WARNING: This chapter contains descriptions of violence and rape.
Okay, after reading through the earlier chapters again, I caught a bunch of discrepancies and even outright contradictions between the chapters. I've fixed a lot of little stuff in each chapter; it's not really worth going back to reread everything again, so I'll highlight the changes here for you.
-Issei and Sakura went out to the club a month after he moved in with her, not a week. Yes, that means it took Jinpachi a month to think of calling Sakura to look for Issei, though it's made clear that he WAS looking for Issei before that.
-This also accounts for the fact that his bruises were pretty much healed when they went out, as my beta reader pointed out to me that NOBODY is attractive with massive ugly bruises on their face, however pretty they are. snrks
-This places the scene outside with Sakura after the dream AFTER Issei's jaw is unwired, since I forgot to account for that when he was kissing her. sweatdrops
-Finally, I straightened out the contradictions between the make up scene in chapter 5 and the one in chapter 9. No real changed there, mostly just fixed it so Issei wasn't claiming not to ever want makeup on him in one chapter, then turning around and thinking about how he had to fight not to give in to his urges in a later chapter.
Chapter 10
Somehow, despite the fact that she was in no way a morning person, Issei always managed to chivvy Sakura out of bed early enough that they weren't late for school. This, her parents had informed him with amusement at one point, was a marked improvement over her usual habits. Issei had learned that if he didn't want Sakura to sulk at him for half the morning for waking her up early, however, he'd better have coffee in hand when he knocked on her door.
Today they actually managed to make it to school a few minutes early, much to Sakura's consternation. "I don't see what the big deal is," she complained as they walked through the front doors hand in hand. She yawned, covering it up with her free hand. "So we're here ten minutes before classes start. That just means we have to go sit up there and hang around at our desks, waiting. I'd rather have the ten minutes of extra sleep."
"As if ten minutes would make any difference one way or another," Issei teased her. "I think you just enjoy being the centre of attention when you come in late."
"Oh yes, I adore the detentions it earns me, too," she agreed dryly. "Go put your shoes away, twit. I need to go drop off that extra credit project at the science lab; I'll meet you in class."
"See, you wouldn't have had time to do that if I hadn't gotten you up," he pointed out, laughing. He squeezed her hand once before releasing it, then handed her book bag to her, since he'd been carrying both of them. She smiled and headed off towards her own locker.
Issei headed for his spot in the rows of small shoe lockers in the front hall; his wasn't with the rest of his class, because he'd transferred in late in the year. Setting his bag down at his feet, he opened the locker, and blinked in surprise at the white envelope sitting inside, on top of his shoes.
Picking it up, he examined it. It was the sort of thing you could get at any stationary store, meant for a card of some type. The only thing on it was his name, written in blocky kana across the front.
Frowning to himself, he glanced around quickly, but there was nobody watching. He changed his shoes quickly, and headed up to their homeroom, the letter tucked in a pocket of his bag so nobody would ask him about it.
Once he reached his desk he hung his bag from the hooks on the front of the desk, and slid into the chair. Sliding the envelope out of the pile of textbooks he extracted from his bag, he brought it down beneath the level of his desk and quickly opened it.
As he'd expected, it was a love confession note. It wasn't the first one he'd received; any boy with a decent personality and good looks would be the target of at least one love confession every year. Girls slipped them into the shoe lockers through the grill in the front.
He'd often wondered if there was some sort of form letter handed around among the girls in tenth grade, when they started high school. All the letters were basically the same; tearful declarations of undying love, telling him how they'd been watching him from afar all this time, and begging him to meet them somewhere so they could tell him in person. The notes were almost never signed; the idea was that by showing up at the meeting place he was saying he was at least interested, and then they'd reveal themselves to him face to face.
Like most boys, Issei never went to the meetings. It would be cruel to get the girl's hopes up by showing up, only to break them by telling her he wasn't interested. It was a little odd for him to have received such a note while he was officially dating Sakura already, but not unheard of. There was always the hope that he'd break it off when he realized how much better his secret admirer was, he supposed. If only they had any idea how hard it was for him to even be with Sakura! If he'd tried to be with a girl he didn't have a strong mental connection with, he wouldn't have been able to manage it.
