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Why did you have to be the one who slept through their alarm on their first day at your new high school?
You’ve been running through so many streets that looked the same wherever you went for what felt like an eternity before somehow ending up in downtown Morioh, your face already a splotchy red as you huffed and puffed, your feet still slamming against the pavement to let you win this race against the clock.
God, your lungs hurt with every gasp for air while you clumsily avoided the people coming your way, almost tripping over your own two feet as you finally spotted the building that would be your new school.
By now some probably would’ve slowed down and accepted that they were running late anyways, prioritizing a proper look with a five-minute delay over stumbling through the classroom door on time but looking utterly dishevelled and destroyed. Not you though, you kept running like your life depended on it, your eyes fixating the building ahead and not the obstacles on your way there. Or rather said the one obstacle that jogged towards the gate.
Once you did notice that you were barrelling into another person’s back your body did try its best to avoid them, your weight shifting but it wasn’t quick enough to prevent your shoulder from bumping into his arm, sending you bouncing off of him with a startled, breathless shriek as you felt yourself fall.
Your eyes were shut tightly as you waited for impact, expecting pain in your shoulder and hip first judging by your trajectory. Instead, you felt something impacting with your waist instead, pulling you back to your utter surprise.
“Oi! Watch where ya goin’-“ Your eyes snapped open at the annoyed shout, staring back at two black pinpricks that seemed as surprised as you felt when your obstacle ended up catching your fall, although you could’ve sworn he had been out of reach already when his arm slinked around you to pull you back. Still he made no effort to help you stand upright again, keeping you awkwardly tipped back on his arm as he kept staring at your face, making you wonder if you had grown a third eye on your way here.
To be honest, maybe that would’ve prevented you from running into this person since your gut told you that this had been a grave mistake on your part. He looked the part of a stereotypical delinquent, with the meticulously styled hair, customized uniform and everything! The only thing missing would’ve been a bat resting on his shoulder or a lit cigarette dangling from his surprisingly plump lips.
You blinked a few times as you caught yourself staring at his lips longer than intended, only now realizing that you hadn’t said anything yet, instead filling the silence with your laboured breathing, gasping for air like a fish out of water – minus the wild flopping around. Although that soon followed as you flailed around wildly, falling out of his awkward hold on you and narrowly avoiding a kiss with the schoolyard as you stumbled into an upright position.
“S-sorry for running into you and thank you for catching my fall! I didn’t mean to bump into you but I didn’t see you there and since it’s my first day I tried not to run late even though-“ You broke out into a crazy ramble as you bowed your head, hoping to avoid getting on this guy’s blacklist on the first day of school but before you could bring your ramble to a conclusion you heard a bell from the school building and one glance at your wristwatch was enough to confirm your fears and have your eyes bulging out of their sockets. “OH PLEASE NO!”
The assumed delinquent was forgotten as you turned on your heel and ran into the building, leaving the one who unbeknownst to you attended the same class as you dumbfounded in the schoolyard, flexing and curling his fingers on the arm that used to catch you as he tried to process what just happened.
As it turned out you got lost in the building, turning your few minutes of running late into five solid minutes as you knocked on the door to your classroom, your face burning up from the exertion on your way here and the shame of running late on your very first day. The teacher was not amused but dismissed you with a warning to manage your time better in the future before telling you to introduce yourself to the class, your eyes that darted anywhere but at your teacher missing how his annoyance turned into pity as he took in your full appearance, although he was not the only one giving you that look as you turned to face the class.
But you told yourself to smile through it all, or rather said you forced yourself to do so as you had a quick glance at the front row faces before bowing your head deeply, introducing yourself and adding how you hoped to get along with everyone despite joining the class quite late in more ways than one. But as you stood upright and opened your mouth to add how you just moved to Morioh the previous weekend the words got stuck in your throat.
The delinquent from the gate stared at you in disbelief from his seat in the last row, mirroring your expression minus your opened mouth that only closed as the teacher cleared his throat and sent you to the only free seat in the classroom… The one seat that so happened to be right next to your saviour and possible bane of your high school years.
