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“I’m sure you’ll make tons of friends, honey!” Ryuji’s mom assures him as he shuffles his shoes on at the door. “Remember to speak with your chest and don't be scared to ask for directions. If your leg starts to act up, excuse yourself and go to the nurse, don’t just ignore it, okay? And try to be nice to your teachers and classmates!”
Ryuji nods, rolling his eyes in good nature. “I know, Ma. We moved here for a fresh start, I don't plan on messin’ that up. I'll see you when you get back from work.” She smiles softly and pats his shoulders, which he does in return and heads out the door.
It doesn't take long to find the path to Shujin. The day Ryuji and his mom moved he decided to practice the walk to and from school to avoid getting lost on his first day. Unfortunately it was sunny when he’d practiced, not downpouring the way it is now. The rain makes it a bit difficult to follow the other students around him, so Ryuji quickly drops under a storefront in an attempt to hopefully wait out the rain and a moment later someone else has the same idea.
Someone- likely another student- steps under the storefront and stands next to Ryuji. They pull their hood off to reveal two massive pigtails. They’re a bit taller than him, but that could be the work of the heels they’re wearing. They catch him staring and, after a quick glance at his bleached hair, smile and offer a hand.
“Are you the new transfer to Shujin? I’m Ann Takamaki, we’re in the same year.” She points at the ‘2’ pin on his blazer. He hesitates for a second before nodding and shaking her hand.
“Yeah, I’m Ryuji Sakamoto- uh, nice to meet you.” He laughs nervously and opens his mouth to ask for directions when a car pulls up. The driver window rolls down and Takamaki’s face sours into a look that reminds Ryuji of his mom when his father would get home. He’s about to ask if she’s okay until the driver calls out to them.
“Hey, Ann! Caught in the rain, huh? How about you hop in and I’ll give you a ride?” The driver grins and one glance at Takamaki tells Ryuji that she doesn’t want to get in. The driver seems to sense this and continues, “We can talk about your friend on the volleyball team, she might have to retire, unfortunately.”
At this Ann’s eyes widen and without a second thought she moves forward and gets into the backseat. The driver seems smug until he looks up at Ryuji, his expression going bored. “You need a ride too?” Ryuji shakes his head no, this guy feels way too similar to his dad. The driver nods, rolls up his window, and drives off.
“Get the fuck back here, you pedophile jackass!”
Ryuji looks up towards the origin of the shout. A pissed off kid comes running up, looking like he’d throw something if he had anything available to him. His uniform jacket is unbuttoned and his suspenders hang like punk-style belts at his sides, his whole demeanor tells Ryuji that this kid just got out of bed. The kid turns his head to face Ryuji, a dark scowl on his face.
“Did you see that?! He totally blackmailed her to get into his car, I fuckin’ know it! What hell is it with guys trying to get girls into cars?! That sicko Kamoshida’s always making Takamaki ride to school with him. I saw you talking to her, did she seem upset when he pulled up?”
“I, uh…” Words don’t seem to form right in Ryuji’s mouth, for some reason he can’t seem to think properly while looking at this guy. The hell is it about him that’s making Ryuji’s brain fizz out? He’s not usually the type to get intimidated, so what’s going on?
The kid’s expression morphs to confusion when Ryuji doesn’t speak and instead just looks to the side. Confusion turns to a mix of smugness and agitation.
“Too freaked out to try talking to me, huh? It’s my record, isn’t it? Y’know, you get charged with assault one time and then everyone’s- hey are you okay? You’ve been staring at the ground for a while.”
Ryuji blinks and lifts his head. ‘Make friends,’ he thinks to himself and nods.
“No, yeah, I’m fine, sorry. Uh, who are you talking about by the way? And who are you, also?”
The kid seems caught off guard. His eyes dart away from Ryuji, instead looking around them at the passing students, like he’s looking for a camera or something. He looks calmed down when he looks back at Ryuji, though the confusion in his expression is back. “I’m Akira Kurusu- have you not… heard of me? I mean, I’m not a big deal or anything like that, but I’m usually the main focus in gossip around Shujin.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Are you new? That’d explain how you don’t know who Kamoshida is.”
Ryuji nods, adjusting his bag. “Yeah, just transfered, today's my first day. I’m Ryuji Sakamoto. Who’s Kamoshida? He the guy drivin’ that car?” Kurusu nods and crosses his arms.
