Chapter Text
Neru hated school. She hated the people, she hated the classes, she hated the work. Yet, she’d never skive off and every day she’d attend just to sit in class and not do a whole lot - except heckle the teacher, the poor man, and stick out her leg to trip up anyone who walked past her desk. Nobody ever wanted to partner up with her for projects, and god forbid she be assigned to their group. To the other students, it felt like a punishment.
“But sensei, we don’t wanna work with her! She’s annoying,” they’d say. Neru didn’t care - or rather, nobody thought she did. Hell, even Neru thought she didn’t. That was just how it was. Her daily routine was fairly simple. Wake up in the morning, late as usual. Put her uniform on. Not have any time for breakfast, so leave without it. Turn up to school. Cause problems, get called names. Go home, eat dinner, and go to bed. It was an easy schedule, concise and quick to recite in her head. It almost kept her in check.
There was not a time in her life when she could remember ever enjoying school. Not even in pre-school, where everyone was supposed to learn how to make friends and play with toys, maybe learn how to write their name if they were smart - but not Neru. She’d simply sit in the distance, cuddling with some plushie she’d bought in from home and watch the other toddlers running around and playing with each other, youthful faces smiling and giggling. Even her plushie’s face was smiling. She found she never could do such a thing, not when she was so cruelly being left out; but they were toddlers, they all were, with minds still that of a weak sponge, with no concept of sympathy or the feelings of others. It was only a problem when even the teachers would take no notice of her tearful pleas, her begging to play. It was always ‘Not right now, honey,’ or ‘I’m a little busy right now, darling.’ At the end of the day, Neru would stand and watch as she listened to them lying to her mother; ‘She’s had a wonderful day.’ It infuriated her beyond belief, but she didn’t understand nor could comprehend these feelings. It was manageable for a while, until after the hundredth time, in which she had her first-ever full-blown temper tantrum. The adults stared. She didn’t understand what was happening, either, all she knew was that she was upset and needed someone to just be with her. It made no sense; she was a kid just like the others. A kid with a desire to play and pretend, dress up as princesses and dragons and eat plastic food, to play ‘mommies and daddies’ even just once. Neru could recall catching the eye of a little girl who just so happened to be in the room, and completely blinded in toddler-rage, slipped out of her mother’s hand’s grip and lunged toward her, hitting tiny fists into her stomach and arms. Of course, the little girl began to scream and cry, and Neru’s mother desperately pulled her away and loudly reprimanded her whilst the handover teacher took the girl into a different area.
That day changed the trajectory of her life forever. She decided school of any form was dumb, people were dumb, and most of all making friends was dumb. Vowing to never need anyone by her side ever, Neru quickly became an antisocial shell of inner rage towards almost everyone and anyone; so, she found comfort online. The online people weren’t dumb. They understood her, and they understood what it was like to have grown up an outcast from birth. They were kind to her, so in return, she was not unpleasant to them. Real people knew the Neru she internally hated herself to be, and the internet people knew her as her real self. The Neru that loves kittens, loves telling cheesy, groan-worthy jokes, the Neru who posts on a secret account about her deep desires to meet her long-lost one true lover. If she didn’t have this space to be herself, she’d surely go insane.
She was usually found intensely fixated on her little screen, casually covering her mouth with a hand, making sure that nobody around would see her smiling at all the sweet, kind comments she’d get from her friends as soon as she tweeted something like ‘ppl r hard. i h8 school.’
This particular time, though, seemed to trigger a timeline of events that would alter her future in a way she’d never, ever thought of.
It was another day of sitting in her class quietly after she’d decided she’d barked at the teacher enough - it was his fault for wearing such an ugly suit today, anyway - and she’d pulled her phone out of her jacket to hop onto Twitter and talk about him. As her thumb hovered over the ‘Tweet’ button, her device was plucked from her hand and taken away.
“‘Ey! Whaddya think you’re doing,” she exclaimed, on two feet before she could even blink,
“Give me back my fucking phone!”
“‘This bleeping dude is wearing the most bleeping ugly bleep today’. My, Akita. You really do have a potty mouth.”
“Give it back, now,” she said, now much quieter, up and walking toward the teacher’s desk.
