>>5900835“Whatever. Your only chance to win was when you had a grip on my wrist. You’re too slow to touch me now, may as well be lurching around like a fat bastard.”
“Erm… There’s a reservoir away from everything. You can sort it out there.” You begin, rubbing your temples as you attempt to physically channel lucidity into your impaired cognition. “And you’ll need a referee to make sure things don’t get out of hand. It should be Daigo.”
It was basic logic if you think about it. You and Masami, no. Not fair because you’re on Naoki’s team. Ditto for Katsuro and Yuna, except from the other side. So that left Daigo, Junpei, and Shizuka. For the purposes of doing this, Daigo was the only real option. You liked Shizuka, but she wasn’t exactly a stable influence. Same for Junpei, he was too cold. Daigo used to be more of a dickhead, but you’ve since realized he was a pretty good dude on the inside. Well-rounded, competent, and could act in a reliable manner. He’s your man for this.
“Yes. *hic* I’ll do it.” Daigo says, standing up from the log, holding a bottle of sake that you hadn’t noticed previously, already making you doubt your choices. You weren’t doing flawless either, but there’s a threshold you hadn’t crossed quite yet. “We’ve all seen Juro-Sensei step in. I know when far’s too far.”
You may have made some kind of catastrophic mistake, but...
Part of you just wants to mentally throw in the towel. At some point the weight of the world wasn’t on your shoulders. This was the best plan you had. You did your best. Fuck it. They were going to fight senselessly right here, right now, and now they're not. You take the bottle from Daigo and drain it. There wasn’t too much left.
“Oh! Uh…” Akimitsu starts, slow on the uptake no doubt due to his inferior civilian perceptive abilities and inability to dance as well as you can. “I’ll stay here and tend the bonfire. I don’t really want to, uh, see that.”
—
Otomo is getting drunk. You are Naoki Fuma, and you’re trailing behind Yuzuki while your party moves towards the spot you’re going to fight.
Yuzuki needs to be crushed. Immediately.
This was the kind of red flag behavior that needed to be nipped in the bud or else the social fabric of the… Well, it was hard to think rationally right now, but surely it couldn’t be allowed to continue. There’s a line. And a line-stepper.
Yuzuki is a line-stepper and shit-stirrer. A barely domesticated wolf pup hitting adolescence and pushing to find her limits and what she can get away with.
Not having it.
NOT having it.
Your world was peaceful at home, dangerous at work. That’s fine. That’s the balance you want. Happy here, focused there.
You were not just going to sit around and let some little girl brat pick on you like you’re a helpless rube who couldn’t snap her in half like a dry branch.
But you also weren’t stupid. Not anymore.
