Work Text:
The sun rose on the town of Makochi as the boys at Furin academy prepared for another busy day of righteous delinquency.
BUT THIS STORY AIN’T ABOUT THEM.
At least, not completely. At the nearby Sekai Girls’ High School, other important conversations were being had.
"What's gayer: actually being gay, or whatever the hell those boys at Furin have going on?"
A girl slumped over her desk, looking fairly depressed considering it was 8 in the morning. Her name was Kanade and she was a background character; a humble resident of the town of Makochi and student at Sekai Girls’ high. She was also pretty good at tennis, if anyone even cared.
“Saraaaa!” she called to her friend, who was studying at a desk nearby. “It’s not fair. Does delinquent school even have a curriculum? What do they do during a 7 hour school day?”
Sara barely glanced up from her textbook. “All Bofurin do is fight each other, start wars, and tenderly share their lunches on rooftops.”
“How is this our life?” Kanade groaned. “Our town's two biggest industries are band-aids and blonde hair dye. Over 90% of the boys in the prefecture can fight but can't do basic math—I mean, that’s just a full-on education crisis!”
“We're extras in a shonen manga written by a male author,” Sara said, shrugging. “What can we do?”
“Hey guys!” A cheerful voice chirped from the doorway, interrupting Kanade’s impending monologue.
"Ahhh, Chie!" They waved at their friend who had just walked into the classroom, shrugging her backpack off her shoulders as she sat down next to them. “Chie, did you miss the bus this morning?”
“Ugh, yeah. Some jerks blocked my path on the way to the stop. All the usual lines, ‘what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this,’ and so on. A couple of Bofurin guys came to my rescue pretty quickly, but I still missed the bus!”
Sara frowned. “Oh, that’s annoying. Usually they don’t start fighting until the afternoon.”
In Makochi, of course, it was not the police or any kind of adult who came to the rescue first when a crime was being committed, but one of the town’s many delinquent boys. The rules of this universe naturally commanded that background characters were constantly being accosted by criminals. It was something of a routine for the citizens of Makochi. The Bofurin’s response time when you called for help was reliably between 25-30 seconds. Kanade and her friends had taken to timing it.
“That is really annoying,” Kanade echoed, and then frowned. “Actually, it really sucks. I mean…you shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of behavior on a daily basis.”
The other girls nodded, and Chie opened her mouth to change the subject to last night’s homework. But Kanade continued.
“I mean, do you guys ever think about how shitty life is for us background characters? How crazy the premise actually is that we as a community rely on a group of teenage boys to handle the law enforcement of a large town? It’s actually, like, so destabilizing, not to mention structurally ineffectual.”
Chie and Sara exchanged looks. Kanade sometimes got fired up when she was venting, but today was somehow different. She leaned towards them, lowering her voice.
“I’ve been doing some reading. Have you guys ever heard of something called the Bechdel test?”
“Okay, class!” The teacher clapped her hands, signaling the start of a lesson.
Kanade shut her mouth, sitting back in her chair. Her friends shot Kanade another curious glance before settling in for another school day of boring, useless information.
—
After school, the three of them went to a new boba shop Sara had seen good reviews for. Kanade took a sip of cold, sweet boba tea and sighed in relief while Chie chattered on animatedly.
“—So I told her, ‘you can’t just throw a party in the middle of a turf war and expect everyone to show up!’ It’s just bad timing. And she looked at me like I was the crazy one, saying, ‘But it’ll boost community spirit!’”
“As if!" Kanade stirred her tea, nodding in agreement. “And you know a rival gang would just crash it and it’d turn into a whole thing.”
“Totally! So ridiculous.” Chie laughed, shaking her head.
"Hey..." she suddenly paused with a frown. "Do those guys look kinda...handsome to you?"
Kanade and Sara followed Chie’s gaze to the group of boys that had just entered the cafe; loudly arguing while surveying the menu. They were dressed in casual clothes, but she recognized their vivid hair colors and distinctly-drawn facial features with a dawning sense of horror.
"Oh, god dammit,” she hissed, “Those guys are main characters. Let's just get out of here before—“
"Yo."
As if on cue, the door to the shop was kicked open with a dramatic bang as [insert random generic rival gang] burst in, hair gelled, collars ruffled, shirts untucked, et cetera. At this point, the girls really couldn’t keep track of the different factions that the Bofurin were fighting with on a daily basis.
But whatever…the air was suddenly electric as the Bofurin boys got into a fighting formation and the shopgirl quickly cleared flower vases and other breakables off the counters.
It was too late to leave; the girls slumped back in their chairs, thankful at least that they had grabbed a table in the back.
“Which one of you Bofurin is the strongest?”