"What's that?" Sakura asked as she walked past him and dropped into her own chair. He looked up, but before he could answer her, the bell rang and the teacher stepped into the classroom. Hastily he folded the note and shoved it in his pocket for later consideration.
The morning's classes seemed to creep by, which was a little unusual for Issei. He loved most of his subjects, even the traditionally 'boring' ones like Japanese literature or math. He couldn't stop thinking about the letter in his pocket, though. Normally he simply ignored them, then threw them away when he got home, so the poor girl wouldn't have her heart crushed by seeing it carelessly tossed in one of the school garbage cans. But there was something about this particular letter that made it different, though he couldn't put his finger on what it was. It was driving him to distraction.
"All right," Sakura said, turning in her seat the moment the lunch bell rang. "What is it? You've been out of it all day. The teacher had to call on you twice, and then remind you which paragraph to read. That's not like you."
Silently Issei passed her the confession letter. She scanned it, then raised an eyebrow at him. "So? This can't be the first one you've ever gotten. You're not only beautiful, you're sweet."
"No, of course it's not," Issei said, blushing at the compliments. "There's just... something different about this one. I can't figure out what, and it's bothering me. And until I figure it out, I won't be able to just set it aside and ignore it."
She laid it out on his desk, both of them leaning over it to keep it from anybody else's view, and studied it. After a moment Sakura's eyes went wide. "I know what it is. This is a guy's handwriting!"
Issei studied it again. The writing was all as blocky as his name on the front; there wasn't a great deal of kanji and none of what was present was complicated; that argued for it being someone who wasn't exactly the best student. Either that or they'd been afraid Issei wouldn't be able to read harder characters, but considering he was currently placing second overall in the school, that was unlikely.
But looking at it objectively, he had to agree that it was much more likely to be a boy's writing than a girl's. There were no extra little lifts or swirls on the ends of the strokes, no sign of the cutely drawn hearts that so often accented these letters. Not all males wrote in plain script, as he could attest to, and not all females used fancy script; but overall, it was more likely that this was a male's handwriting.
"I think you're right," he agreed, taking the note again and folding it up. "That must have taken a lot of guts for whoever it was." He slid the note back into the envelope, and put the whole thing back into his pocket. Resting his chin on his hand, he gazed off towards the blackboard, thinking about it.
"What are you going to do?" Sakura asked curiously. "Ignore it?"
"Normally I would, yes," Issei admitted with a small sigh. "I'm not sure what to do about this. You have no idea how much courage it must have taken this kid to give me this letter; I feel like I should at least meet him to assure him that I'm not going to turn around and spread it all over the school."
"That would be something to be afraid of, yes," Sakura admitted. "You're going to break his heart by showing up just to tell him you're not interested though, Issei."
"I know," Issei said. "That's why I usually just ignore them. I'd rather break his heart than have him spend the next couple of week wondering when the bullying will start, though."
"True enough," she acknowledged. "When did he ask to meet you?"
"After school," Issei said. "Behind the gym. Do you want to wait for me, or go ahead by yourself? I don't mind walking home alone if you don't want to wait."
"No, I'll wait for you. I can't imagine it will take that long for you to crush the poor thing," she said, grinning at him. "And knowing you and your empathy, you're probably going to need a shoulder to lean on after having all that emotional backlash directed at you, anyway."
"Probably," he admitted with a sigh. "That's the other reason I never go to meet them. Though it's odd..."
"What is?" she asked when he trailed off in thought. He looked back at her, frowning.
"It's odd that I have no idea who it is," he said. "Usually I can tell a long time before they give me any notes. You have no idea how disconcerting it is to be the focus of that much unadulterated teenage longing," he added wryly. She stifled a laugh behind her hand, and he kicked the leg of her chair in retaliation. "Be serious," he scolded. "Anyway, I haven't sensed anything like that from anyone recently."
"Yeah, but your range is limited if you don't know the person well, right?" she asked, and he nodded. "It's probably not someone from our class, then. Someone who only ever sees you from a distance, or something. Maybe someone from one of the lower grades."
"I suppose that's possible," he said. "Well, I guess I'll find out when I go to meet him."
The afternoon passed as slowly as the morning had, and Issei almost got in trouble several times for inattention in class. He suspected that the only thing that saved him from a detention was the fact that he was one of the top students in the school.
