Soft foot steps were heard as a boy ascended up a flight of stairs. Perhaps calling him a boy was not accurate. He was fourteen years old after all. By some definition, he was a young man, by others a boy. However, the most accurate description was somewhere in between.
He was not quite fleshed out into a man, but he was no longer the boy he'd once been. The last eight years had seen to that.
Masamune-Makabe was only in his underwear as he stepped into his room. He had just showered and was about to get dressed. But before he did, he had to give himself a quick check in the mirror. He needed to make sure there wasn't any part of his body that had any fat whatsoever.
Masamune-Makabe, or just Makabe to his soon to be classmates, looked himself over the mirror. He smiled proudly and flexed a few muscles, making sure they reflected the fitness he wanted them to.
"Eww." A feminine voice sounded from the side of his room. Makabe's face twisted in confusion as he turned to the side, only to be greeted by the sight of his little sister eating some chips while reading a comic book on his couch.
"Could you be any more vain?" She asked. "You're such a narcissist." She jabbed.
Makabe's eyebrows downturned in displeasure, he frowned. "Who asked you?" He said, already feeling himself getting irritated. But his sister just kept talking. "You're so self obsessed, preening and flexing in front of the mirror for hours. You're the picture of vanity. Totally pathetic." She said harshly.
Makabe clenched his jaw, already fed up with his sister. "There is nothing wrong with taking pride in ones appearance!" He said. "You're gross! Eating junk food at this hour!" He said, pointing at her dramatically.
His sister seemed unfazed. "Want a chip?" She said blankly.
Masamune's lips curled. "Never." He said, making an X as he swung his arms. His sister didn't say anything else, instead deciding to eat her chip. Masamune just walked over to his desk where his clothes were. "Besides." He said as he walked. "I've told you not to come in my room without knocking first." He said, giving her the stink eye from over his shoulder.
"That's cold! I'm your sister! Why treat me like a stranger just 'cause we lived apart for all these years." She asked, now sounding bothered.
Masamune had lived in the mountains for eight years now. His birth name, the one his sister still used, was "Hayase". He had changed it to Makabe for a specific purpose, one that would soon consume his life for the next two years, though he didn't know it would be that long.
'The audacity!' Makabe though angrily. 'She comes into my room unannounced and then gets mad when I tell her to knock!? Since when was asking someone to knock considered cold!?' Makabe thought.
"What if I'd been changing huh? Would you really think I was being so cold if you walked in on me naked?" He snapped back, confident that his logic had won him the argument.
His sister shivered in horror at the thought and went quiet. Masamune just turned to look at his desk, seeing the picture half covered by the sun's glare on his cork board.
'I promised myself that no matter what, I would never be a doormat for anyone again, as long as I live.' Masamune thought, he'd been repeating it to himself like a mantra for a while now.
Sudden rapid but light footsteps could be heard from outside the room. Then Makabe's door flew open to reveal an extremely small woman with brown eyes and long hair. She looked a lot like Makabe's little sister, except smaller, lighter hair, over all more child like. So with that, the words she spoke would come as a surprise.
"Good morning!" She said in a high pitched, but not whiny voice. "Well my lovely children! Breakfast is ready!" She said.
Masamune and his sister went downstairs after their mother. Despite her small size, she had in fact birthed them. She was often mistaken for a child, but her ID argued otherwise.
Masamune came downstairs to see what his mother had prepared. On the table was a practical buffet. But to Masamune, it was a plethora of insanely high calorie food such as fried chicken, and worst of all, doughnuts. To anyone else the breakfast would have looked mouth watering. But to Masamune...
"You used to love doughnuts when you were little." His mom said. "Do you still my little Masa?" She said, using the childish nickname she'd given him that he'd come to hate. "You're so sugary sweet! And the fried chicken is so fresh I can still hear it sizzling! Don't you just adore that sound?" She said excitedly, her hands clasped together underneath her chin like a toddlers.
Masamune's face twitched as he raised his hand. "Uh, no mom, gotta go." He said shortly, quickly turning to leave the house.
His mother whined quietly in disappointment before turning to her daughter. "Chinatsu! Did you hear how incredibly hateful he just was to mommy!? He shunned my breakfast when I was so glad to feed him again!" She said, sounding in the verge of hysterics.
Chinatsu all the while was eating from a mountainously tall bowl of rice as her mother wailed. Both of the Hayase children had grown more than used to their mother's overbearing and immature behavior. "Yeah I heard." Chinatsu said. "He's dropped a lot of extra baggage, that's how he did it." She said.
