What is Your Desire?

Chapter One

Takehiko

Why the hell is Shō taking so long? He couldn't have chosen a worse moment to ditch me and decide to go buy drinks.

I lean against the base of the stone statue beside the torii gate, running the braided cord of the golden bells through my fingers. None of them have said a word to me since I got back from the funeral, but I know that they're talking about me. I can hear their whispers.

Jingle. Jingle jingle. Jingle.

"I heard the janitor caught them in the locker room when they were serving punishment for the broken window," Ryousuke says in a hushed voice from the other side of the fox statue.

"Yeah? Doing what?" Noboru snorts like he's trying not to sound interested but clearly is.

"What do you think?"

I look at Ryousuke sharply as he makes a sexual gesture with his hands.

"What...? No way? The two of them? But they hate each other," Kotone gasps in scandalized disbelief.

Jingle. Jingle jingle. Jingle.

I try to tuck myself further behind the statue because if they see my face they'll know it's true as plainly as paint on a wall.

Yes, hello. I'm Takehiko Fujioka and I banged my former bully in my school's locker room. Nice to meet you.

"You shouldn't spread rumors like that, Ryo," Noboru growls.

"It's not a rumor. I heard Haruto's whole family had to move away because of it," Ryousuke counters indignantly.

"No shit? That's why they moved?" Goro blurts out way too loudly and everyone in the vicinity turns to look at him.

And that would be my cue to make a strategic retreat.

But as I'm trying to make a stealthy exit from one disaster I collide with another. And...end up flat on my ass in the dirt.

Jingle. Jingle jingle. Jingle.

"Sorry I—" I start to apologize as I reach for the red and white cord of my dropped bells. But then I see who it is.

Oh, fantastic. It's Mr. Minami—our teacher—who pretty much hates me.

Mr. Minami adjusts his glasses which went askew in our collision, his mouth set in a scowl.

"Mr. Fujioka, you know you can't wear those. Take them off."

"What?" I question as I rise back to my feet.

"The piercings, they're not permitted," he clarifies.

My hand flinches upward, then freezes. They're all staring. Our whole class is staring at me. Again.

Just like they did in the third-story hallway when me and Haruto nearly went crashing right out the window. Just standing there doing nothing like they did when his friend Noboru was threatening me with that pair of scissors.

No, I won't. Not this time.

"They're not decorative. They're atonement."

I raise my eyes and fix our teacher with a steely glare as I clutch my bells tightly in my fist.

"You've already made me remove my mourning clothes, would you make me dishonor my family further by removing these?" I challenge as I touch my hand to three out of my six helix piercings.

It's a gamble, but I don't care anymore. My family were the only ones left of our small religious sect in the village and now I'm the only one left.

Was the only one left.

They banished me. Because of Haruto. Because of my hair.

Mr. Minami looks uneasy. "Uh...I guess we can make an exception if it's a religious thing."

I just nod. I do not thank him. Mr. Minami stood by and said nothing as my classmates bullied me for years.

"Hey Hiko, they only had melon and apple. Which one ya..." Shō trails off when he finally senses the tension between me and our teacher.

"Mr. Yamauchi, you're not to have snacks until the end of the shrine visit."

"Oh come on, Mr. Minami, it's hot as balls out here," my best friend whines.

***

As Mr. Minami starts to lead the class up the steps to the temple grounds, Shō wiggles the two bottles at me. "So...melon or apple?"

"I hate melon-flavored anything," I remind him.

"Oh. Right," he says with a grimace as he hands me the bottle.

Shō eyes me as I twist off the cap and we start up the steps at a considerable distance behind the rest of the others. "So...are they really a religious thing?"

I grin slyly at him. "What do you think?"

He chokes on his melon soda. "You lied to him?"

I shrug unapologetically.

Shō pounds his fist into his chest before demanding, "Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?"

The smile slips from my face as I lower my drink. "He died."

"Huh?"

"Nothing," I sigh.

That Takehiko ceased to exist the moment Haruto lied to his parents about us.

He ruined my life and broke my heart and left me here to clean up the pieces of a mess he made.

The bastard.