Replacement glasses were ordered for Watanuki that night after much protesting that he couldn't allow Doumeki's family to pay for them. Doumeki's mother had only laughed and called him silly but cute.

This business of being called 'cute' was starting to happen a little too often upon reflection...

School only continued to get worse. The new glasses wouldn't be delivered for a few days at least and making his way through class everyday mostly blind was nearly impossible. Watanuki started to have headaches every day and Doumeki spent a great deal of his time keeping from the shorter boy from running into things. He hadn't realized just how bad Watanuki's vision was until the night he needed someone to tell him what the measurement sizes were on his teaspoons while cooking dinner.

The bullies, of course, did not let up even for a moment. Five times already in just two days the archery team had to step in and prevent a group of students from landing punches on him.

One afternoon found Watanuki all alone as he tried to locate the correct book that he would need for his literature class. Not that he would be able to read it, of course, but he still needed one for appearances' sake. Sometimes if the text was large enough he could move his face so close his nose was nearly touching the paper and see what was written, but this technique just caused his headache to worsen. Probably why he didn't notice the group of people stalk up to him as he closed his locker because the pounding in his skull tended to drown out most other noises.

"Still blind, boy?"

Watanuki turned around sharply at the harsh tone and tried to squint his eyes to see. Judging by the voice it was Fujimoto Hiroto, one of the boys from the soccer team. Six blurry shapes were probably more of his friends with him. Watanuki held his book tightly to his chest and made to leave. "Excuse me."

He felt hands push at his shoulders roughly the moment one of his feet moved and his books slapped away from his arms and fall around his feet. "I asked you a question, fag, don't ignore me!"

Watanuki rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Yes, I'm still blind. Please excuse me so I can get to class."

A couple people that sounded like they were behind him chuckled. "Hey, you think fags still have a pair?" A different boy asked.

Watanuki felt his temper rise as the others laughed more.

"Worth finding out, I say," Fujimoto said with a grin in his voice.

Watanuki only had enough time to take a breath before he felt hands grip his arms and shoulders and felt a fist punch itself right into his stomach. He gasped at the shock and felt the air leave his lungs. Doumeki had warned him the soccer team was bad news. Watanuki had wanted to believe that they weren't going to become violent, but clearly those hopes were thoroughly trashed. Another sharp punch to his gut and Watanuki suddenly had the urge to throw up his lunch.

"Fight back, faggot! Maybe you really don't have any balls!"

Watanuki was too busy trying to keep his food down and regain his breath to respond. Another hit, this one directly to his chest, sent the teenager to his knees. He'd never felt the air in his lungs so forcefully removed like that before. Breathing in hurt in a place it never had before.

"That's enough!" Someone barked into the laughing crowd. Watanuki sighed in relief when he recognized it as Kaseki-san from the archery club. The blurry shapes around him moved quickly and he heard the scuffing of rubber soles scraping on tile floor. A few people cursed at each other, then there were hands pulling at his arms and helping him stand.

"Pussies!" Fujimoto taunted them. "The freak can't even defend himself!"

"Neither can a lot of things, doesn't mean you should go punching everything," Kaseki bit back.

The teenager tried to stand all the way but the muscles in his abdomen were still in a lot of pain. He leaned over and put his hands on his knees and concentrated on slow and steady breaths. A pair of arms wrapped around him gently and he heard Doumeki's voice in his ear.

"Are you all right?" Doumeki asked him.

"Fine, fine!" Watanuki growled. He pushed the taller teenager's arms away. "Don't coddle me."

One of the shapeless forms stood in front of him. Watanuki thought perhaps he could even make out the large red logo on the shoes of the student standing there. "You all right, Watanuki-san? Those were some hard hits! I'm surprised you didn't throw up!"

"I feel like I'm about to," Watanuki admitted. "Thanks once again."

"Don't mention it," Kaseki replied easily.

"We'll be late for class," Doumeki remarked. "We should all go."

Doumeki did not like the way his stomach flipped around so wildly when he and Watanuki had to split up for yet another class. He was starting to contemplate changing his class schedule just so the other boy was never out of sight of him while being within easy reaching distance of someone out to hurt him. He mentioned that idea to Watanuki that night, who predictably threw a fit. It was moronic of Doumeki to change his schedule when he needed certain classes for college, and dammit all Watanuki couldn't live in Doumeki's shadow his whole live and why, oh, why did his life have to revolve around Doumeki?

Instead, Watanuki had a better idea. Perhaps he should start taking self-defense classes. If Doumeki was so damned good a judo perhaps he better start teaching his partner. Doumeki realized that probably wasn't such a bad idea, so long as Watanuki's glasses never fell off.

Damn his terrible vision.

. . . . . . . . .

Watanuki rubbed the bridge of his nose in a now familiar fashion and tried to push the headache back just a little. His eyeglasses were supposed to be ready for him in the evening at the eye clinic and he, for one, couldn't wait to get them back. He was already falling desperately further behind in his homework. Doumeki was at least kind enough to read aloud the questions for things, like history questions, math homework and verb worksheets and write down Watanuki's answers for him, but that could only help him so much. It was too much work for Watanuki to try and speak out loud an entire term paper, for example, and those were coming up in just a couple of weeks.

Doumeki opened Watanuki's locker for him which allowed the other to shove his head partly inside and inspect his damnable text books for the one he would need for English that morning.

Huh, that was strange. He didn't remember putting anything unusual in his locker the night before. Watanuki puzzled over the small round thing that was on the top shelf. He picked the item up and brought it close to his face to examine it. It was white and felt a little like melted sugar glass. It was a sphere shape and about the size of a soft ball. "Shizuka, did you put this in here?"