Most of his attention was focused both inwards and outwards at the same time; inwards, on his empathic sense, and outwards as he sent that sense winding carefully through the room. His empathy was a little strange; when he was dealing with someone he knew well, he could be miles away and still closely connected, as when he'd shared the moon dreams with Jinpachi. The rest of the time, he was usually only aware of the people immediately around him, though.
He could extend that range if he concentrated on it, however. The prevailing emotion in the classroom was boredom, of course; that was to be expected in the middle of a history lesson by a teacher who was nearly as old and boring as his subject. Here and there were spikes of other emotions: the boy in the corner was angry for some reason; the girl by the door was badly worried about something.
Outside the room it was more of the same. Issei stretched himself as far as he could, but all he got for his trouble was a bad headache and an onslaught of conflicting emotions. There were several people in his range that had the sort of all-encompassing crush on someone that might prompt them to send a love confession; most were girls, a few were boys, but none of them had been aimed at him.
Which still didn't mean much; it was a big school, and even when he was concentrating on it, his range wasn't enough to cover even a large portion of it. He was just going to have to wait until after school to find out who had sent him the letter.
By the time the bell finally rang, Issei would have been willing to swear that the clock was so far behind the real time the sun should have gone down by now. It certainly seemed like the time had dragged on that much, every minute seeming to take hours.
"You going right back there?" Sakura asked as they picked up their bags and headed for the shoe lockers. "Want company?"
Issei only shook his head as she accompanied him to his locker. Reaching inside he grabbed his outdoor shoes, and quickly traded them for his school shoes. "No. If he sees someone with me, he might panic. Just wait out front for me, please?"
"All right," she agreed easily, taking his bag and turning and heading for her own locker. "I'll see you in a few minutes, then."
Issei went in the opposite direction, towards the back of the school. The grounds back there held the track, the large field that was used for sports like soccer, the gymnasium, and several clubhouse buildings, such as those for the kendo club and martial arts. As he stepped out into the sun, the girl's volleyball team went jogging by off to his left, and he could see the tennis club warming up over by the nets.
Grateful that he was a senior and was no longer required to participate in extracurricular activities, Issei made his way out towards the gymnasium. 'Behind' the gym actually meant the odd little corner that was formed by the wall of the gym and the curve of the auditorium. The kendo club's building, set at an angle due to the way the hill sloped here, blocked off most of the third side, leaving only a narrow passageway into the triangular space left over.
It was a favourite haunt of couples, and the preferred area of choice for love confessions, because it was so private. Issei took a moment to probe ahead with his power to ensure that it was actually empty at the moment before walking in; the last thing he wanted to do was catch a necking couple in the act.
It was empty, though, and he made his way inside to lean against the gym wall. He was still turning the possibilities over in his mind, trying to figure out who could have sent him this note. Had he noticed anyone watching him a lot lately? He didn't think so, and he was usually aware of people looking at him.
He had to admire the boy who'd sent him the letter, though. Even if he chickened out at the last minute and didn't actually show up to the meeting for fear of Issei's reaction, Issei didn't think he'd have been brave enough to put a letter like this in another guy's shoe locker. Especially not a guy who had a girlfriend, which meant he was more than likely straight.
Granted, the letter hadn't been signed, and he still had only his own suspicions that it was a boy's handwriting to tell him a girl hadn't sent the letter. But he was certain of the gender of the sender, and the boy could easily have been caught putting the letter into Issei's locker, even if he hadn't signed the letter itself.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts, he almost missed the hesitant shuffle at the entrance to the corner. Looking up, his eyes widened as he saw one of the boys from his own class, Nakayama Hideo. "Nakayama!" he exclaimed, shocked. He'd checked everyone in his classroom. There had been nothing from Nakayama to indicate the sort of fascination that cause a person to send someone a love confession.
For that matter, although he didn't need to be empathic to sense the boy's understandable nervousness, what his empathy was telling him was that Nakayama's fear had nothing to do with a fear of rejection.
"Nishikiyori," the other boy greeted him, sounding more frightened than nervous. "You... I... m-my letter..."
