Author Note: From now onward, I'll post the Author Note in my profile, so as not to interrupt with the story flow :) Happy reading!
Chapter 5
Worldscum
Groans of a CPU. Fast typing and unyielding glances hot on her trails. She didn't miss anything, not even a dot. She nodded, a reassuring gesture more to herself than to others. A heart beat later, she started the prompt with a push of a finger. She took a deep breath and found confidence that she cherished and lacked in any other area. Quickly tracing her way to the backdoor she created hours ago in a fake server with the permission of her employer, intense teal eyes scanned through the infinite lines of 1 and 0, trying to find a weakness in an imperfect world that had became a mesh of numbers and algorithm. She smiled. Why didn't she saw it sooner?
Delicate fingers that had simply became an extension of her mind danced along her tune. Firewalling the true server's first layer, Fuuka Yamagishi opened a new window to launch a defensive script she created years ago, ready to intercept the next wave. The sniffer this time was more focused to 'whaling' her employer's communication network. This isn't good.
Her confidence halted. What if she failed? Just by imagining the risk it'll impact to Iwatodai made her shrinking confidence grew smaller. Fuuka bit her lips. With a sigh, she yanked her unruly hair and refocused on her task. There's no time left, if the first line of defense she put around the true server is out, then there's nothing that could possibly stop the threat, at least not immediately. She smiled then, isn't this the only thing where she's not inferior to her relatives?
"Fuu-chan, why don't you try this university?This is the one Haruaki-kun graduated from, you know. Well, although the passing bar is too high for Fuu-chan, ne?"
She found a mistake in the sniffer's actions, finally. He or she made a hole in an otherwise flawless pattern by leaving around a source code they used in the second wave of their 'whaling' eyes shone with child-like curiosity as she implanted a few tracking mechanism trap in the source code.
When a notification resounded a few minutes later from one of her monitors, she smiled in relief. She had thwarted the sniffer away. She cheered in her desk, finding a sense of pride for herself. She closed her eyes as she recalled the same thrill like what she felt as a child when she saw her dad modified electronical equipments.
I don't need the whole world to applaud me
Fuuka contacted one of the safe lines of her employer's intranet. She typed in binary codes as a report to her employer, her brain long used to translate the messy chain of ones and zeros into words.
01001011 01101001 01110010 01101001 01101010 01101111 00100000 01110011 01100001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 0110100001110111 01100001 01110010 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101101 01110000 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 01100100 01100001 01111001 00101110
A classmate approached her unguarded back. "Fuuka!" a tanned brunette grinned maliciously along with her friends, seeing clear distress on their prey. Her bully. Yet Fuuka couldn't find it in her to hate them, no matter how worse they treated her. Not when they're practically the only group to talk to her. Yesterday, they dunked her bag in the school's swimming pool, Natsuki's club. She was relieved that she left her laptop at home, even as she clutched her fifth bag that was drenched wet as they said fake, innocuous sorry to her trembling back.
Today, too, everyone avoided her and her attempt to have lunch break together. She sighed ruefully, well, no one wants to deal with that bullied kid, Fuuka presumed. It was on her way to the cafeteria that Natsuki ambushed her. "Y-yes, N-Natsuki-chan?" Fuuka cursed her stuttering voice. If only everything can be done remotely with her laptop, like going to school.
"You see, we wanted to apologize about your bag from yesterday," Natsuki began. Liar. You don't care about me.
"So can you let us accompany you to Pawlownia? We'll buy your new bag together!" Fuuka sensed danger,
"Well... Miss hacker?" Natsuki whispered quietly. Don't cross me, your secret's 'still' safe with me.
Fuuka looked around, the cafeteria was buzzing with students but not even one of them noticed or looked at her. No, they noticed what happened. They just refused to acknowledge. What'd happen if bullying happened in one prestigious school like Gekkoukan? Surely no one would believe that. Everyone would've pretended that it didn't happen. Pretend. Pretend. Be oblivious.
