After a week or so, I let myself relax. Nothing had happened; no matter what that bastard said, they weren’t after me. And he wasn’t either- that was what I was most grateful for. Two weeks of complete absence was enough to convince me he had given up on me.

I still found it a little hard to walk into that storeroom, but at least I could concentrate on my classes as hard as I had before. Which… really meant that I sat in the back of the lecture hall with my nose shoved in a book. But people approaching me didn’t make me jump anymore. I could even smile and talk to them, though I disappeared the second anybody mentioned Ayano Yamane. It had concerned Koharu at first, but it was quickly forgotten by anybody who mentioned it.

Life was quiet. Peaceful. Normal- and that was exactly what I wanted.

That was why, when the door burst open and a panicked office assistant burst through, I just assumed somebody’s relative had died. He held a slip of paper up, waving it over his head like he hadn’t already caught the teacher’s attention.

“Ah… the office…” He had to stop, putting his hands on his knees for a second as he tried to catch his breath. “Hiroshi Okamoto is needed in the office immediately.”

Nobody bothered to hide their surprise; I had been called to the office exactly once in my time at the university. Their uncertain, almost wary expressions as I stood up were probably warranted. I’d been entirely too moody and borderline violent after that, and nobody wanted to deal with it.

“Immediately!” The office assistant repeated it as if I hadn’t heard him properly the first time.

“Yes, coming,” I sighed, shutting my book around my finger so I wouldn’t lose my place. I had just been getting to the good part, too, the wizard finally saving his prince- of course that was when they had to interrupt me.

I tried really hard not to scowl at the office assistant for it, but it didn’t work well; he flinched back slightly, and I felt a little bad for him. “Come on, squire, let’s get there before the king gets pissy.”

He looked majorly confused, but he hurried to keep up with me as I strode out the door. I didn’t need him to lead me; I had memorized a map of the school. We had to go outside, and cross the lawns, to move between the math hall and the building where the office was. My feet had just touched the grass when blinding pain flashed through the back of my head.

I hit the ground on my hands and knees, teeth clicking together hard enough to make me wince. “W-what?” A hand raised to cover my head as I looked up.

The office assistant was trembling, a heavy history book in his hand- he must have hit me with it. “I-I’m sorry, they told me they-”

My body jerked at the distinctive sound of a gun being fired. The assistant’s book hit the grass first, sliding out of slack fingers, but he wasn’t far behind it. Horror filled me as I watched blood bloom over his shirt.

“Tsk. I told him not to say anything.”

The voice was cold, and unfamiliar. My heart twisted painfully in my chest, and I was moving before I could think about it, scrambling forward across the grass. The office building wasn’t that far away. If I could get there, I could call security.

They never let me crawl away. Not Kazuo, and not this new man; my yelp rang across the lawn as fingers knotted in my hair, twisting as my head was jerked back. I’d never imagined having my hair pulled could hurt that damn much as I was hauled to my feet, yanked back against a man’s chest as cold metal was pressed to my temple.

My breath caught as I strained to see the gun. The trembling set in as I clenched my teeth, the familiar fear; it seemed worse than the first time, maybe because I’d seen the assistant get shot.

“You’re not as pretty as I thought you’d be, Hiroshi.”

I tried to flinch away from the voice in my ear, and the gun pressed harder against my head, drawing a low whimper from my throat. “Who…”

“Shut up.” He hit me with the butt of the gun, his grip in my hair growing tighter. “You don’t speak unless you’re asked a question, got it?”

I didn’t say anything, and he hit me again. “Got it,” I ground out, keeping my left eye closed as blood began to trickle down from where he’d cut the skin of my forehead.

“Pathetic. I don’t know what could possibly be interesting about you,” the man sounded disappointed, as if he had expected me to put up with more of a fight. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re a good bargaining chip even if I don’t know why.”

Interesting? Bargaining chip? Anger flared through me as I realized why I was being threatened again. It was because of Kazuo. As if it wasn’t bad enough he’d harassed me, I had a gun pressed to my head again because of him. It pissed me off. My resolve to kill him if I saw him again only grew as I took in a deep breath and played along for a moment.

“There’s a good boy. Play nice, and Ikiya might let you live,” he said, lowering his gun slightly as he pushed me into taking a stumbling step forward.

I couldn’t stand the sound of his voice; it made my skin crawl. So I took care of that first. I’d brushed up on my self-defense tactics after that first time. The internet was a wonderful resource. When I rammed my head back into his nose, blood gushed, and he let go of me with a muffled curse.

“Fucking gross,” I muttered, a sour expression on my face as I avoided touching the back of my head; I could feel the man’s blood wet in my hair, and it made me nauseous.

The man stood up straight, and though he wobbled slightly, his grip on the gun was firm. “Listen, kid-”

“Stop it!” My book was still in my hands, and I said a silent apology as I bashed it against the man’s hand, making him drop the gun.

As he swore, shaking his hand while he shot me a nasty look, I started to walk backward. The book was still raised defensively, but there was a small smile on my face. I wasn’t completely useless.

Just mostly.

“Stand still, or I’ll shoot you.”

I froze as my arm was caught from behind. I didn’t have to look; the first man’s horrified expression was enough to tell me the person who had a hold of me was worse than he was.

“I-Ikiya,” he stammered out the name, scrambling to pick his gun up out of the grass.

The man behind me made a sound close to a hiss. “Useless. If you can’t even take care of a simply college boy like this weakling, what use are you to me?”

The henchman’s face froze in a mask of horror. “Ikiya, wait, I can explain.”

He didn’t get a chance to. I was wrenched backward, and the arm that whipped up was close enough to clip my face as the gun went off a few inches from my face. A pained gasp slid out as the loud sound hurt my ears; I knew it was going to be hard to hear for a while. The man’s laugh was muffled, even though his face was right by mine, as we both watched his henchman collapse to the grass next to the poor office assistant.

I couldn’t hear what he said to me, but I could feel the gun press against the back of my head. Ikiya was smarter; he didn’t get close enough for me to lash out at him as he turned me and directed me toward the office building.

I’d been looking forward to it before then. But seeing the group of men waiting by the doors with leering grins on their faces, it didn’t seem nearly as appealing.

Whatever I had been caught up in this time, I just wanted out. I wanted to go back to class and finish the volume I had been reading because that cliffhanger was going to make my head hurt nearly as much as the throbbing in my ears. I certainly didn’t want to be roughed up by a bunch of idiots.

Especially since the certainty that they were going to hurt me to get to Kazuo only grew. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be happy with either of us if that happened, and the last thing I needed was for him to get anywhere near me again.

With a sigh, I let my head hang as I was pushed through the doors. I was, again, caught at the hands of a man who was causing me a life’s worth of trouble. I just hoped Kazuo shot him far enough away from me that his blood wouldn’t splatter on my book.