Could it be something as simple as fear that Issei would out him to the whole school? Maybe. Issei frowned slightly, trying to pin down just what it was that Nakayama was so afraid of. "I admit I'm surprised it was you," he said softly, tilting his head to study the other boy. Nakayama, like Issei himself, had the sort of delicate body type and bone structure that got them labelled as 'pretty boys'. Despite that, Issei had never had any suspicious as to Nakayama's orientation. While admittedly he didn't know everything, his empathy usually gave him an edge in spotting people like that.
"You're not... disgusted?" Nakayama asked, his eyes wide. "You... don't seem surprised that I'm not a girl."
"Your handwriting gave you away," Issei told him with a smile. "I've never met a girl who writes like that. Especially not on a love confession letter, no matter how practical they are. Hell, you must have gotten as many as I have, you know what they're like."
"So you knew I was a guy, and you came anyway?" Nakayama insisted. Issei narrowed his eyes at the sudden spike of disgust from the other teen. That didn't make any sense at all. If Nakayama had sent the letter, then why...
Too late, he dropped his shields completely, looking for anyone in the area rather than just focusing on Nakayama. He became aware of the menacing anger and hatred of three people just before they blocked off the entrance to the space, right behind Nakayama. Issei recognized them vaguely; one of them was in his class, the other two were in another senior class; all three were known for being the star players on the soccer team in their junior year.
They all outweighed Issei by at least half again his bodyweight, and they were blocking the only way out. Issei had felt that particular combination of emotions from someone far too many times not to recognize it now; these were gay bashers, and they'd decided to target him.
"See? I was right," the leader, Shinohara Yasuhiro, said. "He is gay. Him dating Kokusho is just a cover up."
"I gotta admit I thought they were for real, but I guess you're right, Hiro," Tomizawa Shino agreed. "Damn, I thought we were done when we chased off the last of the freaks!"
"Hey, I did what you wanted, all right?" Nakayama had his back flattened against the wall opposite Issei, trying to keep an eye on both him and the three jocks at the same time. "Now give me back my damn bag and let me go!"
Kanai Yuuji, the last of the three, tossed Nakayama his book bag with a smirk. Nakayama checked briefly inside to make sure everything was there, scowled at Issei, and slipped out through the gap the three gave him.
Issei debated trying to make a break for it through that gap, but they closed it again before he'd taken more than a step. Immediately he backed up to the wall again, not wanting them to be able to surround him.
"Now it's just you and us, Nishikiyori," Shinohara said with a nasty grin. "I knew there was something wrong about you the minute you showed up here. Now I'll grant you that Nakayama has managed to prove to us that not all you pretty boys are gay, but you're so damn effeminate you might as well be a girl!"
Issei ignored his words; he'd heard them all before, half a hundred times. Did bullies like this actually think they were being original, either in their actions or their dialogue? Or did they realize they were being cheesy, and play up to it? He suspected the former.
Instead, he paid them only enough attention to listen for the cue that they were going to start swinging punches, and spent those precious moments analyzing the situation, trying to find a way out. The roofs of the buildings around him were too high for him to get up to. The three of them were thoroughly blocking the only way out, but they'd have to move out of it to get close enough to hit him, and that would be his only chance. The space here was small enough that if they got him surrounded when he tried to bolt, he not only wouldn't have anywhere to run, there wouldn't be room to fight properly.
"Are you even listening to me?" Shinohara demanded irritably, and Issei switched his attention back to the other teen.
"Why should I?" Issei asked, eyes narrowed. "It's not as if there's anything I can say or do to change what's coming. You've already made up your minds about me."
"Listen to him, he's not even ashamed of himself," Kanai muttered in disbelief. Issei shook his head. It never failed to amaze him how people like this could take anything he said and twist it to suit their own needs. What he'd said amounted to 'you're wrong, but I can't convince you so I'm not going to try,' and instead they'd heard 'you're right, and I don't care what you think about me.'
"I don't care what your grades are, people like you aren't welcome in this school!" Tomizawa snapped. "This is a good school, we don't want any freaks around!"
"So we're going to make you think twice about your choice of schools, just like we did to all the other freaks," Shinohara agreed with another smirk. Issei tensed; this was it. They were going to come at him, and he had to get by them now or he wouldn't likely get another chance. "Let's teach him a lesson, guys!"
Shinohara took two steps forward, flanked by his friends, and Issei pushed away from the wall. He used the momentum to throw himself into a spinning roundhouse kick that caught Shinohara high on the chest, with enough force to send the larger teen stumbling back into Kanai. That left a gap between Shinohara and Tomizawa; Issei made a break for it.
