Chapter 29 An Attack?

An Attack?

“Y-Yakumo-san?!”

Immediately after hearing Haruki’s screaming voice, with agitation on his face, Sou quickly gets up from the sofa, leaving the TV on.

Then he runs through the living room and pushes open the door between the living room and his hallway.

The door slams shut, leaving it half open.

He ignores the door without closing it. Sou doesn’t even care about the door.

He forcibly opens the shoebox and quickly pulls out a pair of Crocs slippers. He throws the Crocs roughly to the floor in the entrance and quickly puts them on both feet.

He opens the door to his house with great force and steps outside.

It is after 7 p.m., the sun has set, and it is completely dark outside.

“Yakumo-san! Are you okay?!!”

Then he finds Haruki in front of his house. Haruki is entangled with two people. One is a man, and the other is a woman. The man is holding Haruki’s right arm.

“Ah, Amane!”

With a confused look on her face, Haruki desperately calls out Sou’s name. A look of weakness appears on her face.

“Tch! It’s you again?”

The man clicks his tongue and then turns around, showing his irritation.

“You….”

Sou’s eyes narrow as he recognizes the man’s face. This is to make the man’s face clearer.

“Amane-kun… eh?”

The woman also looks at Sou. She can’t hide her agitation.

“Ishii and Ito-san… What are you guys doing?!”

In stark contrast to his usual lackluster, if not weak attitude, Sou lowers his voice in an intimidating manner. His usual high-pitched voice is gone, and a low-pitched voice comes out.

“What? Can’t you just look at us, go away! It’s a discussion. A discussion between the three of us. Right? Right, huh?”

Ishii replies nonchalantly, without any particular sense of apology. As usual, he looks down at Sou.

“N-no! This is not a discussion! These guys—”

Haruki objects and tries to shake off Ishii’s grabbed right arm.

“Oops! I’m not done talking yet; I won’t let you go!”

But Ishii uses his strength to stop Haruki’s right arm.

“Ugh….”

The difference in strength between men and women is clearly visible, and Haruki cannot escape Ishii’s grip on her right arm. She clenches her teeth in frustration.

“She looks like she doesn’t want to, though? She doesn’t seem to be in the mood for a discussion, does she?”

Still maintaining his composure, Sou questions Ishii. He clearly shows contempt.

“Hey! Are you kidding me? What kind of attitude is that?”

With bulging veins on his forehead and a sharp gaze, Ishii glares at Sou. It seems that Sou’s attitude has irritated him.

“Nothing. I’m just adopting an attitude appropriate to the occasion.”

Sou is not intimidated by Ishii and shows a relaxed attitude.

He is completely different from the usual Sou at school, and we can see a glimpse of his coolness.

“F🬀🬀k! You’re annoying! Don’t act tough just because you’re in front of a girl, okay?!”

Unable to contain his anger, Ishii lets go of Haruki’s right arm and approaches Sou. Then he grabs him roughly by the collar.

“…I’m not trying to act tough or anything. I’m just annoyed at you guys.”

Unimpressed, as if he’s a different person, Sou then looks at Seira with ease and answers easily. He feels some pain in his chest when he’s grabbed by the collar. But it’s a pain he can easily bear.

“You! Don’t think that you, an introvert, can get away with acting like that towards me, a super popular guy! Know your place!!!”

With a teasing smile on his face, Ishii clenched his right fist tightly. So tightly that it made a creaking sound.

“Hey! Stop it!!”

Anticipating Ishii’s next move, Haruki shouted loudly.

But Ishii didn’t stop. He grabbed Sou’s collar and raised his right arm vigorously.

“Eat this!!”

Ishii’s powerful fist approached Sou’s face. There was momentum.

“Sight~ you really are a child….”

Sighing deeply, Sou closed his eyes and spat out a cold sound.

When a fist flew at him, he deftly moved his head to the right and dodged the fist with a graceful evasion. Ishii’s fist passed in front of Sou’s face, slicing through the air without a scratch.

“What!?”

That must’ve been an unexpected turn of events. Ishii’s eyes widen.

