Stumbling Over Love | ✓

Chapter 24

_Chapter 24~ Affiliated_

I tried to run.

I really did. Promise.

But somehow my fear of these delinquents had wound me sitting in a chair, them all standing and crowding me within this cramped space.

"Would you like something?" somebody asked from the rear. Face scrunched, he swivelled and shouted, "Hey! Somebody grab her a drink!"

Shuffles of feet were heard vacating the room. The door slammed shut.

I even heard a lock.

"I can't believe she's sitting right here," another mumbled.

"In our base."

"Miss Reina...!"

A hand flung from the masses to touch me. I tensed, dodging it by a mere millimetre. Fortunately, somebody smacked the male who'd done that.

"Idiot! Don't touch Miss Reina like that!"

"S-sorry, I just—"

"'Just,' my ass! Want me to teach ya' a lesson so ya' never do it again?"

"Stop fighting!" A third party got involved. "Miss Reina's made it clear how much she hates it when we do."

The mention of my name flew by both ears.

"Make me!" hollered the second guy.

"That's it. Give me a second, you fuc—"

"Attention!"

The last yell caused all delinquents' eyes to flicker left. Hesitantly, I did the same.

At the forefront of the room stood a rather short, baby-faced male. He had a head of unruly red hair and stunning grey-coloured eyes. Donned in a dark cardigan over top of a black t-shirt, brown khaki pants rolled at the cuffs to give full view of his ankles, a wide smirk danced heavily upon his lips. Despite his rather nonchalant attire, as soon as this scrawny boy had uttered the command, all the delinquents in the room dropped everything to face him.

He was the one who stole my lunchbox.

I warily eyed him over. He was eerily familiar, as if I'd encountered him sometime in the past.

As if catching my look, his piercing stare darted in my direction. His amusement hadn't fallen.

"Reina Kikuchi," he drawled, ambling towards me. "What a pleasure to finally meet you."

"I didn't even want to be here," I spoke quite bluntly, inching backwards to hopefully make a hasty getaway. "You stole my lunch and aren't letting me leave with it. Plus... you have creepy pictures of me all over the walls."

Although I hadn't said anything funny, he howled with laughter. "This is all because of you."

Incredulity shot through me.

"Because of me?" I repeated in disbelief. "What did I do to deserve this? I don't even know you! Why the hell have you been following me around? Can I at least have some kind of explanation?"

Following my unintentional yell, I clamped my mouth shut. I eyeballed the redhead but he hadn't so much as flinched. The other delinquents, on the other hand, had for some reason sighed.

"She raised her voice..."

"Miss Reina's yelling really gets to you, right?"

"I want her to yell at me again..."

With each passing comment, I tried my best to rid the disgust welling inside of me. I swallowed hard, relentlessly peeking left and right. What the heck was going on? What was with these delinquents? If I recalled correctly, these were the same people that Ryu had lost to in the infirmary. The very day I shouted some... colourful vocabulary at them.