"How do you think you did on the test, Hazuki-kun?"

Nagisa groaned and leaned back in his seat, shutting his eyes. "I think I passed? It's hard to tell, I didn't know a lot of the answers so I improvised some of them."

"We just reviewed that material, too. It would be a shame if you failed the first history test of the year," his classmate said, shifting her weight to sit herself on Nagisa's desk. Nagisa kicked his feet.

"I knowww." he whined. "History is boring, though. I don't really care about things that happened before we were born."

"Really? I think it's fascinating," she said thoughtfully.

There were a great many things Nagisa found fascinating, but history was not among them. Not many subjects grabbed him, and perhaps it was because of this that he'd always been an exceptionally average student. Nagisa had a rough time tuning into things that he considered boring. He knew now that he was in high school his academic attitude would have to change, but if he was honest with himself, he didn't particularly care if he qualified for a good college, or any college for that matter. Coasting by had always been good enough for him, and thankfully his parents were too busy worrying about his sisters' futures to concern themselves with his less than extraordinary grades.

Nagisa was momentarily distracted by the sound of voices floating from the front of the class. He leaned out of his chair to see three first-year boys from another class gathered around Ryugazaki's desk, none of them looking particularly friendly, the one in the middle leaning his hands on the desk's surface and speaking close to Ryugazaki's face. For some reason, the sight made Nagisa's stomach turn over, from nervousness or anger he wasn't sure. Ryugazaki was effectively ignoring them, putting his things in his backpack as if he hadn't even noticed they were there.

"Hey!" one of the boys shouted, gaining the attention of the entire room, "Listen to me when I'm talking to you, asshole!" He slapped Ryugazaki's pencil case out of his hand, and the tin clattered to the floor and sent pencils and pens flying in all directions.

Ryugazaki stood up and all three of the boys jumped back, tensed and prepared for a fight, but instead he slung his backpack strap over his shoulder and turned to leave. One of the boys stopped him, shoving him hard in the shoulder. "You're not leaving until you apologize!" he said waspishly. Ryugazaki leveled him a glare.

"I have nothing to apologize for."

"The hell you don't!" exclaimed the boy. "You made my sister cry when you rejected her! You think you can just treat people however you want and expect no one to get pissed off about it?"

Before he realized what he was doing, Nagisa was standing up and taking a few steps toward the altercation. "Hey, this isn't solving anything, right?" Nagisa said with a nervous laugh. "Let's not start fighting in the classroom?"

Nagisa could see Ryugazaki's shoulders stiffen as he spoke, but he showed no other sign of acknowledgment. The boy looked past Ryugazaki to flash Nagisa a spiteful look. "This has nothing to do with you, piss off!" he said. Ryugazaki tried to shoulder his way past the boy but he was shoved back again, harder than before. "I'm not done talking to you!"

"Seriously, knock it off!" Nagisa wasn't sure where these words were coming from, or why he was advancing toward Ryugazaki's desk, but it was happening, and it was too late to back down now. He was equally as confused as to why he felt the need to defend Rei Ryugazaki, a person who had not yet spoken a single positive word to him, but his blood was pumping hard and loud in his ears and he couldn't stop now even if he wanted to.

One of the other two boys stepped in front of Nagisa. The boy was much taller than him, (to be fair, most every boy was,) but Nagisa still managed a defiant glare. The shuffling of their shoes on the floor caused Ryugazaki to turn only minimally.

"Are you his fucking friend or something?" the boy asked him, low and menacing, but Nagisa did not allow his gaze to falter.

"So what if I am?" Nagisa challenged, feeling bitter. He wasn't his friend. Not by a long shot. At this point, Nagisa was fairly certain that Ryugazaki would rather stab himself in the hand with a ruler than be considered his friend. But admitting his disassociation would only fuel the argument against him.

One of the boys scoffed. "Seriously? You're friends with this asshole?"

Ryugazaki cleared his throat, and smacked away the hand that was holding tight to his shoulder.

