Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of Highschool DxD. This is a purely derivative work made by a spiteful man.

Chapter Two: A Boy Of Flaws, Flabs and Vices

Rohan breached the surface, his hand loudly—and painfully—slapping the surface of the ceramic wall, his shoulders, lower back and the arches of both his feet practically begging for a rest. Rohan himself concurred with the sentiment of his body's biochemistry, shutting his eyes as he clawed for a better grip of the pool so as to not risk drowning out of sheer exhaustion. The beat of the late afternoon sun (and soon to be early evening) shone through the tint of his swimming goggles, his body positively aching from the sheer intensity of his trial. He'd swam before; many, many times, in fact. He couldn't rightly claim to be Hawaiian if he couldn't do something as simple as breaststroke … but it had been some time since he'd swam with actual purpose, actual focus.

He had been staring thirteen over the horizon the last time he'd actually done a lap in a pool … and he'd never done one in a semi-Olympic sized pool like the one he was currently up to his shoulders in, never mind a solo relay that demanded he roll and kick like some water mammal.

Catching his breath, he pulled himself—all the walrus and manatee that he could pass of as—out of the water, spying the snorts and giggles of his peers as he did so, parking his bottom on the grill of the pool's drainage, the crook of his elbows feeling as though they'd been stretched like taffy. Hunching over, Rohan pulled his swimming cap off the top of his head, suddenly feeling famished.

'Too slow,' came a voice.

He turned up to see the face of the swimming team's captain-cum-manager, looking down upon him with neutral expression.

'Sorry,' Rohan sighed, fully leaving the water.

It was his first instance attending the Kuoh Swimming Club.

To say that he had regretted ever heeding Gremory's advice in the first place would be … it wouldn't have been the truth, either.

There were many things around Kuoh Academy that he'd found odd—as foreigner, especially—but there was nothing more confusing to him than the concept of the after-school activities ledgers being managed by the students themselves. The teachers were there in name, but it was the student body, the captains and managers, who actually ran things. He'd found that it was a common occurrence, even with the other clubs. If someone wanted to join a club or participate in any sort of after-school activity on school grounds, sanctions effectively went through students, not teachers. In the two instances that he'd shown up prior, he'd only seen the advising teacher—some lady with a thick braid whose name escaped him; the vast majority of teachers were women, anyway—once, leaving as he'd arrived and on the receiving end of a respectful bow from the captain.

'I've been trying to get back into the groove of things,' Rohan added, hastily, placing his hands on his hips as his fist tightened around his cap. 'Looks like that there's some ways, huh?'

The captain merely stared at him. She probably wasn't the talkative type … or that she actually just didn't really like him. He'd been detoured so many times before being able to properly acquire an audience with the swimming club, that he wondered if he had been welcome to put his name into the hat at all, but she'd shown, at the very least, to be true to her duties as captain and manager, as stressful as holding those two stations implied.

'You're just above the middle of the pack, time-wise,' she started, 'but you're nowhere near competition material.'

Rohan sighed, shrugging. 'So that's a no, then?'

The captain placed a hand on her hip, regarding him. 'You're welcome to the club,' the captain said, 'but if you're hoping that getting a slot's as easy as that, then I'm sorry to disappoint you.'

Rohan raised his hands apologetically. 'No, no, I'm just … I like swimming, so I thought that the club would be all right to join,' he paused, 'it's okay, right?'

'It is,' she answered, nonchalantly. 'So long as you don't break any rules, we're fine having casual members.'

The captain paused for a moment.

'You're really not interested in going full-commit, right?'

'You mean, doing it competitively?' he reiterated, rubbing the back of his neck; he hadn't really considered it, even back home. Doing something for leisure was one thing, but fully committing himself to swimming, beyond recreation and actually allocating one's own personal focus to it … felt like a little too big of an ask. The only thing he'd expected from joining up was the chance to be able to do something that he had an interest in … and maybe make a few friends along the way.

At the same time, the temptation of getting a letter—or whatever it was that the Japanese school system called it—to his name would go a long way in making his time here truly have meaning beyond a … fresh start.

'No,' he answered, again. 'I mean, uh … I don't think I'm the sort of guy for that kind of thing. Just here for the swimming.'

'And to stare at the girls, of course,' she tacked on, sighing.

