"Let me go!"
Her voice pierces the air. Misaki shoves Igarashi away and rolls off the desk. Her back hits the floor, and the impact knocks the breath out of her. She struggles to her feet, but he grabs the lace of the stupid skirt and she topples forward and slams into the ground again.
"Nice try, Misaki-Chan," He stands over her, a smirk on his face. "But you're just like all the other girls when it comes down to, you know? You're weak, just like them."
"I am not weak!" She scrambles up, but he slams a fist into her stomach and she crumples. Before she can regain her senses, he hauls her up and shoves her back against the wall again. He towers over her. When she tries to duck around him, he kicks her in the side and she collapses.
"I'm definitely not transferring here now," she snarls, panting. "Let me go."
He laughs. Just a laugh. No words.
His laughter almost physically hurts.
Yen covers the ground around them. Her fingers slip over a bill. She manages to sit up, stares into his eyes. He smirks right back at her.
"Let me go," she whispers.
"I want to hear you say please."
"Bastard!"
She lashes out, but he catches her wrist, grabs a hunk of hair, and uses it to bash her head against the wall. Pain radiates through her. Every nerve screams. When she can see again, he has a pair of scissors in his right hand.
"That haircut is too pretty for a slut like you," he says.
"Let me go," she says groggily, but he traces her neck with the scissors. She feels the sharp blade graze her skin, and freezes.
"That's a good girl," Igarashi mutters, and proceeds to chop at her long black hair until it topples down her bare shoulders and falls to the floor.
"Stop!" she cries out. He finishes cutting her hair, leaves her with a matted, short, ugly cut. His scissors touch her cheek, draw blood. "Stop!" Blood trails over her jawbone, trickles past her collarbone as he traces a line in blood. "Please stop!"
"That's exactly what I wanted," he whispers. He tosses the scissors behind his back. They clatter across the floor. She fixes her eyes on them. Two dozen feet, less.
"You can't get them. I'll kill you. I'll kill you!" He punches her eye, and she cries out. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you!"
And he hits her and hits her until she curls up on the floor, struggling to breathe. Her vision fades, grows stronger, fades again. Everything throbs. She aches everywhere. She tries to whisper, but her voice cracks.
He steps back. She stares at the ground. Her fists clench.
She springs to her feet, almost buckles under the agony, and darts for the scissors.
She lunges forward, snatches them up. Igarashi shoots out a hand to capture her, and she stabs the blades through his palm, pins his hand to the floor.
She screams at loud as she can as she struggles towards the door, wails bloody murder. She hits the door, panting heavily. Blood smears her hands as she grapples with the doorknob. Locked! Damn it, damn it, damn it! She screams, kicks the door, thrusts all her weight against the door-
"That was a really bad move."
She turns to watch Igarashi rise to his feet. He picks up the scissors, examines them for a few seconds, then licks the blood off the blades.
"Now I'm really pissed."
XXXX
She watches him out of the corner of her eye. He stands up, but she takes no interest. She's too numb to feel fear.
Every breath hurts her ribs. He cracked them an hour ago, swung a metal three-hole puncher into her side. She breaths shallow.
There's a pain between her legs, a pain she doesn't want to acknowledge, so she doesn't think about it.
It feels like her entire world has collapsed to just Igarashi and his scissors.
"Just say it once."
He stands over her, holding the scissors up.
He kneels down next to her. She's naked. He trails his fingers over her stomach.
"Just once."
"No," she breathes.
His expression darkens.
"Say it or you'll be sorry."
She looks away.
XXXX
He beats her again, and this time she ends up slumped over in the chair. The desk is still covered with money, but she doesn't even process it anymore.
He stands in front of the desk, leaning over, scissors in one hand. He uses the hand that holds the shivers to trace her bruised and cut cheek.
"Just say it once," he says. "And it'll be okay."
She says nothing, just looks down at the desk. Her breath rasps in her lungs.
"Just say it once, and I'll let it go."
She looks up.
Her eyes meet his.
"Master," she whispers.
He laughs.
XXXX
He was lying when he said calling him master would get him to let her go. He rapes her again, makes say "Master" the entire time.
