Daiki did not hesitate to go with them.

Yuto and Chinen watched from behind. Yuto pouted. “Why don’t the girls ever ask us?” He saw Ayaka stepping down from the bleachers, so Yuto thought that it might be a good opportunity to ask her to be friends again.

“Hey Ayaka,” Yuto began, “I know that you don’t like Daiki because he’s invading your personal space in the classroom, and we don’t like him because he’s hogging all the girls…”

Chinen elbowed Yuto, and he quickly corrected him. “Yuto means that he attacked us before, so we don’t like him either.”

Yuto faked a cough. “Uh, that’s right! So let’s be friends with a common enemy!”

Once Ayaka could tell that the two of them had finished their talking, she continued her way to exit the building without speaking.

Yuto turned to Chinen. “I’m beginning to think that she can’t talk.”

Chinen paused. “Well, she seems to only write in her book, and I haven’t heard her say a single word since I came to this school.”

Ayaka seemed to be paranoid by the comment, as she twitched when she heard it. However, she continued to walk out the door.

Once outside, Ayaka sighed and continued to walk. She was headed to her usual spot at the café, only to find out that ‘Daiki and the girls’ had fully packed the café. There were not only the girls from her class, but he seemed to have attracted the girls from 1st year, 2nd year AND 3rd years. What was even worse than that was when she saw Daiki sit in her spot. Her seat.

“Dai-channnn, why are you with the 2nd years? Shouldn’t you be in 4th based on your age?” A girl asked.

Daiki laughed, “I’m not so sure myself. I’m a 4th year student over in the gifted side.”

“Wow, you must be really good with your element then! I’ve heard that they place you in different years based on your mastery of your element! If you’re in 4th year, then you’re the best of the best!” another girl piped.

“Aw, I’m not that good.” Daiki shyly replied, to which the girls did their little screams.

Ayaka angrily walked towards where she should have sat and glared at Daiki.

“Oh? Ayaka, are you interested in Daiki as well?” A girl moaned.

“Hey, go to the back of the line!” Another added. “You need to line up to get time with Daiki.” The girl quickly scanned Ayaka. “However, even if you did line up, Daiki wouldn’t like to spend time with someone like you.”

You can do this Ayaka. Ayaka thought to herself. Just soak in the comments and let it be. Don’t get mad Ayaka; don’t let it show.She secretly took a deep breath, turned around and left.

Daiki laughed. “What’s her problem? She doesn’t seem to show her emotions.” The other girls joined in the laughter.

“She’s so different from us.” Yet another girl answered. “That’s why it’s so easy to pick on her. She won’t talk back and she won’t fight back.”

Daiki nodded as the girls explained Ayaka to him.

“If you don’t like her in your classes Dai-chan,” a girl began, “We can deal with her if you’d like.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do with her.” Daiki shrugged away the idea. “I’m not interested in her at all.”

The girls nodded in approval.

=====

“Inoo, I heard that Daiki got transferred to the non-gifted side.” Takaki spoke slowly.

Inoo hastily nodded.

“And the reason is…?” Takaki attempted to lead Inoo into continuing his sentence.

“I…don’t know.” Inoo spoke plainly.

Takaki raised an eyebrow. “You’re always with him, how can you not know?”

Inoo looked away.

Takaki leaned back in his chair. “Well, I guess it is time for you to be more independent. Since Daiki isn’t considered an elemental user for now, he cannot be a part of the Kusamine. He’s one of the non-gifted students now, which means he’s in our way.”

Surprised, Inoo quickly turned back to Takaki, “But…” he began.

Takaki took out a dart from his drawer and pointed it towards a wall with paper pictures of the members of the Kusamine hung with a small string each. He threw the dart and it landed on a string, which pierced through at the picture dropped. Inoo glanced and saw that it was a headshot of Daiki.

“He’s officially out.” Takaki announced. “Tell the others that too.”

Inoo hesitated. Would Daiki be hated by the others then?

Takaki leaned forward. “This also means that you’ll be a full Ace on your own. Honestly speaking, you were the stronger one out of the two. Without your element, Daiki is useless by himself. You, however, can inflict more damage even by yourself. ”

Inoo was still unsure of himself.

=====

The next day, Chinen and Yuto were a little early for class. As they said yesterday, they entered through the front doors of the classroom.

“What happened back there?” Yuto gasped.

Ayaka’s corner desk was removed, and so was the seat in front of that desk.

Chinen was shocked at the sight as well. “Urm, did they have some sort of club and moved away the desks?”

“We’re not allowed to remove the desks – we can only move them to a side when we’re not using them.” Yuto explained.

“Then who did this?”

Just then, Ayaka entered through the back doors and saw the same scene. She stood at the doorway, emotionless and stared blankly at her corner. A few girls pushed Ayaka away from the doorway and entered.

“We’re not afraid of you anymore Ayaka.” A girl smiled. “We have Daiki on our side. We can openly say how much we hate you.”

As they entered, each girl gave Ayaka a shove.

“Since you don’t even participate in class, it doesn’t even feel like you belong in the class. We moved your desk away because that’s how we think the class should be like: with or without you, it doesn’t make a difference.” A girl snickered.

“Hey, that’s not nice.” Yuto rushed to the back of the classroom and stood in front of Ayaka.

Chinen hurried along. “She’s still our classmate, whether you like it or not.”

Ayaka, who was behind them, looked at the two for a moment. Perhaps she was grateful for them because no one has ever done that for her. No one has ever stood up for her. She took this opportunity to leave the classroom.

“Wait Ayaka!” Yuto held out his hand, but Ayaka had already left.

The girls made a “tsch” sound and sat down at their seats.

“Where is she going?” Chinen wondered.

As Daiki entered, he was confused about the missing desks as well, but he shrugged and said. “Better than having Ayaka glare at me the whole time.” He sat down at his desk happily.

Chinen spoke into Yuto’s ear. “This isn’t right.”

Yuto nodded. “We’ll have to do something about it – and fast!”

When it was lunch time, Chinen and Yuto went to their shoe cubbies to switch their shoes and head out. They had a feeling where Ayaka was.

“Hey, what’s this?” Chinen took out a small slip of paper.

Yuto took a look at Chinen and then back to his cubby. “I have one too.”

“Thank you.” Was handwritten on both notes.