Chương 16: Chapter 16
Time Skip
Gakushuu let his hands curl over the cat sleeping on his chest and purring loudly. He scratched behind his ear and he pawed his chest.
Gakushuu was lying in a park with a cap covering his face, and a total of 3 cats surrounding him. One was curled up and purring on his chest, another was half on his neck and shoulder, and another was sleeping on top of his other free hand.
Gakushuu was in, what he liked to call, his most attractive phase in life. He was a relatively hot person (hottie #1 according to polls) with a lot of friends, even more skills, and a mostly absentee father.
Now what was good about it?
Well, it would be the fact that he was pretty damn amazing. And even though his father had a lot of expectations on him, he was doing a pretty decent job meeting them, so he had a lot more freedom than…literally ever in his life.
He literally walked into a cafe having a live concert, played a song and he became internet famous with his friends spamming him with messages about what he was doing.
It was funny. It was liberating. It was what he really wanted to always do with his life.
Except-
As if aware of his thoughts, his phone rang. He sighed. Then he stopped petting the slice of heaven on his chest and took out his phone and answered without looking.
"Asano." He said curtly.
"Shuu-chan~" Karma started.
"You're a pain," he informed the other boy.
"But you like a little pain, don't you?" Gakushuu let out an exasperated sigh at the line.
"I'm guessing you found other people who liked a little 'pain' too?" He replied instead.
"That's right!" Karma said cheerfully. There was a groan in the background. Then a sound of flesh hitting flesh. Gakushuu looked at the sky, then realized the hat was still covering his face, and sighed instead.
"You're a pain," he repeated.
"Your vocabulary has shrunk by an alarming degree, Ace of class A." Karma mocked him as Gakushuu sent off a text.
"It's because no matter how amazing my vocabulary when I'm insulting you, you just reply in unoriginal ways," Gakushuu shot back.
"Are you calling me boring? " Karma gasped.
"No, how could I ever accuse you of being boring-" you might set fire to the school if I do, "-I'm just accusing you of being unoriginal. Last week's water works was far too easy to see through."
"Class A is just 'the territory of the ruler' so how could I-"
"You, the fourth ranked student in the school?" Gakushuu interrupted, and Karma snickered.
"And still not in class A," Karma reminded, mocking at his father's philosophy.
"Because you're a menace to society, Akabane." Gakushuu said automatically, going back to paying most of his attention to the cat napping on his chest.
"You've been calling me that since the first year, I think you might need to go back to the dictionary again," Karma pointed out.
"Then should I say you're a terrible influence on the world and humans at large and will one day lead to the end of the world?" Gakushuu replied sarcastically.
"That's music to my ears, Shuu-chan," Karma said, almost sweetly.
Gakushuu pushed the hat to cover more of his face.
"And I have better things to do in life than you," he retorted. Then felt regret slapping him across the face a moment later.
"Oh, my." Gakushuu could almost see Karma grinning. "Are you-"
They simultaneously heard a loud 'meow' as the cat on Gakushuu's shoulder tumbled over. It batted at the hat on Gakushuu's face and Gakushuu melted.
He removed his hat, placing it beside him and watched the cat play with it. He sighed, contentedly at it.
"Did you get a pet cat?" Karma asked, delighted.
Gakushuu didn't get startled at the way Karma naturally let him have his moments, even when Karma was on call. Generally it was either to gather blackmail or because Karma was actually a kind person about some very specific things.
This time, it was probably blackmail though.
"I didn't," he said peacefully. "I'm just relaxing with the cats." Karma hummed before Gakushuu heard Karma moving.
"The emergency service isn't there yet," Gakushuu reminded Karma.
"But you told them the whole situation right?" Karma grinned as he asked, already knowing the answer.
"That's because you only call me when there's a third person involved in your fights!" He scolded the other boy.
"But you're so good at dealing with annoying things like that!" Gakushuu wanted to, once again, punch the other boy in the face.
"Don't interrupt my free time," he warned instead, a slightly annoyed look on his face. It eased as he watched the cat abandon the hat and circle Gakushuu's head.
"Too late~" came Karma's voice, from his phone and from somewhere behind him. Gakushuu shot up.
