3.

When he sees her she's surrounded by a group of older boys outside of a WcDonald's who are all flirting with her and trying to get her to leave with them. Ringo is completely oblivious as usual.

"The party's already started you know," he hears one of them say, "And it's only a couple of blocks away."

"Oh, that sounds pretty cool," Ringo says with her pretty doe eyes staring up at them. All five of the boys blush simultaneously. K-kawaii!

"Y-yeah, it is," another one says regaining his cool exterior, "You should come along with us!"

"It'll be fun!" a third one says. The circle around her gets smaller.

"I don't know…" Ringo says, suddenly becoming aware of the situation and tries to inch away slowly, "I have a lot of work to do today…"

"You could take a day off for some fun," the first one says, "Come on." He reaches out to grab her arm and Ringo walks back into a wall.

"RIN-CHAAAAN!" Akihiko calls and waves as he runs over to her with a big smile plastered on his face. Everyone backs away and looks over at him. He keeps the smile on his face even though he kind of wants to beat them all up.

"Thanks for waiting for me. I'm sorry I'm late," he says and takes her hand and begins to walk away from them, "Student Council meeting ended a little later than I thought it would!"

Behind him he hears the boys grumble about how they didn't know she had a boyfriend and from the corner of his eye he sees them walk away. He lets out a sigh and when he looks over at Ringo she's staring at him, her eyebrows creased in a confused frown.

"Why did you—"

"I'm walking you home," he interrupts, "Just to make sure you don't get into anymore trouble." He offers a smile. Ringo scoffs and pulls her hand away from him (she hadn't even realized that they were still holding hands. she wondered how they looked to people. did they look like a couple?).

"I can take care of myself," she says and he wants to say something like 'oh, because you did such a great job back there right?' but that's kind of mean so he doesn't. She doesn't tell him to stop following her anyway and when they get to her house she turns to him and it looks like she wants to ask him a question but instead she just says;

"Thanks. You didn't have to do that."

He smiles. "No worries Ringo-chan. I wanted to. What kind of man would I be if I didn't help a lady in need?"

She rolls her eyes. "Good night Yoshida-san." And then she's gone. Akihiko waits a few moments, just staring at the front door and then the smile slips from his face.

"You're so naive Ringo-chan."

He turns and walks down the street.