"We're not friends." he said, and Nagisa felt his stomach do another backflip, this time in disappointment and perhaps a smidgen of embarrassment. "Please move yourself out of my way."

"Not until you apologize!" the boy snarled, fisting Rei's jacket and pulling him in close just as the door slid open behind them. Miss Amakata, the teacher from class 2-1 framed the doorway, a hand resting on a slim hip and her brow furrowed.

"What's going on in here?" she asked sharply, as the boys all broke apart as if blown back by spectral hands. Ryugazaki said nothing, roughly shouldering past the boy and exiting through the door before Miss Amakata could stop him.

.

.

.

Nagisa had Ryugazaki's pencil case.

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it now that he had it, but regardless, it sat in his backpack, a small dent on the corner of the lid but otherwise unscathed. He had collected it and its contents from the floor after Miss Amakata had reprimanded them for "...whatever it was you were doing, I know I heard shouting in here!" Now he supposed he had to return it to Ryugazaki, but that idea seemed daunting.

Ryugazaki wasn't waiting for the train after school. Nagisa assumed he was doing track club activities, or maybe he was just avoiding Nagisa altogether. Either way, the pencil case was burning a proverbial hole in his backpack, and now that this awkward interaction had been delayed, Nagisa thought perhaps it might be easier on everyone if he were to just leave the item in Ryugazaki's shoe locker when he wasn't around.

His train reached its stop, and Nagisa filed out with the rest of the passengers. Home wasn't far off, but Nagisa felt particularly sluggish, and purposefully took the long way home, kicking at pebbles as he went. He didn't feel right. He couldn't place the feeling, but it was something like a sharp despondency that was clawing at his stomach, upsetting the balance of his entire day.

He hadn't been expecting Ryugazaki to dismiss him like that. He had only been trying to help, and although he hadn't expected an explosion of gratitude to result, he couldn't understand why even when faced with bullying, Ryugazaki was so opposed to friendliness. This bothered Nagisa more than it ought to have, and he knew this, but he couldn't chase the thoughts away.

When Nagisa looked up, he was a few streets away from his house. He had forgotten how busy this street was, and inwardly cursed himself for having taken this route home. The crosswalk here was notorious for taking ages to flash green. Stopping at the crosswalk just next to a line of small trees, Nagisa pulled out his phone to check the time.

From somewhere above him, Nagisa heard a faint but persistent hissing sound. Looking up from his phone, Nagisa looked around, the sound continuing in short bursts like a gas leak until finally his search led him to the tree he was standing under. Perched in the tree and hunched over a surprisingly small branch he saw a black cat, it's face scrunched into an agitated scowl and it's ears flat, bright white teeth bared as it hissed and yowled. Before Nagisa could properly react, the cat lunged, and Nagisa twisted around in surprise and fell backwards, phone flying from his hand and landing on the cement with a loud and tragic crack.

When he'd come back to his senses, Nagisa could see the black tail of the cat disappearing around the corner of a nearby building. Stunned and inhaling air like he'd just run a marathon, Nagisa collected himself and realized he had landed fairly ridiculously in the street. With a groan, Nagisa grabbed his broken phone and pocketed it, not looking forward to the lecture he was sure to receive when he returned home. Letting out a long, calming sigh, Nagisa pushed himself up and immediately landed back down on his rear. His shoe was stuck in a storm drain. Great.

Nagisa attempted to wiggle his shoe free, to no avail. He pulled, tried a different angle and a variety of other things, but his foot was so firmly wedged in the drain he almost couldn't figure out how it had gotten so stuck in the first place.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nagisa saw a truck turn the corner. It was coming his way, and fast, but Nagisa wasn't worried. The driver would see his predicament. After all, this wasn't a highway, it was practically a residential street.

The closer the truck got, the more nervous Nagisa became. Why wasn't the driver slowing down? When he looked again, his heart froze in his chest. The driver couldn't see him. The truck was gaining speed, wheels turning back and forth, causing it to careen wildly. The driver had lost control of the vehicle. And Nagisa was directly in its path.

The realization sank in like a freezing cold dagger in his spine. He was going to die.