XXXX
When Igarashi finally pulls his clothes back on and unlocks the door, it's dark out. He gives her a sweatshirt of his, and it's big enough on her to go halfway down to her knees.
"Please reconsider transferring to Miyabigaoka," he says.
"I hate you," She rasps, and her voice comes out as the softest whisper.
"Sure you do," he says. "Explain why you liked it so much."
"I hated it, and I hate you," She raises her volume, somehow.
"Sure you did, Misaki-Chan," he says, and kisses her on the cheek. She recoils.
He laughs again, the laugh that sends chills down her spine.
She turns and limps out of the school.
XXXX
Usui finds her outside of the school. He slouches in an alleyway close by, arms crossed.
"So," he says bitterly. "You have fun with the pres-" He stops when he sees her. "Misaki?"
She tries to hobble past him, but he grabs her arm.
"What did he do to you?" he snarls. "What did that bastard do to you?"
"Let go," She whispers. Her knees barely hold up. "Please, Master. Please."
"Misaki?" He starts to tremble. He pulls her close to him. Her instincts scream at his touch. "We're going to the police," he says. "It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay, okay?" He seems to be reassuring himself. "We're going to the police, and then I'm going to rip that motherfucker from limb to limb."
"Let go of me." She knows she's can't writhe away – please don't hurt me I won't try to escape I'll do whatever you say please don't hurt me – but she wants to, god, she wants to. "Please, let go of me!"
"Misaki, I won't hurt you-"
"Let go of me!" She can't help it, starts to struggle. Wrenches herself from his grasp. She sprints down the alleyway, anything to get away from him.
He grabs her, wraps his arms around her waist. "It's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay-"
"Please! Please! Master! Please! Don't touch me!"
XXXX
The police don't let her shower until they get samples from her, listen to speak, interview her. Usui repeats over and over again, "Doesn't matter how much money that bastard has, he's going to burn, he's going to rot in jail- " The police have to warn him that attacking Igarashi will make it even harder to convict him.
She doesn't care if he's convicted or not. She just wants to go home and sleep.
Everyone tells her it's okay to cry, it's okay to let loose. They don't understand why she doesn't cry, and she doesn't explain that she cried enough in front of Igarashi. She can't cry anymore.
Besides, her mother and sister and friends from school and the café cry enough for her when they're called. Sakura finds out about her secret job, but the sobbing girl doesn't care she's been lied to. She just hugs at Misaki and cries herself to sleep.
She hears that Igarashi has been arrested, but it barely registers.
They take her to the hospital, run some tests, drug her up.
It's all over the news. A rich son is arrested for raping a high school girl? The press can't get enough of it.
They display her name, of course, so everyone knows what happened to her.
Usui cries too, more than she could have thought possible.
XXXX
Apparently, she mumbles "Master, stop," in her sleep.
XXXX
When she wakes up after the fifth or sixth (?) day in the hospital, what seems like hundreds of flowers and paper cranes surround her bed.
She can reason now, she can think things through, so she doesn't start to hyperventilate when she sees Usui at the foot of her bed, leaning his forehead in the blankets.
He looks up when she moves. The tear streaks staining his cheeks have mostly faded.
"You're awake," he rasps.
She doesn't say anything, because it doesn't warrant an answer.
She knows Usui isn't Igarashi, he won't hurt her.
The rational part of her mind knows it at least. She's not sure she's rational anymore.
"Everyone visited."
He holds up a paper crane.
"These mean you should get well soon."
She closes her eyes.
She senses him standing over her. His lips touch her forehead.
Igarashi kissed her forward. Back then.
She cringes.
He pulls away.
"I'm sorry," he says, and it doesn't help anything.
XXXX
She's in the hospital for over a month. Her mother and sister come every day, and her school friends and friends from the café visit often.
Usui is there every day after school until the nurse kicks him out. He helps her with homework, tells her about updates from school. He cooks her delicious food and brings it to her in cute wrapped boxes, and even though her throat hurts for a while, she still eats it because of the anxious expression on his face.
He can't touch her, though. She won't let him.
"It's okay," he tells her after one month. "You're going to be okay."
