In the School Courtyard

The break continued. Megumi, Chiyo, and Natsume were hanging out in the school courtyard.

“Can I have your notebook for one more week, Megumi?” Chiyo asked, squirming with excitement. “I love your new story! Captain Rufy is as gallant as ever!”

“Haha, sure, Chiyo!” Megumi replied, blushing. “Which story from The Adventures of the Young Pirate did you enjoy most so far?”

“The one where he saves the mermaid princess from the kraken was spectacular!” Chiyo exclaimed, still imagining the colourful underwater kingdom from Megumi’s short story collection. “How do you manage to create such beautiful worlds?”

“Aww, thank you, Chiyo!” Megumi turned redder. “I’m glad you enjoy it. I rely on my imagination, mostly.”

“I preferred the story where Captain Rufy breaks his old friends out of the galactic prison, and they soar across the stars on his blue-sailed ship.” Natsume smiled. “It made me want to fly on a space galleon, too.”

“I know, right?” Megumi laughed. She cast her eyes down, her heart filling with bittersweet sentiments. I often fly on Captain Rufy’s blue ship in my dreams.

Captain Rufeus was the character she crafted in her childhood – a gallant pirate dressed in red and black, sailing on a glowing blue galleon across the seas and skies. She had written many of his fantastic adventures, inspired by her favourite books, movies, anime, manga, and her lucid dreams. As for why a young male pirate became the centre of her stories, Megumi hated conformity in any shape or form. Captain Rufeus, or Rufy, was the guide into her imaginary world of absolute freedom… and had been her only friend in Middle and Junior High Schools.

If I were a boy, I'd be just like Captain Rufy. She mused. Forging my own path, I’d put all those naysayers like Mrs Kawaguchi in their place and beat up every stupid boy who challenged me!

Natsume and Chiyo continued chatting merrily, while Megumi was lost in her thoughts. Her gaze stopped at a certain copse of birch trees, and she was called back to reality.

Gorō and his friends had gathered under the trees, talking and laughing. Some of them, like Dazai Miyamoto, were crouching on the ground, a well-known “cool” pose among delinquents. He had a lollipop in his mouth and chewed on it while chatting. Some others were leaning on the tree trunks with their hands in their pockets, while Mashirō Tōji had even hopped onto a branch, looking down on his friends with an amused grin. Gorō, on his part, sat on a bench with his legs astride and his hands clasped together, bending forward with a faint, detached smile, almost like a bandit king, or so it seemed to Megumi’s imaginative eye.

He dominates them flawlessly. She thought, staring at Gorō, who listened to his friends and offered a word or two at times. Megumi’s heart banged, and she pressed her hand to her chest. Her cheeks burned. Why do I feel this way when I look at him? She wondered. Am I really interested in him? She sighed. He’s a bit like Captain Rufy, to be honest. Nonchalant, free, cares nothing about rules… and yet he’s still intelligent enough to know Advanced Math and Japanese History. She cast her eyes down, her heart stinging with sorrow. I wish I were that free… with no anxiety about my future, or how my family sees me.

“Look at him go again!” Natsume’s disdainful remark interrupted Megumi’s thoughts. “Now he’s picking on Yoshigawa.”

Megumi looked at where her friends’ gazes were directed. She saw their delinquent classmate, Shin, glaring down at a short, scrawny boy with glasses, who shivered. It was Masaya Yoshigawa, their classmate, an otaku who was rather introverted and loved drawing.

“Didn’t ya hear me, four-eyes?” Shin snarled at him. “I need those notes!”

“S-Satō Sensei scolded me the last time,” Yoshigawa murmured with trembling lips, hugging his notebook where he’d been drawing. He couldn’t dare look Shin in the eyes. “I-I can’t write your homework anymore! I’m s-sorry_”

“Huh? What are ya mumbling about?” Shin grabbed Yoshigawa’s shoulder and pinned him against the wall. “Biology class is just after Japanese. If I don’t have the homework by then, your glasses won’t be the only thing I break!”

“I-I can’t… I-I don’t…” Yoshigawa stammered, trembling all over.

“Poor Yoshigawa…” Chiyo muttered, raising her eyebrows in the inner corners as she watched the scene from afar. “Shin’s always picking on him! Where’s the Class Rep, Natsume?” She turned to her green-haired friend, who was the girlfriend of their class representative. “Maybe he can help? Itō’s big and strong!”

“He can’t be everywhere all at once!” Natsume snorted. She began typing a message to Itō, her boyfriend, on her phone. “I’ll ask him to come.”

Megumi knitted her brows and crossed her arms.

“Yoshigawa shouldn’t be a wuss,” she scoffed. “It’s on him.”

