MOMENTUM | Kozume Kenma

03 RIGHT ON THE NOSE

The sun may have long disappeared behind the horizon line, but the city kicks alive as though the day's just beginning. All around you, streetlights flicker on one by one while darkness blots the sky like an ink spill across a wide, blank canvas, and as a tempestuous symphony swarms your eardrums — in which you are the conductor, leading an orchestra of erratic footsteps and quick shallow breaths to match your heart's rhythm — your shoes blur across the pavement with only three things on your mind.

1) Don't stop running.

2) Don't look back.

3) Why the hell is that security guard still chasing you? You have to give him credit because the man's a fairly quick runner for his age, but you assumed he would've given up after the first minute of the chase, figuring a pair of dumb teenagers wasn't worth the potential joint pain later on.

Nevertheless, when curiosity overrules your inner turbulence and induces you to defy the second thing by casting a glance over your shoulder, you're met with the sight of Kenma at a moderate distance behind you and the middle-aged security guard hot on his tail. Seeing the fake-blond so far back, you can't ignore the urge to roll your eyes. Isn't he supposed to be an athlete? Sure, he may not be a track star, but still. Maybe this is a concern you ought to bring up at the next student council meeting, if this is really the standard for Nekoma's athletics — and the vice captain of the volleyball team, no less.

Disregarding your thoughts, you swivel your head to face forward again and then turn at a sharp corner where you think you'll lose the security guard, maybe Kenma, too, at his rate. Your feet almost slip underneath you, much to your alarm, but you catch yourself in time, ignoring the stinging in your palms as you continue to dart down the sidewalk like your life depends on it.

However, you only make it a couple of yards further before you feel a set of slender fingers curling into the collar of your blazer to yank you backward, then sideways into a blurry, dark space that sharpens into a narrow alleyway seconds later as your eyes adjust to the new scene. Your back presses uncomfortably against the rough texture of a brick wall, making you grimace at the feeling.

"Shit— what the fuck?" you hiss.

"Shh." Though you can't really see the person in front of you too well, you can hear that they're huffing and puffing from the strenuous effort it must've taken for them to run up from behind you. However, the ego boost that gives you is short-lived when the weight of the situation crashes down onto you all of a sudden, splitting your thoughts like a river through the earth to make way for just one bone-chilling realisation.

Something bad is seriously about to happen.

Compelled by the burning in your lungs and the haziness of your vision, you stomp on their foot. After hearing them let out a satisfying yelp, your hand curls tightly into itself in preparation of socking the face of whoever this audacious stranger is, but then their voice whispers right at your nostrils hastily, almost sounding desperate, "Can you not? It's only me."

At the ticklish feeling that arises from the stranger's breath brushing against your skin, you wrinkle your nose. However, the pulse in your ears subsides at the smell of mint gum and the familiar calm tone. Their voice is soft, but not like the cashmere sweaters your grandparents gift you for every birthday, the ones you never wear due to their suffocating collars. Neither is it like the steely, monotonous conversations you find yourself struggling to keep your eyes through at every family reunion, or even the mauve that stretches across the sky during the final moments of a sunset, that you often catch right as you storm out of the house.