Understanding Hate

I wanted to kill her.

That was the simple undeniable truth of the matter. The moment I heard Sumire call Suki “hamburger-face”, I wanted to kill her. Suki had done something so brave and so wonderful, and up until that moment people had been so positive and happy for her. Then Sumire had to come and ruin it.

“Haru-kun, I need to see your palms,” Suki said.

I was in the nurse’s office. Suki brought me here after the encounter because apparently, I had dug my fingers into my palms so much that I started bleeding. I don’t even remember feeling any pain until Suki pointed the wounds out to me.

I complied, opened my hands, and held them up to her.

“It’s going to sting a little,” she said and then lightly dabbed the **** rub against the tiny crescent-shaped bores. It definitely stung, and I sucked in air through my teeth. She looked at me to make sure I was okay. She was so beautiful.

“I don’t think I’ve said it yet,” I began, “but I’m really proud of you. Coming to school showing your face was a really brave thing to do.”

She smiled bashfully, but then returned to a serious look, “Thank you, Haru-kun, but what you did was really dumb. I know you feel the need to defend my honor, and I won’t deny that I was kind of happy that you wanted to, but you really shouldn’t.”

I looked at her, confused.

“If you’d done something, you could have been suspended. Especially since Himeshima-san was right outside the door. In the end, Sumire was just saying words.”

“Words can hurt, though,” I pointed out.

She nodded, “But words aren’t worth ruining your school career over. I knew what I was getting into when I came to school like this today. In fact, I was expecting much worse.”

I hung my head, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Wow, brave, kind, pretty, and smart. I really lucked out with you, didn’t I?”

Suki blushed at my words and began wrapping my hands in a thin layer of bandages. “I’m curious, though,” she began, “it seemed like partway through you stopped being so angry at Sumire-san. Why was that?”

I looked out of the window beside us, recalling the moment, “I just… I remember wondering over and over again why she was bothering. What did she have to gain from being so mean to you? It’s not like you were a threat to her or anything. If it was just habit from your days in middle school, I sort of figured she would have calmed down after seeing your scars. But if anything, she got even more aggressive.”

Suki nodded and sat down next to me on the infirmary bed, listening intently. She was sitting on my right side, guard down, comfortable.

“Trying to figure that out was honestly the only thing that stopped me from punching her in the face. Most of my mind was focused on the desire for ****, which is why I was dedicating so much of my brainpower to trying to solve the puzzle. If I could figure out why she was bullying you, I might have a way to resolve the matter without ****. That was my reasoning, anyway.”

“Did you figure something out?” Suki asked.

I nodded, “It hit me like a ton of bricks, suddenly and without warning. Just out of nowhere I realized that the only reasonable explanation was that she was doing the same thing I was. She was doing it to distract her from what the rest of her brain was doing, which was probably trying to express her own lack of self-worth. When I realized just how low someone had to be in order to resort to bullying you so harshly, I couldn’t bring myself to feel angry at her anymore. All I could feel was pity.”

Suki was quiet a moment, likely processing this fact herself, before responding, “It’s hard to imagine someone like her having self-esteem problems. She’s pretty, she’s popular, and she… uh… used to be on the disciplinary committee.”

I nodded, “And yet, her reaction to me looking at her with pity spoke for itself, did it not? That wasn’t the reaction of a girl who has self-confidence.” I turned back to Suki, who looked like she was thinking about this revelation carefully.

There was a thick silence in the room as we both looked out the window. A group of birds suddenly took off from a tree and took flight in front of the window.

“Um, Haru-kun?”

I turned to look at her. She was blushing a bit and looking at me very intensely, “What’s up? Are you okay?”

She nodded, “I’m fine but um… I-I don’t want to make you think I’m rewarding you for what you did, because I still think it was dumb, but…” She shifted uncomfortably and was gripping the hem of her skirt tightly with both hands in her lap.

“But…?”

“I… I want you to make me feel beautiful again,” she finally responded in a quiet voice, breaking eye contact. “Like you did on our date…” At first, I had no idea what she was talking about, but then she undid a couple more buttons on her blouse and shifted it over one shoulder. She did the same to her bra-strap, letting her left breast pop out from her underwear. That was when I understood perfectly.

Sumire’s comments had done a number on her self-esteem. She wanted me to help her build it back up a little. I didn’t hesitate and brought my hand up to her face, using my fingers to trace each individual patch of reddish malformed skin. I moved my fingers down in the same pattern I had before, eventually pressing my digits into the flesh of her bare breast.

