Name Me
The first day of high school is full of pain and terror - Sawamura knew that much. It's the unfortunate day where he has to try to pretend he isn't a first-year and hope he doesn't have any terrible teachers.
But somehow he didn't expect to be outside the principal's office with a black sharpie in hand.
"Hurry up and do it. Principal Kataoka loves pranks - he'll laugh this off." The voice of the devil, Kuramochi urged him forward with a grin and he stumbled into the room. Weighing his options because yes, Kuramochi humiliated that other kid back there who refused - he quickly ran up to the perfect nametag lying perfectly on that perfect desk and scratched out Principal, replacing it with Kitty.
Kitty Kataoka.
Oh my god, he was dead.
"Damn, only the leaders have messed with Kataoka."
"This kid is insane."
"A new monster has come to this school."
Sawamura should have known that Kuramochi was lying, especially when all of the other freshmen would rather die than go into the office. However, now the dreadful reality of what the consequences were hit him like a horrible nickname.
"You'll be Loser Dog." Jun Isashiki, the secondary leader of the gang, plastered an ugly nametag with ugly handwriting onto the boy next to Sawamura and he heard a few snickers in the shadows of the warehouse.
"I heard that there was one decent kid in this batch." Koichiro Tanba, leader of the gang, sat on top of a vandalized desk in the back of the warehouse. By "this batch", Tanba was referring to the dozens of freshmen that were kidnapped. And by "decent kid", Tanba was probably referring to him.
He didn't make that assumption out of arrogance, he was just the only first-year without an awful nickname. His heart goes out to the poor kid with Kentucky Fried Chicken stuck on his shirt.
When he tried to silently back farther into the shadows, he backed into someone.
"This guy." Kuramochi slung an arm around Sawamura's shoulders. Isashiki eyed him but thankfully didn't come up with something for him yet.
"Name?" Tanba questioned. His voice scared him.
He was about to say Kitty Kataoka - the two words that have been running nonstop in his head the past few hours, but thankfully caught himself.
"Sawamura." He said quietly and kept his eyes off to the side.
"You're the one who messed up Kataoka's nametag. Cleverly, too." Tanba nodded approvingly. Sawamura ran his hand through his hair, not wanting to admit to the crime just in case the Principal or police break into the warehouse to arrest him.
"That was his favorite nametag!" Someone random in the back yelled.
"Shit, the golden one?!" Another person exclaimed and Sawamura just sighed. It was the golden one.
"Shh! Guys, it's coming to me." Isashiki quieted down the background. Sawamura's breath stopped. What's he going to do?
"Puppy... Kicker."
Umm... what.
"Puppy Kicker! It just screams badass." Isashiki patted himself on the back and picked up a nametag. PLEASE NO.
"Wait!" Someone shouted and Isashiki looked back at him. Sawamura thanks everything.
"What about... Fast Balls?" He said seriously. Sawamura is thankful that the name isn't Puppy Kicker anymore but what the actual fuck.
"Guys guys, let's not get too excited. I say we go with Baby Stealer." Another idiot spoke up and Sawamura has finally lost hope for the human race.
It takes a while, but his nickname ended up being Dark Horse which was significantly better than the other ones. He thanks Ryosuke Kominato, a possible ally. He seemed alright.
They're all dismissed afterwards after they go over a bunch of things that Sawamura doesn't really listen to. Luckily it seemed like it was just another group of pranksters. It would be no problem if he just disappeared.
The next day, he enters the school normally with bags under his eyes. He got back home late the other day and didn't sleep too well. Thank god there was almost no homework for the first day of school.
"Dark Horse, my man!" Someone patted him on the back and he whipped around to see a third-year smiling at him. He quickly covered the guy's mouth and pushed him into a locker.
"What are you doing?" Sawamura questioned, looking back and forth.
"What do you mean, Dark Horse? OH! You're worried about the student council hearing your nickname, aren't you?" The guy said and Sawamura wasn't following the conversation.
"You're a first-year, so you might not have seen them yet. All of the student council members wear black and red armbands. Except for Miyuki, I think." He explained and Sawamura still didn't know what's going on.
"What? I don't care. Just - why are you calling me that? Isn't it just a joke?" Sawamura whispered.
"Of course not, silly! I have to get to class, sir. See you around!" The third-year left and Sawamura stood there feeling lost. Sir?
It was already lunch and after many other confusing encounters with tons of other students, Sawamura finally noticed Kuramochi lounging at one of the tables. Quickly, he sped over there and shook him.
"We need to talk." He said gravely and Kuramochi laughed.
"Sounds like you want to confess or something but sorry I'm taken, Sawamura." He replied winking and Sawamura is too glad not to be called Dark Horse that he just pulled harder.
"Explain, please." Sawamura pleaded when they turned a corner into an abandoned hallway.
"Explain what, hmm?" Kuramochi leaned back against a locker and put his hands in his pockets.
"Explain why upperclassmen are calling me Dark Horse." Sawamura glared, not in the mood to fall for the other's teasing.
"Because they know the rules. You've been promoted." Kuramochi pulled a lollipop out of his pocket and unwrapped it.
"Promoted? Why are you calling me by my actual name then?" Sawamura had so many questions and Kuramochi was avoiding nearly all of them.
"Awh that's adorable - you think I'm a lower rank than you. Please, writing on the Principal's golden nametag is nothing to me." Kuramochi rolled his eyes, lollipop now in his mouth.
"I quit this game. I won't mention it to anyone so bye." Sawamura started running back to the cafeteria, but somehow Kuramochi had an arm around his waist before he could get far. Drawing close to his ear, Kuramochi sighed.
"Aha, no. You can't. Sorry but that's how it goes. Try it and I'll slowly harass you until you come crawling back." He whispered dangerously and a shiver went down Sawamura's spine.
