Alex Brim, Hero for Hire

Chapter 3 – Takechi Hito in trouble 1

Lunch time arrived, and a bunch of girls from his class dragged Sakamo out with some boys joining the mix, just to watch the show and laugh at his expense.

In the corridor, Sakamo looked to his left, trying to find Takechi Hito, but there was only a group of students talking, and he was not there.

Sakamo made a forced smile to the smiling girl clinging on his right arm, Hangaku Mae, and her partner in crime on his left arm, Tomiko Hari, a purple-haired girl with tiny glasses and medium-sized breasts, that contrasted with the yellow painted hair of Hangaku Mae and her big breasts, that were squashed against Sakamo’s arm.

Sakamo looked at the laughing boy at the front, which was enjoying Sakamo’s troubled face and asked, “Can you help me out, Yoshinobu-kun? Take them off me!”

“Ahahah! No way, it’s too much fun seeing those two tempting you so much! It’s your fault for being too damn pretty! You should just shut up and enjoy the moment! Hangaku-chan and Tomiko-chan are two of the prettiest girls in this School! A lot of guys would kill to be in your place!”

Hangaku Mae pretended to be sad. “Why would you want for me to let you go, Sakamo-kun? I am not pretty enough for you? I would make an amazing girlfriend if you let me!”

“I… never said you weren’t pretty, but I can barely walk with both of you grabbing me like that!”

Hangaku Mae let him go immediately and held his right hand. She kissed his fingertips and asked with a kinky smile, “This way is better?”

Sakamo gulped and did his best to remain serious when Tomiko Hari let go of his arm and held his other hand as soon as she noticed what Hangaku was doing. She made a big smile and said, “I can also hold your hand like this, right? You don’t mind, right?”

“No… It’s… alright, I guess. I just think you two would give the wrong impression to everyone around. What if some boy is interested in you, and they think we are dating? You could lose a great opportunity to get a better boyfriend than me! There are a lot of guys in this School way more interesting than me, I bet!”

Tomiko Hari kept on smiling. “I don’t mind what other people think. I never did. If I was so worried about everyone around, I could never do anything! There is always someone that would judge me! Besides, I am having too much fun to be worried about some random guy!”

Hangaku Mae completed, “Yeah, considering that all the guys in our class were with us during Middle School, and they know perfectly that we like to have fun! Other boys mean nothing to me, I just care about the one I like!”

Sakamo sighed and gently squeezed both girls’ hands. “Alright, as long as none of you think I am as easy as this, to fall in your claws just like that!”

Hangaku Mae laughed, “Ahahah! I hope not, or it wouldn’t be fun at all! You are supposed to resist for as long as you can, and we are going to keep tempting you until you break and choose one of us!”

Tomiko Hari signalled with her head to the other girls at the back. “Unless you prefer some other girl, and that will make things difficult. Competing with Hangaku-chan is already difficult, but if more girls join us, it will be a war!”

Sakamo looked back and noticed that Hojo Masako was staring at them, and she quickly disguised an annoyed look by looking to her right, when there was no one there. Sakamo faced forward again and pretended not to notice and made a slight smile. “Well, Takechi-sama warned me this morning that a lot of girls would be crazy about me. I didn’t understand why he said that. I thought he was joking. He even said that I looked like a girl because I was too pretty, and it would be awkward if we went to School together, like a couple!”

Hangaku Mae laughed, “Ahahah! Yeah, he was right. You are prettier than most girls, and that makes you very interesting! Your skin looks so smooth and your long hair is so shiny! Do you do some kind of treatment every day, or what? By the way, why do you keep calling your friend Takechi-sama? He is someone important?”

“I am not sure if he is important or not. I just met him this morning. His family has a restaurant near my house. When I told him my name, he made a hilarious pose and said that he would allow me to call him Takechi-sama, and now I call him like that to see when he gets enough. I like him, he is funny.”

They were already near the entrance of the cafeteria and Hangaku Mae saw three boys surrounding someone. She frowned because she knew them. “The first day of School and they already found a target…”

Sakamo looked to where Hangaku was staring and asked, “What’s the matter? Do you know them?”

“Yeah, they were in another Middle School, but they were often bullying the students at the gate of our School. They are part of a delinquent group of older boys, and they abuse that power. No one messes with them, and it’s better if we pretend not to see what they are doing like everyone else does.”

The two girls pulled Sakamo to the opposing wall, and when he glanced to the one in the middle of the bullies thinking if he should intervene or not, he heard a familiar voice, “Leave me alone, I just want to have lunch!”

One bully laughed, “Ahahah! Did you hear him, guys? The chubby round ball wants to eat!”

Another boy poked Takechi Hito’s belly. “You could skip lunch for a few days. It won’t kill you! But you will for sure die if you keep on not doing what we say! Give us all your money, or you will regret it!”

Sakamo squeezed the girl’s hands with a little more strength, making them flinch, and said, “Go ahead, I have something to do.”

