I wanted to go to Akihabara again. But I felt like it’d be better if Koharu went with me. So I called her and asked her to meet me at the train station. When we got there, we played at arcades and shopped around for a while.

Then I suggested we get some ramen before going to school.

“Ramen? For breakfast? What’s with that?”

“Um, sorry, but I just like to have something to fill me up, instead of what little you eat.”

Koharu pouted. “I usually don’t have time to cook. I wake up at 7:45, and take my time to get dressed and go to school.”

“You should wake up earlier, then.”

When we reached the ramen stand, I saw the same chef that was there before.

“Hey, it’s you again.” He looked surprised, and concerned, but smiled at my friend.

After we ordered our shio ramen, he began to cook. Koharu looked around bored, and I looked at my fidgety bored hands, but I felt the chef keep looking at me while slicing the pork, boiling the noodles, seasoning the broth…

“What’s your name, miss?”

I looked up at him. “Ah- Um, I’m Tanaka Yuna.”

“Yuna… Um, I’m Ibuki. And you?”

Koharu looked at him, confused. “Deguchi Koharu…”

“Ah.” He nodded with a nervous smile. He was young, as if he could have either been in college or just graduated. He was pretty tall, and it seemed he dyed his hair blonde since the last time I saw him. He seemed to really like cooking, and enjoyed seeing people slurping up the noodles he cooked. In many ways, he was like Eddy.

He set the ramen in front of us, and we slurped it with satisfaction. He continued to stare at us nervously. Then, he spoke: “Yuna, I didn’t want to talk about this in front of your friend, but this is important…”

Koharu perked up. What could it possibly be? She looked concerned, and the protective side of her showed in her eyes.

“Um… what do you mean?” I asked. But I had a feeling I knew what it was related to.

“Well… You remember that man… Taro?”

Suddenly, I felt sick. I didn’t think I could finish my ramen. I wasn’t even sure I could keep it down.

“He… he got out of the jail two days after… you know, when that happened. But, I don’t feel safe with him running around like he is…”

I didn’t either. I grew worried. I wasn’t sure if I was prepared for what I knew was coming…

“I think… that in order to keep other girls safe…” He finally looked me in the eye. “I think you should press charges.”

I looked at my hands in my lap. I knew it was coming. But for some reason, it was worse when he said it. It brought back more memories… being interrogated, having to explain what happened, and the threats…

“I already heard that he approached someone at his school, but fortunately she got away. But we don’t want to risk anyone else becoming a victim…”

I knew he didn’t like talking about it. I knew that it was making him uneasy. But I was feeling sick.

“What the hell happened, Yuna? What is he talking about?”

Koharu looked at me, and I tried to look at her. But my sight was blurry, and it was being block by flashbacks, and I strained to see her face.

“I don’t… I can’t do it again…”

“Yuna…” Koharu looked at me concerned.

Oh . It just slipped out.

I looked a Ibuki, who looked shocked.

“I… I…”

“I’m sorry, Yuna. I won’t push you anymore. But you should probably get to school. The sun’s starting to rise.” He turned around and began to clean out dishes.

Koharu and I slowly made our way toward the train station.

“It’s not like we have to go right away. It’s only 6:31.”

I looked at Koharu like, seriously? “Koharu, we have to catch the train.”

Koharu rolled her eyes. She may have been a good student, but she wasn’t excited to go to school or anything.

On the train, we couldn’t stand next to each other because of the amount of people. So we were on two different ends of the car. But we kept glancing at each other when we could, just for a sense of security.

As we got closer to our stop, more people got off, so that Koharu and I were finally with each other.

“Finally! Ugh, I don’t think I can do this again, Yuna. It’s just too much!”

“Gomen. I just needed to relax this morning.”

“In this train? There is no relaxing!” Koharu scoffed, but she put her arm around my shoulder. “But, I can understand that you want to get away. And I’m glad I came along. Whatever that chef was talking about… I promise it won’t happen again. So if you’re going somewhere, call me or Eddy, ok?”

I nodded, a little ashamed. I didn’t want her to find out, but it sounded as if she didn’t want to talk about it. So we stayed quiet until the train stopped, and we walked to our school.

Koharu and I had just walked into the hall when we saw Eddy thrown into the hall from the classroom.

“Oh my God!” I began to run over, but I stopped in shock when I saw Shuta pick him up from the floor and slam him on the wall.

“Come on man, what the hell is wrong with you! Let me go!” Eddy yelled. He also seemed to be in shock, but not as much as I was.

Shuta lifted a fist at my boyfriend, but Eddy managed to get out of his grasp. Recovering from the shock, he seemed ready to fight, but Koharu and I weren’t about to let that happen. We ran over there and got in between them, even though people always say it’s a bad idea.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Koharu grabbed Shuta by both his shoulders so he could get ahold of himself. I held Eddy’s face with both my hands to make sure he wasn’t hurt, but he moved them away, clearly embarrassed.

Shuta would not calm down. It was odd, since I had never seen that side of him, not when we were kids, and not since he had come back to the school. Koharu actually had to slap him, but not too hard, to get him to come back to Earth.

“Shuta~kun… what the hell happened between you and Eddy?”

Shuta took a deep breath, then looked at me. His face softened. “Haven’t you noticed? He’s hurting Yuna.”

All of us looked at each other, confused. So did the crowd that had formed around us.

“Shuta…” I walked over to him. “I don’t know what made you think that, but he’s not.”

My old friend put his hands on my shoulders, and I winced. He sighed, as if he knew this would happen. Without warning, he took the side of my collar and pulled it down to expose a bruise where my neck and shoulder met. Then he grabbed my right arm and pulled the sleeve up to expose the bruises there.

