Hey everyone!

So I know I said I would update on the 19th but then I realised how dumb that was considering I have the next chapter already written so I thought I would give you the next chapter before I went away. The next update will definitely be on the 19th though!

Thank you so much for all your follows and favourites!

Rated T: language.

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Enjoy!


Chapter Three

Mia did not like Atsushi-kun's friend. She did not like him at all.

He was smart, beautiful, athletic and handsome and she would probably have a hopeless, humiliating crush on him if he weren't so fishy.

"I'm telling you, Akane-chan, there is something off about him," she gravely told her best and, other than Murasakibara, only friend, glaring darkly at Himuro Tatsuya across the cafeteria.

The teenager in question sat with the rest of the basketball team at a table by one of the grand, arched windows that let the bright winter sun bathe the cafeteria in a kind, yellow glow. He seemed not to notice that Mia was trying to murder him through sheer willpower alone as he listened to whatever that guy Okamura was animatedly blabbering on about.

"Oh yeah," Yamamoto Akane drawled sarcastically, "you can see the evil glint in his eyes even from this distance. Look at him, eating dinner and having friends – what a monster."

Mia shot her dark haired friend an unimpressed look, "you laugh now but when this school is in ruin and Atsushi-kun is lying in a pool of his own blood, don't say I didn't warn you."

Akane snorted, rolling her eyes and scoffing lightly at Mia. Mia childishly stuck her tongue out at her in retaliation before going back to her meal, pushing all thoughts of Murasakibara's annoying babysitter from her mind. She had better things to do. It's not like she actually had to deal with him.

Mia was painfully wrong.


The day after the incident in the gym was the beginning of the end. Mia had been going about her day, blissfully and ignorantly unaware of the horrors she would soon have to face, horrors that came in the form of Himuro Tatsuya's polite smile and arrogant eyes.

She made her way through the library, carefully winding around the city of desks and towering bookshelves that twisted around the cavernous space. She hated the library. It was dark, cold, smelled terrible and, most of all, it was silent. Mia didn't like it when it was quiet.

But Akane had told her to meet her there after lunch, so Mia had no choice but to go, shuddering at the suffocating silence and musty smell. Her light footsteps made soft thumps on the carpeted floor and even that was enough for the other students to send her bloodshot glares of pure loathing, like goblins dragged hissing and spitting into the daylight. See, this, this was why she hated the place. She couldn't even breathe without someone trying to kill her with their eyes.

By nature, Mia was loud. She hated sitting still and she hated having to keep quiet. She liked to listen to music while she worked, liked to hum and fidget, pace and groan, fiddle with whatever was in front of her. She was sure that if she did any of that in the library they would never find her body. Damn, Akane, you're lucky I love you, she thought as she braved the terrors of the shadow realm that was the World History corner.

She dumped her stuff on the first free desk, shooting her own very potent glare at the first person that even tried to give her a dirty look for the slight disturbance. The third year hastily looked away and Mia visibly brightened in satisfaction.

She tried to do her literature assignment but quickly got bored and instead stared doodling in the corner of her binder. She wondered what was for dinner. Yaki Soba? Or Gyudon? Or maybe it would be Sukiyaki?! She could almost taste it, almost smell it. Her stomach grumbled.

She had not been waiting for long when Akane breathlessly slumped into the seat next to her, panting and very sweaty.

"Ew," Mia whined, wrinkling her nose at her and edging away, dragging her books as well so Akane didn't drip sweat onto them.

Akane huffed before her lips turned up in a sly smile, her onyx eyes lighting to a dark brown as she draped herself all over Mia, making sure to rub her sweaty cheeks all over Mia's face. Mia went into fits, desperately scrambling away from Akane's death grip and trying to scoot her chair across the wooden floor. It made that grating, screeching noise that felt like some terrifying creature of the night was dragging a sharp talon down her back, like nails on a chalkboard.

The two girls froze in tandem at the loud, jarring sound that dared to disrupt the still, quiet air of The Demon's territory, holding painfully still, not even breathing. They knew what was coming.

And sure enough, like a bat summoned from hell, the librarian materialised from the shadows in front of them and whispered in a voice that promised eternal torment, "get out."

They didn't need to be told twice as they tripped all over each other in their panicked attempt to escape the librarian's wrath, speeding out of there like Hades himself was on their trail. They slumped against the wall in the hallway outside, breathing exaggerated sighs of relief to have escaped with their lives.

