Ugh, total regrets right away... I really should’ve just gone home, thought Kaname, even as her legs carried her inexorably forward. “Sh-She doesn’t like that!” she yelled. “Let her go!”
The important thing is not to look weak, she reminded herself. Come out swinging. You’ll carry the day... somehow...
A man with a clean-shaved head, who seemed to be their leader, walked up to her. “Chill out, sweetie. We’re just playing around.”
“Liar!” Kaname said accusingly. “I saw what you were doing!”
“Hey, listen to you. Maybe you wanna join in, huh?” The skinhead put his arm around Kaname’s shoulders.
“Don’t... Don’t you touch me!” She smacked his hand aside and socked him in the nose.
The man wobbled on his feet and groaned. This silenced the laughter, but a taut and dangerous atmosphere replaced it.
“Hey, you see?” one of the men demanded. “You see what that bitch just did?!”
“You okay, Taka-chan?” one of the lackeys asked the skinhead.
The skinhead was silent for a moment, cradling his face, before he said, “Dammit. I’m bleedin’.” He then glared at Kaname, his gaze menacing. “How’s about we strip her down?”
At his demand, a different sort of tension immediately overtook the group.
“We’re gettin’ serious?” one asked. They began looking Kaname up and down with new appreciation.
“Huh? Wait... serious? Does that mean... you were joking before?” Kaname asked slowly. And then, as the men stepped up and fanned out around her, she realized this meant that they weren’t joking now.
Kaname drew back. “Um, I think there’s been a misunderstanding...”
They weren’t responding now. The delinquents edged closer, then sprang on her all at once.
“No... Hey!” she shrieked. “Cut it out! I mean it!”
“Too late!” crowed one of the boys.
There was no way Kaname could break out of their grip, and they quickly wrestled her to the ground. She was a strong-willed girl, but she couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. “Let me go! Assault! Rape! S-Someone help!” she shouted, but there was nobody around to hear her. There was no way she’d be lucky enough to have Sousuke show up now.
“Someone shut her up already.” One of the men reeled back to punch her in the gut, when just then...
Blam! Something slammed into the man from the side. It sent him flying into the gym’s outer wall, where he immediately fell, out cold. The other men looked around in confusion. There was nobody around but them. Nobody knew what had just happened, and yet it continued.
Blam! Blam! Blamblam! A string of mysterious, merciless blows blasted the men away from Kaname, one after another. One flipped over and slammed into the ground, one fell unconscious against a support, one ended up motionless with his butt pointing to the night sky...
And then, there was silence. Kaname sat up slowly and fixed up her rumpled clothing.
Saeki Ena just stood there uncertainly. “Do you know... what...?”
“Nope,” said Kaname. “Sure wish I did...”
Rubber spheres the size of pachinko balls lay scattered all around the unconscious men. Kaname’s nose picked up the faint scent of gunpowder. And then...
She heard a rustling from a nearby azalea bush.
“No way,” she said quietly, even as a ragged figure emerged from the bushes.
The person was dressed in camouflage netting, worn over green-and-brown-patterned clothing that had hidden the contours of their body amidst the foliage. To those in the business, it was known as a ghillie suit.
“Are you all right, Chidori?” the ragged man asked. He had an Italian-made semi-automatic shotgun in one hand, which had likewise been painted in camouflage. He stripped the netting off of his head to reveal a face painted pitch black, only his eyes standing out starkly against the darkness of the night.
Kaname stared speechlessly at Sousuke for a moment. Then she said, “Hang on. Have you been there the whole time?”
“Affirmative. I’ve been camped out since fifth period.”
Her knees began to shake. “So you were hiding just two meters away from her the whole time?!”
“And quite easily so.” Sousuke sounded like he was puffing out his chest, but the camouflage netting made him look more like a pile of garbage about to tip over. “My disguise was perfect,” he continued. “She didn’t even notice me. The plan was to knock her out with the rubber rounds from my shotgun if she showed any sign of suspicious activity.”
For hours, he’d remained motionless in the bushes, his gun trained on Saeki Ena. The stupidity was so towering that Kaname almost had to respect it.
“But she simply stood there the whole time. And just as I’d begun debating the merits of a preemptive strike, those men—”
Crash! Kaname kicked Sousuke as hard as she could, reducing the “pile of garbage” to a twitching mass on the ground.
“That hurt!” he protested.
“Shut up!” she snarled back at him. “If you were there, why didn’t you do something sooner?!”
“I couldn’t. If it turned out they were working in collaboration—”
“Can the excuses! Didn’t you see what I just went through?! Take this! And this!” She kicked him again and again as he rolled helplessly from side to side.
“Ah... I can’t get up,” he moaned. “I’m tangled in the netting...”
“Not my problem!”
Saeki Ena stared down at the helplessly struggling Sousuke. “Is that... Sagara-kun?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied emotionlessly. “I am Sagara Sousuke.”
“But... you’re so...” As the girl struggled to find the right words, Kaname could see the disappointment manifesting on her face. “S-Sagara-kun... Did you read my letter?”
Sousuke stood up with great effort. “The threatening letter?”
“No!” Saeki Ena protested. “It was pink, and...”
“I blew it up.”
“B-Blew it up?” She swayed on her feet from the shock.
This is one hell of a conversation... Kaname thought with a sigh.
“Who are you exactly, anyway? You don’t appear to be hostile,” he observed. “What are you really here for?”
“Here... for?” the girl echoed.
“Out with it already. It’s not to your benefit to hide anything,” he said next, with a pump of his shotgun.
There wasn’t a girl in the world who’d continue to hold romantic feelings for someone after being treated this way. “I don’t have to take this... You awful boy!” Saeki Ena declared, and then ran away crying.
Kaname could do nothing but watch her go. “Ah, poor thing...” she said with sympathy. Then she thought, Still, it’s probably for the best. Now she can go fall for a half-decent guy...
Sousuke shook off the rest of his camo netting. “A curious woman,” he said. “She calls me out here, then declares me ‘awful’ and runs off. Does she suffer from a psychotic persecution complex?”
“I think maybe you do...” Kaname heaved a deep sigh, then left Sousuke behind as she began to walk home.
●
The next morning, when Sousuke arrived at school, he noticed the existence of a new suspicious object in his (just-repaired) shoe cubby. “Not again,” he sighed, once again removing the plastic explosives from his bag. He was about to dispose of it quickly when...
“Don’t you dare!” Kaname shouted, appearing at his side to smack him one.
He rubbed his head. “Chidori. That hurts.”
“Morning,” she said shortly. “No explosions today. Just be a man and open it.”
“I can’t afford to,” he protested. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Is it?” Kaname reached for Sousuke’s shoe cubby, opening and closing it rapidly.
“Sto—” Sousuke shielded his face, then stared in disbelief when nothing came of it.
“It’s fine, see? Meet you in class,” Kaname said, and then took off.
Silently, with timid hands, Sousuke opened the shoe cubby. There was no trap—just a new pair of slippers, on top of which sat a lunch box wrapped in decorative cloth. He removed the box and found a note tucked inside. It read...
《Just a little thank-you for saving me yesterday. A man can’t live on jerky alone!
Sincerely,
A Mysterious Terrorist.》
“Hmm...” Sousuke placed the note in his pocket, carefully tucked the lunch box under one arm, then put his slippers on and headed for class.
〈Man from the South — The End〉