They walked in silence, neither one of them trusting their voice any longer. Setsuna was confused over this...girl who could make him nearly smile. Not even Lockon...he was engrossed in his own thoughts when she tapped his arm.
"I'm going to go to English. I shall maybe see you later?" He nodded and she wandered in the opposite direction. Only when he was finally alone, did he realise how fast his heart was pounding. As Setsuna sat in his usual seat in the science lab, he glanced sympathetically at Saji, who was cowering away from his tormentors. The brunette had a black straw doll enclosed in his fists. The main jeerer, Andrei Smirnov, struck him across the face. Saji untied the red ribbon wrapped around the dolls neck. Andrei ripped the doll from Saji's shaking hands and laughed.
"Ha, do you always carry a little idiotic doll with you?" He snorted and shoved Saji backwards. They had the whole class' attention now. "Are you going to answer me?" Andrei struck him across the face again. Soma had to interrupt.
"Stop it. You're taking this way too far." She grabbed his arm and pulled him backwards. They were separated by Allelujah.
"She has a point. We've sat back and watched, but I can't stand it anymore. Leave him alone." Andrei punched Allelujah in the stomach, and the green haired boy crumpled to the floor. Without realising what he was doing, Setsuna sprang to his feet. He was close friends with Allelujah, and didn't like watching him get hurt. "Setsuna..." Allelujah gasped, clutching his stomach in pain. Setsuna remained silently, glaring intently at Andrei. He'd been in fist fights before. He didn't usually like causing a ruckus, but sometimes you had to. The dark haired boy sharply brought a punch to the side of Andrei's face. Andrei cursed and aimlessly punched back, but Setsuna ducked and the fist just slipped past his face. Unexpectedly, Setsuna delivered an uppercut to Andrei's stomach, causing him to fall backwards.
As he was about to swing his fist again, someone pulled Setsuna roughly by the shoulder. He spun on his heels and pulled his arm backwards, preparing to hit whoever had grabbed him. Ai stood behind him, though he had no idea why she was in his classroom or when she had got there.
Glaring at Andrei, she spoke, "the headmaster wishes to speak to you both, but he will deal with Andrei later. For now, he only needs to talk to Setsuna." We all gasped. How had the headmaster gotten a hold of all this so quickly? And why did he need to talk to us separately? Usually, he would make them understand what they had done wrong at the same time, so he didn't have to repeat himself. And that voice...there was something commanding and terrifying about it. It was full of authority and somehow placed a picture in your mind that if you didn't obey her, there would be severe consequences. Not daring to hesitate a second longer, he hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and left the room with her.
Again, they walked in silence. The only sounds were the clicking of Ai's heels against the floor. Setsuna had questions buzzing around his head and was engrossed in his own thoughts. He only realised Ai had stopped walking, because he could no longer hear the sound of her heels hitting the floor hard. He looked up at her.
"You are going to tell me everything." She said suddenly, standing nose to nose with Setsuna. She continued talking. "You're going to take me to your house, sit next to me and tell me about every last bit of pain hiding behind those eyes." He shouldn't agree to this kind of thing. Anything could go wrong, plus, he barely knew the girl. But she looked so fragile, completely different to her dominating presence in the classroom, which made him think if he turned her down, she might break into thousands of tiny pieces. He took her hand. Strangely enough, he had no idea why. "Lead the way." She said simply and they began walking together. Neither of them could guess what this feeling was, but it felt so right...