A boy with two-toned hair stepped forward as his friend tried to hold him back.
"N-no, Sakura, don’t—!”
“It’s alright, Nirei.” He said, cracking his knuckles. “I like big strong guys."
The girls exchanged looks amongst themselves. Here we go…
“This is our turf,” Two-tone said. “You lookin’ for a brawl?”
“Just here to remind you who’s on top.” The rival gang leader shot him an evil but sexually charged grin.
“Less talkin’ more poundin’ then,”
"Oh, I'm gonna pound you so hard, you won't be able to walk tomorrow."
"Do they even hear themselves?!?" Kanade whispered, eyes wide. Sara shook her head and Chie stifled a laugh.
Three broken windows, a dramatic monologue, and two flashbacks later, Sakura landed the decisive blow and the fight was over. The Bofurin reigned victorious, shop littered with splintered tables and unconscious goons.
The girls let out a collective sigh of relief and quickly gathered their things, carefully making their way through the debris. They gave a sympathetic glance to the shopkeeper as she started sweeping up shards of glass.
“Thank you, Bofurin, for keeping our town safe!” they heard her chirp as they left. “The drinks are free of charge!”
—
They had only gotten a couple blocks before they were accosted again, this time by a group of men blocking their path.
"Hey, little ladies."
They all collectively groaned. "Twice in one day? Jesus christ, what are the odds.”
Kanade turned to Chie and sighed. "I’m really not in the mood for this…can you run for help this time?"
"Ugh…my legs are still kinda hurting from P.E. today.”
"Yeah, but I did it last time."
"Okay, let's rock paper scissors for it."
They were on best two out of three when a particularly nasty looking goon stepped forward. “Where do you think you’re going?” he said, grabbing the strap of Kanade's purse.
"Guess it's you," she said with a shrug. Chie stuck out her tongue, taking off down the street to ask the nearest Bofurin for help.
"Sara, you got the timer?"
"Yep…should be only 25 more seconds till they show up."
“Can’t believe we’re going through this again,” Kanade muttered. “Alright, dudes, do your thing.”
They sneered. “What are pretty girls like you doing in a place like this?”
Really? They were on the sidewalk in a metropolitan area in broad daylight.
“15 seconds,” Sara called out.
Kanade raised an eyebrow. “Can you please let go of my purse? We really need to get going.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” The goon sneered. He knocked the boba out of Kanade’s hand and it landed on the pavement with an awful crack.
Kanade stared at the pavement, her favorite pair of tennis shoes now splattered with milk, and then up at the goon who was looking at her with a smug expression on his face. Her head was suddenly pounding with the built up rage from a thousand cat-calls, attempted muggings, all the sexist tropes and indignities that she and her friends had endured being perpetual damsels in distress in this ridiculous manga. She swung and caught him with a wicked right hook and she screamed.
“THAT WAS MY BOBA, YOU JERK!”
Kanade’s rage slowly faded and she was left staring down at the goon, who was on the ground clutching his bruised cheek with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Faintly, Kanade registered a burning sensation in her knuckles.
The goons looked shocked as well. This had quite literally never happened before. One of them started crying.
Kanade looked to Sara, who was standing still, equally shocked. "Wh...what do we do?"
The timer on Sara’s phone went off with a loud beeping noise.
“Unhand her—!” Came the voice of a valiant delinquent from the end of the street. Chie was standing a little behind him, hands over her mouth and a shocked expression on her face. They looked back and forth from Kanade to the 6 ft tall man sobbing into his hands.
Kanade herself was dumbfounded as well. “UM. LET’S GO!”
The 3 of them took off running down the street, leaving the distraught goons and Bofurin to process what had just happened.
—
“Kanade, that was so badass!” Chie squealed.
“I can’t believe I did that,” Kanade said. “It was like a glitch or something. Did you see how they reacted?” She rubbed her knuckles, which were blissfully sore from punching out the goon. “I can’t get over how easy it was to knock him over…it was like punching a wet noodle. Are the Bofurin even good at fighting? Or are the power levels in this universe just totally inflated?”
Sara was deep in thought. “As we know, the laws of the universe don’t permit any female characters to actually take an active role in the story. Their reaction all but confirmed that…we went totally off script.”
“Should we be afraid of some kind of cosmic retribution?” Said Chie biting her fingernails.
“No! You know what, I’m sick of this!” Kanade declared. “This manga is ridiculous. Things around here have got to change! I know it’s not just us. So many of the background characters in this town must be fed up.”
“So…what do we do?” Sara asked.
“Well I’ve been reading a lot of feminist literature lately, and it’s given me a few ideas. I think we should hold a meeting of all the townspeople to discuss our rights and options.”