Masamune didn't think he'd be able to stand being there much longer. "I'm heading out." He said exasperatedly.
"Masamune!" His mother wailed from over the table.
Masamune left his house and walked into the city. He was drinking a box of juice as he paced forwards, eventually coming to a stop in front of some random store in the town.
'Like I would ever eat so many calories this early in the morning.' He thought to himself vehemently, crushing the now empty juice box in his fist. He went to throw it away in the nearby trashcan, but paused when he noticed his reflection in the glass of the store.
Masamune made eye contact with himself, staring into his own determined blue eyes. He breathed in deeply to calm his nerves and then threw the box into the trash.
'Hot, or not, that's all that matters. That's my motto. My words to live by. If you're not hot, you may as well not be human.' Masamune thought bitterly. It wasn't like he'd come up with the concept, nor did he like it. He was only trying to survive, and to him, that's how you did it. Because if you weren't attractive, the other students would tear you to shreds.
'Normal guys may survive high school but a hot guy could rule the school.' Masamune was now on the school grounds and he was taking immense pleasure at all the different girls he saw staring at him. Some of them were even blushing. It was the polar opposite of what he was used to from girls his age, but he going to enjoy it.
As he walked, he passed the tennis courts. There were already a dozen girls all playing there in school uniforms. It must have been practice. They seemed pretty good, but Masamune wasn't that interested in the sport.
But to be fair, he was still male. Was it really his fault for staring when they wore such short skirts? Maybe. He could probably be more respectful, but again, he was just a teenage boy.
"Hey! What are you staring at perv!" He heard a female voice shout.
On gut reaction Masamune flinched. Crap, they'd seen him staring! He was gonna get crucified!
Three of the girls playing tennis came out of the courts, jogging quickly towards him. Masamune seized up as they approached, clenching his eyes shut in fear and almost whimpering to himself.
However, it seemed that he would live another day. The three girls ran past him and surrounded another teenage boy in the same school uniform behind him. "Were you taking pictures! Let me see your phone." One of the girls said accusingly, grilling the poor boy.
"No I wasn't!" The student cried. "I was just texting with a friend I swear!" He said. The unnamed boy had dark hair cut in a manner that didn't suit his face. It showed too much of his forehead and was too long on the sides. Not disgustingly so, but enough to make him look unattractive. It certainly didn't help that he had round glasses on.
"Don't give me that! Who holds their phone like that to text!" The same tennis player said, now sounding angry.
"Seriously, you've got the wrong idea!" The boy said desperately.
"Then why won't you let us see your phone! C'mon hand it over buddy!" Another one of the tennis girls said.
Masamune watched from not far behind. Part of him wanted to step in on the boy's behalf, but another part of him was terrified of being crucified in his place. So, Masamune slowly walked backwards.
'I was actually the one gawking at them like a perv. Bet that poor fool just took out his phone without thinking.'
Masamune finally turned around. When he did, another, much softer female voice spoke from his left. It was another tennis girl, though this one was still behind the nets that separated the courts from the sidewalk. "Hey! Hold on a sec'. Are you Masamune-Makabe?" She asked.
Masamaune sucked in a breath sharply and straightened his back out of fear. "Uh, yes." He said, afraid.
"I thought so." She said before her other tennis friend with black hair chimed in. "Who's that?" She asked. The first brunette girl responded. "His name's Makabe, he transferred here last week." She said before turning back to them. "So are you interested in playing tennis? You can practice with us sometime if you want." She offered.
More girls who had been playing tennis showed up, including the three who'd harassed that other poor boy with glasses.
"Uh thanks." Masamune said awkwardly, still trying to calm his nerves.
One of the three girls came up to him. "I heard you aced the entrance exam. Is that true?"
"Oh wow! I saw you playing soccer the other day. You looked incredible!" She said dreamily. Suddenly almost all of them were borderline swooning over him.
'This is crazy... I gotta seize the opportunity.'
Masamune smiled confidently and brushed some of his bangs out of his eyes. "You girls are so sweet. I was actually just admiring your athleticism. You guys were practicing so hard." He commented, purposely adding some charm to his voice.
The three girls who'd harassed that boy blushed. Speaking of which, that boy who'd carelessly pulled out his phone was staring from afar with his mouth agape. Masamune didn't blame him. They'd gone from heartlessly interrogating him and accusing him of being a pervert to showering some other dude in attention. Masamune would've felt baffled and enraged too. He gave the boy an apologetic smile.
Masamune turned and left after his comment, leaving the girls gossiping behind him. But as he walked away, he started thinking. Why had he said that? Was it purely because some cute girls had shown interest in him for the first time ever?