Despite your body feeling weak as a cooked batch of spaghetti you stiffly made your way to the back, sliding into your chair less than smoothly and praying that all the turned heads and concerned looks, teacher included, would quickly ignore you for the rest of the lesson.
And one after another the pairs of eyes returned to the front. All but one that kept stealing glances even after the teacher called him out on his staring, reprimanding his rude behaviour.
How did you manage to catch the attention of the one person you had hoped to avoid?
And how did he manage to arrive at the classroom earlier than you?!
During lunch you took flight before the weird guy next to you could turn his head and open his mouth to address you. Somehow you managed to avoid all the other students as you practically ran out of the room, your wallet clutched tightly in your hand with your first priority being to get as far away from this room as possible. This was not how to make friends but right now you had to make amends to the bewildered boy with the sharp, future mob-boss eyes.
You managed to find a vending machine on the school grounds with different options for snacks and light lunch, spending the lunch money you would’ve needed to get through the whole week on a multitude of snacks in hopes they could appease the guy who was slowly becoming your nemesis in your frightened mind. Maybe you had a habit of spiralling once you found yourself in an embarrassing or otherwise bad situation but right now you felt like your fear of ruining your school life before it had even begun felt very real and very reasonable. And that fear was big enough to overcome the urge to hide away at the toilets and abandon the current plan, your fight or flight response settling on fight – so you did just that.
Despite all the weird stares you got as you hauled the bags of chips and sandwiches back while balancing several cans of soda, iced tea and iced coffee under your arms you still were undeterred in your plan to appease and get a chance at a normal school life. You even managed to keep your head held high as you asked a classmate who was lounging in front of the door to the classroom to open the door for you, his weirded out stares while he complied not bothering as much as the sight of someone sitting on your desk, his shoulders hunched over as he leaned towards the one whose name you didn’t even know, yet already feared.
Somehow there was someone with an even more impressive hairdo than the one your target had, his hair a healthy, shiny bluish-black tone and meticulously styled into a pompadour that would make Elvis envious. His uniform also looked quite personalized but somehow less intimidating with the peace sign compared to the money symbols on – Wait. Did you make a mistake by buying food instead of just offering money? The blood drained from your face as you walked down the rows like a prisoner approaching his executioner.
The moment you got noticed you just wanted to turn on your heel and run again as both boys looked at you like you were some kind of alien, the pompadoured guy leaning over to his gang leader, his baby blue eyes lingering on you and his far too soft looking lips jutting out as he made a comment you couldn’t hear over the white noise in your ears.
Swallowing the rising fear at your apparent miscalculation and the discomfort at getting stared at like the local weirdo you apparently were your feet dragged you a little less confidently to your destination, only stopping as you stood right in front of the delinquent’s table.
“I wanted to apologize again for my incredibly rude behaviour this morning so I brought you something in hopes we could make up and just… forget it ever happened?” You unloaded the week worth of lunch money on his table before bowing deeply, your forehead almost pressed against his desk, waiting for some sort of cue that you could raise your head and scurry away.
What you got instead was a very confused “Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout?” coming from a familiar, raspy voice before an unfamiliar voice joined in, asking ‘Okuyasu’ what he’d done to you. It took you a hot second to process the lack of hostility or arrogance as a bickering back and forth ensued of the unfamiliar one telling his friend how he shouldn’t go around scaring people while the other defended himself, recounting the events of that morning as you tilted your head back to have a peek at your seemingly not so hostile neighbour.
“Ah… um… I… Consider it my thanks for helping me!” You awkwardly added, caught up in a half-bow as you were faced with the least expected outcome. In your own confusion the three of you ended up looking at each other, your quip having pushed the spotlight back to you without you really wanting it to. And this Okuyasu just kept looking from your offering to you and back and the mountain of food and drinks. “Are ya sure ‘bout giving it all to me?”
For someone who easily pulled a switchblade on you in your mind this guy really was… sweet. The new realization made you startle once more, your back straightening fast enough to make you stumble back against a chair as you quickly nodded your head yes, telling him that he could keep it all before running off again, almost kicking over a middle-schooler looking guy in a high school uniform as he opened the door just as you were making your escape.
What started out as your worst nightmare turned into something precious without you realizing.
