Belonging

Ch.9 Bad Luck

"Ow, man! What was that-..."

Keigo shuts up when he looks up at a small group of delinquents. The leader speaks right to Ichigo.

"Hey, Kurosaki..."

"Oshima! Y-You're off suspension..." Keigo worries as he stands.

Swinging his fist, Oshima punches him in the face, sending him flying a little while he replied.

"I ain't talkin' to you."

I stand up and stand between him and my brother.

"No, you're talking to me now. I want you to apologize to the guy you just hit."

Oshima gets in my face.

"Well, if it isn't the girl with ghost for friends. I don't have business with you either."

Oshima looks over my shoulder and at my brother.

"Kurosaki, when you gonna dye that carrot hair black? Why you always trying to look like me?"

Irritated, Ichigo looks up at him.

"Like I keep telling you, this is my natural color. And I don't look anything like you. Now fly away, drag queen. Before you really tick me off."

"Drag queen!! Why you-"

The drag queen is suddenly flying in the air. He lands on the ground, hard, as all our friends stared. Stunned, everyone, except Ichigo, looks towards me. I flipped Oshima on the ground just now.

"You...little..."

Pulling brass knuckles out, Oshima charges at me. But before he could hit me, a hand grabs his fist and really sent him flying.

"I warned you about that crap..." A deep voice speaks.

All of us look towards the owner of the voice as the other fake tough guys run away. Standing there with bandages around his hand, and carrying a bird cage on his back, was a very tall teen with the power to stop a train...maybe.

"Chad!" Keigo happily cheers. "Take it easy, you could have killed him."

"Hmm..."

"Thank you, Chad."

He nods his head towards me.

"Hey." Ichigo speaks up. "How'd you hurt your hand?"

"Well, yesterday it was my back... An I-beam fell on me..."

"An I-beam?!" all the guys asked with shocked looks.

"And today I hurt my hand grocery shoppin'... I ran into a motorcycle."

"You gotta be more careful, dude!" Ichigo shouts.

"Well, the guy driving it got hurt real bad... So I carried him to the hospital..."

"So that's why you were late. Geez, you must be made of steel."

Chad sets the bird cage down as he settles in. Inside was a white parakeet.

"Huh? You got a bird?" Keigo asks as he looks it over.

"Hello!" the parakeet replies. "My name is Yuichi Shibata! What's your name?"

"Cool! He talks really well! My name's Keigo Asano. Can you say "Keigo"?"

I just stare at the bird.

I don't know why, but that bird seemed...off. I mean, I can't sense anything from it, but it doesn't seem normal to me. I guess Ichigo had the same feeling as me too, because he asks where Chad got it.