Just when I was thinking that I should calmly take a picture to get evidence of the crime, our eyes met. The moment she looked at me, her eyes filled with tears, my plans went out the window. Before I could think, my body moved.
“Hey!” I said as I forced my way through the crowd and grabbed the hand of the businessman.
“Wait, what?!” he said, his voice almost a shriek.
I desperately suppressed my fear and did my best to look intimidating. Honestly, I was really scared. Just thinking about the possibility of this man flying into a rage made me feel like my legs might start shaking. The reality is that I’m a hardworking honor student (no after school activities, to be fair) aiming for perfect attendance, but I was doing my best to keep this guy in check by acting like a delinquent. I squeezed his arm and roughly raised it into the air. Luckily, he was slim and shorter than me.
“Wh-What’s wrong with you?! What are you doing all of a sudden...?”
“Don’t play dumb. This entire time you’ve been—”
It was at that moment that the girl’s face caught my eye. With her face twisted in fear and shock, she still seemed on the verge of crying.
Aw man, I did it now. I shouldn’t have acted so carelessly. Because I made such a scene, I was getting curious looks from all sides.
“What’s happening?”
“He said it was a train molester.”
“Train molester?! For real?!”
“That’s hilarious.”
“Who is it? Who did it?”
“It might be a misunderstanding, though? Lately it seems like false accusations of train molestation are on the rise.”
“I can’t stand women who think that every time someone touches them on a train they’re being molested.”
The inside of the train car was overflowing with curious looks and voices. There were even some people taking out their smartphones and pointing them in our direction.
At this rate, by catching the train molester I’ll have gotten her caught up in and shamed by all of this. Crap. What should I do? What should I do?! After feverishly thinking it over, I had my answer.
“Th-This entire time you’ve been touching my ass!” I yelled.
Both the perpetrator and the actual victim looked at me in shock. An awkward atmosphere permeated the surroundings, and before long the sound of laughter slipping out could be heard.
“What, you’re joking. A guy got molested?”
“Isn’t that called reverse molesting?”
“Naw, it’s not called that when a dude touches another dude.”
“That’s hilarious.”
“Well, love has no boundaries.”
An intense feeling of embarrassment was welling up in me. However, now wasn’t the time to back down! I’m pushing on!
“S-Seriously man... Don’t be getting all horny this early in the damn morning. Even if my ass is so cute that it just makes you wanna grab it!”
“What are you going on about? I don’t like gu—ow!”
I grabbed his arm forcefully to prevent any kind of counterargument.
I’m begging you, old guy who looks like a businessman. You’d rather be mistaken for a touchy old man than a full-blown train molester, right?! I don’t want to make things worse! I’ll let you off the hook, so just read the damn room!
Thanks to my frantic eye contact, or perhaps the scary look on my face, the old man went completely silent.
“Good. Don’t ever try that crap again!” I said firmly, returning to where I was originally standing and glaring out the window. I didn’t have the courage to look behind me. The train car was abuzz with everyone talking about me.
When the train stopped at the next station, the old man practically ran away as he got off the train. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my stop yet. I really, really wanted to get off, but if I did I’d be late for school, so for the sake of my perfect attendance I stayed on. Because the perpetrator had left, everyone’s attention was focused on me. One after the other, they played the telephone game until suddenly the original message became “Him, over there. That’s the boy who, like, molested someone it seems like.” The masses sure can be scary...
In the end, for the ten minutes it took me to reach my station, I became the talk of the town inside the train car. It really sucked having so many people whisper about me, but no one seemed to realize it was actually the girl who had been the molester’s target. Thank goodness for that, at least.
When I reached the last stop, I practically ran away from the train as I got off, and half-ran through the ticket gate.
Aw man... What happens if this whole thing becomes a rumor and spreads around? I’m pretty sure there were a bunch of guys from my school on that train. What if some idiot without any common sense uploaded a picture to Instagram or something like that?! Ugh, my high school life is over...
Just as it seemed I was about to be crushed by despair, as I finally brought myself back to a walking pace I heard, “Wa-Wait! Please wait!” I stopped walking, turned around, and saw that it was the girl from the train running towards me.
“Thank goodness. I made it.”
She had her hands on her knees and was trying to catch her breath. Because she was doubled over, her large breasts—which I totally wasn’t paying attention to—were emphasized even more than before. Whoa. Getting a good look again from the front, I could see they truly were huge... and she really was cute. Her hair was smooth, and her facial features were pronounced. Her makeup was subtle: it complemented her natural beauty without seeming too thick anywhere. Her school uniform on the whole seemed a size too small, but it accentuated her curvy figure. Just calling her a pretty girl didn’t do her justice, as she seemed to be more than just some pretty girl you’d see at school. Maybe you’d call it charm; maybe you’d call it sex appeal; whatever it was exactly, she gave off a mature air that high school girls around here just didn’t have.
“Um... Thank you so much for earlier!” she said before catching her breath and bowing deeply.