'What?'

Rohan furrowed his brow, wondering where that insinuation had come from.

'All the same, though, we don't have enough members on the male side to submit an application to the association, anyway,' she went on, seemingly ignoring him. 'So as long as you keep your hands to yourself and don't cause any problems … we can co-exist, okay?'

Confused and limited by his options, Rohan wracked his brain for an answer, before finally finding one. 'You got it,' he eventually replied, trying his best to communicate his acknowledgment (and acceptance) of the terms. The captain seemed find no fault his response, at least.

The sudden sound of impacting palms told him that they had progressed to the next order of business.

'BOYS: FIVE LAPS!'

A gaggle of a dozen or so teenage boys, more an entity of faces, limbs and skin, hopped to attention at the swimming club captain's yell—or, in Rohan's opinion, erupted into a chaotic cloud of protests and sputters. Some had raised their fists, some were hunched, but they were so closely clustered together that Rohan's second thought was that they were more an amalgamation of a detergent brand mascot over a collection of individuals.

'You morons have done nothing but stare at the girls since you got here,' the captain accused, raising the clipboard and pointing it in the direction of the indignant boys, akin to a judge passing on a sentence in court. 'Now get to it: FIVE LAPS EACH!'

Despite the atmosphere, Rohan couldn't help but let out a small snicker.

'You too.'

'Huh?'

If his muscles were sore before, they were probably well on their way to being liquified right now. Those were Rohan's thoughts, clutching his shoulder as he tried his best to regulate his breathing, growing more annoyed that he sounded like a cross between a porker and a mutt than he did a regular human being that had just done laps around the pool. The water was awash with activity; the male section of the swimming club was being put through the paces by the captain, who, almost cruelly, regarded the boys as they went back forth, kicking and flailing in their journey to the end. There was an energy in the air; an enthusiasm that was unfocused and wild, yet very much tangible. The girls were off to the side, smirking and pointing at the scene the boys had, some of them even cackling at the captain's barking at their male counterparts.

'Man, she can be a real slave-driver when she wants to be,' came yet another complaint, this time from one of the boys that had just finished their laps. He took off his goggles, allowing them to dangle from his fingertips before unceremoniously dropping onto the ceramic surface right next to him, one rough grunt escaping him before the relief from the opportunity of rest morphed the next breath into a sigh.

'It's all right, though, isn't it?' another voice sounded out, this time from a blonde—a very obvious bottle blonde, if the visible roots were any hint—with narrow, cat-like slits for eyes and a lanky, thin frame. 'She wouldn't be our captain if she didn't crack that whip once in a while, yeah?'

'Girls!'

The bark of the swimming club captain practically rippled over the surface of the water; her authority further emphasized by the succession of claps that followed. The female section of the club got right to it, lining up to begin the exercises without the need for further question; a few of the girls had even taken it among themselves to play the part of—judging by the angle of their glares and the extremely obvious direction that they were facing—sentries, their expressions showcasing their itch to throw down with the boys if they so much as toed the line. Rohan didn't particularly understand the dynamics of the divide, himself. From where he was standing (or rather, from where he was seated), there was either a misconstrued piece of self-assessment that had to the girls of the club working on the impression that they had gathered enough opinions to think of themselves as being of such a valuable commodity that they had resorted to such a measure in validation of said self-assessment … or that the male portion of the club had crossed the threshold of public behaviour to the point that such a reaction from the girls was actually warranted.

Regardless, Rohan believed that either side was almost downright silly, vaguely cartoonish, even. While the operating dynamics of a Japanese high school were, at the moment, still beyond him, he highly doubted that such modes of behaviour were even remotely common. The boys did ogle, sporadically, but from where has standing (or, again, more accurately: seated), it wasn't anymore than any normal male would get seeing a girl that he had a vague interest in; certainly not enough to project daggers through irises of disgust.

'Check those out.'

Or maybe he just hadn't been around long enough to really take his new surroundings in.

'Man, am I glad to be young.'