The cat sleeping on his hand mewled loudly at being disturbed. Gakushuu gave it an apology scratch as it brushed against him once before leaving for a better spot. He had automatically cradled the cat on his chest but the other cat that had been curiously circling his head left him to walk around Karma's feet, curiously.
Karma bent down to scratch at the cat and she mewled cutely at him, flicking her tail.
It was a pretty view. Gakushuu wanted a picture. He took the picture.
Karma shot him an annoyed look before giving into the cat's demand for more scratches.
He plopped down on the ground beside him.
"Ugh," Gakushuu voiced, gently petting the cat in his arms. Karma took a retaliatory picture. Gakushuu rolled his eyes.
The cat on Karma hopped on his legs, before jumping on his shoulder then jumping off behind Karma. Gakushuu snickered as the cat left.
"She's already had her nap. Too bad for you, Akabane." He teased.
Karma turned back to look at Gakushuu's raised phone, and his smug face, and his eyes narrowed vindictively.
Oh fuck.
Gakushuu bemoaned his fate of being set on for Karma's revenge. He was one petty bitch. The name was well suited.
"So, Gakushuu ," his name rolled off Karma's tongue with delight, "have you been napping under the sun with your fellow cats all this time?"
He continued before Gakushuu could protest.
"Oh, how terribly rude of me. I interrupted Shuu-chan's nap time. Shuu-chan seems terribly grumpy," he crawled forward, sticking his face close to Gakushuu with a smile.
"Aren't you the cat here, Akabane? Coming and going as you please? Not abiding by the rules of human society?" Karma laughed at that.
Gakushuu didn't protest, well aware that the traits he just listed were considered positive ones that they both appreciated.
Karma started petting the cat Gakushuu was holding and Gakushuu looked around.
There were a couple of people throwing a baseball at each other. They were just playing catch, with training gloves. One was quite obviously the pitcher and the other seemed to be his catcher.
Gakushuu scratched his cat and frowned the two. There were quite obviously other people-
Just when the thought flashed through his mind, the baseball went wide and landed somewhere behind Karma.
Then there was a loud familiar mewl of a cat, and both of them turned to the sound with alarm.
When Karma moved, Gakushuu could finally see the cat laying on the ground, and the baseball rolled to a stop in front of her.
She made a high painful sound, and Gakushuu echoed it, the sound settled almost painfully in his throat. The cat tried to move but even he could see the way the ball had injured his hind legs.
Karma immediately went to her and carefully checked her. He was awkward about it, but gentle.
Gakushuu just stayed frozen as he watched Karma carefully pick up the cat in his arms.
"Where's the closest vet?" Karma asked. His eyes were wide with worry, as he cradled the cat, trying not to hurt her.
"Um.'' Gakushuu said blankly feeling like he had just skipped through the last few minutes of life, before he pulled himself together. "Right."
He stood up, then led the way, and Karma matched his pace, his gait almost matching Gakushuu's normally smooth ones. The cat in his arms let out soft painful sounds that felt like it was tearing into his soul.
The vet was almost 10 painful torturous minutes away and Gakushuu almost felt like crying or taking the cat from Karma and running to the vet himself near the end of it.
It was relatively quick care since the vet was there and it was an emergency. Karma and Gakushuu sat side by side on uncomfortable chairs and he realized, for the first time, that he was still cradling the cat from the park to his chest.
He let out a slight giggle. Then another.
The next one stuck in his throat when he remembered the two irresponsible people playing around. Murderous fury filled him, instead.
"I'm going to kill them," he said, standing up. The cat in his arms shifted uncomfortably and he realized he should probably put him down somewhere comfortable before Gakushuu went and killed a few people.
"Hey." Akabane asked, "How about you leave those two to me?"
Gakushuu raised an eyebrow, looking at the other boy. Then at the cat in his arms.
He nodded and sat back down.
"Okay," he agreed.
He wasn't entirely sure what Karma was planning to do considering he had never seen him fight someone who wasn't willing to fight him first, but he remembered the wasabi and various other items that Karma enjoyed putting in all the wrong holes and stopped thinking about it.
He was confident that even if it wasn't him, as long as it was Karma, an appropriate punishment would be dished out. Though maybe their life and future wouldn't be as ruined as he would like.