After all, those three girls who gone after that poor guy deserved to get treated like they were creeps. See how they liked it when they got accused of a crime, or to live without their good looks. So why had he flattered them?
He didn't like the answer and what it said about his characters.
But at the very least, their reaction had given him confidence that his plan would work, and not all of those girls deserved his ire.
However, those three who'd accused that other boy...they deserved it all. They only called that poor kid a creep because they didn't find him attractive, it wasn't even because they genuinely thought he was. They just didn't like his attention!
But the moment an attractive guy actually leers as them, they were swooning. They didn't actually care who was a pervert, they just cared if the person giving them attention was good looking or not. The hypocrisy left a bitter taste in Masamune's mouth.
'They're no better than her.' He thought angrily.
Masamune came out of his thoughts as he turned the corner and walked towards the school entrance. There was a large crowd there, and all of them were murmuring to each other.
"ShiGayo is going to confess his love? To the cruel princess!?" A female voiced asked urgently.
Another male voice from the same direction could be heard as well. "I bet she finally gives in this time. I mean I know she's the cruel princess and all, but ShiGayo is the the most popular guy in school." He said.
Masamune's gaze finally landed on "ShiGayo". He was a rather tall blonde boy with dark brown eyes. It was obvious his hair was dyed, it did not fit his face. He also was obviously full blood Japanese as well. Though if the supposed rumor of him being the hottest guy in school was true, than the girls must have loved it.
"Look! There she is." A voice shouted, as the figure of a girl appeared on the roof of the school. She stood alone, and did not say anything for several moments.
At the her appearance, ShiGayo finally moved, no longer standing still and basking in the gossip around him. "You showed up!" He said loudly and confidently, splaying his arms out dramatically as he talked. "I knew you would my bashful little Rapunzel. No need to be shy." He said, opening his jacket to show the white dress shirt underneath. "You can stare all you want, I relish the attention."
'Yeah you got that right.' Masamune thought as he walked forward, rolling his eyes and internally cringing. Not even he was this bad.
ShiGayo spoke one last time. "Now give me your answer, here and now!" He said, sounding like he was playing a charming prince in a theatre. Masamune slid his gaze to the roof as ShiGayo finished.
Unseen by all of them, the girl on the roof smiled confidently at Shigayo's arrogance. "If you like attention, you're in luck." The girl said to herself sarcastically. She brought a microphone to her mouth. "ShiGayo Yamada of class 3-C. Thank you for asking me out, I won't keep you waiting any longer. I have an answer." Her smooth voice sounded out.
The girl continued as ShiGayo posed arrogantly. "Because I am discerning in my taste, I had one of my servants perform a thorough background check on you." She said.
It probably went unnoticed by some, but those who'd seen this charade happen before, and even Masamune could hear the slight edge of sadistic glee in her voice. It was the voice of a movie villain about to kill the hero.
ShiGayo seemed to realize what was coming. Suddenly his stance became less arrogant, and his eyes widened in nervousness.
"What she found out surprised even me." The girl said, bringing a paper up to read. "Recently you went to the bookstore and bought a copy of...'geez I'm ryubi-gento kun' and a gender swapped version of 'romance of the three kingdoms. Then you hid it in a college prep book." The Cruel Princess said, her voice now sounding more disappointed and disgusted than sadistic.
"Gender swapped!" The entire crowd cried.
ShiGayo now looked as if his entire world was collapsing around him. His eyes were hidden from them as he faced away, his mouth open slightly in shock. Unfortunately for him, The Cruel Princess wasn't done.
"Also I don't think staring inappropriately at underclassmen's upper arm flab is a very noble hobby. Though I'm very curious about your power play fantasy fiction that's serialized on the internet. The protagonist even shares your name, ShiGayo." She said disdainfully.
ShiGayo finally seemed to regain the ability to think and spun around. "She's lying! It's not true." He said hysterically.
"Then there's that creepy hair that's always growing out of the mole on your chest. Don't think I haven't noticed it." She said demeaningly. "Therefore it is with great pleasure that I bestow this fitting name upon you." She said, moving the mic away from her mouth as a second girl and a boy approached.
This both of them were blonde, but a shade that was natural. Thought that was all Masamune could see, it was enough to tell him they were siblings, probably twins. The boy took out a giant rolled up piece of paper and let it fall over the front window of the school, the name The Cruel Princess had given him displayed largely for all to see.
"Moleo?!" The whole crowd said. The nickname was a heartless jab at the blonde high schooler.
