Things Can Go Wrong

Chapter Twelve

JACK

The bell rings loudly, and I file out of math class, smiling to myself. I eagerly walk to the fields outside of the lunch hall, and upon getting there, I already see Danny, Tsuki and Tanoshi chatting to each other happily underneath the June sun. The birds are tweeting, the cherry blossoms are bright as ever, and life right now is very good.

School has been easing off now it is summer, and everyone seems happy, from the teachers to the students, especially Mr Eko. He's been playing music regularly in tutor and has been a little bit more relaxed when it comes to doing work in general (let's not mention the time where he completely scrapped doing PSHE because he thought it was boring and instead he rented VR headsets for the class and we all became secret agents) and overall school's been a blast compared to my previous education experience in England.

The three of us chill for break before we head to next lesson, and to my surprise, I have Mr Eko next. I say goodbye to Tanoshi, Danny and Tsuki and make my way there. As I enter, Mr Eko is taking register.

Once he finishes, he gets up from his seat and clears his throat, however he is interrupted by a knock on his door. I look over to the door and see a dark haired boy with a messy haircut and his shirt unbuttoned who looks about my age, smiling at our class.

"Aisuru, whats up?" he says confidently.

"I've had to move into your tutor, because Suji got arrested the other day and Mr Kabocha decided to move his son to his tutor, so I've been asked to join." Aisuru says happily.

There are a couple of gasps from the class, including me. However, I am quick to stay quiet, as I fully understand why. Tanoshi reported Suji to the police, and about a week ago he was arrested for drug dealing, robbery and assault. In many ways, I'm not as surprised as I thought I would be, but it is pretty interesting.

Mr Eko almost drops his cup of coffee, and he turns to Aisuru gaping.

"Suji got arrested?" he says, his voice slightly cracking.

"Yep." he says, rolling his eyes slightly and facing towards the class.

"Well, the son of a gun had it coming for him." Mr Eko says quietly.

"Aisuru, do you mind sitting next to Jack for me?"

"Sure thing." he says while striding over to his seat.

"Quick question, Aisuru..."

"Why weren't you at tutor this morning?" Mr Eko says loudly.

"Had an appointment." Aisuru says coolly.

Aisuru waves at me slightly, smiling again. Jesus, I don't think I've seen someone smile so much in a thirty second time span since my dad became the CEO of the tech company a few months ago. Either way, he seems friendly, so I greet him, and we get on with PSHE.

Once PSHE finishes and we are dismissed by Mr Eko, Aisuru decides to walk with me to the fields because he plans to meet his best friend, who apparently goes by the name of Kirai. Once we reach there, I see Tanoshi talking with another boy who is also fairly muscly with chestnut coloured hair. From how tall he is and how distinctive his facial features are, he is presumably the same age as Aisuru. The chestnut haired boy spots Aisuru and signals for him to come over to him, so I follow suite, hoping to talk with Tanoshi.

Aisuru points towards the chestnut haired boy and says to me proudly "Jack, this is Kirai, the guy I was talking about during PSHE." Kirai smiles at me and shakes my hand. Soon enough, Danny and Tsuki arrive, and the group of us decide to meet for lunch after talking about music and video games.

During the lead up to lunch, word gets around that Suji has been arrested, and soon enough it becomes the talk of the school. Lots of people begin to speculate what he got arrested for, and as much as I want to spread what he got arrested for, I don't want people to think that I hung around with him, and the same goes for the rest of the gang.

From what I've seen so far, Aisuru and Kirai aren't really bothered about the drama with Suji, and they are focusing on themselves more (which in some way is a very good thing) and it feels good to meet some new people who aren't practically obsessed over the fact that a delinquent finally got done over and that they were in arms reach of him.

Once lunch does arrive, I make my way onto the main field that we have been meeting and upon me getting there, I see a group of boys, who all look about seventeen, guarding the steps down to the field and smoking to their heart's content. Someone might need to call Akio Furukawa to hang out with them...

I brush past the lads and get to the field. Once I get there, I see the gang along with Aisuru and Kirai talking to each other. We meet up and we do our usual thing, before conversation drifts to Suji. Aisuru and Kirai are surprised by the entire ordeal, as they haven't heard much of juvenile delinquency in Koenji, which I can understand. Since 2024, Koenji has been one of the safest places in Japan, so it would seem strange for someone to be arrested and for them to walk past you in the corridors every morning before they were arrested.

A group of around six people make their way down to the field, and set their eyes on Tanoshi. They glare at him sneakily before rolling cigarettes up and lighting them up, going off to goof around at the far end of the fields. Tanoshi looks at me sadly and shrugs his shoulders.

"What's up with them?" Kirai asks quietly.

"I'm not exactly sure." me and Tanoshi say in unison.

This keeps happening throughout the course of lunch, and it creeps me out. Either way, we decide to ignore it and get on with our day, however it does feel slightly disturbed by the entire thing, and something feels incredibly off. I also notice Aisuru and Kirai making eye contact anxiously, and I'm not sure what they are exactly scared about. I decide not to raise anything in case they have personal things going on, but it does feel strange.

On a different note, Tsuki has been slowly recovering from her first breakup, and she's doing extremely well. She seemed to have relied on Suji a lot at home and in some ways, I feel for her. As much of a bastard Suji was, they were in a relationship, and to find out that a person that you love has cheated on you and is secretly a criminal, is a pretty tough set of things to take.

Either way, she seems happy today, but there is a faint look in her eyes that says everything; she's really angry. And I can see why.

Speaking of that though, I wonder how Suji's doing...