Chapter Text
I’m not an outgoing person, I don’t go to parties, I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t piss on police cars, I don’t hang out with friends, I don't even have friends. I am a normal, introverted person that doesn’t cause problems just to cause them. I’m a good kid that prefers to hang out with normal people.
That’s what I used to think before I got involved with him .
I’ve always hated my math class. I couldn’t stand the students, the smell of cat piss on the desks, the calculators that had buttons that didn’t work and the broken pencil sharpener that electrocuted you if you used it for too long. The only enjoyable thing in this class was the free time earned from finishing your work ahead of everyone else.
The freedom I earned was abused constantly. Despite being a ‘good kid’, I’d sneak out of class or I’d ask to use the bathroom and then spend all day in the library reading until someone was suspicious of me and I had to run back to the classroom so I wouldn’t get caught.
Today, I was in the corner of the library reading Pride and Prejudice . My favorite spot in the library was the cheesy romance novel section because no one ever went back there, so it was practically abandoned, only inhabited by me. I one time tried reading one of the books in the section, one written by a woman named Yae Miko. I had to put the book down after two chapters from cringing so hard.
Flipping the page of my book, I tucked my knees close to my chest as I scanned the text, soaking in as much information as I could.
“Wow, and I thought I was going to catch you doing drugs in the bathrooms, not reading in the school library.”
I jerked my head up to stare at a tall handsome man looming over me with his arms crossed over his chest. A smirk was casted across his perfect face as I looked him up and down with wide eyes. His long tan hair was lazily tied up into a high ponytail with his bangs spilling over his face, his light purple eyes glared at me, he wore a red baggy hoodie with black baggy jeans and even if this man was wearing a clown suit, he’d still scare the ever living shit out of me.
“Um,” I mumbled, taking my book mark off of the ground and putting it inside of my book, maintaining eye contact. “Can I help you?”
The man chuckled quietly, making his shoulders bounce slightly up and down. “No, not really, it’s just that I was sent to go look for you because you had been, quote-on-quote, ‘In the bathroom, ’ and the teacher has her suspicion that you’re skipping.” He raised his eyebrows.
I gulped down a breath of air as I looked up to the man. “Do I know you?”
A scoff escaped the man’s mouth as he squatted down and sat next to me, sprawling his long legs out in front of him. “I should be offended, considering the fact that we have the same math class and I’ve sat next to you everyday for the past year, but I don’t blame you considering you always have your nose shoved into some book and you’re always skipping.” He rested his head back, hitting the bookshelf we both leaned on.
I closed my book and nervously looked him up and down again, trying to remember. And then it hit me, he was the kid who somehow managed to get a twenty-six on an open note math test. “ Oh , you’re…”
“Tomo,” he placed his hand in front of me and barely tilted his head to look at me. “And you’re Kazuha, the straight A student.”
I hesitantly shook his hand. “If you were told to go search for me in the bathrooms, how did you end up in the library?”
Tomo shrugged, withdrawing his hand. “You’re not the only one who likes to skip class.”
We both sat in silence for a few moments, with only the sound of our shallow breathing echoing off the shelves.
“What’s your book about?” asked Tomo, sitting up straight and staring at me.
I opened my mouth as if I was going to say something, but no words came out. It was almost like I was struck with fear.
Tomo sighed and grabbed my book from my hands, flipping it over to read the back. “Neat,” he said, barely glancing at it. “Tell me about yourself, Kazooha.”
I slightly raised my hand. “It’s Kazuha-” I stopped myself from talking when Tomo shot me a glare. “Uh, I like the color red? I like to read? I don’t know what else to tell you.”
My classmate chuckled, looking away from me and crossing his arms. “Let’s get out of here.”
A baffled expression was spread out across my face. “I’m sorry?”
“I said,” Tomo shifted around to look me in the eye. “Let’s get out of here, this place is as stale as bread that has been left out for days, so let's get out of here and do something.”
