Warning: this chapter contains violence and triggering scenes!

Chapter Seven

KARMA'S POV

When exam season came around, I had new motivation to work harder, wanting to be able to tell Nagisa's mother that his tutor could be trusted with the highest grades in the year group. That and wanting to crush the chairman and his son.

So after the exams were over, when we sat in our class waiting in anticipation for our overly enthused octopus of a teacher to reveal all our results, I wasn't surprised at all when the ranking was read with my name at the very top of the year. That didn't make me any less overjoyed, though not nearly as overzealous as the rest of the E class seemed to be.

I was more focused on the fact that Nagisa had ranked up since the last test as well. I'd thought the best thing about coming first would be destroying Asano - but I was wrong. The best thing about it was without a doubt the way my favourite light-blue haired boy had all his attention on cheering for me proudly with that cute grin that lit up his face.

We agreed that we should celebrate, just Nagisa and me, though the class had their own little 'party' at school that day.

When the time came around, I realised that this situation was just like a date. We parted at the train station to head home and change, then met up later. Nagisa greeted me in dark jeans, a gradient T-shirt the colour of his eyes and a zipped open grey, sleeveless hoodie.

He insisted on buying me a treat of some kind even though I was the one who was the tutor. Our argue came to a compromise when we decided to surprise each other by buying each other a cake-shop gift each.

I brought Nagisa a little cookie with the letter N written on it in icing, and I delighted in the adorable gift that seemed to present him so well. When I opened up the decorative palm-sized box, I saw a little red-velvet cake with a single strawberry sitting on the icing and couldn't help smiling at him and pulling him into an awkward side hug, forcing myself to repress other urges.

After we walked around the park and ate, we had to go home. But then it seemed our day turned to shit when some high school boys decided they had taken an interest in Nagisa. I saw how scared he was, and was just going to lead him out of there to our train, but one of the idiots dared to open his mouth and make a comment something along the lines of, "It's your own fault if you get raped on the streets for making yourself look like a bitch."

Before Nagisa, one of the older's friends, or even myself could stop it, my fist had landed against his jaw, smashing against his snarled teeth with such violent, brutal aimless force I ended up hearing my own knuckle click as well as his face.

"Fuck!" I groaned, clutching my hand to my stomach as Nagisa called my name in shock, running to my side and asking if I was okay. The others looked at the blood raining mouth of their friend and lunged at the same time, with no choice but to take the blow myself until I had the time to position myself to kick, I jumped in front of Nagisa, prepared to be struck down when I heard the sounds of grunting and banging.

No longer in front of me, Nagisa had slipped back unnoticed and I watched as he took one teenager by the arm and yanked him into the back of another, kicking that second person in the face so his head slammed back into the boy behind him, sending them both to the floor with nose bleeds, he looked back just in time for the other to come charging at him with a pocket knife, but by then I'd had enough time to have gotten behind him and yanked his head back by the hair so hard he bit his tongue and dropped his knife to the floor.

We bolted off before someone else could notice, stopping in the dark, nearly empty train alley.

Nagisa looked up at me with two wide, concerned eyes wondering if we would get into trouble, but I just let myself fold over and meltdown into insane laughter.

I'll admit it was fun; especially fun to see the usually highly guarded skills of the gifted assassin student before me. But by the time I got him home safely, he made me promise that the next day I would go to the hospital and get my still stinging hand checked out.

We arrived at his house far sooner than I would have liked. The pressure on me to take advantage of his sympathy over my injured self was unreal, only suppressed by that innocent smile that could be lead easily astray that I couldn't bring myself to abuse like that.

Besides, his mother would probably have half a heart attack when she saw the red haired star student boy she believed was so well behaved in an after-fight state like this.

The hospital was the same as ever the next day. It was a weekend, and I didn't want to go at all, but Nagisa persistently brought himself along with me to make sure I kept my word, so the situation wasn't so bad having him with me.

"I think I've broken my knuckle." I explained to the doctor who saw me, a paediatrician who was likely in her mid thirties, looking at me the same way she would look at a five year old girl who'd grazed her knee.

"Hmm, I'd say fractured. That's quite an injury, how exactly did this happen?" She looked up in displayed concern. I leaned back in a relaxed way.