Rohan almost rolled his eyes; his peers had more in common with men in their forties than they did any semblance of mentality inherent to one of his age. The chatter soon devolved into something that Rohan was unwilling to follow, not by classification, but by tone. There was no disgust from Rohan's end in regard to the topic that the boys had taken (seeing as he himself had indulged in as much on the beaches of Oahu state-side), but he'd certainly never (or at least, he'd believed himself) had the lack of self-awareness to make it look so … obvious or, even further than that, desperate. There was an oddity about the way the boys blabbered, commenting on the myriad of female forms all across on the other side of the pool … or maybe they weren't the ones being strange and that he was the odd one out, or worse, being unintentionally snobbish by overthinking it.

'Jouji-san's legs really are something else.'

Or, just maybe, he wasn't.

'If you like her that much, why don't you go and ask her out?'

Rohan's eyes widened as the words—expressly intended to be private thoughts while being decidedly on the leash of mere commentary—stumbled out of his own mouth, mayhap a shred of fated comeuppance for being so quick to judge on the boys' remarks regarding their female counterparts; even worse, they'd somehow fallen off the cliff of his tongue in fluently enunciated, if emotionally rough, Japanese. Disdainful, sarcastic, disgusted; the essence of those words had, somehow, mired themselves into the declaration of each syllable: a sum of the opinions that he had held, tampered by the soreness and numbness collected all around his limbs into a side-spit of a package. His thoughts raced as he internally winced, dreading to look up at what he presumed to be a barnful of irritated glares. It hadn't even been so much as a few hours in the swimming club before his mouth had run off without double-checking how inwardly it should have sounded … or if it should have sounded at all.

What had been said had been said, however, and moving to correct any misunderstandings—despite them, being, to him, not misunderstandings at all—was paramount. Biting and hissing a wince that had once been internal and had since leaked out into a full expression, Rohan finally bit down his reservation for the inevitable implosion of the bulb that was—and what would, seemingly inevitably, remain "was" in the past tense for the foreseeable future, thanks to his mouth running off in its own—his dormant social life, his hopes of a fresh start circling the drain without so much as a petal or leaf to its name.

'Oh, you're that … new member, aren't you? Ayasaki-senpai?'

Rohan felt his spine unstiffen as relief washed over him, thankful that the remark hadn't buried what little clout—if he could even be underlined as such—he had built up. It was hard enough to navigate new surroundings a couple of weeks in on a different continent; he was thankful that a dry remark such as that didn't jeopardize his intention on building up some semblance of acquaintanceship over the next school year.

He raised his gaze to come face-to-face with several faces belonging to a gang of lanky, curious-looking boys, each of them wearing some semblance of what he had been raised to understand to be the inklings of reaching the ideal swimmers' body. Lanky, yes, but streamlined from abdomen to the lower torso with a lack of definition in favour of flat surfaces; broad shoulders, tube-like arms, they all looked like they had experience in the water. If not competitively, then at least through sheer experience. He'd seen young men like them tame (or at least attempt to, with varying degrees of success) the surf back on the beaches of Hawaii, and while they—and Rohan himself, most definitely—weren't quite up to that level, he could see that for all their ogling, there was at least some evidence that they at least indulged in the express purpose of the club.

'Uh, yeah, Rohan—I mean, uh—Ayasaki Rohan,' Rohan introduced himself, extending a hand for them to shake. 'Just, uh … transferred a couple of weeks ago.'

None of the boys—all four of them—seemed willing to take it.

'Sorry about the, uh … um,' Rohan paused, feeling the heat in his cheeks worsening as he attempted to convey his regret for the remark. 'I didn't mean to, uh … say … what … say any of that out loud.'

The four of them tilted their head, seemingly clueless to what you had meant.

'Oh, my apologies, Senpai,' the second tallest of the two—with a large nose and defined, thick eyebrows to go with a soft-spoken voice that correlated with neither of those attributes—returns, hunching over and wearing an apologetic expression as he rubbed the back of her neck. 'Did you, uh … say something?'

A chuckle escaped Rohan as he rose to his feet, grunting and sighing as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders, the previous presumption of an unwitting evaporation of his thus far unrealized existence within the ladders of high school society thrown far off and away from his thoughts, replaced by an unexpected spur of confidence to continue the conversation. The four boys continued to eye him oddly but didn't seem to be overtly curious of the remark that had, to their knowledge, seem specifically addressed to them. Even the one who had been the specific target of his scathing, unfiltered commentary didn't seem particularly inquisitive beyond the need to clarify the address more than he did the subject.

