Running After You

Chapter 26: Rage

Youta found himself with back against the wall with Chinemi all over him in the worst ways possible. If she had super powers, then her eyes would be giving him a lobotomy with how much ire was held in her pupils.

"What have you been doing?" She asked him. He could sense that one wrong move would mean the end of his existence on this planet.

"I've been looking for you." He answered. "There's been a misunderstanding."

"Why is it that people think we did something together?" She didn't allow him to fully explain the situation. "I keep hearing everyone act like we're a thing now all of a sudden."

"I don't know about that one." It seemed the game of telephone had reached full effect with the rumors changing as people talked to one another about it. Despite this only being news now even half an hour ago. News truly did travel quick around this school, which included the lies too.

"I should've never trusted you." She shoved him again into the wall. Youta did nothing to stop her, both because he'd never hit a girl, as his parents would tell him not to. As well as the fact that even if his own morals weren't stopping him, optics were. With a bunch of students surrounding them as they talked, he knew that doing anything against her would mean the end of his reputation.

"I never said anything about what we talked about. Other people are just getting it twisted." He tried to defend himself, but it was no use with her.

"Everyone." She turned her attention to the crowd surrounding them. "I don't know what people think happened, but I assure you that none of it is true." While getting himself attacked wasn't his plan, he was glad his original intention for searching for the girl still led to her clearing up the air. "I would never associate with a peasant such as him." He could've lived without the hurtful words. In fact, they were beyond hurtful. "I am only in need of his services. If he were not the sports manager, I wouldn't want to be caught breathing the same air as him."

Chinemi left go of him, which left Youta to slide down on the wall as he sat down, speechless. Everyone else was content with her response and didn't even question if she told the truth or not. With her statement, the third year students returned to their classrooms. She took one glance at him, a boy devastated by her words. She didn't say anything to him as she also returned to her classroom.

"Are you okay, Mr. Morikawa?" Now left alone, Takame knelt down to check on his condition. "Did she hurt you?"

"Not physically." He answered as she helped him back onto his feet. Youta thought he shouldn't be feeling this way after listening to her, but something about her words kept repeating in his mind. "I guess for a moment, I forgot about she really was." She didn't understand what he meant, but could tell it depressed him anyway.

"Lunch is almost over, so we should get back to our classes." She said, but before they could leave, they were cut off by some other people.

"Youta, there you are." It was Mitora and Fuwaka. The former seemed to have finally snapped out of her funk and returned to normal. "We heard all the commotion and ran up here as soon as we could." Said Mitora. She took his hands to see if he was all right, but quickly he ripped them away from her.

For a moment, he glared at her. Then turned his head over, pointing his chin up. She gasped in response. "You're doing the cold shoulder again?" The girl said. "Youta come on, I'm sorry." He didn't say anything in response to her pleas, instead the boy simply walked past her towards the stairs.

"Youta, what does she mean by the cold shoulder thi-?" Fuwaka asked, but as she talked he didn't even attempt to stop. The moment he walked past her, she froze in shock upon realizing he also directed his silent treatment towards her. He began walking down the steps, leaving the other three alone.

Fuwaka's sudden pause left her thinking, knowing exactly why he had anger directed at her. She was a major cause for what had happened and didn't even try to have his back.

"Ah, Youta's really angry at me." Said Mitora. "Even when he yells at me, he's not that mad compared to this." It had occurred to her often enough in their relationship that she had an idea on how things would go. "But he hasn't done this to me since we were kids and I pranked him during a sleepover." Now as she's grown, she realized it was too far to do the water bowl prank on him and take pictures.

"Do you know how long it takes for him to talk again?"

"Last time, he wouldn't talk to me for a week." She replied. "I don't actually remember how we patched things up back then. Ugh, this is all my fault too."

"What is it that you did?" Takame asked, still confused on how all these events had transpired.

"Oouahh!" Mitora responded by freaking out in response to hearing someone else jump into their conversation. They hadn't noticed her when they found Youta. "When did you get here?"

"I was here the whole time when you found us." She didn't even realize that they somehow didn't see her literally standing next to him. "I guess you only noticed him because Mr. Morikawa is your friend and we don't really know each other."

"Did Youta tell you what was going on?" Fuwaka asked. They were told what had happened after the boy had been chased out of the classroom. "You helped him all this time? Heh, guess you're a better friend of his than either of us..."

***

Later after school, Chinemi headed over to the tennis courts for practice as she always did. Though today was a little different after those strange events from lunch. She couldn't get her mind off it for there was one major regret about what went down.

That being the obvious case of her not meaning what she said about him. This was already in her mind when she said those words, as the point was to make a showing of it to the rest of her classmates to squash whatever rumors came up.

She had meant to tell him this fact once everyone had left, but failed to do so after seeing him sitting on the ground, crushed. Despite her plans, she failed to account for one thing. Which was how bad she was when it came to apologizing.

A shame, as Chinemi had a completely different scenario in mind where she'd whisper this fact to him in a cool manner. Only to mess things up and now had been trapped wondering how he felt after hearing those words. That boy probably wouldn't even show up to her practice anymore after that and she couldn't blame him.

So she tried to take her mind off things the only way she knew how. Which was to play some tennis. However it turned out her mind took her off her game as she attempted to serve the ball.

"That's a fault." He coach said as it sailed well out-of-bounds. "Oh well, serve again." Mistakes happened, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to her. Not to mention they had only just started practice. However Chinemi would take her second shot and again would miss. "Double fault. Is everything okay, Chinemi?"

"I'm fine." She tried to play it cool as she beckoned her practice partner. They served it perfectly fine, but when she went to return it. She would end up hitting it out-of-bounds once more. Even though no one else knew why, it was obvious her conflicting thoughts were interfering with her game.

Chinemi looked sadly towards her racket. In her mind she knew she had messed up, but had no idea on how to fix things. If anything, she only managed to break more than she realized. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still a little tight or something." She said, making up an excuse.

As she took a moment to try and loosen up her body and forget about what happened before. Something happened which would make it impossible for her to do that. For when she looked over around the tennis court, Chinemi was shocked to see Youta showing up, walking straight for her.

"Looks like the sports manager's back." Unlike her, the coach was happy to see him. "Probably wants to see where all your hard work's taken you. So just relax and have fun." She wished she could, but with him here, it'd be impossible to do any of that.