Briefly he wished for Haruhiko or Rin's ability to teleport, even though he wouldn't have dared use it in plain view like this. He was fast and agile enough that he almost made it past them anyway; then a rough hand caught him by the back of his uniform jacket and yanked him off his feet.
He slammed into the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, but he was well enough trained that he kicked out at the person who'd grabbed him anyway. A yelp of pain told him he'd connected, and he rolled quickly to his feet. That was as far as he got before a fist connected with his face, making him see stars as he staggered back into the wall. He was going to have a black eye shortly, and if he didn't get out of here quickly it would swell shut and leave him handicapped.
He saw the next punch coming in time to duck, and Kanai's fist hit the wall instead. The big teen cursed and kicked at him, his heavy shoe catching Issei at the top of his thigh and making his entire leg explode in pain for a moment. Still trying to get his breath back, Issei threw a punch of his own, coming up from his crouch and driving his fist into Kanai's solar plexus with all his strength. Kanai choked and doubled over, putting him out of the fight for a few moments.
Before he could even start to refocus his attention someone grabbed his left arm and pulled it around behind him, twisting it up against his back until his shoulder threatened to give way. Issei cried out and kicked back, but whoever it was, they weren't standing quite close enough for him to reach by kicking blindly.
Now he was in a tight spot; with a pull one way his attacker could dislocate his shoulder, with a sharp jerk in another he'd break the arm. Issei had already had more than enough broken bones for the year. He didn't need any more.
Shinohara stepped into view in front of him, which meant the person holding him was Tomizawa. Issei started to kick at Shinohara instead, but a jerk on his captive arm made him freeze with a little cry of pain. Obviously Tomizawa wasn't going to hesitate to push further if Issei continued to struggle.
"You fight pretty well for a freak," Shinohara commented, glancing at Kanai who was still gasping for air. Issei's own wind had returned, but his chest burned painfully with every breath he took. "I guess we're not the first ones to teach you a lesson, hmm? For such a good student, Nishikiyori, you're an awfully slow learner."
"Actually I think it's more of a flaw in the subject matter..." Issei broke off with a choked noise as Tomizawa pulled his arm higher yet, forcing him to his knees with the pain.
"That's a pretty good position for you, right there," Shinohara said, and Issei shivered as the rage and hatred coming from the three shifted to add lust to the mix as well. So it wasn't going to stop at a beating; he hadn't really expected it to, but this was the first time he'd been caught like this, without Jinpachi to call on for help. He could call Sakura, but what could she do? They were likely to hurt or rape her too, for 'helping him cover up'. Sakura was strong-willed enough that she'd wade in trying to save him, but she was no fighter. He refused to be responsible for putting her through that kind of emotional trauma.
"You want to be a girl so badly, Nishikiyori, we'll let you have what you want," Shinohara purred, making his two friends laugh. "Who wants to go first? Kanai, you got hit the hardest, I think that gives you first dibs."
"With pleasure," Kanai smirked. Having caught his breath at last, the athletic teen stepped forward, giving Issei a 'tap' on the jaw. He prayed Kanai wouldn't hit him there again; he'd managed to land the blow right where the break had been, and although it was healed now, the bone was still weak and likely to break again. "I think I'll try out that pretty mouth of his."
"What is it with you people that you think raping your victims is somehow anything other than 'gay'?" Issei demanded. That earned him a backhand from Kanai - to the other side of his face this time, thankfully. Truthfully, it had been a rhetorical question. Issei knew what drove gay haters to rape their victims; partly it was the sense of power, the enjoyment of seeing the 'freak' helpless before them. Partly it was their only chance to express their own deeply hidden desire to know what fucking another male felt like. Most people were less straight than they'd like to believe, he'd learned, and it was the fear of admitting their own illicit desires that drove boys like these to beat on people like him, who provoked them into lusting after him.
"Shut the fuck up," Kanai said, and reached for his zipper. Issei's stomach churned as the other boy drew out his already hard length; it was starting to hit him now that he actually was going to be raped this time. Rape was a horrible experience for anyone, but ten times worse for an empath, who was forced to share the pleasure of their attacker. Issei didn't know that from personal experience, but Enju had, and it wasn't something he wanted to experience in this life.