“From now on,” she began, shakily, “when someone like Sumire insults me, I don’t want you to try and stand up for me.”

I looked her straight in the eyes with a serious expression. I could sense she wasn’t done, so I didn’t interrupt.

“What I need in those moments is not for you to defend my honor, I need you prove them wrong.” She was making fierce and determined eye contact with me. For some reason that face seemed familiar to me, like I’d seen something similar on one of my manga covers or something.

I wasn’t too focused on that, though, because my brain was busy being enveloped with an overwhelming feeling. All of the bundled emotions I had suppressed while standing up to Sumire came out in that moment. I lurched forward and planted my lips into hers without warning.

“Mmh!!” Suki squeaked with surprise into my lips, not just because of the sudden kiss, but also because I had cupped her breast in my hand, kneading it heavily. I was lost in the moment, in the desire that had suddenly come over me. All I could think was that she was absolutely right, she needed to feel beautiful, and I was determined to make sure she did no matter what.

She was gorgeous, she was fantastic, she was everything to me. I was so aggressive in my movements that we both spun around and toppled backward onto the bed as I brought my other hand to her other breast, fondling the softness under her clothes. My tongue desperately swirled with hers as she moaned and panted under me.

I loved every inch of her, not just her scars but all of her. She was the single greatest thing to ever happen to me. I needed to show her. My lips parted with hers and went down to her neck, kissing and suckling on it intensely. I didn’t care if it left a hickey, frankly I wanted it to. I wanted to make sure everyone knew just how much I fucking loved this girl.

“Ahhhn! Haru-kun!” she moaned and squirmed, writhing beneath me.

My lips then wandered lower, down to her breast. I slid my tongue around her adorable pink areola, then wrapped my lips around her sensitive bud and suckled even more aggressively than I had done with her neck.

“Ahhhhhh!” she moaned loudly at this stimulation. I could feel myself getting hard, but all I cared about right now was making her feel beautiful and, more importantly, loved.

My hand drifted down to her thigh, it rubbed the soft and smooth skin there and slowly crawled up and under her skirt.

“Haru Sato-san, Fumiko Ando-san, Touma Miura-san, and Rei Sasaki-san, please report to the principal’s office.” The intercom suddenly sounded. This sudden noise snapped me out of my heated trance.

My eyes shot open, and I looked down at Suki, the realization of what I had just been doing dawning on me. As the announcement over the intercom repeated itself, I shot up and backed off with my hands up. I had crossed a line, that was not okay. This wasn’t what she asked me to do.

“Suki! I’m sorry I don’t… I don’t know what came over me.” I turned around and faced away so she could make herself decent again. I winced and gritted my teeth. What the fuck was wrong with me? She trusted me and I was about to do something like that. Even Sasaki had stressed the importance of making sure I was her safe place.

I suddenly felt a soft and small hand in mine from behind. “Haru-kun?”

I turned to look at her, expecting the worst, expecting her expression to be a betrayed look. But it was a concerned and blushing one instead.

“That surprised me, but… it’s okay. Don’t worry.” Her blush intensified but she smiled slightly. Then she leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

Relief washed over me, and I let out a sigh, “Thank goodness… I was afraid I had done something really bad. I guess I still did, I wasn’t thinking about your feelings. I’m sorry, Suki-chan.”

She shook her head, “You were thinking of my feelings. You wanted me to feel beautiful… it worked.” As she admitted this last part, she was avoiding eye-contact bashfully.

I couldn’t help but smile, I didn’t deserve her. I silently vowed not to let myself get swept away like that again. From now on I would make sure she was okay with something before I just did it. It ended all right this time, but it might not always.

“You should probably go, though,” Suki said.

I was confused a moment, then I realized my name was among those that were called on just now, “Oh, yeah.”

“I hope it’s not about Sumire,” Suki said, pulling her bra and blouse back into place.

“Same,” I said, but when I recall the names of the others in the message, Ando, Sasaki, and Miura, I doubted it. It was likely some sort of Spirit Society business. Still, I couldn’t give any indication that I knew any better.

“Um, good luck.” Suki waved as I stepped out. I welcomed this simple gesture, a feeling in my gut told me I might need it.