"I punched some teenager that was harassing my friend, don't worry about me though, you should have seen what he looked like with a chip in his tooth!" I grinned, watching as mock concern turned into actual disturbance. I couldn't help myself, her voice was just too irritably soothing.

"N-Now Mr Akabane violence isn't the answer..." She went on as adults usually did, irritating me when she begun rambling about there being some link between my name being Karma and my injury being a punishment for hurting others.

A while later, I was taken out to the X-ray room, stopping when I saw Nagisa waiting outside for me. I told him he'd be better off staying back at the waiting room or even heading home if he wanted as we'd probably end up moving about a few times, Nagisa protested, but it died down the nurse escort agreed.

"See Nagisa, I told you we should have just stuck a bandage on it and left it. Now look at the long process you've gotten me in for." I teased as I was whisked away.

I wished I hadn't annoyed Nagisa, because it was a matter of minutes later when I was put into a room with a nurse waiting on the doctor that boredom begun crushing me. Making an excuse to leave the room, I slipped out with every intention of going to find my blue haired companion, when the door to a room in front of me opened, revealing a leaving nurse and a familiar, bitterly resented face sitting across from it.

A sly smirked covered my own as I looked over both of my shoulders, slipping into the room with the name tag "GAKUSHUU ASANO" written on it. I might as well have some fun while I was waiting.

"Well well, look who we have here.."

"Tch! Get out of my sight E class." The strawberry blonde sneered as expected, glaring up at me with strong hatred in his purple eyes.

"Is that anyway to treat the boy graded first in the year? Tell me Asano, how does it feel to not be the biggest one in the room for once?"

I saw the crushing shame in his eyes, he dug his fingers into the side of his bed, eyes looking over my shoulder at the closed door, clearly wishing for his nurse to come back and send me away.

"I'd much rather be the only one in the room... get out now. I don't want you here. What are you even doing here anyway?"

"I damaged a couple of bones in a fist fight, you're not looking the best either. In fact, you look like utter shit!" I laughed, resting on the medicine cupboard behind me. I was telling the truth; Gakushu had bandaged pretty much every where he could have them, his head, his hands, even right up to his neck. All I could really see of him was his face, ears and a few locks of light hair. What had he done, fallen in a sport and landed on his everything?

He glared away evasively, turning back to me with the determination in his eyes I was used to seeing. "Lower your grade."

"Not happening."

The boy grit his teeth, continuing to ignore me,"Lower your grade by confessing to have cheated or telling them some lie or I swear there will be consequences..!"

If he hadn't been already been so blatantly well beaten up, I would have added to his injuries by many. But hitting a bandaged boy in a hospital was in poor tastes even for me.

At that moment, all I could do was laugh at him, "Please, you're hardly looking threatening the way you are right now."

My eyes coldly glanced him up and down in dissatisfaction, turning to leave just before a nurse walked in. I was summoned back to be bandage up not a minute later.

GAKUSHUU'S POV

Being in a hospital was degrading, but not as degrading as having my rival seeing me in this state and looking down at me in such a crushing way. Weakness was all that could be brought by losing.

"Who was that, your brother?" The nurse asked politely.

"No. Classmate." Was all I could say, body too broken from 'getting into a fight with bullies and being pushed down the stairs before my great, heroic father who also happens to be the Chairman could deal with them'.

If only he knew what I knew. Akabane wouldn't look down on me like that if he had been through what I had. He didn't know the dread of being raised to be perfect and putting your whole life into it to please someone unpleasable. He didn't know it could be so devastating to study so hard for something it became your only hobby, only to feel the volcano of dread finally erupt, breaking my skin out in sweat and turning my stomach into a churning pit of bottomless fear.

Last night, I walked through the door to the Chairman's office after school in a horribly tense atmosphere, both of us knowing the news, and both of us feeling the anticipation of what we both knew would happen later than night. I couldn't meet his gaze, because I knew that I had become what was truly disgusting in his eyes; a failure, a weakling. Pathetic.

The Chairman didn't speak of it. He himself didn't look me in the eyes. He had me sit down, sit still in the corner not even deserving of a chair, not even deserving to walk myself home as I sat in complete silence like an obedient dog at the fear of hearing their master blow that whistle.