“Shuta, stop it!” I backed up, but he kept coming towards me.

“Yuna, stop hiding it! There’s no reason for you to stay in this relationship!”

Koharu grabbed Shuta by the wrist so he could stop coming at me. I felt Eddy wrap his arms around me from behind, and he whispered, “Don’t worry, Yuna, it’s okay.”

I hadn’t even noticed I was crying. I had hoped that Shuta would never see them, but I never imagined he would expose them like that.

The president, Ichiro, came into the circle from in the crowd and walked over to me. “Yuna, I thought you said they stopped!” He looked so worried.

“I… It’s ok, really. It’s my fault anyways.”

He looked at me, stunned. “Yuna, you need to tell us these type of things. We can’t have this happening at our school. The students need to be safe!”

Shuta came over to us and grabbed Ichiro by the shoulder to turn him around. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Koharu had to brush Shuta off her boyfriend- or crush or whatever. I got the feeling then that she was the dominant one in the relationship.

“Shuta,” I started, and he faced me. “I didn’t want you to know, but I’ve been getting bullied.”

His expression looked devastated. “What? Why?! By who?!”

I didn’t want to say anymore, and I didn’t have to. The teachers started to walk to their classrooms, and started to yell at the students that we need to get to class.

During the break between homeroom and history, Shuta came over to our classroom to meet me, Koharu, and Eddy.

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

I took a deep breath. The three were all looking at me. “How long has it been…? Was it two months? I invited Eddy to my house for dinner, and the girls thought we were doing it. So they started to bully me.”

Eddy looked shocked. “That’s what it was?” I nodded. He rubbed his face. “I shouldn’t have come, none of this wouldn’t have happened…”

“No, it’s not your fault. There’s… other things that they hate about me. It was bound to happen at some point.”

Before Eddy could say anything else, Shuta jumped in, “What girls?”

We all looked behind us, at the girls who laughed obnoxiously. “Them… and Risa. Risa, Natsuki, Akira are the main ones.”

Shuta stood up, but we all grabbed him and forced him back down. “Don’t do it.” Koharu said. “Not here. If you hurt them, you have to do it somewhere else.”

I hit her on the shoulder, and she giggled. I turned to him. “If you do it out the blue, you could get in trouble. If you do it while they are hurting someone, it’s defense.”

Koharu and Eddy looked at me, surprised I was approving of violence, even if it was with restrictions. But they laughed and nodded, understanding that they made me this way.

“I’ll make sure they don’t touch you, Yuna.”

Like I said before, I have no friends in math class.

I have math after PE, which meant that as soon as koharu and I parted outside of the locker room, I was pulled by Risa’s crew into somewhere no one goes- probably an unused classroom. They tied me to a chair, and I was confused about what they were about to do. I thought I had experienced everything they were capable of, but I was wrong.

Natsuki blindfolded me, and Risa continued to slap me every time I yelled.

Suddenly it was quiet, but I knew they hadn’t left.

Suddenly, Risa began to speak:

“Yuna, do you think that Eddy loves you?”

I started to cry. Why were they doing this to me?

Someone slapped me, really hard.

“Answer me, you !”

“Yes, actually, I do!” I coughed.

Natsuki laughed. I knew it was her, because it was the coldest. “I wouldn’t know why. You aren’t interesting at all, and you’re ugly as hell.” She kneeled down and whispered in my ear. “But then, you have a past don’t you? A past that would make him leave you.”

“Please, stop it!” I was feeling sick.

Akira, who must have been sitting in front of me, started to say, “Yuna… Yuna, you’re so pretty, you know?”

“Stop!” But they only laughed.

“You’re so pretty, such a pretty girl. Would you like to do karaoke with me? Come on Yuna, let’s go.”

I could feel the sweat dripping from my face. It was odd, really. I couldn’t even sweat like that in PE class.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back. “Yuna, come on! Let’s go now!”

“No!” I wasn’t even with them anymore. I was back there, in Roppongi.

“Stop it!”

Everyone was silent. It wasn’t me, it was someone else.

“Esumi~chan…” Akira sounded shocked.

“I can’t do this anymore!” she screamed. “She’s hurting!”

“Esumi, come on, don’t you want her to leave Eddy?”

I heard her breathing hard, as if she were crying. “No. No, I don’t. I liked him, but they’re happy together. And I want them to be. She clearly doesn’t want him to find out, not yet. Don’t hurt her like that, it’s too serious a topic to play with.”

I heard Esumi get slapped. “You little traitor… forget Eddy, and forget this stupid ! Do you want to still be my friend?!”

Esumi took a deep breath. “Akira… I don’t believe we ever were. I don’t want to be your slave anymore.” I heard footsteps go towards the door.

“, Akira, she’s gonna tell!” Risa growled.

“She won’t tell. She may tell someone that Yuna’s here, she might. But she’s too scared of us to tell where she is.”

“Let’s just make sure, okay?” Natsuki said. Then, I heard shuffling and out the door they went.

I was already weak from PE, and there torture made it worse. I struggled to get free, but they must have used zip ties. Soon, I heard someone enter the room, sighing and saying, “There she is.” It was my math teacher. She removed the blindfold and I was blinded by the light, and broke down.

Awkwardly, she kneeled down and held me. “It’s ok, Yuna. Come on, we need to get some scissors to untie this.”

I'm sorry. That was bad ;_; But I promise that the next chapter will be AWESOME!

I think that there will be two more chapters. Three at the most. But if I feel like it's being rushed, there will be four more. No more than that. XD

Please tell me what you think of it!