“I don’t think I will. Not until you say sorry.”
“When the fuck have I ever said that?!”
The teacher gave her a smug smirk, now placing her phone into a drawer and quickly locking it before she could grab it,
“There’s a first time for everything, Akita.”
“Kill yourself,” she uttered, kicking his desk and causing a glass of water to spill onto the floor before leaving the room and beginning her third wonder of the hall today. This time, with no phone, she intended to head to the library, to use one of their computers to hop back onto her beloved social media.
“Kicked out again, Akita?”
Suddenly before her, standing a foot and a half taller than the blonde was an ex-classmate who just loved to tease and pick on Neru. For once, this was someone she’d never provoked, so she had no idea what his problem was.
“Fuck off , Takashi. Prick.”
" Ooh, the little girl’s using naughty words. That’s not very kind, you know.”
“What I did with your mom last night wasn’t very kind, either. Now, move.”
The two remained staring at each other motionlessly for a moment until Neru cleared her throat, implying she wanted him to move, now. She could swear one of her eyes twitched when he continued to look down at her as if she was some dumb animal.
“Come on, Taka-shit. Some of us have places to be,” Neru grumbled, about to shove her way past him, when Takashi took a step toward her, reaching a large fist into her hair, yanking it toward him and cackling.
“Ow! You bastard, get off! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“It’s funny.”
Neru swung a quite-short leg up and kicked a heeled foot directly into his crotch, making him keel over very quickly and, thus, unhanding her. He howled in pain, nursing his tender area, exclaiming,
“ You fucker! I was only poking a bit of fun!”
“Grabbing me by the hair isn’t ‘a bit of fun,’ genius, and plus-”
Neru was cut short by the door of the classroom adjacent to their mini-brawl opened and closed, out stepping a woman in her mid-thirties, who stood in front of the two and crossed her arms. She seemed to pay no notice to Takashi and decided to target the other.
“Akita? Really?”
“It wasn’t me! He literally grabbed me by the fucking-”
“Language.”
Neru scoffed and gave up on trying to explain her point. Noticing the silence, the teacher continued,
“I’m not surprised it was you causing this ruckus. We’re going to have to send you to an intervention, to see what on Earth is going on in that peculiar mind of yours.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“It’s going to have to happen, Akita. All you seem to do is cause trouble everywhere you go. It’s hell for everyone, and I’m sure you know that.”
A sigh.
“Now, Takashi,” she gestured a finger toward the injured boy,
“Come with me, hun.”
Neru stood and watched as the teacher and bully wandered down the corridor, getting smaller and smaller until they turned a corner and were out of sight. She slumped down by the wall and looked up, shutting her eyes, just to think. An intervention meeting? Seriously? Only the really messed-up kids had them. There was no way on Earth that Neru was going to be seen going to one of those. After all, she wasn’t that bad - she was sure of that. She wasn’t the one trying to start fights with people smaller than her; she knew to only pick with those her own height, or taller if she really felt like causing a ruckus. To tussle with someone smaller was simply morally wrong.
Getting to her feet, she opened the classroom door and poked her head into the class the teacher had emerged from, silently, and looked around. They were all older than her and looked to be getting on with some serious revision stuff. All these people she’d never seen before seemed so intelligent, thirty quick hands writing at the speed of a Ferrari. Two thoughts were going through her head - ‘Ew, nerds,’ and ‘Holy shit.’
Slinking away from the door and shutting it very quietly behind her, she took back to the halls and continued her walk to the library. Hopefully, now, she wouldn’t have to almost get into any more brawls whilst trying to make her way to Twitter access. Walking past the classes of those younger and older than her, she couldn’t help but stop and stare at a few. The students seemed so intrigued with whatever rambling their teacher was on about, avidly taking notes and subconsciously nodding along. Neru thought that a life like this could never be fun. If that were her, she’d feel like a slave to the education system, she’d feel used. First and foremost she hated being told what to do, and thus would never be able to cope with sitting quietly in a class and working, twenty-nine others doing the same, like a flock of mindless sheep. It made no sense to her that people could genuinely enjoy learning - sure, finding out cool new facts was nice and completing something you’d never been able to do before was satisfying, but to sit in a cramped room with a small crowd all doing the same was hellish. She wondered why she even bothered turning up every day at all, but that was because it was fun. She’d get no daily satisfaction if she were to sit at home all day playing with her little brother and cooking dinner, that was a boring life, and Neru hated boring. Of course, she loved her brother more than anything, but being 13 he was getting more and more distant - going through his emo phase, as it were. He suddenly didn’t want to play with his sister anymore, and that made her sad, so she’d try to join in with what he was doing instead. The two got along just fine, but when two people are doing something neither of them care too much about whilst not communicating with one another, things got very boring very quickly. Neru hated boring.