Someone, please stop this madness.
She refused the beginning of a tear, scolding herself for being so afraid of another human being. She glanced discreetly, looking for yellow armbands of Disciplinary Committee. None. She chased away the sudden disappointment on her throat, rejecting the bitter hope that the same prefect that had ushered Natsuki's group from her side a few days ago would return. He was a senior with a tall built and a scary glare to match, roughly manhandling Natsuki and her friends away from her, giving her a false peace for a few days.
"O-okay, see you later after school, Natsuki-chan," Fuuka encouraged herself to reply, hopefully today won't be too bad.
They entered the mall. The cold air that hits her cheeks from the air conditioner didn't help the festering on her hammering heart. They had yet to do anything to her and it was a small relief in its own way. They just 'asked' her nicely to carry their shopping bags, that's all. On their way to the Power Records, Fuuka noticed two people from her neighboring class. If she wasn't mistaken, they were Iori and Arisato. The latter was famous for his heartbreaking streaks while his friend was famous for his pranks. What a weird pair. They walked leisurely to the pharmacy.
Fuuka looked behind her, Natsuki and her friends grouped around, laughing loudly in the small store. They won't notice now. She slipped out from the music store.
"Ahh finally! The exam is over!" Iori stretched out as he entered the store with his more aloof companion. " I'm not sure about my grades, bro. But at least I know that I'll ace PE," he snickered while Arisato glanced around the store and nodded to the owner. The owner nodded back acknowledgingly. They moved to the counter isle and inspected the lines of bottles.
"I hope Miki-chan came with us. It sucks stocking up with a dude," he sighed. "Y'know, Minato. I think there's no difference between this green and purple bottles. Let's just stock up everything!" Iori was thinking hard, his brows furrowed together as his eyes squinted to peek inside the bottle. Arisato, the shorter one of the two sighed. He took the bottles from his friend to inspect the label, he seemed oddly familiar with those bottles.
"She went straight to the hospital with Akihiko-senpai. I think I might've seen Mitsuru-senpai with her bike in the crossroad to the hospital, too. I heard that all of Shinjiro-senpai's injury had healed and they went there to check him up. By the way, green's Medicine, purple's Dis-Poison. You need to be familiar with those, Field Leader," he said quietly.
"Ehehe I'm gonna show you how to be a Field Leader tonight!"Their topic was weird, Fuuka decided. Why would ordinary teenagers need Medicine and Dis-Poison? Unless...
Fuuka gasped. She had to stop them!
"I-It's n-not too late to stop n-now!" it would've been an tear-jerking speech if only she didn't stutter too much. The unknown teal-haired girl's words froze their world.
"I-if y-you're depressed you c-can tell me any-anything! W-we could s-stop y-your drug ad-addiction together!" Fuuka cried out courageously. Silence.
Fuuka peeked out from her hiding spot. Iori and Arisato looked at each other.
"... She must be talking about you," the shorter one deadpanned.
"W-what the?! No! She's talking about you!You look like a zombie!" Iori pointed a finger accusingly.
"You look like someone with adrenaline high," Arisato countered without breaking a sweat.
"Hell no!" he roared.
"You've just proved my point,"
"..."
"..."
"..."
Once again, silenced reigned between them. Until a burst of laugh erupted from them.
"Hahahaha y-you look like a zombie, dude," he said as he clutched his aching stomach. His other hand lunged into his friend's shoulder as Minato settled for a small grin. The other customers stared at them, baffled. Fuuka gigled with them.
"Well, this zombie happens to date three girls," if Fuuka didn't know any better, she thought that Arisato was bragging. In monotone.
"Whaat? C'mon, gimme the dirt! I bet Yuka-tan would be jealous" bottles of Medicine and Dis-poison forgotten, he waited for his companion's 'dirt'.
"Not today, let's stock up first." His grin disappeared and his expression slipped into an unaffected facade. Arisato turned to Fuuka, a brow hidden by his fringe she didn't notice before quirked up.