I shook my head and stood up, grabbing my book from Tomo’s hands. “No, I don’t think that’s best,” I whimpered a weak chuckle, looking down at him with an awkward smile. “Besides, that teacher is probably wondering where we are and if we’re gone for too long she’ll probably-”
My last words were cut off by Tomo abruptly standing up and grabbing the book from my hands. “We both know that we’re not going back to that class.”
Damn, how did he know?
I scoffed. “You don’t know that.”
Tomo barely raised his eyebrows.
“Okay, so maybe you do know that. Can I have my book back?” I placed my hand in front of him, expecting him to hand it back.
Tomo slowly placed the book back into my hand, rolling his eyes. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. I’d leave alone, but it’d suck knowing that I’d leave someone all by themselves in this hellscape, so come on.” He put his hands on his hips, smirking.
Barely considering his idea, I looked him up and down. “And what do you want to do? Hm?”
If this was some scheme to take me out back to the back of a gas station and kill me, it wasn’t going to work.
“We’ll get the hell out of here and wander the town!” He extended his hands in the air and smiled as if he said something amazing.
I frowned. “ No .”
Tomo loudly sighed and threw his head back. “Alright, I tried being nice, I’m going to have to bring drastic matters into my own hands and do this myself.”
Neither of us spoke for a while until I broke the silence. “Do what?”
Tomo cleared his throat and winked at me. “ I warned you ,” he said before he put his hands to the side of his mouth. “ IS THAT A WEED? ”
I lunged forward, trying to cover Tomo’s mouth with my hand, but considering how significantly taller he was than me, my attempts were useless. “ Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I could feel my face getting red as I dropped my book to the ground, jumping up at him. “ Are you trying to get us in trouble?”
Tomo shrugged and smiled down at me. “ I can get us expelled if you want .”
I glared.
“ OH MY GOD! THEY’RE HAVING SEX BACK HERE !”
I gasped as I frantically looked around. “ Okay! Fine! Let’s go do whatever! Skip! Just stop yelling!”
Tomo looked left and then right and grabbed my book off of the ground and my arm. “ Good, because I was actually starting to think that -”
“Whoever’s back there! Get over here!” yelled out a voice in the front of the library.
Tomo looked at me with a look of wildness behind his eyes. “ Run !”
…
After the library fiasco, Tomo and I ran out of the library and sprinted down town, avoiding the police stationed outside the doors of the highschool and any of the teachers that had hall monitor duty.
“You’re insane!” I scowled as I gasped for air, leaning against the wall of a pharmacy that had strange graffiti painted on it.
Instead of apologizing, Tomo threw his head back and laughed out loud. “That was awesome! You should have seen the look on your face when I grabbed your arm! Beautiful!” He had a large smile on his face, going from ear to ear. “This has to be one of the best days ever!”
I shook my head. “Yeah sure! Skipping school by running out the front door is such a good idea!” I squatted down and held my hand over my chest, gagging for air.
Tomo squatted down in front of me, resting his arms on his knees and his chin on his arm, close to his chest was my book. “Um? Was there a better way to run out? I tried jumping out a window once and I got hunted down like a goose to a hunting beagle. Running out the door is the best solution I’ve come across so far.”
I ran my shaking hand through my hair, closing my eyes. “ Yes , there is a better way. You go to the office and say you have a doctor's appointment and that your parents called the office to confirm it already and then you speed walk the door before they can question you. You can ask a teacher if you can grab something from your car in the parking lot and get a pass and then leave campus. You can run out the door fake crying and no one questions you. I can go on for ages.” I leaned my head against the wall next to me, lazily opening my eyes to Tomo frowning.
“Huh,” he said as he looked away, cupping his chin with his hand. “I guess that would have been a better solution.”
“No shit, Sherlock!” I groaned.”Okay, you’ve got me out of school, what now?”
Tomo shrugged. “No idea, I just wanted to get out of there. What do you normally do? Reading I assume?”
“So what I’m hearing is that you have no plan?” I stood up, looming over Tomo.