Eventually, the little blonde reached her destination, entering and sitting down at a vacant computer and logging in.
“Suck my fat nuts, sensei, ” she mumbled to herself as she began to type her desired URL into the search bar. However, when she hit enter, she encountered an error; the screen flashed up a bright red screen, reading,
‘This site has been blocked by your administration. Reason: Social Sites.’
“ Bullshit!” she exclaimed, subconsciously slamming a vacant fist into the keyboard. The noise she and the clattering of the plastic keyboard made alerted the librarian.
“Excuse me! Whoever that is over there, mind your language and be quiet. ”
“Whatever, speccy nerd,” Neru retorted, loudly enough for the librarian to hear. She turned back around to the computer, aiming to connect its Wi-Fi to her mobile hotspot - before remembering that’s the reason she was here, she didn’t have her mobile.
Clack, clack, clack. The sound of footsteps approaching from behind her was getting louder, signifying her impending whatever-number telling off today.
“Log off, now. I’m going to personally take you back to your class, missy.”
“As if they want me there. Have fun trying to find a class that’s gonna want Akita Neru .”
The librarian chuckled, folding his arms.
“So that’s your name, huh?”
" Don’t wear it out, ” Neru huffed.
“Let me look at your information on the database, it'll take two minutes. Don’t go running off, got it?”
“Like I have anywhere to run to.”
The footsteps turned around and left Neru semi-alone once again, and surprisingly, she obeyed the command she was given. Anyway, the computer wasn’t going to work for what she wanted it for, so it didn’t matter anyhoo. She lay back and waited for whatever the librarian was planning to do next - taking her to any class was certainly not happening. Most, if not every class seemed to have some kind of No Neru’s Allowed rule in there, so even if she was re-roomed, she’d quickly be kicked out for doing essentially nothing anyway.
“Right then,” the voice came resounding from the desk a fair distance away.
“Akita Neru, who is supposed to be in class 2B right now?”
“Yup.”
“Pick up your stuff, sweetie. I’m taking you back to your class.”
At that moment, Neru could swear she saw red. Yet, she remained almost scarily calm.
“Don’t ever call me fucking sweetie.”
“Kill ‘em with kindness.”
“More like kill ‘em with noncery. Just take me to wherever you’re gonna,” she couldn’t be bothered to argue any further, knowing it would go nowhere, and stood up. She felt horrifically inferior following this tall yet painfully lanky guy down the hall, back to somewhere she wasn’t even supposed to be. In her head, she imagined fighting with him and winning. It’d be an easy battle - the fella looked like he was mere moments from a heart attack, and honestly, Neru couldn’t determine whether he was 30 or 70.
Watching a hand turn the door handle of Class 2B, she huffed.
“Sorry to interrupt your lesson, sir,” the librarian started,
“but I do believe I have someone of yours.”
Neru’s teacher sighed in exasperation.
“It wouldn’t happen to be Akita, would it?”
“Nobody less.” The librarian moved out of the way, allowing Neru to stand in the doorway. He continued,
“Decided to come and cause a commotion down at the library, almost destroyed a keyboard.”
“ Oh, come on. Total fucking bullshit,” Neru thought.
“I see. Well, thank you, sir. I’ll speak to her out there, you head on back.”
The librarian nodded and was fairly quickly gone thanks to his oddly long legs - Neru turned and watched on as he disappeared down the corridor. She very vaguely heard her teacher telling the class to open up their textbooks, before the door she was standing by shut, causing her to turn back around and look up at the man now before her. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose between an index and a thumb.
“Oh, Akita.”