ShiGayo fell to his knees in shame. The Cruel Princess walked away as everyone began to murmur about ShiGayo's deviances.
Masamune suddenly didn't feel so confident in his plan. This ShiGayo obviously deserved what he'd been dealt. Maybe some embarrassment would humble him. However, it didn't subtract from the anger Masamune felt at seeing The Cruel Princess. Girls like them needed to be knocked down a peg, and when Masamune realized that he was the only one who could do it, he steeled himself.
He could not waver now.
However, he would need patience. So for now, he simply went into the school. His class was on one of upper floors. As he ascended the steps, he kept pumping himself up.
'Eight years in the making. I can't let that get under my skin. The battle is just begin-' Masamune's thought were interrupted as The Cruel Princess herself came around the corner at the top of the stairs.
She had dark hair. No it was more than dark, it was midnight black hair. It was glossy, long, and in two long pig tails. She had purple eyes like amethyst, but they were hardened with irritation. It was no wonder she was asked out so much. But when he saw her, flashbacks raced through his mind.
A bouquet of flowers fell to the neatly trimmed grass. A large overweight boy was the one who dropped them. Two older boys stood behind him, but everyone had stopped moving.
A girl stood behind the window, her face concealed in darkness because the only light glowed brightly from behind her. But the one thing you could recognize was midnight black hair.
"I won't ever fall for someone like you...You're nothing but a pig's foot."
The flashback ended, and shame flooded Masamune, but boiling hot rage followed immediately afterwards. When The Cruel Princess, or as he knew her, Aki Adagaki, turned to look at him, already glaring at him for simply being a man, he met her gaze with an undying but calm determination and no fear at all.
"Hey Makabe you gettin lazy on me?" An upbeat and energetic voice asked.
Masamune's head snapped up, drool still on his lower lip. He wiped the spot from his face and turned to face the girl who'd spoke. She was very pretty, short auburn hair with chestnut brown eyes in the school's uniform pink button up, but with a blue bow tie.
"Morning sunshine, you were sound asleep there." She said with a smile, unbothered by his nap.
"Oh." Masamune said, relaxing now that he knew he wasn't in trouble. "It's just you Futaba."
"Yep, it's just me. So I guess this means you're getting comfortable here? Glad to see your settling in." She said.
"Makabe's finally awake." A high pitched, but male voice said from the door to class. Masamune looked over to see Shuri Kojuurou, the class's sugar addict.
Masamune smiled. Shuri was a sweet guy just like the food he was addicted to. "Yeah Shuri I'm up." Masamune said.
"You can call me Kojuurou if you want." The boy said, as friendly and welcoming as ever. That was why Masamune liked him, it was hard not to like friendly people.
"You haven't eaten lunch yet have you? The school store is sold out, so I'll share." He said kindly, offering Masamune one of the rolls he'd grabbed.
"You're a real life saver. Thanks a lot man." Masamune said. Kojuurou seemed overjoyed at being called a man, and went back to his desk. However, Masamune soon realized that, as nice as Kojuurou's gift had been, it came at a cost.
'This bread is a full meal's worth of calories and is practically made of only fat carbs. I'll have to do a hundred extra crunches when I get home just to burn this off.' Masamune thought irritably. But he knew he shouldn't be ungrateful, and that he'd feel awful if he went without eating.
Just then the door to the classroom slid open and the same smooth voice that many had come to be familiar with spoke. "Is Aki Otanabe here?"
Masamune felt the threat of another flashback and froze up. It was Aki Adagaki and her blonde servants. It had been several days since he'd first seen them but his reaction to their presence hadn't changed.
Aki walked into the room as if she owned it and scanned them all. Finally she landed on him after seemingly not finding the boy she was looking for. Aki sat on the side of his desk and grabbed his tie. "You'll do as well as anyone, answer me. One Aki Otanabe. Seen him?" She all but demanded.
A thousand thoughts were flying through Masamune's head. Thoughts of revenge, of shame, fear, rage, and sadness. But to his credit, he kept his cool. This was the first altercation of a long war to come. He needed to start this out right if he was going to win.
"I...I don't know." He said.
'Dang it!" Masamune yelled at himself in his head. He'd completely choked and acted like a total pushover! Why couldn't he ever grow a spine with anyone other than his family.
"U-uh, I'm Otanabe." A timid voice called out to Masamune's left. It was a brown haired boy with equally brown eyes, glasses, and a bit of thick frame. Unfortunately he was short, so the width didn't look good on him.