'Oh, nothing, really,' Rohan replied, waving his hands frantically and offering an apologetic smile. 'Just, uh … yeah, it's nothing.'

The odd looks remained.

'Anyway, yeah,' Rohan powered on, forcing a smile as much as he could as he extended his hand once again. 'The name's … Ayasaki Rohan'—he briefly paused to remember the sequence and tact of Japanese honorifics—'third year. I just recently transferred here, sorry, so, uh … trying to get my bearings.'

They continued to stare at him, his extended hand still untaken.

Until, finally, it was … by one of the shorter boys.

Not that he was particularly short, however; the deviation of height among the four of the boys wasn't really that much of a deal. The tallest of them—who possessed sunken cheeks with visible angular cheekbones and eyes locked behind a set of black-tinted swimming goggles—was at best about two inches under him in height, and the others were about an inch or two away from one another. Considering his literal girth, however, perhaps it was a good thing that he was that tall. If he wasn't in danger of breaching six feet in the foreseeable future, he could have probably passed for a sea cow; especially back in Oahu.

Gremory was right: the swimming club was probably a good opportunity to shed pounds and gain some acquaintances.

'You're really a foreigner, huh?'

The boy's remark brought Rohan's thoughts back to the present. His goggles were atop his head, pressing into the material of swimming cap. Black hair, narrow eyes, playful smirk and pale skin to go with a piercing dark gaze with slightly rounded cheeks and what looked like the faded beginnings—or rather, the illusion of—a moustache atop his lips, which contrasted greatly with the youthful fullness of his features and his short stature.

'Shaking hands really isn't much of a thing around these parts,' the boy went on, before releasing his hold. 'You're pretty direct.'

Drawing his hand back, Rohan dipped into a bow. 'My apologies,' he declared, sincerely. 'I'm still … trying to get used to things around here.'

'That's some pretty flat Japanese,' the boy remarked further. 'You spoke a lot of it before you came here, didn't you? More than you could have from basic hiragana and fluency exercises.'

'Sunekawa-senpai … you shouldn't be so direct, you know?' the tallest boy reprimands softly, 'Ayasaki-senpai's pretty new, so …'

The boy who Rohan now knew as Sunekawa snorted, following it with a sound that was more akin to a cross between a squeak toy and a hacking cat than it did anything Rohan could classify as a sound a human being could make on their own. The tallest boy in the group smiled apologetically and apprehensively. That he had used the honorific of Senpai for Sunekawa had Rohan note that the boy was probably younger than he was despite his advantageous size. The boy—his kouhai—adjusted his goggles as Sunekawa scowled ever so slightly, meeting the latter's gaze while retaining his apologetic look.

'Yeah,' Rohan replied to Sunekawa. 'Not completely used to the ebb and flow just yet, though. It's like I'm in a constant state of staccato—'

He stopped himself, feeling his cheeks heat up right after.

A foreign land, foreign faces, foreign codes of conduct: his uncle and grandfather had warned him of just how different things were here in Japan … and just how much weight one's presentation bore. It wasn't just the change in shoes stepping on campus, how the assignments were distributed and how social circles transformed into social spider webs.

'You're from America, aren't you, Senpai?' the large-nosed, thick-eyebrowed inquired, curiously. It took Rohan a moment to process that he was being referred to by an honorific.

'Oi, you,' the remaining boy chided. He was the shortest one of the lot (though not by a large margin), fair and dripping wet like all the rest, but with a slight puffiness in his cheeks and a roundedness about his face despite his lean frame. There were two tell-tale impressions on his nose, which told him that he usually wore glasses and had—reasonably—foregone them for the time being.

It didn't make sense to wear glasses when you were doing laps in a swimming pool.

'Oahu, actually,' Rohan answered, rubbing the back of his neck.

'Wahoo?'

'Hawaii,' Rohan clarified.

The shortest boy made an impressed sound. 'I've been there!' he exclaimed excitedly.

'Oi, you,' Sunekawa chided.

'You don't look Hawaiian, though,' observed the one with the bushy eyebrows.

Rohan couldn't help it. He laughed.

'I'm not a native islander,' Rohan confirmed, finding himself grinning despite the directness of the query. 'I did use to live there, though, uh—'

It took him a second to realize that outside of Sunekawa, he didn't know any of their names.