And to your surprise it was because of the previous incident that made you spend all your lunch money for the week that put you into the hot seat now with Okuyasu standing in front of your desk with his arms crossed, a plastic bag dangling from one wrist. “Ya better not try ‘n run again, (Y/N).” Your first instinct was to play stupid. But one frown from your back row neighbour had you shut your mouth without uttering a word. Okay, maybe you had been running out of the room before he could even turn in his seat to you. Maybe you did avoid him like a plague the last few days, hiding on the toilet during lunch break and ignoring his inquisitive glances whenever your stomach grumbled loud enough for him to hear due to your lack of lunch money. But you couldn’t just let him corner you and admit that you used your weekly allowance on appeasing someone you considered a feared yakuza in the making.
Too bad that you were cornered now, keenly aware of his friend Josuke standing by the door with his eyes on you two, probably ready to help his friend on this… mission. “Now that ya won’t run from me, take this.” With one thrust the bag dangled in front of your face, the contents of the bag making it swing right into your nose and making you hiss in pain. The tough guy act that had you planted in your seat got blown away by pure concern, his voice sounding a little panicked as he called his friend over.
You watched with wide eyes as the guy who had terrified you was agonizing over possibly having broken your nose with a lunch bag, stopping you in your nose-rubbing to get rid of the sting. “Lunch?” The two paused and gave you a look as if it were self-explanatory but you could only look back at them with pure confusion. “Why did you get this for me?” Okuyasu, still giving your nose a concerned glance, pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants while leaning down towards you, his face too close for comfort as you felt your gaze drifting anywhere but his eyes. Your subconscious still managed to note on his strong, and admittedly handsome, features even as you leaned back into your seat to look back into his eyes.
“Yer tummy’s been growling up a storm during class. I might not know much but I know when someone’s hungry…” He paused as if thinking of something, for a second losing the focus in his eyes before it returned, fixating you in your seat with a surprisingly empathetic look in his beady eyes. “But whenever I wanted to offer ya somethin’...” He didn’t need to finish to make you sink deeper into your chair, your ears heating up in shame.
Since the first day at this school you had been scared of him, turning him into the devil incarnate inside your spiralling mind, and yet he was such a decent guy. Yes, his method of having a friend play the guard dog so you’d hear him out was rather unconventional but at the end of the day it was the thought behind his actions that counted.
“I hadn’t realized… This is actually really kind of you. Thank you for looking out for me… again.” A small smile grew on your face as your eyes met his, the bag crinkling as you tentatively pulled it closer to have a quick peak inside but his expression was too interesting to look away. How could a grin stretch this wide across someone’s face? And how did he have such boyish charm despite towering above you with his equally tall friend, the popular guy going by the name of Josuke watching silently as Okuyasu told you that it was no big deal. “I jus’ thought you shouldn’t have gotten me so much tasty stuff for thanks if ya can’t afford your own afterwards…”
Had it been that obvious? Of course, you reminded yourself, he had to notice after your stomach grumbled loud enough for the teacher to reprimand you twice in the span of three days. “You don’t have to worry about it. I… I don’t have the lunch money because of my own stupidity.” The two boys gave you a curious look, making you regret that you said anything at all but instead of turning this into an interrogation Josuke just jabbed his thumb at the door. “Well, if you wanna have lunch together and rant about whichever stupid reasons cheated you out of your money you’re free to come with us.”
Once more you got surprised by this dynamic duo, glancing from Okuyasu to Josuke and back to the former, his face suddenly way more expressive than you ever imagined it to be as he nodded his head towards the door. “We’re way more fun than wherever yer usually going anyways, promise!” Oh if only he knew that you had been hiding on the toilet because of him…
“Then let’s see if you can keep that promise.” Both boys looked like they had expected to be a bit more persistent with you when you answered, getting out of your chair and grabbing the bag with one hand while the other smoothed down your uniform. “Well?”
You watched Okuyasu slinking his arm around Josuke’s shoulders while pointing ahead with his other hand, declaring where you’d be departing to with a wide grin while you followed after the two towards the door, only looking away for a short glance inside the bag, the sight putting a smile upon your face.
He actually got you your favourite snack.