Once he spoke Aki Adagaki let go of his tie and slid off his desk, pulling a piece of paper out of her jacket and beginning to read it aloud. "I fell for you when I saw your grace and dignity in P.E. class. In other words, you like how my legs look in short shorts, isn't that right?" She asked cruelly. Her eyes and smirk were heartless.
"I think that from now on your name is pudding prince." She said, tearing the love letter he'd made for her into a dozen pieces. Otanabe looked devastated. The paper fell to the floor, and Aki began to leave the room. "Come on Yoshino, Yoshiro." She said to her two servants.
"Man, what's her problem." Masamune asked, still staring at the door Aki had just left. Koujuurou was the first to answer. "She's beautiful and has the best grades of anyone in our class, but her personality is not what I'd call nice." He said.
Futaba chipped in next. "Also, she hates all men with a passion. She gives any guy who asks her out a terribly cruel nickname to humiliate them and drive them away."
"That's why they call her The Cruel Princess. Her name is Aki Adagaki-" Kojuurou said. To Masamune, the rest of the world faded away.
'It is her.'
With more urgency than was necessary, but not so much to make him look like a crazy person, Masamune stood from his desk. He speed walked over to the door and stepped just outside of it, watching as the three left down the hall.
'Never thought it would be so easy to find you after all these years.' Masamune thought to himself. Yoshino and Yoshiro turned around and looked at him. Yoshino with a innocent, confused gaze, and Yoshiro with a demeaning one. Aki turned around a second after they did, but all she did was glare at him before turning around sharply. The message was clear.
He was nothing more than a bug to her.
"Ms. Aki, would you care for another cup of tea?" A girl spoke.
Aki Adagaki sat at a round table with three other girls. The girl who spoke was named Sonaka Kaneko, the student council vice president. The tall one with reddish brown hair was named Kikune Kiba, she was a very big kendo fan who never went anywhere without her training sword, and the third girl with black hair, though not as dark as Aki's, was Mari Mizuno.
"I would, thank you." Aki said. "It's lovely."
Mari reached down into her backpack and pulled out a thin rectangular box. "I ordered these chocolates from a world famous chocolateer in Brussles. Would you like to be the first to try one?" Mari asked, presenting them to Aki as Sonaka poured her another cup of tea.
Aki smiled. "I'm honored you asked but I'm afraid I'll have to pass for now." She said, putting one hand against her own cheek.
All of what Masamune knew of them was from what Kojuurou had told him. Aki really did surround herself with a bevy of female lackeys.
"Oh no Sonoka. Your ribbon is coming untied." Aki said, already reaching out to fix it for her. Sonoka seemed rather surprised. "Thank you." She said, looking aboslutely honored to have Aki fix her ribbon for her.
Yoshino and Yoshiro stood behind Aki, the four girls sitting alone at a round table with a white cloth on it. They were on an open balcony of the school while Masamune and Kojuurou were watching through the glass from inside the rest of the cafeteria. "I assumed all the girls would be afraid of Adagaki too." He said to Kojuurou. "And yet they seem to like her." He finished.
"Apparently some of them think she's so cool because she's so blunt." Kojuurou said, unaware of the hostility Masamune felt, and smiling all the while.
'Yeah, there's a word for girls like that, Misandrists. They're all scum.' Masamune thought angrily. One girl decided that she's going to go out of her way to give guys who ask her out cruel nicknames, reveal their personal secrets while invading their privacy and publicly humiliate them, and that's considered cool? Anyone who idolized her was a worthless human being.
Masamune could only imagine the outrage if there was a male equivalent to her little group. If a boy did the things she did to girls who asked him out? He'd be looked upon by everyone as a monster and probably imprisoned if he invaded a girl's privacy like Aki did to ShiGayo.
"Anything else you can tell me?" Masamune asked. "Personal tastes?" He inquired, holding a small note pad and pen.
"I've never heard much talk about her beyond what I've already told you. I do know that she likes to eat her lunch alone though." Kojuurou said. Almost right as he finished his sentence Aki stood up and excused herself from the three girls she'd been sitting with.
Masamune stood up and watched as Aki ordered Yoshino to do something out of earshot. Yoshiro went with Adagaki while Yoshino ran off.
'So she's basically got a harem surrounding her at all times during the school day. Except for when she's eating lunch. Strange.'
"I'll just have to investigate further." Masamune said to himself. With a warning from Kojuurou to not investigate and the realization that he was loosing a possible chance, Masamune left to follow after Aki. Unfortunately, he'd already lost her. She'd completely disappeared. He searched the school to no avail.