When he was finally finished with his work, I felt for sure that the punishment would come now. It didn't. He acted as if nothing had happened and lead my to the car. I walked behind him as usual.

We sat closely in silence, his eyes out the window, mine half ahead, half watching him. Half waiting for him to reach out and grab me, forcing me to swallow my scream in silence so our driver wouldn't notice. Have waiting for him to stop the car on some high way where he would abandon me. Half waiting for him to flip that switch in his mind and hurt me.

That didn't happen either.

The journey came to an end and our driver was dismissed until the next morning. Mother was still away. It was just us for the night. He turned away and I rushed to prepare dinner. I looked over my shoulder about a thousand times, anxiously expecting to see him there behind me with a shotgun, expecting him to slam my hand onto the counter and hold it there until my skin scorched as he had once done before.

The pain of that was still etched into my memory, I had learnt that lesson long ago, that I should never spill a word of this to our relatives. I was going crazy with paranoia and I knew it.

The food was done but my voice was too dry to call him. I laid everything down on the table, and bit my lip, trembling for several seconds on the brink of stepping forward and moving back, until I found myself at the door to his study, knocking nervously, letting him see my face wordlessly.

We went down to the kitchen. I was in front of him. I should never be in front of him, not just because he out ranked me, but because the feel of his gaze on my back would make me stumble and fall.

Today I thought for sure I would shatter, but when I looked back, his eyes weren't on me at all. It was like I wasn't even in the room. Dinner was the same. Not a single glance. I was nothing. I wasn't slave, I wasn't dirt on his shoes, I was nothing.

I couldn't take this anymore; the silence was starting to strangle me and starve me of my sanity. My lips opened, and a word slipped. One word, one wrong mistake of a word was all it took. He wasn't my father - he wasn't a father at all. He was only the head of my school and the head of the house I lived in, so why when I opened my mouth did that word carve in my feeble, wavering voice?

The plate had smashed over my head before I could blink. The table's corner into my side and jabbing me as I was slammed up against the solid surface with fingers closing around my throat. A quivering gasp for air cried out, and just like that, the verbal onslaught of his begun. The words were like knives, stinging into me nearly as painfully as his eyes glared at me, as his hands closed around me, as his demeanour crushed mine, reminding me that I was a powerless embarrassment that he wished was never born. That he wished wouldn't curse him with wasted efforts that proved in vane.

I wasn't his son. I was nothing to him.

Was this pain really better than the blunt anxiety leading up to it? He was never plain enough to punch me, he was always more creative then that and I hated every bit of it. He slapped my face, turning the skin bright red but never enough to leave more than a day's mark. He brushed the hair from my face and left me vulnerably exposed to him as he spat truthful words, fingers closing around my face so tightly my teeth tug into the inside of my cheeks and cutting them as I looked up helplessly.

Soon I was yanked down by the ankle into the floor as he lost interest. This was followed by a dreading calm and gaze on me as I was forced to clean up the glass and the mess, limping as I felt blood draining from my side. I thought it was over then.

Soon after, there was more. I had been dragged up by the ear into his study where I was thrown into a bookshelf and avalanched with heavy, raining objects. After that, there was another moment of silence, with tension so thick it really could suffocate, and eyes on me as I trembled and limped, hanging head in shame, weak fingers struggling to lift and organise things so light I knew he really was telling the truth when he told me I was weak.

Bored of this, we were on to the next punishment, his fingers closed around my throat, and his voice penetrated my ears. I forget what room we were in, but I remember the events and the pain that followed it.

Somewhere along the line, my clothes had been torn, leaving me in only a vest and underwear. Too weak to hold myself up, he let me remain there on the ground, looking up at him like I should. I tasted dirt, and tasted the rubber of the boots that had kicked me all over. He asked what lessons I had learned, and made sure I knew that I was the very definition of weakness, my voice so tiny and croaky I could barely hear it.

I kept telling myself that I couldn't cry.

I kept telling myself that I would be rushed to hospital the second his anger cooled and that I would be fine.

I kept telling myself not to prove my inferiority.

I kept telling myself not to make the monster above me angrier, but what use would it do?