“Yeah, he’s the gym teacher and coach of the track and volleyball teams, though I’ve heard he’s been trying to shut the track team down. Its not a very good track team, the star runner’s kind of bad, but the guys on it have fun, so it shouldn’t get shut down just because Kamoshida isn’t good at it. But thats not really important, what is important is that he’s a pedophile creep and treats Shujin like some kind of castle. Shit- wait, you said you’re new, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, if you’re planning on waiting out the rain, its not gonna work. Its supposed to rain until around lunch, waiting it out’s just gonna make you late on your first day. Here, hold on I’ve got an umbrella in my bag you can use.” Kurusu shifts his bag and pulls out a compacted umbrella. He pops it open and offers it to Ryuji, who just shakes his head.
“Dude, no, you’ll get soaked.”
“Use it."
“No.”
Kurusu looks him in the eye and drops the umbrella. Ryuji scrambles to pick it up and by the time he stands up straight Kurusu is a few feet away, running. Ryuji blinks before taking off after him.
They settle on sharing the umbrella.
“Here, stick by me.” Kurusu says as he slings an arm over Ryuji’s shoulder and eyes down any students that look at them. “I’ll walk you to your classroom. Sometimes being the school’s delinquent works to my advantage, might as well use it so no one tries to mess with you.”
Ryuji smiles, a faint blush making its way onto his cheeks. “Thanks, man.”
They make it to Ryuji’s classroom, luckily without anyone approaching them. Kurusu bids him goodbye, pats him on the back, and leaves for his own classroom- though not before glaring down all of Ryuji’s new classmates.
Ryuji chuckles as he watches Kurusu leave. The guy’s a bit weird, but nice, so who’s he to judge? He quickly finds his seat and waits for class to start. A few kids glance at him, but it doesn’t bother him too much, he’s used to people looking at him ever since he dyed his hair. The class quiets down when the teacher walks in.
“We have a new student today, please stand up and introduce yourself.”
Ryuji stands. “I’m Ryuji Sakamoto, thanks for welcomin’ me to your class.” The teacher nods and he sits back down. Class passes as normal, a couple kids look at him occasionally, but aside from that it’s not very unusual. Things only start going downhill when class stops for lunch and the students around him start whispering.
“That’s the kid, right?”
“I heard his dad would hit him.”
“He walked into school with Kurusu, do you think he’s getting bullied already?”
“Maybe, but I’m not messing with Kurusu. Better stay away from him.”
“Someone told me he has a messed up leg.”
“Yeah I heard the same thing, I think his parents are divorced.”
Ryuji ducks his head down against his desk. How do they all know this shit? He only just transfered here, and its not like he’d gone around telling people about why he moved here. Fuck, the whole reason his mom decided for them to move was so he wouldn’t have to deal with rumors about him. Goddamn it, there’s no way he’ll be able to make it to the end of the day- maybe no one will notice if he leaves early.
“Hey, Sakamoto.” Ryuji looks up from his desk, the familiar voice calling to him instant makes him relax. Kurusu stands in the classroom doorway, leaning against the doorframe. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge the kids that quickly move away from him. He smiles, “Wanna have lunch somewhere else with me? I know the best spot.”
Ryuji lets out a breath and nods, quickly grabbing his stuff and following Kurusu out of the room. “Thanks for the save, man. I dunno what I was gonna do in there.” Kurusu waves him off and starts walking down the hallway.
“I’ve been there, don’t worry about it.” They turn up a staircase and Kurusu opens a door to the roof. “I’m sorry they’re treating you like an outcast, though. I’m probably just making it worse by asking you to have lunch with me, but the roof really is the best spot. It's off limits, so no one can bother us up here.” He smiles charmingly and Ryuji’s chest flutters.
He vaguely remembers when he and his mom visited over the weekend for Ryuji to meet the principal one of the teachers mentioning Kurusu to him. Why did that teacher warn him to stay away from this guy? So far he’s the only one to talk to him, or look at him normal. He seems like a pretty nice guy, too, so what gives? Not to mention that this dude totally looks like he’d be the most sought after guy in school, though that’s unrelated.
“It’s fine, I don’t think anyone’d talk to me either way, so at least this way I’m hangin’ out with you. But aint’cha worried someone’s gonna catch us up here? I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble just to get me away from some mean kids, y’know?” Kurusu shrugs and sits on one of the spare desks hanging around.