Hangaku and Tomiko tried to complain, but they immediately froze when they saw the anger in his eyes. “I said, go ahead… I will be there in a few moments. Take my boxed lunch and find a place for us, ok?”

Hangaku slowly nodded and Tomiko grabbed the box that Sakamo was giving her, pushing her classmates to the cafeteria. Hojo Masako said as she was passing by him, “You should mind your own business. That doesn’t concern you.”

Sakamo answered in a low voice, making her turn bright red, “And you should be ashamed of pretending not to see someone being bullied right in front of you. I never would have thought you were such a disgusting person for not helping someone in need. Get away from me. I don’t have time for people like you…”

Hojo Masako felt her eyes flooded with tears, and she rushed to the cafeteria, right behind her classmates.

She took one last look and saw Sakamo walking towards the group, with a scary expression. He looked angry to such a degree that Hojo Masako felt a shiver along her spine. He looked friendly during class, but the way he looked at her utterly disgusted and the way he was approaching the group of bullies was so different that he looked like someone else.

Sakamo stopped near the bullies and looked between them to his friend in the middle. “Takechi-sama, do you need help? I was hoping you could join me for lunch, but if you prefer eating with your friends, that’s ok.”

Takechi vigorously shook his head, only to get a hand squeezing the back of his neck. “They are not my friends! Ouch!”

One boy stared at Sakamo with an annoyed face. “What do you want? Do you want to help him? Cool, hand over your money, then!”

Sakamo kept on staring at his friend and asked again, “Takechi-sama, do you need help or not?”

Takechi nodded and stuttered, “Y-yes... b-but they will go after you as well…”

Sakamo slowly shook his head. “No, unless they are stupid. Even if there were ten of them, they would not be a match for me.”

One of the bullies faced Sakamo, and when he stretched his arm to grab Sakamo’s collar, he got a powerful slap that made him fall, completely knocked out. The other two looked at each other, surprised by what happened, and one of them asked Sakamo, “Did you just slap my friend, you moron? Do you know with whom you are messing with?”

“Sure I know. A bunch of fools who don’t even dream how dangerous I am. You two are used to bullying people, but I am used to killing annoying worms like you and hide their bodies where not even their dogs can sniff their whereabouts. Go away, unless you want to get a slap as well on that ugly face of yours!”

Both bullies cracked their knuckles loudly and one of them spoke with a big smile, “We will teach you how a man fights, you girly.”

Sakamo tilted his head and answered, “You have it all wrong. I slapped your friend not because I am girly, it was just because if I punched him, he would have died.”

Before any of them could make a move, Sakamo slapped both with such speed and strength that they were sent flying against the wall behind them, falling on the ground near a dumbfounded Takechi Hito. Sakamo approached his friend with a worried look and fixed his clothes. “Are you ok, Takechi-sama? I thought you were going to meet me at my classroom before coming for lunch. What were you doing with these guys?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! They are my classmates, and they forced me to have lunch with them. When I said I brought a homemade boxed lunch, they said that I didn’t need money for lunch and I should give it to them! I don’t know why they ganged on me, but everyone in my classroom averted their eyes when I called for help! Even my Teacher!”

Sakamo picked the boxed lunch from the floor and gave it to his friend. “Here, hold on to this. Let me wake up that guy and have a word with him.”

Sakamo picked from the floor the first knocked out bully and shook him a little to wake him up. When he finally opened his eyes and was able to focus his sight again, Sakamo grabbed his chin and forced him to look at Takechi and his knocked out friends. “Good morning, sleeping beauty! My friend Takechi-sama is not to be bothered ever again, by you or your stupid friends over there, or things will not end well for you guys, understood?”

The boy almost spat in anger, “You don’t know with whom you are messing with!”

“No, you were the ones that didn’t know with whom you were messing with. Let me show you…”

Sakamo grabbed both left hands of the other two knocked out bullies and, one by one, he bent them with a quick snap, breaking the bones that made a cracking sound that filled the corridor. Sakamo then grabbed the left hand of the scared bully and while covering his mouth with one hand, Sakamo used the other to break the bully's left hand.

The bully had his screams of pain forcibly muffled by Sakamo’s strong hand, that stared at his eyes up close and warned him in a low voice so that Takechi couldn’t hear, “The next time I see you or any of your friends near Takechi-sama or looking at him weirdly, I will break both of your arms. I will then visit you at the hospital when no one is around, and I will break your legs. I will keep on breaking your bones until you learn to be as far away as you can from Takechi-sama. Understood, worm? Now help your friends and go to the Infirmary. If you tell anyone what happened, I will find your house and I will make sure that you don’t return to School, tomorrow.”

The bully gulped and slowly nodded. He felt a warmth between his legs and looked down. Sakamo stared at where he was looking and spoke with disgust, “You pissed yourself, worm. Good, this means you understood. Clean this up, or everyone will know what you did and ask about what happened. You don’t want me to visit you tonight, right?”

Sakamo got up while the bully used his trousers to wipe the floor and pulled his friend up. “Let’s go, Takechi-sama, or we won’t have time for lunch.”