Ring! The school bell ended the day. Yamashita Masato opened up his yearbook and placed a black Sharpie on its open spine. He listened to all the buzz around him with one hand on the small whiteboard in his lap and the other holding two dry-erase markers, one red, one black.
"How're you doing, Masato?" His girlfriend, Amami Emi, walked up to the boy's desk.
The boy opened up his black marker and wrote 'depressed, as usual' on his board.
"Mind if I sign your yearbook?"
His response was to pick up the Sharpie and hold it out to his only friend.
"Thanks. Here you can sign mine." She took her yearbook out of her bag and swapped it with the one on the desk. He took the sharpie and started writing. Things like 'Thanks for being there for me' and 'I'll miss you' in it, finally ending with, 'Love you, Yamashita Masato'. He handed her back her yearbook. She placed his back on his desk.
"You're moving today, aren't you?" He nodded with his white board. "I wish I could go with you, but I need to stay here for the last year of high school. I'll find you. Or, better yet, you'll find me." Another nod with the whiteboard. "I love you." She leaned forward, her lips puckered. He reached up to give her a light kiss before the other kids started snickering. She left with one final goodbye, leaving him there with a bunch of kids who ignored him.
Masato sighed and packed up his stuff. He went out of the room and hung a left, heading towards the exit. Before he got even halfway there, he heard a commotion down another hallway. He turned to see his girlfriend being surrounded by a bunch of the muscle-type kids of the school. They were saying things like Insanity and creep. Masato dropped his things and crept silently behind them. They were about to beat her up.
Before he knew it, his fist was connecting with the side of the spokesman's head. The man fell like a ragdoll. The other dudes milled around in confusion. Masato stepped up and gave Emi a kiss on her cheek. She gasped, before recovering her composure.
"That was his doing right there," she said to the creeps. They just stared at her.
"I don't believe you," said one of the bigger thugs.
"Hit him," said Emi. Masato punched the kid in the nose, feeling it break. Blood squirted out of it and onto his hand. He held it out as if it was a lighted torch, and the other kids fastened their eyes onto it. One of the smarter, more witty ones looked somewhere by the boys left ear and spoke.
"So, how is it like to be our resident dead kid?"
