A Thief's Prison

A Small Bit of Normalcy

-Friday, April 29, Daytime-

Yet again, I got up on my own volition. Surprisingly, Sojiro didn't get after me for oversleeping. Instead, he told me he opened a little later so I could have something to eat. When I finished I washed the dish, thanked Sojiro, and went out. I noticed I had an unread message from when I was eating. I must not have noticed. I have to respond now.

IM: Ryuji

Ryuji: Yo I'm gonna train, you want in?
Ryuji: I'll prolly end up going easy on myself if I do it alone
Ryuji: Anyways itd prolly be best if we trained together
Ryuji: How bout it?

Me: Hey, man.
Me: Training sounds great.

Ryuji: Hell yeah!! Let's do some intense training today!
Ryuji: Go change and meet me behind the gym
Ryuji: Come in through the back gate so we don't get caught

Me: Yeah, got it.
Me: Hey, I'm sorry I was such a dick when we first met.
Me: I don't know what came over me.

Ryuji: Thats in the past dude!
Ryuji: We're chill now!

Me: I can take you to ramen after if you'd like.

Ryuji: Damn okay!
Ryuji: Thanks!

Me: No problem. See you in a bit.

Ryuji: Yep! See ya dude!

———

The two of us trained for a while. He panted, lamenting about how much worse he was now that he's not doing track anymore, that is until an irritated voice came from the distance

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Three other boys walked up to us. The two in the back were pretty plain, but the one up front had a blue headband. The former track team...

"Nakaoka... Takeishi..."

Nakaoka nodded "...Running, huh? I saw you from the window"

"What, you gonna try to come crawling back to the track team?" Takeishi teased.

"Huh? H-hell no..."

"Sure..." Nakaoka spoke again "...Speaking of which, this was your secret training spot, wasn't it? Well, it's our spot now... You know, us, the former track team"

Takeishi scoffed "We don't even have a locker room anymore, thanks to someone I know"

Ryuji stayed silent. He looked... Really upset. And if what I saw is anything to go off of, he is...

I spoke up "Hey, Let's not fight... It's not gonna solve anythin'"

"We ain't fightin'..." Ryuji told him.

"Yeah, this isn't anything like a fight. Not even close" Nakaoka then noticed who I was "Hold on, aren't you that transfer student? You're really gonna hang out with this loser?"

"Yeah, I am. Got a problem with that?"

The person Ryuji didn't name spoke up "You better watch out. He'll hit you the second he gets pissed off! I heard his dad was the same way. Like father like son, right? Now that's some scary shit"