'Sorry,' he started again, politely. 'I don't think I was able to get your name, ah …'

'Tomiyasu Haruo, Senpai,' the round-faced boy replied, respectfully. 'It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm a first year.'

'Sakuraba Seiji,' the tallest one declared, picking up on the round of introductions and dropping into a small bow. 'Second year.'

'Miura Kunishige,' the thick-eyebrowed boy revealed. 'Second year.'

'Sunekawa Yatsuho,' Sunekawa expanded. 'Third ye—.'

'Tomiyasu! Sakuraba! Lanes seven and eight!'

The loud voice of the captain-cum-manager snapped them away from their introductions.

'Again?!' Sakuraba cried out, his voice echoing horror and disbelief.

Tomiyasu, however, was more compliant. 'Yes, Senpai!'

'If you two got time to sit down and ogle the other team members, I'm sure that you've had time to keep up with your promise to shave down your times,' said the captain, placing her hands on her hips as she eyed the boys, a fiery, distasteful look in her brown eyes. 'Get to it!'

'I'm not ogling!'

Rohan almost laughed at the fib.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur.

The club activities, at least in Rohan's eyes, eventually devolved into a routine of exchanging pleasantries and making idle chatter with two or three of the boys who were not within the manager's sights. Rohan inquired as best as he could manage in regards to his new acquaintances in an effort to ease himself more comfortably into a social setting that he had a bare inkling of … and following Gremory's advice, try to make a friend or two on the way. Despite his earlier remark, Miura didn't seem to hold his sarcasm to heart, instead choosing to ask about the volcanoes in Hawaii; Tomiyasu was more subdued by comparison, instead making remarks on having been to the islands the a few summers prior with his family whale watching: a hobby that Rohan, as a resident, was keenly familiar with, as his grandfather had spent many a day bringing him over after school in his younger years to deal with the operators and companies that dealt in the trade, having worked in those circles for much of his life.

And when they weren't addressing him, Rohan sat back and listened.

Most of the conversation were of video games. Many of which that he hadn't known before. He was quite certain that one of them was called … Demons' Souls or Dark Souls or something of that ilk. Nothing that he'd personally heard of, himself, but they did seem quite enthused by it. From the bits and pieces that he could gather, there—

Rohan rubbed his shoulder, feeling that familiar, niggling sensation scratching from underneath his skin. He glanced up at the sky, wondering when the club would finally end.

'You play games, Ayasaki-senpai?'

It was Sakuraba.

'Me? Yeah,' he answered. 'Not that I've been, uh, playing much lately.'

That was the truth. It really had been a while since he'd even touched a controller.

'What video games do they have in Hawaii?'

Rohan hesitated. He didn't know how to answer that.

'Any games that you've been playing lately, Senpai?' Miura asked.

'Oh,' Rohan let out, flatly. 'Not, uh … not lately, no. I used to play a lot, but, um …'

He hesitated again.

It'd been a while. A long while.

'Ayasaki!'

He gave an apologetic smile before getting to his feet, answering the captain's call.

Rohan had never felt so relieved to be pulled away.

The concept of a student body that was both dictated and independent to the degree that Kuoh Academy allowed was a paradox in itself … but a curious one. He'd been told that Japanese schools had different ideas on student autonomy, but Rohan couldn't have imagined that it was to the extent that he'd be allowed to be on the premises even long after the students and teachers had called it a day. The swimming pool was deserted. Sunekawa and the rest had left about an hour and a half prior, bidding him amicable farewells. Rohan had half a mind to leave, but for some reason or another, was compelled to remain. The floodlights on and humming, he mused that this sort of thing would have been grounds for quite a few PTA meetings back state-side but was otherwise thankful that the so-called paradox of autonomy gave him the allowance to, at least proverbially, catch a breath.

Sometimes it was just … calming to be alone.

When it was by choice, anyway.

Rohan alternated between butterfly and backstroke swimming forms, going from one end of the pool to the other in casual, relaxed repetitions. There was no barking from the team captain, no crowd closing in all around him. It was just him and his thoughts. Each lap was done at a leisurely pace, every movement of his muscle relaxed enough to enable him to correlate thought, action and memory with ease. He wouldn't be breaking any records, personal or otherwise, but Rohan found a strange peace in just swimming end to end … even with all the weight that he had to drag through the water.