By the end of it, I was dressed back up prettily in my uniform and carried of to the car in warm arms that could be so cold it stabbed. I remember sobbing from searing hot pain in the car as the engine hummed on, and before I knew it, I had woken up here in this hospital.

I wouldn't cry. Gakushuu Asano had a perfect life with a perfect, supporting family. He was charismatic, strong and successful, and he certainly didn't cry over something as petty as middle school bullies...

If I cried, everyone would know my lie. They would know that something had to be seriously wrong.

KARMA'S POV

"I uh.. ran into Asano at the hospital yesterday."

Worry was on Nagisa's face like a switch had been turned, forgetting all about our conversation before and everything else in the world, like nothing else mattered. This was why I was hesitant to bring it up in the first place.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? What kind of state was he in?! I-I should've known this would happen-"

He was up on his feet, but I wasn't having that. My fingers closed around his wrist, pulling him down and rotating him effortlessly so he landed in the chair without so much as a blink. His wide eyes looked at me and I couldn't help but being lit aflame with jealousy.

"He looked fine. Covered in bandages but arrogant as ever, even enough to dare to threaten me and try to make me lie about cheating to get my scores lowered."

Nagisa bit his lip, "I wonder why he would do something like that?" The thought in his voice told me he didn't expect an answer.

I clicked my tongue loudly as he remained quiet,"Honestly Nagisa, how much time do you spend wasting your thoughts on this guy? You really make me jealous you know."

I muttered the last part, only intending it to be for my ears. Imagine my shock when his head tilts towards me curiously, and eyes as bright and innoccent as ever, "I didn't really hear that last part?"

To stop my face going red without a good reason, I bit down on my lip and sputtered out the first thing that came to my head,"I-I said you're too nice Nagisa, Koro-Sensei would be proud as the teacher of you as a person, but ashamed as the teacher of you as an assassin."

"But we aren't trying to assassinated Gakushuu, well... I'm not anyway." The boy gave me a suspicious look, but my mind had already deviated from the moment he said that name.

"Enough already. I love that you can be so sweet Nagisa, but when you speak about Asano so passionately it makes me envy him so badly."

At this point there was no going back. Nagisa turned to me in surprise, and with one look at my face, being so capable of reading others, he knew it all.

Would he smile..? Would he laugh? Would he be disgusted? Scared? Upset?!

I couldn't let his mind make any decisions without my input.

"I guess It's finally time to confess, I never lost that crush I had on you Nagisa, if anything it went from massive to Brobdingnagian-" He looked at me puzzled as if I had just spat gibberish, which was my intention as it stopped his thoughts coming to any unpleasant conclusions for just long enough for me to explain, "Even when I found out you were a boy, even when we moved classes, even when we didn't see each other for such a long time and even when I found out you liked someone else. All of these times I would try to live on independently and not become obsessed, but every reason not to be with you made me want to fight for you even more. You don't know how excited I was when I saw you in the E class Nagisa, suddenly I didn't care that I had moved to the bottom of the school or that I had this unrealistic task, suddenly I knew that there was no escaping the feelings I have for you, Nagisa."

The boy's face was perfectly still, startled with eyes wide and guarded so they were unreadable. " And I don't want to escape them."

Then, I had a burst of courage that I had been chasing for months. My finger slipped lightly around his chin, my heart pounding as I felt his soft, warm skin in my grasp, before I tilted his face up, not to mine, but to the side, pressing my lips against his cheek in an extended peck that I wished could last forever.

It was only one touch. It may have made me yearn for more, but even still I felt something in side me leaping around.

When I pulled away, I saw the fogginess in his diamond blue orbs, making me smile a small smile before I turned away, saying goodbye to him for the day and telling him to make sure he finishes all his work.

Unsure of what else to do, but glad I had done it late so I had an excuse to run out as fast as I could with crimson burning right up to ears, I headed home where I sank down against my bed, eyes shut, and lips trembling and tickling from the warmth of his skin.

Yes! A darker chapter! The rating has officially changed back to M and we have gotten into Gakushuu's mind.

How will this affect his character? What does this mean for his involvement in the story? How will this relate to Nagisa?

Please continue to support and look out for the next chapter. *-*