My Big Bros Need to Be Avenged.

"And then they fuckin' suspended us! What the fuck did we do? Other than stomp some cocky freshman out?" Atsushi Nakamura, or Acchan as I call him, shakes his head in disgust, as if he's trying to convince not only me but the entire world of the injustice of his situation.

The curb in front of the convenience store is starting to heat up to an unbearable temperature in the June heat, and I've sweated so much that my white shirt is sticking to me. My two big brothers on either side of me are dripping sweat too- but at least they're in casual clothes. I still have my uniform on.

"Man, it's hot..." Tanaka, on the right side of me, moans, fanning himself with his hand. He's my other big bro, and to this day I don't think I've ever heard his first name. He may not have one. Or maybe it's also Tanaka. Tanaka Tanaka- fits him.

He has absolutely hideous fashion sense. He's wearing a shirt with fucking FLAMES on it unironically, and it's black when it's 35 degrees outside, in the middle of the rainy season! It's so humid I can see the steam coming off the pavement, and his jeans are so wide that they look like burlap sacks! His outfit's not only ugly as shit, but it's the absolute last thing you want to wear if you need to keep cool!

Of course, if I told him that he looked like ass, he'd punch me, and I'd rather not fight either of my big bros today- more than I have to. Sometimes, they just start spontaneously swinging and there's nothing you can do about it.

"Tanakan, you weren't even listening, you fuckin' asshole!" Acchan's face contorts in rage and he immediately jumps to his feet.

"Yeah?" Tanaka growls. "I got suspended too, dumbass. And you running your fat mouth about it won't change shit."

"Who the fuck are you calling a dumbass? You wanna fuckin' go, you Guy Fieri-lookin' motherfucker?" Now Acchan's over in Tanaka's face. Oh, boy. Here we go again.

Tanaka jumps to his feet and now they're nose-to-nose. "Throw something, dipshit! You think that ratty-ass blond mullet makes you look cool? You look like you sell crack outta the back of a Roppongi host bar!"

"Aniki! Don't fight!" I step between them before something really bad can happen. "The people in the store will call the cops!" Sure enough, the girl behind the counter in the convenience store is glaring at us through the large glass panels that line the front side of the store. "It's a dumbass reason to fight!"

Acchan suddenly looks shocked. "Oh. You're right, Ryou. Sorry."

"The heat was gettin' to me, Bro," Tanaka sighs. "Let's make up like men." He holds out his hand, and the afternoon sun glints off his obviously-not-diamond earrings.

My two big brothers clasp hands in such an exaggerated way that it looks like they're in an 80s anime.

Why are we sitting outside if the heat is so strong? Because...well...we can't loiter inside looking like this, and I don't think any of us want to go home, either.

"Man, this is the pits. I'm fuckin' bored, dude.” Acchan starts fanning himself in the same way that Tanaka did. "You're lucky, Ryou."

"Lucky? Middle school sucks."

"It sucks? High school blows, dude. Like I said, all we did was make some shitty freshman respect his seniors, and then we get suspended for two weeks!"

"You're still on that?" I sigh. "Just give it up, man."

"Hell no!" Acchan howls. "Fights are how real men handle shit, and the school needed to stay the fuck out of it! We didn't even knock Kouga out! I hit him twice and he just staggered back and keeled over like he was Ric fuckin' Flair or somethin'! It was in the fuckin' gut, too! And then that little bitch sends his tiny little sister after us to go cuss us out- does he think we're gonna fight kids or something? And then they drag us in front of the principal and the Disciplinary Committee and the Student Council and they said they saw an ‘unprovoked assault on a student’- what a crock of shit- and then they stick us in a room and start asking questions and at the end they tell us ‘go reflect on your actions’ and then suspend us! They should have suspended Kouga for being a fuckin' coward who has his little sister fight his battles for him- if he had any balls, he would have come out for round 2 instead of sending a little kid!"

Maybe 40 years ago, Acchan would have been right, but in this day and age a school can't have dudes throwing hands in broad daylight without bringing some discipline down. It's why I don't want to fight at school. Don't shit where you eat and all that.

"You can still fight when you get back. Ain't you on the karate team?"

"Fucking Captain Bamboo Nuts kicked us all out..." Tanaka sighs. "And that skank Suzuran said if she ever caught us fighting on 'her' campus ever again, she'd fold us into knots and snap us like toothpicks..."

"You tell me," Acchan replies. "My old man was hopping mad and said that if I ever did something like that again, he'd hit me so hard eight generations of my ancestors would feel it. Then again, he was drunk. Like usual."

"So what?" I raise one of my eyebrows. "You're not afraid of some girl, are you?"

Acchan reaches out so suddenly and grabs me by the collar so quickly that I can't even react, and in a second he's pulled me within a centimeter of his face. Man, his breath smells like shit.

"Listen here, Ryou," he snarls. "You may be our lil' bro but you better not call me weak. That ain't just some girl. I'll say this, and say this once- You. Do. Not. Fuck. With. Reika. Suzuran. Am I clear?" He drops me and I fall straight back on my ass.