Once they had recovered, Akane stood up and tutted at Mia, wagging a disapproving finger down at her, "You always wind The Demon up whenever we go in there, Mia-chan, have some respect next time."

Mia scowled, aiming a half-hearted kick at Akane's ankles as her ears flushed a delicate red. "That was your fault, Aka-chan!"

Akane giggled, giving Mia a mischievous smile. "Maybe, maybe, I was partially to blame today but you can't deny that it's almost always your fault that we get kicked out, Mi-chan."

Mia huffed, grumbling under her breath but doing nothing to deny Akane's accusation. "I still don't see what's so bad about doing yoga in the library."

Akane snorted and opened her mouth to reply when they were interrupted.

"Hey," the loud voice echoed down the empty hallway, "Carter-san, do you have a moment?"

Mia looked around in surprise, not really expecting to see the entire idiot brigade, more commonly known as the basketball team, minus Atsushi, striding towards her, having emerged from the murky depths of the library themselves. They made an imposing picture; most of them were well over six foot but it was difficult to take them seriously when Okamura stumbled up to the two girls, nervously stammering and unable to look both Mia and Akane in the eye.

"I – uh, that is, we – uh – were wondering, how it is you – uh…"

Fukui rolled his eyes, bodily shoving his captain out of the way without a shred of mercy. "What that love-struck fool is trying to say is that we wanted to know how you handled Murasakibara so well yesterday."

Mia gave them all an exasperated look, "through bribery, obviously," she jerked her chin at Himuro, "this one knows."

Himuro had been standing almost passively to the left, face mostly expressionless except for a small polite smile, his one visible eye intelligent and dark. "Ah, yes, snacks. Atsushi becomes almost agreeable once you ply him with food."

It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out that bribing Atsushi with snacks was the most effective way to get him to do something but it didn't always guarantee success.

"Look, it's flattering that you all think I hold some kind of influence over Atsushi-kun but the truth is: he does what he wants." She sighed, rubbing her forehead as though she could feel a headache coming on. "I mean yeah, bribing him with food works sometimes but he has to actually like you if he is going to cooperate with you." She turned a disapproving eye on all of them, scowling deeply. "And treating him like something to be used, something to be manipulated into doing your bidding isn't the way to go about it." She glared, her tone turning scathing, "maybe try treating him like an actual human being, like a person, for once."

Honestly, Mia had never really interacted with the basketball team and it was definitely presumptuous of her to lecture them like that, she knew this, but she didn't like the way Atsushi talked about them sometimes. She didn't like the way Murasakibara would come back to the dorm every now and then, his normal, droopy stare replaced with something that looked agonizingly like dejection. And it had occurred to her how hard it must be to be Murasakibara Atsushi. To be so tall, especially when he was so young, to have all these people who didn't know him, who were scared of him, thought of him something akin to a monster, suddenly want to use his height now that it was useful to them.

The basketball team gaped at her, their cheeks slightly red with shame. Okamura coughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I – yeah, you're right. We're sorry."

She was still frowning at them. "It's not me you should apologise to."

They nodded and said a stiff goodbye, scurrying off. It was only once they disappeared around the corner and Mia turned back to Akane that she realised Himuro had stayed behind.

He wasn't smiling that soft, polite tilt of the lips he normally wore, instead he frowned delicately at her, looking heartbreakingly beautiful. "Do you really think they treat him like that?"

Mia sighed and plopped down on the floor next to Akane, who had been studiously trying to make it look like she wasn't listening, awkwardly playing with her phone.

Himuro gracefully leaned on the wall next to Mia, head tilted slightly to the side to watch her. The afternoon sun shone behind him, bringing out some of the soft brown highlights in his otherwise inky black hair. If Mia were a weaker person, her breath would have caught in her throat at the sight. Luckily Mia was made of steel and iron and lead and… other strong stuff. Yeah. The point was that Himuro, with all his charming words and good looks, had no effect on her whatsoever.

Well. Almost no effect. She wasn't blind, after all.

She sighed again, sounding, for all the world, like she was seventy instead of seventeen. "No, I know they don't think of him like that but sometimes I don't think they realise that he doesn't know that." She turned worried but firm eyes on him. "I know Atsushi's hard to deal with, I know how frustrating he can be. God, I want to fling him out the window myself sometimes and with all his talk of hating basketball it must be infuriating for you guys. But I think, deep down Atsushi doesn't really hate basketball, and I think, deep down, you all know this too. His problem is that he won't put the in effort if he doesn't think it's worth it and you all need to convince him that your team is worth his time and to do that you need to show him you appreciate, well, him instead of his size." She shut her eyes, resting her head against the wall. "Ugh, I feel like I'm his mom away from home."