'Looking for her is making me realize just how big this school is.' Masamune thought as he hopped down from the branches of a tree he'd climbed. He'd used it as a vantage point to try and spot Aki, but hadn't been able to find her. As he climbed down, he spotted a blonde girl walking over the sidewalk to Masamune's right.
'It's that girl. That's her sidekick for sure, her most trusted lackey I bet. There's no mistaking that unfortunate demeanor.' Masamune thought. The girl always looked timid and afraid, as if one mistake would be enough to set Aki off. Yoshino looked around, though not behind her, before making a quick dash to a large metal sliding door. She gave one last quick check around before opening the door and slipping inside. Though when she closed the door, it was cracked ever so slightly.
Masamune snuck over to the door and put his ear next to the gap.
"I got your sandwiches." He heard a frail, whispy voice say.
"What took you so long!" He heard Aki's voice ask irritably. "I nearly died of starvation."
"Sorry but they only had two of the ones you liked with the cutlets." Yoshino said. The sound of crinkling plastic could be heard as she spoke.
"You should've just gotten something else instead of making me wait like this." Aki said, sounding less irritated, but still impatient. "Are you stupid or something?" Aki snapped.
'Jackpot.' Masamune thought. 'Wait... what's with that metal case?'
Before Masamune could get a better look, a spider made itself known, hanging down from a web mere inches from Masamune's eye. At the sight of the dark and most likely venomous arachnid, Masamune panicked. He screamed, and to his shame, it wasn't even a dignified one. It wasn't overly shrill, but it was still shameful. He threw himself from his previous stance, slamming into the door to try and get away only to stumble and fall on his behind a few feet inside the gym store room.
Once his panic was over he realized that all three of the people in the room were now staring at him. Right, there was that blonde boy who, now that Masamune could see him up close, looked a eerily similar to Yoshino. They were twins most certainly.
"H-hi there." Masamune said. "Sorry about that, I just saw her come in." He gestured to Yoshino. "And I got curious." He finished, hoping they'd believe him. To be fair, it was true. He didn't expect to find Aki here and had been wondering why Yoshino would come to here of all places.
"So you're telling me you assumed she'd be all alone in here, is that it?" Aki asked accusingly. Masamune understood what she was implying immediately and was disgusted.
'Of course a stuck up spoiled brat like her would immediately call me a predator!'
"I mean, I guess?" Masamune said. He was already pissed at himself for not denouncing her vehemently and calling her out on her unfair and sexist assumption, but there wasn't any recovering from what he'd said now. His mind shifted to what he'd discovered. This was not the jackpot he'd thought.
'No one would believe me if I told them The Cruel Princess Aki Adagaki ate her lunch alone in a storage closet. Or that she likes high calorie meals usually enjoyed by construction workers.' He thought, staring at the food she had in her lap.
"You're interrupting, I think you should get out and forget you ever saw us." Aki said. Without even needing any prompting, Yoshiro, the male servant, took a step forwards threateningly. Masamune already knew what the blonde servant would do to him if he refused. But, in a rare moment of fake confidence, Masamune played it off.
"Don't worry I wont tell. I'm sure plenty of female athletes eat that much. Heh, my little sister eats like a horse..." Masamune trailed off as he noticed that the high calorie meal Aki was about to eat wasn't the first one. There were about three other empty lunch cases next to Aki's left leg.
"Would you like to have your bread now?" Yoshino whispered. "Give it to me later." Aki whispered back, though both were too loud for Masamune to not hear.
As if on cue, Aki's stomach growled loudly and Aki herself seemed to loose her harsh demeanor in embarrassment. Even Yoshiro lost his threatening aura as he looked back at his mistress. Aki tried to hold it in, but with a low whine she broke. "I can't help it! I have an appetite!" Aki shouted, her cool and heartless facade finally coming down. "If I eat like a normal girl I'm hungry again almost immediately! I'm prone to hypoglycemia so I have to make sure I get enough sugar or I'll get sick!" She explained rapidly.
"I thought I might have a parasite but the doctor did a bunch of tests and couldn't find anything at all!" She said hysterically, rambling away her most embarrassing secret. "Anyway I have to eat a ton at lunch or my stomach will rumble all afternoon! I've never heard any other girl's stomach rumbling ever!" She said in a high pitched voice. She was really going off the rails here.
"Is that what you want!?" She demanded frantically. "For my stomach to sound like a race car in all of my classes and distract the other students is that it?!" She said, looking and sounding mortified. Masamune really didn't know what to do with that information. It was nice to know, but he still knew no one would believe him if he said it.