I made my way through the halls toward the administrative offices in silence, wondering what the problem was. It took me embarrassingly long to realize it might have been a phantom of some sort. Was this going to be my first actual hunt?

At the possibility of engaging with another phantom, and possibly one that was hostile enough to be nearing the ability to pass into this realm, I felt my skin crawl with anxiety. I’d only seen two hostile phantoms so far, and neither of them seemed like a lot of fun to deal with.

On the other hand, I’d learned a lot in this past week, and had been taking gym class a lot more seriously. In addition, the nightly training sessions with the Spirit Society had made my senses and reflexes sharper. I’d been continually having sparring sessions with Miura in order to pick up on more of his improvised techniques. It was decided that I should do training with Hinata soon too in order to pick up on more disciplined defensive ones. I hoped all this meant I was at least more ready than I was a week ago.

As it happened, I was passing by the very same three-way intersection where I had fought the nure-onna, and as if to serve as a very real reminder of the incident, I heard something that immediately made my blood freeze and caused my hair to stand on end. I almost summoned a thorn-whip on reflex.

“Shut up!” It was two simple words, yelled in the same exact manner as the giant, cleaver-wielding phantom that had interrupted my fight with the nure-onna. Though I didn’t actually hear the follow-up (I wish you’d all die!) this time, my mind filled in the blank, making me shiver.

With some trepidation, I turned my head into the intersecting corridor.

Luckily, what I saw was not the gargantuan bloated figure of the pitch-black phantom brandishing a knife the size of my own body.

“Who’s gonna make us, tubbs?” a voice returned, belonging to a kid with a shaved head, and that’s when the normalcy of the scene finally settled in. This was relieving but also kind of worrying in its own way.

There was a heavyset student with his back to the wall, his head lowered, and his hands clenched into tight fists. It was easy to see why, he was surrounded by a number of other students, all of whom were in intimidating stances, arms folded or hands in pockets. Their uniforms were untidy and roughed up, it was obvious that they were delinquents bullying this poor kid.

Suddenly, everything seemed to click into place. Everything made sense. I understood who caused that phantom to be born, and why. I was told on multiple occasions that phantoms developed due to the out-of-control emotions of humans. I’d mentally acknowledged this fact, but for the first time I was actually face-to-face with the reality of it since seeing one emerge from Suki on the rooftop after my ****. Now that I had actually fought one of those monsters, this scene had a totally different meaning to me.

“We want you to compensate for bumping into us so rudely, fatso,” one of the delinquents said, and then stepped forward to slap the poor kid’s gut. “So, where’s the money, huh? There’s no way you get this fat without a good wad of lunch-money.”

“Careful Kura, you might make Blubber-san cry!” one of the other delinquents said, making the others laugh.

I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between this situation and Sumire calling Suki names to the amusement of her cronies, Looking back on this moment later, this was definitely what urged me to intervene, even if I did end up regretting it. I decided I would make it quick, though.

“Hey,” I called out.

They all turned toward me.

“Leave the poor guy alone, will ya?” I said.

“Who’s gonna make us?” one of them asked, amusingly, it was the shaved head kid who had asked that exact same question to the heavyset kid. Was that all he knew how to say? Was that just his role in this delinquent gang? I had been taking this situation somewhat seriously until now, but that thought made me smile without meaning to.

“What’re you smiling about, huh?” one of the others asked, taking a step toward me. All of them were slowly beginning to surround me. This situation wasn’t ideal; if I really was about to begin my first phantom hunt, I really shouldn’t be expending any energy fighting these guys. I was pretty certain I could beat them thanks to the training and exercising I’d been doing, especially since sparring with Miura taught me a lot about how punks like these guys would have fought. But it wouldn’t be a good idea to get hurt on my way to a potential fight, it was bad enough that my hands were hurt.

“Kid has guts, I’ll give him that,” one of the delinquents said.

I glanced over at the heavyset kid. He looked familiar now that I got a good look at him. I had no idea what his name was, but I was pretty sure he was in Ishibumi’s class.

“Why don’t we teach him a lesson, huh?”

I shrugged, perhaps I could intimidate my way out of this, “Go ahead and give it your best shot. Compared to sparring with Touma-kun, it’ll be a nice warm-up,” I casually dropped my own delinquent friend’s name, hoping it would carry some weight.

My plan worked to some degree, a few of them reacted visibly to the mention of Miura, and they looked between each other, visibly unsure. However, this didn’t seem to work in the end. Instead, they seemed to steel themselves.