Himuro was quiet for a moment before he laughed softly, "no, I think you hit him too much for that."

Mia smiled as well, opening her eyes to look back at him, her stare amused and a little searching, as though she were trying to figure him out. They sat in a companionable silence before Himuro turned back to her.

"You're a lot smarter than you look," he said, like this was somehow not insulting.

Mia choked, flying up to glare at him. "Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

He smiled charmingly at her, his eye softening into a crescent moon ever so slightly. "What would you think about a person's intelligence if you saw them trying to pick a fight with Atsushi?"

She paused for a moment. "I guess I see your point," she grouched, crossing her arms and looking away.

"I have tried, you know," he told her, after a moment or two, "to tell them to include Atsushi more and get them to treat him like a friend rather than a naughty child but they're convinced Atsushi hates them."

"I mean, that's not far from the truth."

Himuro sighed, "I guess you're right."

"Of course," Mia sniffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

Akane snorted, muttering under her breath, "I don't know what you're getting so cocky about, you couldn't even find Akita on a map last night."

Mia shot a death glare at Akane who smiled prettily at her. She needed new friends.

Himuro coughed lightly and Mia suspected he was laughing at her. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Look, emo-san," she said, "I don't like you."

The only reaction Himuro gave was the slight widening of his eye, whether that was in shock or anger or whatever else, Mia had no idea.

"There is something off about you and I don't like it. But Atsushi likes you and, he would never admit it, but he thinks of you as a friend. That makes us acquaintances. I'm willing to work with you if you have any concerns about Atsushi's well-being but don't try to get all buddy-buddy with me. I'm not interested." And with that, Mia calmly picked her stuff off the floor, linked arms with a snickering Akane who shot Himuro a slightly apologetic look, and walked away, leaving Himuro standing there with, for the first time since they had met him, an open look of shock on his face.


A short while later, the two girls were sleepily lounging around in Akane's dorm room, impatiently glancing at the clock every two seconds as it slowly ticked closer to dinner, when Akane cast Mia a disappointed look. "That was mean, Mi-chan,"

Mia avoided her eyes, fiddling with a loose thread on her jumper. "I know. I was being honest though."

Akane pursed her lips. "Not entirely."

Mia's head shot up, eyes wide.

Akane gave her a knowing look, "you're jealous of him, scared he will take Atsushi from you."

Mia huffed, slumping down in her beanbag. Akane was far too perceptive for her own good. "Well, yeah, but that's not why I don't like him."

Akane raised a questioning brow, rubbing out a mistake on her math worksheet with a pink bunny eraser.

"Come on," Mia said, "no one can be that nice, that polite, that happy and that unaffected all the time. He is too perfect. He is hiding something. I don't like it."

Akane rolled her eyes, smiling wryly at her friend. "You watch way too many of those cop shows – not everyone who is hiding something is covering up a crime, Mi-chan." She patted her on the head. "He just happens to have an excellent poker face. Honestly, I think he's a little boring. He's hot, sure, but that poker face isn't hiding anything interesting. I reckon he does it to protect himself, protect his feelings. I bet you anything he writes angsty poetry in his spare time." She smiled slyly at Mia, "you weren't too far off with the emo nickname."

Mia gave Akane a pointed look. "That was mean, Aka-chan."

Akane shrugged, "I'm a mean person."

Mia snorted, "You like to think you are. I've seen your soft, marshmallow centre though. You're a tsundere."

Akane looked beyond offended. "I am not."

"Are."

"Not."

"Are."

"Not."

"Are."

A small scuffle broke out between the two girls and Akane employed her viciously sharp elbows while Mia retaliated with years of hard-earned experience. There was no clear victor by the time it hit 6:30 and they declared a truce so they could sprint to the cafeteria. It was an unspoken rule in Yōsen that it was every man for himself when it came to meal times.


Mia would die, without flinching and without hesitation, for Yōsen's chefs. Would take a bullet, eat poison, all of it, if it would ensure the survival of their meticulously, lovingly made works of art. She had almost cried the first time she had tasted one of their masterpieces. Dinner was a very special time for Mia and Akane, trespassers and interlopers would be terminated without mercy. Before Himuro, Murasakibara had been a passionate activist for this cause and his solid mass had kept any scavengers desperate for any remains far away from their possessively guarded food. But with Himuro's arrival and cunning courtship, Murasakibara now spent his meals with the basketball team and Mia and Akane found themselves fending off prying hands and hungry stomachs on their own.