"Who are you?" his voice was a calm neutral. Iori picked up some Medicines and put them into the shopping basket.
"Hmm, I didn't see you much at school, but I think you're from our neighbor class," Iori inputed.
Fuuka nodded abashedly, she wasn't sure how to talk to boys her age. The only male she talked to was Dad.
"...Fuuka Yamagishi," she said quietly.
Surprisingly, Iori thrusted a hand to her, a bright grin accentuated his unfailing enthusiasm. It was very, too different from the malicious grin and mocking laughs she usually received. "Name's Junpei and this-" he snickered. "This zombie's Minato. My swell buddy,"the midnight-haired teen put up a palm in a greeting motion.
She wanted to talk more to them. She wanted to laugh more with this weird pair of friends.
"Fuuka!" came Natsuki's voice outside the pharmacy. Ah, time to return to reality.
"Nice to meet you," Fuuka smiled bitterly.
Nice to meet you.
"Oh, that's your friends, right? Nice to meet you too, Fuuka-chan," Junpei saluted at her. "Nice to meet you too," Minato bobbed his head.
"Yeah, they're...Waiting for me," Fuuka swallowed the plea for help in the tip of her tongue. She didn't want to bother anyone. With a smile, she waved at the boys and walked to Natsuki's group. Natsuki quickly deposited all of her purchases in Fuuka's hands.
"Ah, so heavy. Fuuka's my friend so you'll carry them for me, right?" she faux-cheered at Fuuka and not so gently pushed her into the middle of the group. Her friends laughed and they gave their school bags to Fuuka's free hand.
The nauseating smell of urine and cleaning products attacked Fuuka's nostrils. It was dark and she could barely saw anything in the dim toilet. A large chunk of her hair was pulled harshly, just like how she's used to. They tore her skirt a few minutes ago and was in the middle of tearing her uniform with a switchblade. She didn't notice the teardrops that wouldn't stop from her eyes even as she begged them to leave her alone. Her foremind too focused on the overwhelming shame to notice anything else. They wouldn't disappear. They wouldn't leave. They turned on their phone's flashlights but the small flicker of lights did nothing to relief her in the dark.
"Fuuka-chan, you didn't tell anything about us to your new friends, did you?" the sweet voice called out. Fuuka breathed, too quick to call it normal. The oozing raw panic on her face must've been so amusing that they laughed joyously. The chorus brought instant dizziness to her head as it pounded heavily, each pound brought fresh tears that trickled through her bloodshot eyes. Her heartbeats seemed too loud on her ringing ears, she wanted it to stop.
Yes, that heartbeat should just stop altogether.
"No..." she replied weakly.
"Great! Because if you tell them anything about this-" the only group of people who talked to her in school was now a distant pain and shame. She wanted to get up and give the switchblade to Natsuki. Asking her to end this life.
"-We'll post this photo online and your daddy would be so sad that he'll cry!" her puffy eyes –since when? opened to the dim light, to a disgusting photo of Fuuka Yamagishi. Her tattered uniform was the only thing that clothed her and her lower body skirtless. She must've been deserved to be hurt so badly.
Fuuka Yamagishi, half-naked and crying! It's the bullying season of Gekkoukan High School! Who knew that the hacker so confident in her ability would look like a perfect doormat?
"...Why?" in her ragged breath, she managed to croak out. It seemed to elate Natsuki as she clapped shut her phone.
"Well," Natsuki began to walk away from the toilet. Her friends followed suit.
"Because it's fun," she glanced back and waved dismissively at Fuuka.
They left the switchblade on the ground. Fuuka picked it up even as the rising bile in her throat had threaten her sanity amidst the searing, intensifying pain in the back of her skull.
Is it worth it?
Won't dying be easier?
That way she won't see them anymore.
And she could pin the blame on them if she left a dying message!
The switchblade seemed beautiful in the gleam on moonlight from the toilet's window.
She wanted to disappear.
Grinning gleefully, she twisted the blade deeper to her veins.