“You’re the one who made the first move, okay?”

He brushes Ishii’s arm away from his collar and says coldly.

“Huh? What are you talking about? Gah—”

Immediately after that, Ishii’s vision becomes extremely distorted, as if he is dizzy. Ishii doesn’t know what happened.

However, Haruki and Seira could see it clearly. Sou’s right fist landed cleanly on Ishii’s left cheek.

Thud!

Ishii collapsed onto his back on the concrete floor.

“Gah! Gah! It hurts! It hurts!”

Ishii writhed violently on the concrete floor, clutching his face and back. It looked really painful.

“This is a residential area; don’t scream!!!”

While Haruki and Seira were stunned, Sou calmly covered Ishii’s mouth with the palm of his right hand as Ishii screamed in pain.

“Mmm! Mmm!”

Ishii tried to shake off Sou’s hand, but his back hurt, and he immediately held his back with both hands. The pain of hitting his back on the ground must’ve been extremely painful. It’s not hard to imagine.

“Hey? What’s going on? At this time? It’s night.”

The woman who lives next door to Sou comes out of her house with an annoyed look on her face. Sou has seen this woman’s family before. They are a family of five. She is married and often sees her coming home from shopping or school. If she did not work at home, she was probably a housewife.

It seems that Ishii’s loud voice disturbed the neighbors. That’s why the woman next door showed up.

“I’m sorry. The guy slipped on the floor and hit his back hard. That’s why he was screaming. We apologize for disturbing you.”

Sou looks into the woman’s eyes and bows slightly.

“Mmmm-mmm!”

Ishii looks dissatisfied and seems to want to say something. But Sou’s hand covers Ishii’s mouth so tightly that he cannot speak. Of course, the woman cannot hear Ishii’s voice.

“Oh, really? Is he okay? Should I bring first aid?”

Hearing the situation from Sou, the woman looks worried.

“No, no. It’s okay. He’s young, so I think he’ll recover soon.”

Without asking Ishii for confirmation, Sou answers the woman politely with a fake smile. Ishii wants to say something but is stopped by Sou’s hand. He doesn’t want Ishii to speak at all.

“Really? Then that’s good. If you need anything, please ring the bell. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“Yes! Thank you for your concern!”

To get through this situation, Sou puts on his best smile and plays the role of a good, respectable young man. It would be troubling if Ishii were to talk about what just happened.

Maybe he would make something up. If he did, the woman would be suspicious. He had to avoid that trouble. That’s why he lied earlier.

The woman was convinced and returned to her own house. As if to convey this fact, the sound of the woman’s house door closing can be heard everywhere.

“Now we can talk.”

Sou averted his eyes from the door of the woman’s house and looked at Ishii, whose face was still contorted with pain.

“You know what will happen if you touch Yakumo-san again, right?”

Looking down at Ishii with a blank expression on his face, Sashi utters a threat. It’s a threat he made up during his exchange with the woman from earlier.

“Mmm-mmm!”

With Sou’s palm covering his mouth, Ishii seems completely terrified and nods his head repeatedly like a machine. Of course, he was lying on the floor.

“Okay. Well then, keep your promise~”

Sou lets out a happy cry and lets go of Ishii’s mouth. Ishii’s mouth is now free.

“Ha-ha-ha…hah!”

Ishii stands up quickly, breathing heavily, and backs away from Sou with a desperate look on his face. His body and arms sway from side to side as if blown by a strong wind, and with an ugly, messy, and dirty form, he grits his teeth and runs away from Sou.

He doesn’t even look at Haruki and Seira; he walks past them, only his back getting further away.

“Eh. Eh….”

Seira is left behind. The situation changes completely, and Seira is shocked to see Ishii running away as fast as he can. Seira’s expression is a mixture of confusion and suspicion as her eyes wander suspiciously around the place where Sou and Haruki are.

Of course, neither Sou nor Haruki says anything. Both of them are staring at Seira as if they were exerting silent pressure; they stare coldly.

“W-wait a second, Ishii-kun!!!”

Unable to bear the situation, Seira runs after Ishii.