He should legally sue them for animal abuse and public carelessness with objects that could cause harm.
"I'm still suing them," he told Karma. The other boy smirked.
"That's okay!" He said almost cheerfully, as he bared his teeth. "I'll make sure they're alive enough for it."
Satisfied, Gakushuu went back to petting his cat.
Gakushuu couldn't actually adopt the cats, but Karma decided he had enough free time to deal with two cats, injured or not, which was a relief.
Since the winter of his second year of Junior High, the ginger cat would find Gakushuu once a week to nap on him, or get a few scratches or snacks. He had fallen in love with the ginger mess of a cat.
He always ran away even if Gakushuu tried to leave him for adoption or pay someone to care for him.
The cat was stubborn, and he had chosen Gakushuu for some reason, and no one but Gakushuu would do.
It would be sweet. Except he tended to ruin Gakushuu's room, and on one occasion ruined Gakushuu's closet of gifts that was hidden away with Ren. It was an upsetting time.
But both the white injured one and Gakushuu's ginger cat seemed to have taken a liking to Karma- which probably would have made Gakushuu jealous if it weren't for how much he hovered over the injured cat.
Karma was surprisingly nice, but most importantly, absent from his own home, for long stretches of time that made him wonder if he was punching delinquents or just avoiding his house.
Gakushuu had had close calls bumping into him many times even outside school, which made sense when Gakushuu became a semi-frequent visitor to his house and realized he wasn't even home half the time.
But the cats seemed satisfied and his home wasn't a wrecked mess so obviously it wasn't going too badly.
With that said, Gakushuu was once again pulled away from his idyllic days when his father scoffed at him for making an inane mistake in some competition and proceeded to make sure Gakushuu wouldn't be making the same mistake ever again.
It wasn't very common nowadays, because Gakushuu was actually a pretty amazing student, and his mistakes were rare.
Gakushuu was competent, thank you very much.
Which meant that Gakuhou was emotional . Though, looking at the upcoming school year, Gakushuu had an idea of why.
Wasn't Gakushuu at the exact age where Ikeda and Gakuhou built up their amazingly strong beyond-life-and-death bond?
Gakuhou became emotional about the oddest things.
He didn't care about Ikeda's day of death, but he punished the ones that caused it. He didn't give Gakushuu the same care but he bragged about him to people.
He never directly compared Gakushuu and Ikeda but Gakushuu was built on the idea of Ikeda's 'failure'.
Gakushuu never knew what to feel about his father. Just that, whatever he did, it felt strong. And unbelievably complicated.
Ren's advice was an incredibly simple yet sharp "get a fucking therapist".
But Gakushuu didn't. He didn't trust someone to allow them in his mind after Gakuhou. But, it wasn't just that.
He didn't want his therapist to report Gakuhou. It might not even happen, or even if it did, his father would find a way to stop it.
But even then. It felt like just having it out in the open would tear him apart. He didn't want to be faced with the choice. Or the consequences of either action.
Gakushuu had been thinking about a way to really hurt his father, and he had come to the conclusion that his father had always been a teacher. He hadn't actually spent much time being a father.
Gakushuu barely even remembered the joy of being in an actual family anymore (lie) but he was sure Gakuhou did.
The biggest scar on him would be to realise that he had gotten exactly what he wanted- Gakuhou had raised a student, not a son.
And it would kill him.
The summer vacation before his third year began with an injured cat and a punishment.
It didn't get better.
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
Siera_Knightwalker
Siera_Knightwalker Students of Class A:
Gakushuu
Ren, bestie
Araki, info gatherer
Tadashi Morisuke, rival
Miya, Morisuke bestie
Kazuki Mimeya, messy
Akira, sexist
Masachika Satoi, foodie
Seiji Shiba
Kaito, chika's alt
Asahi, tsun Shuu stan
Seo Tomoya, Hinata's cousin
Natsuhiko Koyama, minion #1
Kimiko, ballet gangster wannabe
Amami, introvert friend
Hinata, extro crier
Anaya, stoic babe
Keiji Shimizu, independent loner
Ayaka, loud baby
Miyuki, shyest
Tomomi
Satsuki
Emiko, tired of shit
Yuzuki, proud richie
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