She looks at her fingers, curls them and uncurls them. Igarashi snapped her fingers, back then. Now she can move them as if they've never been injured.
"I hope so," she says. But she really doesn't hope for anything anymore.
She doesn't talk much to other people. She tries to talk to him, because he's always there.
He falls asleep with his head next to her hip, kneeling next to her bed.
His sleeping expression almost makes her want to hug him.
Her nightmares aren't too bad that night.
XXXX
She testifies against Igarashi in court a week before she goes back to school.
He's convicted – barely.
Because he's a minor, and because he's rich, he gets six months in juvie. He will be released on his eighteen birthday with a clean slate.
She doesn't say anything on her taxi drive back home (the hospital released her that day). Usui rants all the way back on the injustice of the system, how the bastard should rot.
XXXX
She cries that night in her room, for the first time since the rape. Her mother finds her sobbing beneath her sheets, comes in and just holds her.
Misaki can't speak for a few minutes. And then she finds the strength to hug her mother back.
XXXX
Everyone watches her as she walks down the hallways. Misaki shifts her bag over her shoulders, straps pressing against her spine.
She feels like a stranger in her own school.
Same lights, same groaning air conditioner, same uniform no one can ever seem to button properly.
She steps into room 2-2.
Everyone is silent when she enters.
The teacher doesn't seem to know what to say (she's five minutes late, because she got anxiety outside the school and had to breath deeply to calm down).
Someone says, tentatively, "Hey, pres."
She opens her mouth, and no sound comes out. She tries again, "Hey." Barely audibly – but definitely a greeting.
She doesn't turn around to see who it is. She can't.
And someone else mutters, "Dumb bitch finally got what she deserved."
Absolute silence. The teacher doesn't say anything, just stares at his chalkboard and tries to scrape out the day's assignments.
She's frozen.
Can't focus, can't think.
Igarashi's words. "Explain why you liked it so much."
"I didn't like it," she whispers now.
And right in front of the entire class, she hunches over and starts to cry. Her hot breath heats her hands. She covers her face. Saltwater stains her scarred cheeks.
Someone punches the boy who called her a dumb bitch.
Then a boy says, "It's gonna be okay, pres."
And everyone joins in. "It's going to be okay." "We're so glad you're okay." "We love you, president." "Igarashi is going to hell." "You're the most amazing person in the world to me."
She doesn't know who gets up first. Someone's arms wrap around her. A boy's. She doesn't stiffen – she's too afraid.
Then they pile around her in a Misaki Hug, still calling out their reassurances. Warm arms press around her. Sakura gets them all to back off, so they won't scare her. She cries into a boy's arms. He must be a new transfer, because she doesn't even know his name.
She relaxes. Sort of.
XXXX
"I acted like such a pathetic wimp."
She stares out at the city below. Wind whips through her hair.
"You're not a pathetic wimp," Usui says with a sad smile on his face.
"I acted like a girl."
"You are a girl."
He stands next to her, his hand close enough to brush hers.
"Igarashi's right," She says without looking at him. "I'm exactly like all the others."
He doesn't say anything.
"I break down and cry. I do whatever he says, as long as he doesn't hurt me."
"Self-preservation isn't a bad thing," he says.
"But I cried."
"You're hurt, Misaki."
He reaches out and touches her hair. When she doesn't flinch away, he runs his fingers through the short locks.
"It's okay to cry."
"I don't want to act like such a girl." She closes her eyes.
"There's nothing wrong with being a girl."
"People can hurt you when you're a girl," she whispers, opens her eyes. "You could hurt me."
He draws his hand back. "I would never."
"I know."
Neither of them speak for a few minutes.
"Anyone can be hurt," he says finally. "Doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl. Anyone can be hurt." His gaze meets hers. "And anyone can heal, too. No one's completely broken."
Their hands touch.
"And I still beautiful?" she asks.
He takes her in, with her shorn hair and haunted eyes and scar-laced skin and bones that stick out because she hasn't eaten right in a month.
"You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
She reaches her arms out. He stares at her.
'Please," she whispers. "I need you to hold me right now."