It was a dog eat dog world out there but the two friends were smart and, more importantly, vicious. Everyone knew to stay away from them at meal times if they wanted to keep their eyes firmly in their head (Akane was not above aiming for the face) but, it seemed, no one had told the new boy that.

Not that Himuro was all that new, to be fair. He had arrived in the late summer and had inserted himself seamlessly into the daily life and gossip of Yōsen. Not a day went by where he didn't receive a love confession, where girls (and a good few teachers) would sigh forlornly as he walked by. It seemed like he had always been there, which maybe explained why no one had thought to tell him he must never, under any circumstances, approach that table at dinner.


Tatsuya did not know what to think of Atsushi's friend. She was rude, loud, had a sharp tongue and a nasty temper, and yet she was surprisingly perceptive, painfully honest and loyal almost to a fault. And for some infuriating reason, she had decided she did not like him.

Tatsuya didn't think it was arrogant to be aware of his good looks and his intellect, his natural charisma – it was a simple fact that, genetically, he was very blessed. And maybe he crafted a carefully controlled mask, maybe he liked to subtly manipulate people into liking him, into doing what he wanted but it's not like he was doing anything wrong. It was human nature to want people to like you and he just happened to be a lot better at it than everyone else.

It's not like he did it all the time either – for the most part, Himuro didn't really care all that much about what other people thought and, usually, his polite smile and good looks were enough to endear him to anyone new. He wasn't some evil mastermind who enjoyed toying with other's emotions. He kept to himself mostly and had only a few close friends whom he opened up to. It was flattering that so many girls seemed to like him but it was more of a nuisance than anything else. Still, he didn't want to hurt their feelings and always made sure to be kind about rejecting their advances. He had never met someone he couldn't charm before.

Which is where Mia came in. She had straight up said to his face that she didn't like him and he wanted to know why. Tatsuya knew, theoretically, that not everyone he met was going to like him but it was a problem he had never encountered before. Tatsuya liked a challenge. Tatsuya liked proving people wrong. Tatsuya could also admit, if only to himself, that her semi-public declaration of distaste for him earlier that day had annoyed him. She didn't even know him. Really, where did she come off dismissing him like that?

By the time the sunset had rolled around, Tatsuya had formulated a careful plan. Mia Carter was going to like him. Mia Carter was going to like him a lot. Mia Carter could take her suspicious glances and poorly veiled skeptisim and shove it. And, maybe, along the way, he could have a little fun – that temper of hers would get her in trouble one day and, really, it was his duty as a concerned member of the public to help solve that problem.


It all began at dinner.

Akane and Mia had dug into their meal like starving wolves as Tatsuya made his way across the cafeteria. It would have been very easy to envision sharp fangs protruding from their mouths as they bit into their noodles but he didn't let it deter him. He gracefully slid into the seat next to Mia when she wasn't looking and patiently waited for her to notice him.

It did not take long. Sensing that something was amiss, Mia turned curiously to her left, still chewing on a bite, when she abruptly came to face to face with Himuro, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Mia promptly choked, a large udon noodle getting stuck in her throat in her surprise. She hacked and coughed, gulping down copious amounts of water to clear her windpipe while Himuro looked on in undisguised amusement. The bastard.

Tatsuya thought things were going very well, all things considered but then Mia finally cleared her throat. If Tatsuya were a weaker man, he would have gulped and ran at the look Mia and Akane gave him. The two girls were trying to eviscerate him with their eyes alone as they hunched defensively around their food.

"What do you want?" The girl, Yamamoto Akane, hissed, with her muscles clenched as though she were getting ready to lunge across the table at him if he so much as looked at her rice.

Mia, in a burst of incredible speed, had flown to the other end of the table in a move that looked well practiced, like the two girls had a protocol, a strategy, for dealing with strangers who sat with them.

At the next table, a first year on the basketball club's second string eyed him nervously, his eyes darting between Tatsuya and the two girls, like Tatsuya was in danger, like he had stumbled into the lion's den. "Um, Himuro-senpai, would – would you like to sit with us?" He gulped, "away from Yamamoto-senpai and Carter-senpai?"

Tatsuya found himself inexplicably nervous. He brushed his sudden unease aside, his expression still open and friendly. "No, I am happy here, thank you."

