I'm Sorry, Senpai

Chapter 12: A Trip to Reality

"Things aren't as bad as I thought they would be these days. I keep hanging around with Nagatoro and the others, and I've also never been closer to Nagatoro as of right now. I guess she isn't as bad as she used to be. I'm glad she stopped teasing me... well... she still teases me, but she knows when to stop at least."

Naoto was in a train of thoughts as he was going to school. He hasn't noticed, but he started smiling to the thoughts he had in his mind. It was quite a cloudy day, despite it being a mid-spring time. It wasn't particularly cold.

What he didn't expect is to see the guys who bullied him since he was a kid. The guys purposely stood in front of him.

As he walked, looking at the ground, he noticed a pair of a couple legs in front of him. He looked up only to be shocked by the sight of the people who stood in front of him.

"Oh would you look who it is. It's the manga freak."

All 5 of the boys were grinning at Naoto, while he was completely frozen. He couldn't even move.

"Well shit, I sometimes forget my reputation here." Naoto thought.

They started slowly wakling towards him, but instead of walking away from them, Naoto tried to be at least a little bold, he stood where he was.

"Oh my? Are you trying to act tough or something? Seems like we have to teach you a lesson."

They don't usualy do anything much to him, but it seemed today wasn't that case.

"How could I forget... I'm just a loser... I always was."
He thought. He closed his eyes and got prepared to get beaten.

They started beating him. He fell to the ground, but kept his eyes shut.

"This hurts a lot... but for some reason... It feels different from before..."
He thought. He didn't realise, but the reason it felt different was because they took it a little too far this time, and he was close to passing out.

He opened his eyes.

He got punched in his chest a lot of times.

"I can't breathe." Was what he would like to say, but his body felt numb.

"Is he alive? Ahahahaha." At first, the boys laughed, but he was in that position for a minute already. Eyes open, not saying anything or even moving.

"B- boys I think we might have took it a little too far."
One boy said. Then the other checked if he was breathing, he wasn't. The boy kicked him in the rib.
Naoto started coughing and breathing again.

"Oh... I'm aliv... al... help..." He said those words, but it was so silent they couldn't hear it.

After that he passed out.

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After what felt like forever. He managed to open his eyes, and yet, all he could see is an endless void. A completely black area around him.

"Huh... Where am I? I don't see anything... No... I see myself... What the hell... Maybe I'm dead. Yeah. I literaly got beaten to death. That's a kinda stupid way to die, but I guess it suits me... I didn't even get to say anything to Nagatoro... i don't think this will really have any big impact on her anyways. She has a lot of friends."

As it seemed like to Naoto, he was dead. Funny to say that considering he could still see, hear, and think. Or was he really dead?

"Naoto." Somebody said.

"A person...?"
He could hear a loud reverbed voice call for him from a far, distant place. He could soon see a person aproaching him from a big distance. It took him a little to envision the person.