"Hm?" Doumeki asked, not really paying attention to what the other was doing.

"This," Watanuki said again. He'd never seen anything like it before. "I don't know what this is."

Doumeki examined the object as well. It didn't look very remarkable. "I don't know either."

His fingers squeezed just a little around the object, then everything shattered. Students heard the scream from three halls over.

Doumeki watched horrified as the item burst in Watanuki's hand and showered anything nearby in a clear spray of liquid. Watanuki screamed, blood-curdling and loud. He clutched his eye and collapsed to his knees, shouting and shaking violently. "Oh god,it burns!" Doumeki reacted quickly. He pulled Watanuki up and rushed with him quickly to the chemistry lab. He forgot how to breathe as his partner kept shrieking in agony.

Students eyed them in avid curiosity and Doumeki pushed Watanuki's head over the eye wash station and pulled the cord. A flood of water rushed up to meet his covered face. The taller teenager carefully moved Watanuki's hand down to reveal the boy's right eye that was swollen shut so that it could get hit directly by the running water.

Watanuki continued to sob, even as the water started washing away the acid on his skin.

Oh, what happened? Someone hurt Watanuki again?

I've never even seen someone use that thing before...

What do you think it is?

Who knows... they might just be looking for attention...

No, this seems serious...

Doumeki concentrated on removing Watanuki's black school jacket and ignoring the curious students in the room. The black material on the front of it was faded and splotchy as though someone had splashed bleach on it. The boy's sleeve was also colored strangely and still touching the skin of his wrist. Watanuki did not fight him as he removed the boy from the garment.

"Watanuki-san!" Fai-sensei asked worriedly. "What happened? Doumeki-san, was he exposed to something toxic?" The blond instructor moved around them and tried to get a good look at Watanuki's face without moving him away from the water.

"Acid!" Doumeki said, more loudly than he'd meant to. "Someone put a ball of acid in his locker!"

The volume level of the partially filled classroom rose significantly at this. It was big news.

Someone was laughing quite loudly just outside of the classroom's door. Doumeki looked over, his hand still on the back of Watanuki's neck and keeping the boy next to the cleansing liquid, and saw Fujimoto pointing at them with a smug grin.

"I told you!" Fujimoto said to a student next to him. "A fucking pussy!"

Doumeki's vision narrowed down to a single line of red. Something in his brain felt like it broke. A synapse somewhere snapped apart and he was suddenly on auto-pilot. His hands directed Fai-sensei next to Watanuki. "Don't let him move."

"Doumeki-san!" Fai-sensei said in warning, but Doumeki was too angry to hear it.

He moved away from the eye wash station and stalked to the door, his fists clenched tightly. The soccer player's satisfied smirk started to burn a hole in his self-control. "You did this to him?"

Fujimoto popped his collar and grinned, showing teeth. "What are you gonna do about it, huh? My father owns a hardware shop, so I can get a hold of all the poisons I want!" He laughed again, loudly. "Your cock probably broke off up in his ass, cause you're just a pussy too!"

Crack!

People around them yelled in shock. The snapping noise of Fujimoto's jaw breaking under Doumeki's fist was enough to make skin crawl. The soccer player hit the wall hard and held his arms up around his face. A satisfying stream of blood started to flow from his lower lip. "B-Bitch!" The boy slurred through his broken jaw. He stood back up fully and took a swing at the tall archery student.

Doumeki ducked the blow and reached around Fujimoto's middle. In one swift move he dropped the student to the ground and twisted his arm up high behind him. There was a frightening amount of joy when he felt the bones in the arm break under his force. This time it was Fujimoto that shrieked in pain.

"Woah, woah! That's enough! Back off, Doumeki!"

Fujimoto started choking because Doumeki's fingers around his neck squeezed as hard as they could.

"Doumeki!"

Kurogane-sensei ran down the hallway and grabbed Doumeki by the scruff of his neck and pulled him away. Apparently, though, that was not enough because the student slipped out of his grip and went back to keep mauling the downed soccer player. The gym teacher hooked his arms around Doumeki's shoulders and struggled to pull him away.

Doumeki was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked, because one moment he was being restrained by the heavily muscled gym teacher, then the next he'd managed to flip the even taller man over and into the lockers on the wall next to them. Kurogane-sensei grunted as his back hit the unforgiving metal. No one had been able to throw him since he was a teenager, so it was jarring to find himself thrown aside like a sack of potatoes. Nothing to be done about it, though. If Doumeki was allowed to continue he was likely going to kill Fujimoto who was already half passed out on the floor. He got back up and tried again, marginally more successful this time as he gripped Doumeki around the middle and lifted him up and away.

By this time there were several teachers and other staff members there. Three more male teachers helped Kurogane keep Doumeki in place while other instructors kept the spectating students aside while Fujimoto was slowly picked up.

"Knock it off!" Kurogane bellowed in Doumeki's ear.

Doumeki trembled as his body sang with adrenaline. "He put acid in Kimihiro's locker! He might be blind now! His jacket was ruined, his skin was bleeding! It was acid!"

If Kurogane had his way he would have let go of Doumeki and let the boy have his way with Fujimoto, but if he wanted to keep his job he'd have to follow the school district's rule of no violence. "We'll deal with that, so knock it off!

"Shizuka!" Watanuki could be heard from inside the chemistry lab.

That was what it took to calm Doumeki down enough to finally move his attention away from the whimpering Fujimoto in the hallway and on to more important matters.