"You put that thing in my mouth and I'll bite it off," he threatened desperately. That earned him another wrench on his arm, making all the blood drain from his face.
"If I see you even started to bite, I'll break your arm so bad they'll never be able to get it straight again," Tomizawa leaned down to murmur in his ear.
"And you'd better try hard to please us, or we might decide to see how many rounds we can go, instead of only having you once each," Shinohara added lazily from where he'd leaned back against the wall to watch. He was also blocking the entrance, preventing anyone who might have happened by from seeing inside.
Issei closed his eyes as Kanai grabbed him by the hair and yanked backwards, forcing his face to tilt up. No, no, please Sarjareem no, I can't do this, he prayed desperately. He knew it was useless; Sarjareem did not interfere in her people's lives directly, and she wouldn't save him now any more than she had saved Enju a lifetime ago.
He fought to keep his shields up, but his own terror and panic were eating away at them, already allowing the lust and anticipation from Kanai to sweep over him. He felt his body go hard and shuddered with revulsion. He wanted to be sick, or pass out, or anything to get him away from this horror, but with Kanai touching him Issei was locked into resonating with the other teen, helpless to fight the desire that was being projected at him.
He felt something touch his lips and tried to jerk his head away, pressing his mouth closed and refusing to take it. A sharp warning tug on his arm made him cry out, catching his mistake an instant too late as he realized he'd just opened his mouth for Kanai.
But instead of the expected intrusion, Kanai's hand tightened in his hair and the other teen swore. "What the fuck was that?"
"What? Did he do something?" Tomizawa asked, pulling on Issei's arm again. Issei bit his lip to keep from crying out again, the smaller pain distracting him from the larger one.
"No! Shit, it happened again! Just a stab of pain, out of nowhere," Kanai muttered.
"If you're chickening out, Yuuji, then I'll take my turn with him," Shinohara said, stepping forward. Kanai turned and growled at him.
"I'm not chickening out, Hiro!" Kanai protested. "I'm telling you, it was just this weird pain out of nowhere..."
Issei's eyes flew open as he realized what was happening. Unlike Enju, who had almost never used her powers, he'd had a lot of practice with them, albeit unconsciously, in sharing the moon dreams with Jinpachi. He was better at projecting emotions than she had been. His empathy was locked on the nearest highly charged emotional source, Kanai... but the bond went both ways! Kanai had been feeling Issei's pain each time Tomizawa yanked on his arm!
And in realizing that, Issei saw the way out of this mess. It meant potentially exposing himself as a psychic, but he'd take that over being raped any day. In the few seconds that Kanai and Shinohara continued to argue, he forced his focus wider to include all three of the other teens in his mental sphere of influence, and then deliberately moved in such a way that Tomizawa's grip pulled his arm painfully high again.
He grabbed that sensation, multiplied it by every memory of a painful injury that he had, and threw out it out at the three of them.
"What the... fuck?" was all one of them had time to blurt out, before all three of them were writhing under the onslaught of pain. Tomizawa released Issei, but he had the memory of the sensation locked in his mind now, and didn't need additional stimulation to keep projecting.
What he should have anticipated, but hadn't, was the feedback loop; as they experienced the pain, they projected it back at him, and then his mind tangled it up with what he was already projecting and increased the intensity. It spiralled upwards out of control almost immediately; Issei was barely able to slam his shields back into place and force himself to stop projecting before he passed out alongside the three of them.
The three bullies were collapsed in the small space, barely conscious. Kanai had thrown up all over himself and Shinohara; Tomizawa had wet and shit his pants, from the look and smell of it. Still reeling from the after effects and implications of what he'd just done, Issei staggered for the entrance to the corner, and out into the yard again.
His stomach was churning, threatening to bring his lunch back up for review at any moment. He'd just used his empathy offensively against someone. He hadn't even known that was possible. He'd never have thought himself capable of doing something that... ugly. Justified or not, it had been a horrible thing to do, and there was a possibility that the three of them might never recover from it. He might have blown their minds out.
Whatever the reason was, he never, ever wanted to be forced to use his powers like that again. He felt like it had been a violation of the worst kind, just as bad as what they'd been planning to do to him; and he hadn't only violated them, he'd violated himself in the process.