The boy gave him a look that seemed to say, "it's your funeral," but left them alone, turning back to his friends with a small shrug.

Mia and Akane were still scowling at him and he was sure that if they could, they would have been growling and snarling, like a dog with a bone. He had only ever seen Murasakibara this defensive over food and some of his friendship with the two girls was beginning to make sense to Tatsuya.

He chuckled lightly, acting like they weren't seconds away from ripping him to pieces, "I'm not here to steal your food."

Instantaneously, the scowls dropped but he noted that their arms still stayed wrapped around their bowls protectively. Mia eyed him with no small measure of wariness. "So why are you here then?"

He suppressed an irritated sigh at her attitude and instead turned the charm up, giving her his most handsome smile, the one that gave him a slight dimple in the corner of his mouth. A girl at the next table almost passed out. "I am here as a duty bound classmate to return your book – you left it in the library."

The basketball team, to their annoyance, had bore witness to Mia and Akane's dramatics in the library earlier that day and Liu had noticed that Mia had left behind a small notebook in her rush to escape death by fire at the hands of their vindictive librarian. Himuro had kindly and gallantly volunteered to return to it to her and when Fukui had given him a suspicious look had innocently pointed out that, through Murasakibara, he was in the best position to do so.

Mia froze in surprise at his gesture, the defensive barrier she had made around her meal dropping as she cautiously reached across the table for the book. She moved slowly and carefully, like she was putting her hand in a bear trap and Tatsuya didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed. What did she think he was going to do? Try to chop her hand off?

"Thank you," she said to him through narrowed eyes, flipping through the book cautiously as though she were going to find it covered in graffiti. Tatsuya would have been offended but it was honestly a fair assumption on her part – the book had been in the vicinity of Fukui, after all.

Tatsuya gave her another charming smile, acting as though she wasn't being ridiculous and openly rude. "It's no problem, anything for a friend of Atsushi."

She glared at him but clearly couldn't find anything to say that wouldn't make her come off as a complete jackass. Tatsuya suppressed a small smirk.

"Well, that's all I came here to do so thank you for your time, Carter-chan, I will see you soon." He nodded and stood up, making sure to turn around and give her a friendly wave in farewell as he got halfway across the cafeteria, struggling not to smirk at her as she sputtered in indignation.

Lui took one look at the smug look Tatsuya wore as he sat back down with them and said, "whatever it is, I don't want to know. Leave me out of it."

Tatsuya smiled, "I'm not doing anything."

Okamura gave him a flat look. "Just make sure she doesn't interrupt practice again in a fit of rage," was all he said.

Murasakibara, showing a rare interest in their conversation, gave Tatsuya a dark look. "Be careful with Mi-chin, she isn't nice when you annoy her."

No one quite knew if he was concerned for Tatsuya's well-being or Mia's but it did not matter, Tatsuya was irritated anyway. He was perfectly capable of handling an annoying teenage girl, even if she was a monster in disguise. "Thanks for the concern, Atsushi, but I will be fine. It's not like I'm trying to get her attention anyway."

It was a blatant lie but no one seemed to catch it, except maybe Fukui who gave him an amused, if doubtful look. Tatsuya just smiled innocently at him and Fukui rolled his eyes.


She knew it. She knew there was something fishy going on with Atsushi's friend. The gall, the nerve of him! Approaching her at dinner like that, with his winning smiles and elegant manners, acting all gentlemanly and kind – it was weird. Suspicious. What did he want from her? No one acted so affably, so smoothly in the face of her blatant hostility if they weren't up to something. She wasn't the sharpest tool in the box but she certainly wasn't stupid either – she knew he was trying to pull something. She just didn't know what.

"Stop sulking and finish your food," sighed Akane, watching Mia pout into her noodles.

"I'm not sulking," she mumbled while glaring moodily at the table.

Akane huffed a small laugh, "sure," she drawled sarcastically but it was lost on Mia as she contemplated her conversation with Himuro.

"Is it Atsushi he's after? Does he want to get rid of me so he can have Atsushi all to himself?" She frowned. "No, that doesn't make sense – what would that have to do with my notebook? Unless," she mused, tone taking on a darker edge, "unless he is trying to lull me into a false sense of security, make me think he's my friend before he snatches Atsushi right from under my nose."

Akane whacked her on the back of the head, giving Mia her patented Unimpressed Look. "Don't be ridiculous, Mia. I won't deny that the guy is up to something but I doubt it's anything half as dramatic as your making it out to be."