Sara and Chie nodded in agreement. By the evening, they had stuck up flyers all over town:
ATTENTION GIRLS AND GRANDMAS OF ALL AGES
This Thursday at 7pm we will be holding a meeting in Cafe Pothos to discuss our issues with the current system of law enforcement in Makochi. Snacks and drinks will be provided.
—
The cafe was packed, abuzz with the chatter from mob characters of various ages but mostly one gender as Kanade took the stage.
“Thank you all for coming,” Kanade began.“….first of all, let’s give Kotoha a warm round of applause for that opening speech. Kotoha, as one of the only named female characters in this series, you are truly an inspiration. We hope you get some depth or development at some point.”
Kotoha, standing modestly to the side, gave a small nod as the room acknowledged her with polite applause.
Kanade faced the room and continued, steady and confident. “We all have a pretty good idea of the problem. We have far more seedy alleyways and delinquent boys than functioning infrastructure in our town. But if we’re going to solve this issue, we’re going to need to focus on the facts at hand. Sara?”
Sara stepped forward, holding up a cardboard sign with a pie chart on it. “According to last year's census, our district’s population breakdown is 55% delinquent teenage boys, 25.5% teenage girls, 17% elderly grandmas and grandpas who need help crossing the street, 2.3% orphaned children, and just 0.2% parents and employed adults.”
“Additionally,” she continued, “the frequency a girl gets accosted, and then subsequently saved by Bofurin, is a mean of six times per week. That’s significantly higher than the national average.”
“Where are all the adults?” Kanade asked the room. “And why are we relying on a group of 13 to 17 year old boys to protect a district of 20,000 people?”
A high school girl in the crowd raised her hand shakily. "I know being a female extra sucks. But a-as annoying as it is, at least we're not in a shounen like Attack on Titan, or-or-another world, where the extras could die.”
Murmurs of agreement went through the crowd. Another girl piped up. "Yeah, all things considered, the danger we face every day is pretty low stakes...a lowlife stops us, Bofurin comes to our rescue, they fight, we go home."
Kanade took a deep breath. “I understand the comparison to other series, but that doesn’t mean we just should accept our circumstances—which are, frankly, terrible. Like the fact that pregnant women have a 1-in-4 chance of birthing a protagonist!”
Murmurs of shock and agreement rippled through the room. The mortality rate for mothers of protagonists was so high, birthing one was basically a death sentence. Kanade continued, impassioned.
“You guys, don’t you see? We can’t live our lives at the whims of these dramatic high school boys and their homoerotic battles anymore!”
“But…but what can we do?” A scared audience member asked.
Kanade smiled, as Chie switched on the projector to slideshow titled The Makochi Citizens’ 12-step Plan to Independence.
—
“What the hell is going on out there?” Umemiya demanded, looking at his subordinates.
The Four Heavenly Kings stood on the rooftop before him, each with their squad of grade captains and vice captains and class representatives and whoever the fuck else in tow. One of Tsubaki’s men spoke up.
“I was patrolling the seedy alleyways this morning, and spotted a guy who was givin’ this girl trouble. I rolled up my sleeves ready for a fight and she just… pulled out a can of pepper spray and took the guy down in seconds.”
“They’re protecting themselves?” Umejima asked, stunned. “How…and why?”
Suo stepped forward, even-keeled as always. “It seems a new faction has emerged,” he said. “The streets say they’re calling themselves…the Mob.”
“A Mob…as in a new gang. Of girls?”
“Sort of. It seems like they’re training townspeople in self-defense and forming a citizen’s brigade to actually arrest harassers and hold them accountable.”
Umemiya considered this. “Effective. In hindsight, maybe just beating them up and then letting them scamper away wasn’t the best plan.”
“Umemiya-san, it’s scary out there. Last week I saw a granny use her walker to take out a guy who tried to steal her purse.“
Toma interjected. “I know it’s good that crime rates are way down, but school is so freakin’ boring now. The boys just sort of sit around loitering and playing poker all day. Yesterday, I saw one of them actually reading a book.”
Sakura spoke up, angrily, “I just wanna punch somebody again!” Suo patted his back and he blushed violently and gayly.
“Boss,” one of the captains said with fear in his voice. “What does Bofurin do if there’s no one to protect? No grannies to help across the crosswalk?”
This thought hung in the air, and the mass of terrified boys looked to their leader for wisdom. Finally, he responded with a chilling question of his own.
“Bofurin is founded on the premise that the strong protect the weak…but what happens when the weak band together to accomplish structural change?”
Umejima considered this darkly as he looked out on the town of Makochi, and for the first time the fleeting thought of higher education passed through his mind.