Training camp was followed the very next day by compulsory make-up lessons, attended by all except for Yasutomo. The moment his absence dawned on Yuusuke, a strange emptiness crept inside his chest. However, his penmanship and listening skills mysteriously improved for the next several hours, until he managed to produce a stack of notes fit even for others to read… and one person in particular…
"Man, I'm so beat," yawned Tadokoro as they left the classroom at last. "Saturday classes are the worst!"
"How would you know, sho? You slept through most of them, Tadokorocchi."
Tadokoro clicked his tongue, then flashed a good-humored smile.
"I knew I could count on you and Kinjou to pay attention where I couldn't," he winked at Yuusuke. "Care to share your notes with me?"
"I'm.. I guess you can have a copy… I was going to photocopy them anyway, sho…" Yuusuke scratched his cheek.
"Oh? Were you planning to give a copy to Arakita-kun, then?" chimed in an oblivious, smiling Kinjou. Yuusuke choked.
"I-It's only because he's an idiot and got himself sick, sho! If he had been here and slept through class, I wouldn't have bothered at all! What makes you think I would?! I'm just being responsible! It's not weird to bring him notes when he's sick, is it?!"
"No, it's.. normal…" mumbled Kinjou as Tadokoro turned away to hide his grin, not to risk ending up with no notes at all.
Once Yuusuke made two copies and relinquished one to Tadokoro, he excused himself and hurried off to the dorm, cheeks pink and his heart hammering. Courage, Yuusuke..! he spurred himself on his way to the first floor… where he promptly froze as he harked back to yesterday's bizarre discovery.
Hot coils of incense fume wafted through the air, spouted by a burner placed on one side of what he believed might be Yasutomo's door. A few students sat on floor pillows nearby, a cooler beside them, all activities suspended as they hung their eyes on Yuusuke like sentries. Yuusuke cleared his throat, squinting from the smoke scratching at his eyes.
"Um, I'm here to see Arakita Yasutomo, sho. I brought him class notes, sho…"
Their eyes narrowed, as if struggling to decipher his words. Yuusuke swallowed.
"We're in the same club, sho. The road racing club? I'm Makishima.. Yuusuke, sho…"
They now exchanged glances and murmurs. One nodded and the others shrugged, apprehensive.
"Good luck," they gestured to the door. Yuusuke tensed, but closed the distance, insides squirming. He paused at the sight of a large, handmade disease recovery charm dangling from the doorknob, the biggest omamori he had ever seen.
"Arakita..?" he knocked, cracking the door ajar. "It's me.. I brought—"
A sudden shove and Yuusuke stumbled aside as feeble protests broke out behind his back. His eyes widened at a pompadoured yankee in a decorated jacket, sneering at him.
"Outta my way," the guy kicked Yasutomo's door open and marched in, ignoring Yuusuke and the growing commotion outside.
"You must be the Youkai," the intruder towered over his bed as Yasutomo lurched upward like a flimsy rag doll. "I gotta say, I expected someone tough, not a snot-nosed first-year brat! You know who I am, boy? I'm second-year Oginawara Takeshi, the Scourge of Sohoku, and I'm sick and tired of everyone comparing meto a little shithead like you. They said you went away this week to get stronger, but look at you! Crushing you right now will be like squashing a cockroach…!"
"…ass," murmured Yasutomo. Oginawara's nostrils flared.
"What did you say?!" he leaned in, menacing. Yasutomo's teeth flashed.
"I SAID,DON'T GET AHEAD OF YOURSELF, DUMBASS!"he howled, and all Yuusuke saw from his cover was Yasutomo's former pitching arm bolting high as Oginawara reeled backwards and collapsed against the opposite wall. Crimson drool oozed onto the floor, pooling around a cracked wisdom tooth that no longer required surgical removal.
Yasutomo lowered his arm to half mast, fist still clenched and eyes raining lightning as he rose from the bed. Oginawara cowered, writhing.
"You think just 'cause I'm feeling under the weather, you can come to my turf and disrespect me, huh?!" Yasutomo took the floor, voice shrill as barbed wire. "I eat petty scum like you for a snack, 'cause you're the lowest link in the goddamn food chain, you're nothing! I was once like you for a week, tops, and then I changed my mind and now I'm powerful, while you're just a greasy pompadour and a fractured jaw! How do you like that comparison, huh?!"
Oginawara whimpered, a hand cradling his bloated cheek. Yasutomo dropped his fist.
"Be glad that's all you got this time, Oginawara. Consider this your chance to redeem yourself someday. Now you clean that mess off my floor and get outta here… and if you set one more toe out of line in this school, I'll bury you where no one'll come looking. You hear me? Huh?"