"It's happened plenty of times. At least you're not at the bottom." He went ahead in the direction of the cafeteria leaving Sawamura behind.
"You drop the nickname in a month, so live with it until then kay?" And with that, Kuramochi was out of sight. When Sawamura went back into the cafeteria, Kuramochi was already gone along with his group of buddies.
Sawamura knew there were solutions to this yet somehow, they were falling flat. Talking to a teacher might end up ruining his reputation at school and normally they couldn't help anyway. Changing schools would trouble his parents and didn't work either.
It was all just a fun prankster group with a weird ranking policy. So basically... too much effort for a small issue.
He would have this mindset until he was packing up after his last class. Right outside the door he noticed a group of students. He was planning to ditch the next meeting and pretend that he forgot where the warehouse was, but of course Kuramochi wouldn't let that slide. At least he assumed this was Kuramochi's doing.
Without thinking it over because he didn't want to be the last one out of the classroom - he ducked into a group of students and used them to get out. They didn't notice him, but another group near the stairway did. They called out to the group he had just ditched and they all started to chase him.
He sprinted across the hall, but the group following was cautious to not attract the attention of teachers so he was forced to duck into the farthest staircase. He wasn't here long enough to figure out where this random staircase led, but he assumed going down would get him somewhere. Footsteps echoed in the hallway and he decided to leave the staircase through the third floor.
Pulling the door open and rushing out, he looked back and didn't see anyone following anymore. Suddenly, he bumped into someone. Instead of falling back on his bottom like in the movies, arms wrapped around him and grabbed him.
"Running in the halls already, first-year?" A melodic voice mocked teasingly and Sawamura could judge by his tone that he wasn't serious. No "Dark Horse" and no black and red armband either. After all of the things he had gone through these past two days, there was no time to make any real friends. He spent a few seconds breathing heavily and clutching onto the warm figure.
"You alright? I'm Miyuki." The boy said after a while and Sawamura jumped back, trying to stop his face from heating up. He should've answered that no he was not okay, he was being chased by lunatics that called him Dark Horse including someone that was planning to slowly harass him if he didn't join their gang of crazies that had criminally terrible naming sense. But he didn't.
"Ye- Um.. yeah. I'm okay. I. Uh. Yeah." Sawamura covered his mouth when his voice awkwardly cracked and he finally looked up to see a handsome, charming face greet him. And he sort of felt like relying on this complete stranger to protect him forever.
"Wait a second, did you get lost? This school isn't that big!" Miyuki laughed obnoxiously loud and Sawamura immediately wanted to take everything back. What a jerk! If only he ran into some nice nurse that could let him sleep in her office.
"I didn't get lost! I was just-" Sawamura froze.
"You were just what?" Miyuki's abruptly stopped laughing and his eyes darkened knowingly. Did this stranger just trap him into telling him what was wrong or was he thinking too hard about it? A surge of pride told him that he didn't need help dealing with this.
Silently, Miyuki reached up to his neck and swiped the back of his hand along it. Sawamura jerked back and before he could ask, Miyuki tilted his head curiously.
"Why are you sweating?"
Sawamura was about to come up with an excuse when he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He snapped his head around. Nobody familiar - just an approaching group of girls. He sighed in relief, but soon realized that he was being too obvious. When he turned back, Miyuki seemed to know even more.
Why was he always one step ahead?
"I was worried about the student council finding me. I kind of just vandalized about err... three walls and I thought I saw one of them coming." Sawamura laughed and pulled at his hair. Miyuki began smiling widely and something seemed wrong. Please say that he wasn't some freak that hated the writing on walls - Sawamura could've wrote something extremely motivational on the inside of a bathroom door for those crying first-years in the same situation as him - how would he know?
"What's your name?" Miyuki inquired. Sawamura didn't really want to get in trouble so his eyes glanced to the wall of names displayed next to them.
"Tetsuya Yuki." He replied smoothly. Wow, he was so smooth at lying. There should be an award for this kind of thing.
"I feel like I've heard that name before." Miyuki's smile widened again and Sawamura almost thought he saw Miyuki's eyes flicker to the wall, but it was probably his paranoid imagination.
"It's pretty common." Sawamura smiled back. Miyuki looked down at his watch.
"Well, I should be going. See you around?" Miyuki put a hand on his shoulder, gave him a tiny squeeze and then turned around to leave. He let out a withheld breath. Crisis averted.
It took a long time for Sawamura to realize that the hallway had tons of students talking and his mind seemed to come back to him right when Miyuki had left. This was a school not a haunted house, after all.
"Excuse me." The group of girls that he had seen before walked up to him. They were standing there this whole time?
"Uh, yes?" Sawamura asked and they giggled.
"Do you know Miyuki-san?" Their eyes shined admiringly and Sawamura found it weird that they thought he knew him. He had first-year written all over him.
"Why would you think I knew him?" He asked. They deflated a little.
"Because you were just talking to him. He doesn't really talk to anyone outside the student council." One of them responded. His eyes widened.
"What?"
"It's written right there." They pointed to the wall. He looked at it and died inside.
Student Council
President: Tetsuya Yuki
Vice President: Chris Yuu Takigawa
Kazuya Miyuki
A few other names were written underneath but his brain stopped functioning after seeing Miyuki's name there. Not only did he obviously and stupidly lie about his name, he also said that he vandalized three innocent walls.
It was going to be a long year and suddenly, transferring seemed like a really good idea.
Heyyy! :D Ace of Diamond is a really lovable anime with lovable characters and I wanted to add some humor, crack and super hot yaoi to the fandom here. This is solely based on the anime and there won't be any spoilers. See you around? ^^