He nodded, also getting up and handing me my book. “Yeah, unless you’re down to hang out with this gang of cats that live behind the hardware store. They’re really cool and they like to cuddle up with you and lick your face.” Tomo smiled softly as he looked at me.
I blinked for a long moment. “Am I getting blackmail into this?”
Tomo shrugged. “I mean-”
“ Learn your place, punk!” said a mean voice from behind us.
Tomo and I exchanged a nervous glance towards each other before we slowly peered around the corner wall of the pharmacy to see what was going on.
A soldier of the Shogun army was looming over a young child on the ground, yelling at him.
The Shogun army was a ruthless group of people that terrorized the town and country. Many years ago, a woman who went by the name of the Radien Shogun, came into Inazuma and destroyed all politics, forcing Inazuma into a dictatorship and enforcing a bunch of rules that nobody wanted to live with.
For years, people had lived with the harsh rules and tried their best to work around it, but the more the people that tried fighting, the tighter the chains around their necks got.
Shogun soldiers were stationed everywhere, watching everyone with a close eye, making sure that they weren’t disrespecting the Radien Shogun or any of her harsh rules. But instead of protecting and enforcing, the soldiers took their power and used it to get away with things. They stole from stores, beat up people that looked at them the wrong way, breaking things that ‘didn’t belong’, anything that they didn’t like, was destroyed.
“You dare throw a ball at me?” The Soldier stomped on a red ball next to the child’s hand, making it loudly pop. “I should arrest you for doing such a thing! Why aren’t you in school? Where are your parents? Are you just some duliquet that needs a lesson taught to him.?
The child had fear roaring behind his eyes as tears dripped down his face. “I didn’t mean it to come over to you, I swear! It was an honest mistake-”
“ ‘An honest mistake’ ?” The soldier laughed out loud. “The only mistake here is you and only you.” The soldier pulled out his gun from the holster on his belt and pointed it to the small child who looked even more terrified. “Now get up! You’re being arrested for attacking a soldier of the Shogun army!”
Before anyone could do anything, Tomo jumped out from behind our corner and started storming up to the soldier. “ Hey- HEY! Get the hell away from him!”
A gasp escaped my mouth as I watched Tomo bravely shout.
“And who the hell are you?” scowled the soldier, who still had his gun pointed at the child on the ground. “You dare raise your voice at a-”
“ At a soldier of the Shogun army , yeah, we get it. You’re a pawn, now scram, we don’t want you around these parts, so stop terrorizing the public and get your ass out of here.” Tomo had some distance between him and the soldier as he yelled. “Go back to your excuse of an army and leave him alone.”
The soldier scoffed. “I’m going to give you a moment to think about what you just said and get out of here, and if you don’t, you’re also going to get arrested.”
Tomo crossed his arms and tilted his head. “For what? Go on, tell me, I dare you. Or are you just so brain dead that you don’t even know”
The soldier pointed the gun at Tomo, taking his attention away from the child on the ground. “On your knees, do us both a favor and don’t try to fight this.”
The child on the ground looked up at Tomo and then turned around to flop on his stomach, standing up, and sprinting down the sidewalk.
Tomo spread his hands out as he walked close towards the soldier. “Go on, do it, shoot me.” Tomo was directly in front of the gun. “ I dare you .”
“I will shoot, this is your final warning.” The soldier's arm started to shake.
Suddenly, Tomo slapped the gun out of the soldier's hand and kicked him in the knee, knocking him down to the ground with a loud thud. The gun skidded away onto the road beside the two and fell into a storm drain.
“ STOP RIGHT THERE! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! ”
Within the blink of an eye, Tomo and the soldier were surrounded by five other soldiers of the Shogun army that came out of nowhere, all pointing their guns directly at Tomo.
I kept my head low as I watched from afar.
Tomo scoffed as he looked around at the people surrounding him. “Damn, I can finally scratch this off the bucket list.”
A soldier shouted, “ I SAID, PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR OR WE WILL FIRE! ”
Tomo crossed his arms and turned his head to the soldier that was yelling at him. “Yeah, defending a child against a guard who wanted to arrest him for a ball is totally justifiable. I mean, I get that you’re mad at me because I showed your friend here how to actually start a fight, but… well, I guess you’re right about me.” Tomo put his hands up, smirking as if this was an actual joke.