Gremory had been correct on that account as well: he would do himself a favour shedding the pounds.

Rohan's face broke through the surface of the water again, his hand slapping the wall of the pool before gripping the edge.

He pondered going to the house.

Going back—

The thought was shrugged off, almost violently.

He didn't want to call it that … not yet.

Not ever, if he could help it.

'Fuck,' Rohan swore, the word, in pure English, sounding almost like some sort of ward or spell … or even a curse. A myriad of thoughts crossed his mind, not quite as malicious as his declaration, but jumbled up enough that any arrangement of them would almost certainly cause him to let it out once again.

Before his frustration overcame him, however, Rohan impulsively pulled himself out of the pool, completely ignoring the steps along the side that could have made his task much more convenient (even more so, given his extra heft). The Japanese night air was cooler than what he was used to in Oahu, but being fat had its benefits … and one of them was a higher resistance to cold. Running a hand through his hair, he trudged towards his things, the outline of his bag barely visible despite the floodlights all around the pool.

He was going to have to go back to the house sometime.

His uncle would be worried about him … even if only out of obligation.

Rohan didn't bother to use the changing rooms or the showers. It was dark enough that no one could see him get changed anyway. Rohan doubted that there was enough about his physical form that could be classified as appealing by any standard except that of an offensive lineman on a football team and even that was currently in question. Pants, shirt, uniform jacket, shoes, he had them all on in a jiff—

That niggling sensation on his shoulders had returned.

Rohan stared at his bag: more specifically, the open zipper.

His hand reached for the opening, the urgency and temptation riding his decision-making and impulse management to the brink. He pondered whether to proceed on this course: it was a sensible one, was it not? There was no one else here. He was alone. What few students that were on the grounds were likely already leaving, too … and far away enough that they probably didn't even know he was here.

However, there was also the small matter of evidence …

He made a decision.

Grabbing his bag, Rohan zipped it up and swung it over his shoulder: he wasn't that much of a slave to his impulses to have no patience whatsoever. Making sure his shoes were on right, he strode towards the exit, closing the grill behind him. If there was one thing about Kuoh Academy that he felt appreciative of at this moment, it was the fact that the school, for some reason or another, had an extremely green groundskeeping policy. The school grounds, or more specifically, the compound, was practically two-thirds forest, with paths, canopies and the like, thick enough to even potentially serve as a wild trek for boy scouts looking to earn their badges. The pool area hadn't been spared, either, with trees and bushes surrounding the immediate area. From the outside looking in—what with the pool area being on a raised platform relative to its flatter immediate surroundings—he had caught a brief impression that it was some hidden arena rather than a sporting facility.

It made his current endeavour all the easier to execute.

He walked off the pavement and onto one of the dirt paths—one of many that branched off the school's pavements leading off into the aforementioned green areas—heading deeper into the dim patches of tree, bush and weed, eager to get enough of his frame out of the light so that the outline of his girth would not be unwittingly caught by a stray eye. While he was certain that there wasn't a soul in sight, fear and caution dictated his action to seal reassurance upon reassurance. Whispers had a way of making their way to ears that were never meant to hear them … and Rohan knew better than to allow a sliver of such a possibility the opportunity to be realized.

'Alright,' he said to himself, mumbling as he dumped his bag on the floor.

He'd found a spot.

It would do.

He wasn't that far from the pool area by his estimate, but it would do. There was enough light for him to make his way back to the path, but at the same time he was far enough that no student who accidentally left an item of import around the pool area would unwittingly bump into him. The light from the floodlights was still visible from here, but the trees were thick enough that no one could make out his form and approach him.

He rummaged through his things, finding the inner pouch and zipper … and pulled it out.

The pack was slightly crumpled, both from constant use and the roughhousing from being shoved into a pouch that was barely large enough to accommodate it. The name Marlboro, in thick, tall black print was emblazoned upon the object, the lettering set against a white backdrop underneath its red lid. The lid itself was already partly torn off, the weathered cardboard having been applied unnecessary force to the point that its contents were, at present, threatening to spill due to the fact that he was holding it bottom-first. Rohan lightly cursed, feeling the paper cylinder slide against his fingertips, just barely kept from spilling all over the grass below. His fingers quickly pressed against half-torn lid, almost kicking his bag in a panic by accident.