Oginawara slipped a trembling hand into his jacket. After a long moment, he tugged out a white linen handkerchief, dabbing at the floor till the tooth and splatters were gone. He then shambled into the hallway, past the sentries and down the stairs, to the nearest hospital.
Silence fell, then Yuusuke heard a series of gasps - Yasutomo dry-heaving. In a moment, the sentries rushed into his room.
"You were incredible, Youkai!" "Do you need medicine, Youkai?" "Here's a Bepsi!" "Do you want anything else, Youkai?"
"This'll do… I need to rest now.. off you go…" slurred Yasutomo. They fidgeted.
"Um, Youkai..?"
"What."
"Someone else is here to see you…"
Yuusuke poked his head in. Yasutomo twitched.
"Makishima?!" he blurted. Yuusuke flushed.
"I.. I brought you notes, but maybe I should leave, sho…"
"N-No, no, come in..!" Yasutomo shifted, making room on the bed. "Sit, okay..?"
The sentries gave Yuusuke awed glances as they closed the door. Yasutomo sighed.
"I should.. probably explain, huh."
Yuusuke nodded, then scooted next to him, heart humming.
The power of suggestion, Yasutomo found, was a force to be reckoned with.
After all, it was the suggestion of having become useless to his middle-school team that spurred Yasutomo to throw his equipment in the trash and strip his room of all baseball paraphernalia, until it yawned eerily devoid of passion or personality, a perfect resemblance of its hollow, burned out owner.
It was the suggestion that mere bicycles could easily outstrip a moped on downward slopes that consumed Yasutomo's addled mind, until he found himself wandering inside Cycle Shop Kanzaki to stare inquisitively at drop handlebars and slick carbon frames.
It was Miki-chan's suggestion that a strong will and a perfectly matched road racer could take even a has-been like Yasutomo to the top that had him calling his parents within the hour, willing to sacrifice his beloved moped for a second chance and a brand new Bianche. (In turn, enthralled by his excitement, his mother told Yasutomo to consider it his late birthday gift, and keep the moped. Work hard, son..!)
And finally, it was the suggestion that Yasutomo possessed, by his razor voice and feral looks, greater power than your average high-schooler that convinced Yamada Yasuhiro, an easily impressionable first-year, that Arakita Yasutomo harbored a dangerous demon, who had to be appeased before he might destroy the Sohoku dorms.
In hindsight, it was probably wrong of an enraged Yasutomo to howl, in the middle of the hallway on the very night he moved in,
"IF YOU BASTARDS DON'T SIMMER DOWN SO I CAN GET SOME REST, SO HELP ME I WILL BURN THIS ENTIRE DORM TO THE GROUND! YOU CAN YELL AND MAKE NOISE ALL YOU WANT, ONCE WE'RE DOWN IN HELL!"
Unsurprisingly, the rumors started shortly after that.
"He's not human." "I'm telling you, he's a youkai!" "Shut up, he'll hear you..!" they whispered to each other whenever Yasutomo passed by, as if he couldn't smell their terror from miles away.
Don't worry, he thought to himself on his second night, I will drop out soon enough anyway…
But then that impromptu race down the school's super slope happened. On his way back from buying groceries, Cycle Shop Kanzaki and Miki-chan happened… and on the fourth night, Yasutomo returned with freshly purchased road racing equipment, including a bicycle helmet that refused to fit over his hair.
"Oi, you bastards!" Yasutomo stepped outside, all attention fixed on him at once. "Anyone got scissors?"
"W-What kind?" someone mumbled. Yasutomo shrugged.
"Any. Large ones if you got 'em. You got 'em or not?!"
In a moment, Yamada scrambled off and brought a pair of brand new craft scissors.
"H-Here, Youkai..!" he held them out, then yelped as Yasutomo snatched them away, brow quirked.
"I'll be right back," he slammed the door in their faces, scissors snapping.
Ten minutes later, Yasutomo stepped out choppily sheared and remarkably relaxed. The others gawked.
"Are you alright..?" mumbled Yamada, eyes fixed on Yasutomo's forehead.
"I feel powerful," replied Yasutomo.
They nodded, shivering.
Yasutomo merely referred to having taken another step towards a brighter future, of course. However, to a hive mind already infected with superstition, the Youkai apparently declared that he had breached the seal of his infernal power by cutting off Arakita Yasutomo's horn, as Yamada used to call his pointed pompadour. Having hacked his mortal host, the demon had finally become unbound, and unless they managed to appease the Youkai, it was only a matter of time before the Sohoku dorms went up in flames of vengeance.
The next day, right after classes, Yasutomo got his first taste of Shiraiwa's punishment-driven regimen for delinquent amateurs. After two hours on the rollers and three laps around the road racing club's regular short-distance course, he returned to the dorm drenched in sweat and smouldering… to find a large group of dormmates, all ages and genders, fidgeting by his door.
