The Seven Wonders Of Inumaki Toge

No. 2 Midnight Tree

Rumor has it that whenever Inumaki Toge sneaks out in the middle of the night, he returns home beaten, bruised and broken. Rumor has it he gets hurt because he fights cursed spirits all on his own.
It's up to him to beat them, because the others can't see them.

~~~~~

Everyone knows it; Inumaki tends to sneak out at night.

It happens more than once in a while, often even each night of the week. This has been one of those nights again, where Inumaki sneaks out and eventually is found collapsed on his bedroom floor.

Most times, he doesn't show up at school the next morning or the days after.

He stays home until the aches of his muscles have gone away, but he often has some scrapes or bruises left on his arms and knees.

Yuuji knows this, because he often sees Inumaki heading into the building around noon. Sometimes his mother is by his side, sometimes he's on his own, limping towards the main entrance.

Yuuji knows little about Inumaki other than that. He knows that he's a second year student here and that he apparently started saying nonsense about four or five years ago for no reason. That's what the other second year student, Maki, told Yuuji when they still had track and field together.

She used to be friends with him, but now she has become Nobara, Yuuji and Megumi friend; she can't take being around Inumaki anymore. Not after he literally started talking gibberish a while ago; he speaks in rice ball ingredients. So, no matter how amazing the stories Maki tells them about Inumaki believing that he lives in a world where he fights some kind of demon-like-curses, Yuuji can't blame her for being a little freaked out by the change in her old friend's personality.

Anyway, this time Yuuji spots Inumaki walking into the school earlier than usual. While he misses the first four classes and lunch break on most days, he's walking in during fourth period today.

Yuuji leans closer to the window to make sure his eyes aren't deceiving him.

But it's really him; the legendary Inumaki Toge. The only student who's in more than just one rumor.

Yuuji grins at the window, and almost immediately gets all excited at the idea of Inumaki eating lunch with them for the first time. Normally, Maki's the only second year at their table, but maybe there'll be a school-legend sitting at their table this lunch break.

"What are you looking at?" a voice behind Yuuji whispers. Next is the back of a pen, carefully poking him in the side. Yuuji cowers by the tickling of the object in his side, causing him to accidently giggle.

Nanami, who was previously standing with his back turned towards the class to write a math-problem on the whiteboard, is now turned towards Yuuji. His face is stern when he asks, "Itadori, could you explain to me which digit is equal to x?"

Yuuji glares from his teacher to the whiteboard, where a problem with too many digits has been written down in black ink, and back at Nanami. "No, sir—" He glances away.

"Then please, pay attention from now," Nanami says before passing the question to Megumi, who's sitting right behind Yuuji. He must have been paying closer attention, because even though he poked Yuuji with a pen just now, he can say the answer right away so Nanami can continue class.

Once Nanami's not paying attention to them anymore, or at least not fulltime, Yuuji turns around in his chair. He faces Megumi, who's got an empty notebook lying in front of him.

Maybe he wasn't paying as much attention as he let Nanami believe. Yuuji thinks, before reminding himself as to why he turned to Megumi. His expression grows more intimidating, or so he'd like to think, when he whispers, "What did you poke me for?"