"You're right! That would be awful. Well I just remembered I gotta get out of here. Bye!" He said, pulling a one eighty and starting to walk away.
He heard the sound of a chopstick slamming down onto a food case. "Not yet." Aki said, all of her previous panic gone and replaced with her usual demeanor. Masamune groaned internally. He really didn't want to hear her stupid arrogance any longer. "Tell me your name." She said.
"Makabe." He said with a little too much nervousness.
"If you tell anyone about this I promise you'll regret it." She threatened. Masamune just wished he'd stood up to her at that and not left without a word like a coward.
The rest of the day went by and Masamune continuously attempted to talk to her, but she was being particularly harsh to him above anyone else.
It was rather stupid in hindsight. She was so confident that her threats were enough to keep him from spilling her secret that she didn't feel the need to treat him like a human being. Most intelligent people wouldn't spite the person who knew their dirty secrets. But It just added more hate to the fire burning within Masamune's heart.
Now though, he was playing volleyball with Kojuurou, telling him that the rumors of him and Aki being friends were not true, only to notice Aki herself in one of the school classes from the field. She noticed him as well, and within seconds there was a sign against the window.
"Go back to your dog house." It read.
'Hey I'm nobody's dog!' Masamune thought angrily.
After he read it, Kojuurou accidently hit him in the head with a volleyball. "Oops are you okay?." the platinum blonde boy asked. Futaba and a few other girls asked him the same question. "Do you need to go to the nurse?" One of the girls asked. "No I'm fine." Masamune said charismatically.
As Masamune leaned down to pick it up, a teenage boy moved past him. "Don't get a big head." He said before taking off. Masamune looked up, unable to spot the boy's face .
'It seems boys can also be scary when it comes to matters of the heart. What a coward.' Masamune thought.
At the end of the day, Aki said goodbye to her "royal guard". Kikune, Sonoka, and Mari. She began the walk home with Yoshino and Yoshiro, the boy carrying all three of their bags.
Aki paused and turned to Yoshino. "I'm so hungry I think I'm gonna faint. Go get me something to eat and do it fast." Aki said.
Yoshino's voice was as timid as could be. "You mean? Right now?" She asked.
"Yes! Hurry it up!" Aki said, her arms crossed impatiently.
"What would you like me to get for you? Something with rice? Bread?" She asked timidly.
"I just said I'm about to faint, I don't care what you buy just get me food and get it now!" She snapped, crossing her arms. "You know what, Yoshiro, you go too." She said.
The boy seemed surprised. "Are you sure miss Aki-"
"Yes I'm sure just go!" She ordered, leaning back on the fence behind her as the two left around the corner. They found a bakery and as they entered, a specific pair of shoes walked past the entrance to where they'd just come from.
Behind that pair was another, though this one was wearing boots, not dress shoes. It also seemed as if the owner of the first pair was not aware of the one wearing boots following him.
With Aki, she waited against the fence, feeling her stomach rumble silently. 'I ate a typical lunch today. I guess my metabolism is getting even higher. What a pain. Ugh, they better not have gone too far... I don't have time for this nonsense.' Aki thought as she pushed herself off the fence. She was going to head after her two servants, only to be stopped by the person who'd passed the bakery.
"Where are you rushing off to? Do you have a date with Makabe?" The voice asked. Aki looked up in surprise, only for her lips to almost curl. "Oh how quaint. The pudding prince." She said.
"SHUT UP!" He shouted angrily.
Aki was a little surprised at his intensity, but didn't falter. "What? Why are you so mad. It's such an appropriate nickname for you-" Aki was cut off as Otanabe's hand lashed out and grabbed one of her pigtails. He yanked on it roughly.
"You humiliated me and shredded my letter, but you like Makabe?!" He said. "Why? Because he's hot!?" He said, raising his voice.
"Looks don't have anything to do with it." Aki said. She should've denied liking Makabe entirely, she still hated him after all, but in the heat of the moment, she used her words wrong. "Let me go or else!" Aki said, not sounding quite as confident as she needed to.
"You think you're a real princess don't you. So much better than everyone else!" He said while pulling a pair of scissors out of his pocket. He brought them up to the pigtail he'd grabbed.
Aki squeezed her eyes shut as he prepared to close the blades. The sound of a struggle ensued, and a bag went flying. Aki opened her eyes to see none other than Makabe. He'd grabbed the boy's arm with his left hand, and his right was grabbing the scissors by the blade. Blood was already trickling into his palm.