It'd been a while since he'd had a smoke.

Not an eternity, but certainly a while.

You didn't get through the worst stretches of your life without a companion … living or inanimate.

The last few years hadn't given him the luxury of coping comfortably.

It was something that the fire, smoke and tar could do for him if nothing else could.

Rohan popped one in his mouth, only to immediately curse as he realized that he couldn't light it up without a light and immediately go back to rummaging his back, hoping to find his lighter. It hadn't been an easy procuring the contraband currently wedged between his lips or its brothers and sisters still in the cardboard pack. He didn't know when he'd be able to get another assortment for himself: every time he took that risk, it was one that came with caveats upon caveats. Compared to Hawaii, Japan's guidelines for minors were a lot more stringent. He couldn't get away with mumbling and slipping some stoned college drop-out behind the counter at the local convenience store for a pack and he couldn't very well enjoy the fruits of his delinquency in the comfort of his … residence, not with his uncle around.

The man was a smoker, too, and if he knew anything after picking up the habit, a smoker could tell.

At the very least, he could offer the man the comfort of ignorance.

'Where is the—'

Rohan stopped.

The hairs on his neck stood on end as a sound came to him. He looked around, almost paranoid, in the manner of a thief, his large body making it look as though he was a pig that had been alerted to the presence of a predator. He glanced left and right, his ears, heightened, listening for any other sound. Fear came to him on the possibilities that awaited on him should he be caught. Kuoh Academy was not just any school: a private school of this calibre in Japan, especially one with an elevator designation gave it both prestige and privilege … and despite his reluctance to attend, there were certain circumstances that remained regarding his enrolment that pulled the accountability on such an indiscretion squarely into his proverbial path of intercept.

He continued to listen for more noise.

If there was someone here, he'd—

Rohan jumped.

Something had touched his shoulder.

Something small, and … squirrely.

'Oh, for—'

It had been, indeed, nothing more than that: a squirrel.

Even through the darkness, he could make out the small brown tail zipping about on the grass, scurrying up and bending around the bark, vanishing from view as quickly as it'd appeared.

Rohan almost laughed. His reason and calm washed over him like a comfortable, warm shower.

There's no one here, he thought to himself, pinching the cigarette in his mouth to keep it from falling into his bag as he continued to search for his lighter.

He was far from the main building. No one would catch him here. It was too dark. No one would be able to see him. At best, they'd probably mistake him as an extension of a particularly thick tree's bark. He was safe.

'There you are,' he mumbled to himself, finding the familiar texture of his lighter in his hand.

Getting to his feet, he flicked the wheel, producing a tiny flame, bringing it to his—

'Ah?'

That had not been his voice.

That had not been a squirrel's voice.

Rohan, slowly and agonizingly, lifted his gaze from his hands … and immediately came face-to-face with the last person he had ever expected to see outside and in the nude.

'Oh …'

Rias Gremory, his assignment teammate, was now before him, a mere four feet away, as naked as the day she was born … and perhaps even more than that, too.

'G-Gremory?' he uttered, his mind racing. Panic, confusion and fear rose from his guts all the way to his throat. He couldn't find anything else to say: the library of words, Japanese and English, was unreachable … and with every passing nanosecond his gaze remained upon Rias' naked form, it seemed to diminish. Something hot and cruel tightened its hold around his throat; Rohan struggled to make a sound, the dying vocabulary that he had committed so tightly to memory rendered not only useless, but the means for it to be communicated restrained and thrown into submission by an unwitting force that refused to return him any semblance of control and execution.

'A-Ayasaki?'

To his credit, Rias seemed just as aghast as he was.

'I-Is that a cigarette?!'

For that one brief half-moment, at least.

Rohan unconsciously rolled the filter in his mouth, meeting Gremory's livid gaze, her state of undress now a clear, second concern.

Oh, fuck.

Ayasaki glanced down at the unlit tobacco as the furious young lady marched towards him, her breasts swaying and her hips swinging, her lack of clothing be damned.

He was screwed.

END OF CHAPTER

A/N: I appreciate you guys for sticking with me at all. I don't know why you do it, but I appreciate it, all the same.