"You don't know that," said Mia, rubbing her head.

"I do – this isn't some dumb drama, honestly, get it together woman." Akane sighed for what felt like the millionth time that evening, rolling her eyes in a well-practiced move and waving a dismissive hand. "He's probably winding you up and pushing your buttons because you said you didn't like him earlier. A guy like that has probably never met a girl who hasn't fawned all over him before in his life – he's probably trying to get you to like him so he can prove you wrong or something equally dumb like that."

"Don't be silly, Akane, I think we just established that this isn't some drama or cheesy manga." Mia watched Himuro from across the room, squinting suspiciously.

Akane just gave Mia an exasperated, if slightly fond, look, shrugging her shoulders before digging back into her meal, seemingly casting the whole stupid affair from her mind. "Speaking of dramas, how is your literature essay going?"

Mia's face immediately darkened and she dug into her noodles with an unnecessary level of violence. "I haven't even started it yet," she whined, "don't speak to me about it – I want to continue living in denial for a few hours longer."

"It's due tomorrow, idiot. Why do you always do this to yourself? I'm starting to think you're a masochist."

"So do I, to be honest." Mia slumped onto the table, her noodles forgotten in her despair. "Procrastination: one billion, me: zero."

"Procrastination wouldn't win if you just sat down and forced yourself to work – it's not some evil, sentient force controlling your actions."

"Except it is." Mia gave Akane an irritated look. This was a conversation they had almost every week and almost every week Mia's answer remained the same. For some unfathomable reason, she could never bring herself to just do her literature homework. Mia never had any problems with any other subject – Japanese literature just seemed to have it out for her. "You don't know what it's like, Aka-chan, I just can't make myself do the essay – I'm cursed!" She pressed her face into the cool surface of the table, flailing about and whining miserably.

"I have no sympathy for you whatsoever – you spent all day watching terrible YouTube videos instead of working. I watched you play video games while I did my essay. You have no one to blame but yourself," Akane said without a trace of comfort as she delicately ate her meal with a grace and finesse that Mia sorely lacked.

"What are you? My mom?"

"Apparently – if you're going to act like a child, someone has to be the responsible parent."

Mia snorted. "Oh yeah, because lobbing water balloons from your window is so mature."

"Revenge transcends the boundaries of what is considered childish and mature, Mi-chan," Akane said with an air of regal authority, "those idiots had it coming."

"You keep telling yourself that."


Mia hadn't been stupid enough to think that the conversation at dinner was the last she would be seeing of Himuro Tatsuya but, naive, young and unused to the cruel ways of the world, she had assumed it was at least the end of it for that evening.

So when she arrived back at her dorm after a good few hours spent begging Akane for the books she had forgotten to check out of the library but needed to write the essay due in only ten hours, it was with a tired, muted horror that she found herself staring at him waving through Atsushi's bedroom window.

She turned wide, betrayed eyes on Atsushi-kun, who only shrugged at her before going back to his chips. She glanced back at Himuro, who's soft, polite smile had now turned slightly smug and she snarled, striding forward and yanking her curtains shut with enough force to almost rip them from the pole.

She stood there and silently fumed for a few seconds before taking a deep, calming breath. What was wrong with her? Why was she this mad? He wasn't even doing anything and she was ready to scream in frustration.

She stomped angrily to her desk, flicking her lamp on and slammed all her books on top, digging through her pencil case for a pen. She hadn't even started her essay and she was already bored to near tears. Her phone buzzed and she eagerly jumped at the distraction, scrambling across her room to get it.

From: Unknown number

That wasn't very polite.

She resisted the very strong urge to punch a hole through her wall and instead texted back furiously.

To: Unknown number

How did you get my number?!

It only took a few seconds for her phone to buzz again.

From: Unknown number

Atsushi-kun, of course.

She growled, trying to glare at Atsushi through her closed curtains. That ass – he would do anything for a box of pocky. She changed his name on her phone.

To: Traitor

You're dead to me.

Her phone buzzed again.

From: Unknown number

You should be nicer to your friends.

To: Unknown number.

Fuck off.

From: Unknown Number

You know, you might hurt people's feelings if you're so rude to them all the time.

To: Unknown number

Thanks for your concern but the only one I'm rude to is you :)

From: Unknown number

Ouch :(

She didn't have time for this. Her essay was due in less than ten hours and she couldn't spend all night sending increasingly snarky texts to Atsushi's annoying friend. She would make him leaver her alone tomorrow.