A soldier started to slowly walk towards Tomo, gun in hand. He reached his other hand out and started to pat Tomo down, looking for any possible weapons on him. Slowly, the soldier crouched down to check his pant leg. Suddenly, Tomo kicked his leg forward in an attempt to kick the soldier in the face, but failed as the soldier jumped away.
I held my hand over my mouth to prevent myself from gasping loudly.
Two soldiers lunged at Tomo and tackled him to the ground, pinning his arms behind his back and pressing his face into the concrete of the sidewalk.
“Get your hands off of him!” shouted a voice.
Suddenly, all eyes were on me as I soon realized I was the one who shouted and jumped out from behind the corner I was hiding behind.
The soldiers stared at me as if I was a child.
“Do you want to be arrested too?” asked one of the soldiers.
I stumbled over my words as I held my book close to my chest.
“Don’t answer that question, boy,” said a bored female voice from behind me.
I snapped around to a tall woman with long purple braided hair, dressed in a more formal version of the Shogun army uniform. A bunch of pins were pinned to her dark purple blazer, important looking metals shone in the sun and the gun in the holster at her side terrified me.
The Radien Shogun .
The Radien Shogun was walking towards me.
“What’s going on here?” asked the Radien Shogun as she stood next to me.
All of the soldiers that weren’t pinning Tomo to the ground turned to the Radien Shogun and bowed. “This young man randomly attacked a soldier, trying to kill him, ma’ am. He needs to be arrested and taken away for his crime,” said the soldier, lieing.
The Radien Shogun raised her eyebrows. “Really? Because from what I saw was you-” she pointed at the soldier that stomped on the child's ball, “-attack a child because his ball simply rolled over to you, and I watched you-” she pointed to Tomo, “-telling my soldier to stop and got a gun pointed to you.” She turned to the soldier that originally pointed the gun at Tomo. “Getting disarmed by a teenager? Yelling at a random child? You’re on suspension for a month.” She turned to the soldier that lied to her face. “You are no longer a soldier for the Shogun army, you are discharged and all benefits earned from your time working here will be forgotten. No one is to dare lie directly into my face.”
I nervously glanced at her as she balanced all of her weight onto her right foot, tilting her head. “What is your name, boy?” She pointed to Tomo.
Tomo growled under his breath, “What’s it to you?”
The Radien Shogun didn’t look impressed. “ Name .”
“Tomo.” Tomo struggled under the grasp of the soldiers on top of him. “My name is Tomo.”
“Well, Tomo ,” the Raiden Sogun walked over to Tomo, squatting down to his level and cupping his chin with her pale fingers. “I’m going to let you off with a simple warning, but if I ever catch you breaking the tiniest of laws, I will sentence you to death without hesitation. Am I understood?”
Tomo slowly nodded.
The Raiden Shogun quickly stood up and walked over to me. “You, are you with him?”
I didn’t move.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she stood close to me, close enough that I could feel her breathing on my face. “I suggest you watch who you spend your time with, someone you trust can be the one who starts your downfall and possibly your death, so I’ll say it once more. Careful with what you do with your time and who you spend it with.” She turned her head back around to her soldiers. “ Come, follow .”
The soldiers got off of Tomo and followed behind the Radien Shogun along with the other soldiers.
Before the Shogun truly walked away, she leaned in close to me and whispered into my ear. “If I catch you doing anything against my laws, I will hunt you down and hang you by your toes over the ocean until you’re begging me to just kill you already.” She stepped away from me and started walking away.
I rushed to Tomo’s side, dropping my book next to us. “Are you alright?”
Tomo chuckled. “I haven’t felt more alive since I accidentally shoved a knife in an electrical socket.”
I stared at him in shock.
“Aside from that, thanks for stepping in for me.” He smiled. “I can tell that we’re going to be good friends.
I held my breath.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?