"What. What do you want," muttered Yasutomo, exhausted to the point where his reaction fell from blood must flow, to more curious than annoyed.
"What do you want from us, Youkai?" Yamada stepped forward, his hands clasped around a burning candle. Yasutomo quirked his brow. "How can we appease you?"
"I want a Bepsi," Yasutomo replied without missing a beat. "A cold one."
Murmurs broke out. "Get the Youkai a Bepsi!" "Do you have any change?" "How much?!"
One of the guys hurried off with a fistful of change. Yasutomo whirled around.
"It had better be a Bepsi!" he shouted after the delivery boy. "You bring me a Cole and I'll kill you!"
He soon received an ice cold Bepsi, and downed it in one draught as they watched, trembling in anticipation.
"Aaah, this hit the spot," purred Yasutomo, his features finally mellow. They sighed, relieved.
"Are you pleased, Youkai?" "Shall we bring more, Youkai?"
"Do whatever you want," Yasutomo scratched at his scalp. "But I'm gonna take a bath now, so don't bother me. Oh! And one more thing…"
They stared at him, breath held. Yasutomo forced his features calm.
"I don't mind this thing you've got going on here. It's all in good fun, right? But you had better not be doing any of this shit at school. You got that? What's my real name, huh?"
"Arakita Yasutomo," they replied as one. Yasutomo's shoulders slackened.
"Good. That's my name while I'm in class, is that clear? You call me anything else while I'm at school and I'll kill you. During normal hours, I'm just Arakita Yasutomo."
"Can we refer to you as the Youkai if we don't reveal your true identity?" asked someone from the crowd. Yasutomo gave him a look.
"You trying to find loopholes, pal?" he bared his teeth. "You wanna go, huh?!"
The crowd twitched backwards as fear burst from them like a tidal wave of raw sewage. Yasutomo rubbed his nose, then grabbed the doorknob, eyes pinched shut.
"Just don't do anything stupid, you bastards. I'm finally on track, and no one's gonna take this from me."
As per his request, everyone gave Yasutomo a wide berth while he was at the bath. However, the very moment he stepped out in a shirt and shorts, he bumped into two students on their way to the kitchen.
"Watch it!" Yasutomo snapped at them, then blinked as he noticed their cargo. "..What you got there? Eggs..?"
"Y-Yeah," breathed one of the boys, cradling the carton to his chest. "W-We wanted something to go with our rice, and eggs should be pretty easy to—"
"Haaah?!" Yasutomo leaned in, eyes flashing. "What's this about eggs being easy? Are you underestimating eggs?!"
"N-No, Youkai!" they bleated, hands trembling. Yasutomo snatched the carton away.
"Nice pair of dumbasses you are!" he growled as they clutched their heads in terror. "Just 'cause eggs are simple things, you think you can't fuck up, huh? I bet you thought, hey, we'll just stick 'em in boiling water and call it a day! Are you stupid?! You wanna eat stringy, joyless eggs, huh?!"
"WE'RE SO SORRY!" they slammed onto the floor, palms on the ground. Yasutomo clicked his tongue.
"Well, you're in luck, you bastards," he carried on, softer than before. "I'm kinda hungry myself, so I'll show you how it's done."
Yasutomo then shuffled past them to the kitchen, where he set to work three eggs at a time, until he produced two plates of soft, runny scrambled eggs.
"Oi, you bastards! Your eggs are—" he turned around, to find over a dozen guys hovering by the dinner table, eyes large and chopsticks ready. "…done…"
Stunned, Yasutomo slowly pushed the plates towards them, watching in growing frustration as they picked them clean within seconds.
"There's too many of you bastards!" he brandished his spatula. "There's no way ten eggs are gonna be enough!"
"We can get more, Youkai!" a boy raised his hand. Yasutomo groaned.
"Well, get them then so I can keep cooking!"
With that, Yasutomo turned around to fix another plate… then another, and another, until he had made scrambled eggs no less than ten times. Just as he finished the sixth batch, a new carton appeared seemingly out of thin air, and by the time Yasutomo claimed the last portion for himself, the number of people fed went from the original two, to a total of twenty-four, including five girls from the neighboring building.
A few hours later, everyone retired with the conviction that they had been blessed by the Youkai… and the power of suggestion increased tenfold.
By morning, Yamada's acne vanished, Fujiwara found his missing keys, and Miyasaki's breasts grew an entire inch. Awestruck dormmates roamed the halls everywhere, whispering of dreamless sleep, weight loss, newfound inspiration, and good news from home.
Some cried. All rejoiced… and none doubted anymore.
That evening, when Yasutomo returned to the dorm from training, he found an offering by his door, covered in thank you notes: a brand new cooler stuffed with ice packs and cold bottles of Bepsi, conveniently restocked whenever Yasutomo took some.