“Psh, what’re they gonna do; expel me? I’ve got the best grades in Shujin and I’m on the student council, expelling me would cause a scene that the principal wouldn’t want people looking into. The staff here have a record of overlooking things that’d give us a bad rep if it got out, so I can get away with what I feel like; hence my uniform and record. I’m not given complete free rein, but things like my arrest are kept to school rumors.”
Ryuji perks up from where he’s leaning against the wall, a curious glint in his eyes. “Arrest? You mentioned somethin’ about assault this morning, right?” He decides against mentioning the whispers of Kurusu’s name he’d heard in class. Kurusu rolls his eyes and nods.
“I stopped a drunk guy from forcing a woman into his car. He fell, hit his head and started bleeding then sued me. I got arrested and put on a three month long probation. It happened last year, but since it was the school’s ‘incident’ no one’s stopped talking about it. I got tired of no one listening when I’d deny the rumors, so why not give the people what they want, you know? Since then I’ve started acting up more; I don’t wear my uniform right, I almost dyed my hair like yours, but I didn’t think blonde would look good on me, and I’ve broken one of the vending machine’s by the gate on accident twice. To be fair, I don't really blame when everyone avoids me.” Kurusu’s gaze turns to the ground under him and he mutters quietly enough that Ryuji nearly misses it. “I can hardly stand myself.”
Ryuji frowns. He doesn’t want Kurusu to be sad, especially since he’s been so nice. He thinks for a moment. Whenever he’s upset his mom lets him cry it out, but he doesn’t think Kurusu would be comfortable with something like that right now. Hmm… well when he was little his mom would hype him up by telling him what a ‘handsome little man’ he was and that usually seemed to work. Its worth a try.
He pushes himself off the wall and leans against the desk Kurusu’s sitting on. “Tch, they’re totally idiots for avoiding you. Like, have they bothered to look at you? You’re totally rockin’ the delinquent look, dude.” Ryuji grins brightly and Kurusu looks at him, a bewildered look on his face.
“Huh?”
Ryuji just slings his arm around Kurusu’s shoulder and pulls him close. “Yeah, man! You’d be swarmed by girls at my old school, even with the criminal record! Honestly, the record’d probably just add to it; who isn’t into a little delinquency, right?”
It feels like Kurusu does a one-eighty at the attention. He quickly looks to the ground, a red flushes the parts of his face and ears not covered by his hair and his fingers pick at the edge of the desk he’s sitting on.
“I, uhm… I’m not…”
Ryuji doesn’t hesitate, he just leans into the mess of Kurusu’s hair and lightly jostles him by his shoulder. “Well, naturally you’d be leaving behind a trail of broken hearts. The guys’d be all over you, anyway, so hardly a loss. You really pull off the messy hair, there’s no way you wouldn’t be gettin’ a confession letter, like, daily. Seriously, man, have you seen yourself?”
Kurusu’s silent for a few moments, his stare kept strictly to the ground, until he opens his mouth. “Hey, do you… uh…”
“What’s up, man?” Ryuji raises an eyebrow.
“... Do you… like guys?”
Ryuji flushes, but nods. “Y-yeah.”
“Cool, cool…” Kurusu also nods. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Yeah! Yeah, uh, feel free. Uh… lunch is nearly over, do you wanna walk me back to my class? I haven’t really memorized the route, yet.” Which is a lie, but not bad one.
Kurusu jumps at this, hopping off the desk and grabbing his bag. “Yeah! No, yeah, of course, lemme walk you back. Do you have all your stuff?”
Kurusu delivers Ryuji back to his classroom easily and the rest of the school day passes quickly. By the end of the day, Ryuji stands by the vending machines- one of them seems to be broken-, trying to look casual. He looks for messy black hair in the stream of students leaving for home or an after school job. When he spots it, Ryuji waves his hand above his head and calls out.
“Hey, Kurusu! Over here!” He watches Kurusu shuffle through the small crowd over to him.
“Yeah?”
“So, I’m still new to the area and everythin’, d’ya think you could walk me home? I don't wanna get lost, y’know?” Ryuji smiles at him and it looks like Kurusu’s hair frizzes like in an anime.
“O-of course!”