“How can you say that?” Chiyo frowned. “You’re always so hard on everyone, Megumi! Not every boy can be a rowdy brute.”

“Itō’s far from a ‘rowdy brute’, but no one dares mess with him!” Megumi countered. Same as my brother. She thought.

“Itō’s twice Shin’s size.” Natsume chuckled. “He can knock him out with one strike.”

“Height doesn’t matter here! And neither does strength,” Megumi argued. “All they have to do is stand their ground. Yoshigawa bends too easily and openly shows his fear. That’s why he gets picked on.”

“It’s not that easy.” Natsume rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you help him out if you’re so tough? Sometimes you’re so stuck-up, Megumi…”

“What did ya say?!” Megumi’s nostrils flared. Her language became harsh, as it often did when she was mad. She calls herself my friend and yet doesn’t know shit about me! She glowered at Natsume, who had turned up her nose. Projecting much! It’s she who’s stuck-up!

Yoshigawa’s fearful squeak diverted Megumi’s attention from Natsume. She looked at him and Shin and froze. It wasn’t only Shin confronting the poor boy anymore. His two cronies, Tōma and Fūta, had arrived as well. Yoshigawa was so scared that he had teared up and could no longer give a voice.

Already enraged by Natsume’s insult, Megumi’s blood shot up to her temples now. She looked back at Natsume, who was still messaging Itō on her phone, pursing her lips.

I guess Itō will come too late. Megumi thought. Why won’t I do it if I’m so tough, huh? She snorted, remembering Natsume’s jab. Fine, I’ll show you!

She turned around and darted off.

“Megumi?” Chiyo exclaimed, noticing her running in the direction of Shin, his cronies, and Yoshigawa. “Wait! What are you doing?”

“W-What the hell?” Natsume cried, seeing her too. She divined her intention and gasped. “Damn, girl, my question was rhetorical! Ugh, is she for real? Those idiots won’t spare her just because she’s a girl!”

She and Chiyo ran after Megumi, but they were too far. Megumi had reached the boys and, more than that, hollered at them in her deep, low voice:

“Will you stop at last?”

“Huh?” Shin and his friends glared at her, not expecting anyone to intervene. Shin chortled at her sight. “Another four eyes? What’s your problem, Ichinose?”

“Yeah, twin-tails!” Tōma laughed. “What’s up with your hair, anyway? Are you in elementary school?”

All three boys broke into laughter, while Yoshigawa stared at Megumi in shock, unable to believe someone had stood up for him. Megumi smiled derisively at Shin and his friends, finding their insults lame.

“Is that the best you can do?” she asked, adjusting her glasses. “I can’t believe y’all are 16 and not 6! But, if you’re so interested in my twin-tails… I wear them so that when morons like you annoy me, I can use these!”

She grabbed the hairpins from both her tails and pulled them out. Her sleek, wavy pink hair fell down her shoulders in beautiful curls. She held up her sharp hairpins, one in each fist, and pointed them at the boys.

“W-What the hell are you doing?” Shin started, never expecting the class’ top student, the neat and orderly Megumi Ichinose, to pull such a stunt.

“I’m pissed,” Megumi retorted, her nostrils flaring. “Can you not pick on your classmates at least once? It’s annoying! Yoshigawa’s not obliged to write his homework for you. Write it yourself or accept the bad grade you deserve, you loser!”

“Listen here, you slut!” Shin raised his hand at her.

Megumi took a defensive stance, her hairpins ready, but then blinked in a stupor and loosened her arms. Gorō and his gang had arrived. Gorō grabbed Shin’s hand, pulling him off Megumi. Shin turned around with a snarl, but went pale. Dazai Miyamoto, his worst nightmare, stood right beside Gorō, grinning! Shin looked around for his friends, Tōma and Fūta, but they were gone. They had spotted the seniors coming long before Megumi and Shin and had run away. Yoshigawa had vanished, too, leaving Megumi, the girl who saved her, in the senior thugs’ company.

I can’t believe I went out of my way to save that guy… Megumi rolled her eyes, trying to divert her attention from the surrounding delinquents, who terrified her no less than they did Shin. She smiled bitterly, the humour being her defence mechanism when she was scared. All because Natsume’s stupid remark got to me! I’m such a fool…

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Gorō’s husky voice, brittle from suppressed anger, interrupted Megumi’s thoughts. He glared at Shin, who cowered before him and his gang, just as Yoshigawa had before him and his cronies. Gorō glanced at the loose-haired Megumi, who stiffened, her cheeks flushing, and clutched her hairpins. Gorō turned back to Shin, grabbed his collar and pulled him closer, piercing his eyes. “I think you need a lesson, ruddy.”