From the inside, the clerk shoots us a look. I definitely need to diffuse the situation here or we're dead meat.

"What's the deal with her? She a big shot banchou or something?"

"No, she ain't," Tanaka replies. "That's what makes her so scary. I heard she cleared out the entire gang at Higashi. By herself."

"Man, this sucks," Acchan sighs, plopping down and fanning himself again.

"I know, right?" Tanaka replies. "I can't even go see my girl Miya-chan..."

"Tanakan, you fuckin' idiot, Miyabi-chan rejected you! It's been a month and a half!"

"Shut the fuck up, Acchan!"

"Hold on, Tanakan!" I quickly step between them before they can start fighting again. "I'm not bullshitting you here! Listen, y'all were on the karate team, right? And that means if you wanted to fight, you could fight all you want in there! Why'd you pick a fight on school grounds? Now you can't fight people at all because they kicked you off the team and this scary lady has threatened to put your ass in the dirt if you ever raise another finger! Ain't that your own fault?"

"Ryou," Acchan nods, "you're making too much sense. NOW GRIT YOUR FUCKING TEETH!" Oh, fuck. He's coming at me.

This time it's Tanaka who stops him. "Knock it off, dude! Lil' Bro's right, they're gonna call the cops!" I look over and yep, the cashier's got her phone out.

"So why'd you want to fight him so bad?" I ask once Acchan's calmed down, which doesn't take very long.

Acchan looks off into the distance like he's gonna deliver a monologue or something.

"Because first-years with girlfriends piss me off."

"Huh? That's your reason?"

"Damn straight!" Tanaka cries. "First-years who get to goof off with their girlfriends while we can't-" Is he crying? Fuck me, man.

"So you...beat this guy up because you were jealous he had a girlfriend?"

"You're goddamn right!" he replies. Holy hell, he actually is fighting back tears. "It's an insult to a man's spirit that even though we're cool and all, we're still single and some lame-ass kid like Kouga isn't! And then instead of fessing up like a man he goes 'oh, we're not dating'...yeah, my ass you're not dating! You're taking the feelings and the hearts and the souls of all the single men out there and stomping them into the dirt, and anyone who does that needs to get the shit kicked out of them! Don't you agree, Aniki?"

"I couldn't have said it any better," Acchan nods.

Both of you are as far from cool as it's possible to be right now.

"Lil' Bro, you gotta take revenge on this guy! You gotta defend our honor! Bury Kouga six feet under, and kick his little sister for us too!" Tanaka is straight-up begging me now.

"Uhh...I don't know. I think you should take care of your own problems."

"Please! You're the only person I can ask who's young enough to deal with that shitty kid!" He's started crying those dumbass "manly tears" again.

"Acchan, Tanakan-" I look at both of them, turning my head to each side. "How did you get into Shinchou? You're both dumber 'n pig shit."

I'm expecting both of them to haul off on me because I just said something truthful about them and they don't like that- but Acchan just exhales. "I don't know, man."

"Maybe because we're cool?" Tanaka muses.

"Cool?" I almost snort in laughter. "You guys beat up some kid because you were mad about him having a girlfriend, and now you want me to beat him up, too. You're fucking lame, dude."

"It's not just Kouga, Lil' Bro!" Acchan exclaims. "It's his girlfriend, too! Kouga showed the whole team up to go date an otaku!"

"What?"

"There's this girl in his grade who's- I'll admit- really hot and she's got a nice rack and she's on the track team so she has nice legs- but she won't shut up about dumbass anime shit! All day, every day!"

"Wait just a fuckin' minute. What's her name?"

"Shiritori."

"Aniki...that's my last name."

"It is?"

"You forgot? I told you like seventeen times! And it's a weird enough name that almost everyone remembers it!"

"Oh. Sorry."

"Let me get this straight, does this girl have a ponytail and is she taller than average and does she never stop running her mouth?"

"Yep."

"This Kouga guy's dating Nee-san?!"

The name does sound familiar, I realize now. Kouga...where do I know that from?

"Aniki, what does this guy look like?"

"Scrawny kid who looks at other people like he's looking at gum spat on the sidewalk. And he likes wearing women's clothing." Acchan grimaces at the last sentence.

"He what?!"

"Well, he was in a maid costume when we stomped him," Tanaka replies.

"What the fuck is going on over at the high school, dude?"

"I don't know," Tanaka says with a downward glance. "But forget that, like I said, you've gotta avenge our honor! Both he and that little girl he made fight for him have to get taken down! Please! You're the only one who can!"

Before I realized who this "cocky first-year"'s girlfriend was, I had no interest in any part of Big Bros' dumbass vengeance scheme...because first off, I wasn't part of the incident, and second off, I don't want this Suzuran lady's attention on me. I've already drawn too much scrutiny at school even though I'm not doing anything but skipping, and that's not even bad.

But now? Yeah, I'm in.

"Let me at him, Aniki. I'll fuck him up!"