“Ha, nice try, boss wouldn’t hang out with some prissy pretty-boy like you,” the presumed leader, a blonde kid, said. Then he waved a hand, “Get him!”

Well, there went that idea. I wouldn’t lie, though, I may have still been a little hot-blooded from my situation in class, so getting to blow off some steam appealed to me as well. With that in mind, and seeing no peaceful way out of this, I prepared myself.

Be like the wind.

The shaved head kid was the first to lunge forward, and by the time he had reeled his fist backward I was already in the best possible mindset. I needed to move like the wind, like a gentle breeze.

His fist sailed past my cheek as I stepped lightly to the side and toward him. I had moved quickly enough that by the time he’d realize what I was about to do, it would be too late. I went from a gentle breeze to a fierce gale, casually but precisely kicking forward with my foot, catching his ankle against mine to unbalance him.

Then I planted my foot firmly against the ground and tapped him in the back with my arm. Though the strike wouldn’t hurt him much, the fact that he was already stumbling meant that he fell forward at once and right onto the ground.

I then scanned the group, watching for whoever would come next. A few of them looked surprised at how effortlessly I had managed to do that.

“That’s enough,” a voice from the direction of the heavy kid called. It wasn’t him, but instead a new face.

He was a student who stood with elegance and refinement, a stance that reminded me of Sasaki, but significantly more imposing. He was in a relaxed stance, but also felt somehow tense as well. He had a friendly enough face and was smiling amiably. He wore a band around his sleeve that marked him as a member of the disciplinary committee.

“You all have classes to be in, right? I’d suggest getting a move on.”

“Shit, we’ll remember this, pretty-boy,” the blonde leader spat and then started walking away, hauling the shaved kid with him.

I stood in place, and smiled at the new figure, “Thanks, sorry about that.”

He waved a hand dismissively, then leveled a pair of dark red eyes on me, “Don’t worry, I could plainly see it was self-defense. My name is Kai Zakuro, by the way.” He approached and held out a hand to shake.

I reached out to return the gesture only to get shocked by static electricity. “Ow.”

“Oops. Guess scuffling around and rubbing uniforms together generated some static.”

I chuckled, embarrassed a little, “Yeah I guess so. I’m Haru Sato class 2-B.”

“Sato-san, got it. Ah your name just got called over the intercom, right? That explains why you’re here.” He smiled warmly and we actually managed to shake hands. “How about you?” he asked the heavier kid.

“Um… Jin Hirano, 2-A,” he said. “I was on my way to the bathroom.”

“Hirano-san, got it. You should head back to class,” Zakuro said.

“R-right,” he said but (Shut up!) my memory suddenly flashed back to the black giant.

“Hey, Hirano-san,” I called to him.

He looked back at me curiously.

“Sounds like those punks are in Touma-kun’s gang. We’re friends so I’ll talk to him and get them to leave you alone.”

“O-oh, you don’t need to—”

“I insist,” I replied, perhaps a little more sternly than I meant to. I’d had just about enough of bullying for one day. “And hey, if you ever need anything at all, come talk to me. I’m in the class right next door to you. You can talk to Tako Ishibumi too, I think he’s in your class, he’s one of my friends. Just tell him I sent you.”

“A gracious offer,” Zakuro added, smiling at the boy. “There is strength in numbers when it comes to being picked on, it’s a common piece of advice the committee likes to give.”

Hirano looked stunned for a moment; it was clear he wasn’t used to getting this kind of treatment. Then he just nodded, “Thank you.”

I waved a hand to dismiss his concern, “Just stay safe.”

After Hirano left, Zakuro turned his attention to me, “And you should go to the principal’s office.”

“Ah, right, thanks again for the help.”

“Anytime. By the way, with moves like that, you’d make a good committee member. Looked like something straight out of an anime, like those kinds about fighting demons.” Then he turned around and began walking away, waving his hand as he did.

I eyed him carefully. There was no way this guy knew about the Spirit Society. Then again, someone had mentioned to me that there were other Shinigami in the school who weren’t eighteen yet, maybe he was one of them. Or he really was just a smooth-talking otaku.

I shrugged and decided it was just a coincidence in the end. I did have some pretty flashy moves now. I began down the hall again, thinking it was best not to keep Yamazaki-sensei waiting.