Before we could finish our chat, the warning bell for first period rang, so Shohei flashed me a peace sign and headed back to his own seat.
Before long, it was lunch. Normally, Koharu would have eaten with her posse seated around her desk, but today, she shot up with her lunchbox in hand the moment class was over. I watched her curiously, wondering where she might be going. To my surprise, she marched right over to Anzu’s desk and meekly held her lunch out in front of her.
“…Hey, um. Mind if I eat here today?”
Murmurs broke out all across the classroom. Even Anzu, who was in the process of opening her sandwich bag, seemed a little bewildered by the request.
“Suit yourself, I guess,” said Anzu.
Permission granted, Koharu went back and dragged the chair from her own desk over to Anzu’s, then removed the lid from her lunchbox and set it on the tabletop. It was a bizarre sight to behold: these two former enemies, who’d been at each other’s throats mere days ago, were now breaking bread in silence together as equals. However, the peace and quiet wouldn’t last for long, as that Haneda girl who’d once been a devout member of Koharu’s posse soon strutted up to where the two were sitting with a big old smirk on her face.
“Um, Koharu, sweetie? Why in the world are you having lunch with her?”
I could tell from her tone that she wasn’t upset about Koharu choosing to eat with someone who wasn’t them; she was clearly just looking for more ammunition with which to ridicule their disgraced queen bee. Koharu looked down at the ground, visibly uncomfortable.
“Because…” she began, mumbling too inaudibly for me to make out the rest.
“Sorry, what was that? Could you speak up, maybe?” asked the girl.
“Because I wanna learn to be like her someday!”
The whole class went dead silent. It was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop. The Haneda girl stood there with her mouth hanging open, and Anzu looked just as taken aback. Hell, even I never would have predicted such a drastic change of heart. I’d assumed she was eating with Anzu because she felt like it would be way too dicey to try to fit in with her old friend group and she was desperate. Though perhaps that was the real reason, and Koharu had simply pulled this answer out of her ass because she couldn’t come up with any better excuse on the spot.
However, as soon as Koharu’s old friend realized she wasn’t pulling her leg, she burst out cackling. “Ha ha ha ha! I’m sorry, what?! You can’t be serious, right?!”
Sneers and snickers broke out as our other classmates began to murmur amongst themselves.
“Heh. Looks like someone realized they ain’t that big of a deal after all.”
“Guess her bad girl dominatrix act was all just for show, huh?”
“Did that punch to the face totally scramble her brain or something?”
It was like a public stoning, albeit with words instead of rocks. Yet Koharu did her best to endure it, though her face was bright red and her entire body was trembling.
“That’s hysterical,” the Haneda chick went on. “How do you plan on doing that again? Just gonna be a pathetic, antisocial loser from now on?”
“None of your business… Just leave me alone.”
“Aw, don’t be like that! Of course it’s my business! We’re friends, aren’t we?” Haneda said, egging Koharu on as she grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her back and forth.
For a so-called “friend,” she sure was being pretty ruthless. Koharu didn’t fight back; she just sat there refusing to make eye contact.
“Hey, c’mon! Say something, already!” the girl insisted, this time nearly shoving Koharu out of her chair. As she pulled her arms back, one of her hands caught on the placemat Koharu had laid out underneath her lunchbox, and the whole thing got yanked violently across the surface of the desk. Before Koharu could react, her lunch had been sent soaring through the air from the momentum. Even the girl bullying her hadn’t intended to go that far, if her horrified expression was anything to go by. But instead of apologizing, Haneda decided to lean into it and simply turned up her nose.
“That wasn’t intentional, for the record. It’s your own fault for not answering my question. Isn’t that right?” Haneda turned to seek the approval of the rest of Koharu’s ex-posse where they sat. They all nodded and offered some words of support. Not one of them took Koharu’s side.
Koharu opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped short and got down on the ground to begin cleaning her lunch off the floor. Seeing her hunched over—defeated, with tears of resignation in her eyes—genuinely hurt to watch, and I quickly set my food down to get up and offer to help her. Before I could, there was the loud screech of someone else roughly sliding their chair out from under their desk.
“Kawasaki.”
It was Anzu. She rose from her seat, totally expressionless, and walked over to stand beside Koharu. She was the last person I would have expected to intervene, but the moment she stood, the Haneda girl started shaking in her boots.
“You said a minute ago that you wanted to be more like me, didn’t you?” Anzu asked Koharu, who simply nodded a few times in stupefied amazement. “Then watch and learn. I’ll show you exactly what to do when someone steps over your boundaries.”
Anzu slowly turned to face Koharu’s aggressor, then clenched her fists and held them up at eye level like a boxer. Everyone in class could tell that she was more than ready to punch this chick, whose face instantly turned deathly pale.
“Hey, w-wait a minute! I’m not looking for a fight with you! Stay the hell away from me, freak!” Haneda waved her hands frantically back and forth to indicate that she didn’t want any trouble. She turned on her heel and beat a hasty retreat back to her own desk.
“Humph. All bark, no bite,” Anzu scoffed, then pulled a tissue out of her pocket and started silently helping wipe the food off the floor.
Though Koharu seemed totally at a loss as to why Anzu was suddenly being so nice to her, she did at least remember to express her gratitude with a meek little “Thanks…”