"It figures." Masamune said, holding the pain back. "I knew something like this would happen eventually. You're too ruthless with people Adagaki." He said, still focusing on Otanabe. He glared hard into the shorter, fatter boy's eyes. It worked, and the boy ran away when he realized what would happen to him if he got caught.
Masamune turned to look at Aki. As much as he hated her, he needed her to think he cared.
"Are you hurt?" He asked.
"Um I should be asking you that." Aki snipped.
"This is nothing." Masamune said, though he was holding his free hand on the wound so he'd stop dripping blood onto the sidewalk. "A small price to pay for your safety." He said. It hurt him inside to say these things, but he had to be patient. Masamune sucked in a deep breath as he tried to not scream from the pain.
'There's no way she could be a jerk to me after this. Not only do I have her secret to use as ammuniton but now I've swept in like a knight in shining armor and saved her. Her conscious won't let her forget this.'
"Why do you look so sad. I never want to see you feel anything but joy." He said.
Aki blushed.
'Allow me to make a confession. Once upon a time. I was a snobby, rich, little fat kid. A magnet for bullies.'
"My daddy's got way more money than yours!" A shrill voice cried. Six year old Masamune was backed up against a wrought iron gate as three older kids surrounded him threateningly. The sound of two dogs barking could be heard, and then the voice of a little girl followed. "What are you doing? Get away from my driveway peasants." The girl commanded. The girl was Aki Adagaki.
There was a boy with her as well with identical midnight black hair and the same purple eyes. He was a year older than her at seven, and decently taller too. He was the same height as Masamune's bullies.
'Back then, Aki Adagaki looked like nothing short of an Angel to me. That is, until the fateful moment she didn't.'
A bouquet of flowers hit the grass. Six year old Makabe being the one who dropped them as he looked up at the window. Aki Adagaki stood there, her face hidden, but her hair unmistakable. "I won't ever fall for someone like you. You're nothing but a pig's foot." She said.
Masamune grabbed the bag he'd dropped.
'But I will have my revenge Cruel Princess. I hate you, I despise you so much I can barely stand to look at you. That's why, I will stop at nothing to make you fall in love with me. I'm going to do whatever it takes to win your heart.'
Masamune left and went home. Once there, he slammed his un damaged hand against his cork board right next to the childhood photo of him and Aki when they were six years old. They had been smiling in front of the Adagaki mansion.
'And when I do I will reap my rewards. I'll reveal my true identity, and dump you in the cruelest way I can imagine. I call it the Dead or love plan.'
Masamune began to laugh to himself quietly, but soon grew so loud his mother and sister could hear him from downstairs.
"Well, Mossa's having fun up there." His mother said.
"Gross." Chinatsu commented.
The next morning, Masamune ran into Otanabe, The Pudding Prince. The fatter boy looked nervous seeing Masamune, but slumped his shoulders seconds after, seemingly given up. Yet, instead of being cruel, Masamune walked up to him with a small smile. "How are you this morning Otanabe?"
The shorter boy seemed resigned to whatever fate he expected Masamune deemed him worthy of. "U-uh, Ok I guess. Sorry about yesterday." He said. Masamune put a hand on his shoulder, the bandaged hand he'd grabbed the scissors with. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's all forgotten." He said.
Futuaba and several other girls had been watching from behind him. "Uh, what do you mean, what happened?" Futaba asked.
Masamune turned around. "It's a secret." He said cheekily with a wink, basking in their attention.
He ran into Kojuurou on his way to his locker. The two of them were only two lockers apart. But when Masamune opened his locker, a letter fell out. Both of them looked at it as Masamune picked it up.
"Oh a love letter! That was fast." Kojuurou said. Though Masamune wasn't entirely sure who he was talking about. "I doubt it." Masamune said with humor as he opened the letter. On it was only two words, but to Masamune, the rest of the world froze. The letter wrote "Pig's foot."
'This can't be. Have I already been found out!?" Masamune asked himself.
Unbeknownst to anyone, someone was watching the two as Masamune read the letter. The person watching was the one who'd followed Otanabe on his way to assault Aki, and was actually going to step in if Masamune hadn't. But he was not the one who'd written the letter. Though he knew who did.
'Poor, poor Masamune. Don't tell me you really thought just changing your last name would fool those two. That little brat may not recognize you, but those two traitors certainly do.'
Those two were already on the move, already trying to foil Masamune's plan, and by extension, his own. If he didn't step in now, it could completely jeopardize both of their plans for revenge.
'Well from what I've seen over the past two weeks, Masamune could use the help. And heaven knows I'm the only one who actually wants to see him succeed.'