When Kunie returned to school the following day, she saw black writing all over her desk.
Dyke
530Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6IzPUggcOh
Just crawl into a hole
530Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgD1y6xXRCr
Call Kunie at (555)-555-5555 if you want hot lesbian sex
Dooru laughed. ‘Wow, someone’s popular.’ Kunie glared at her. ‘What? I didn’t write that stuff. Much too vulgar. Plus, I doubt sex with you would be any good, even if I was a lesbian.’ Snorting mixed in the laughter. ‘Oh my god, could you imagine? Who’d want to sleep with another girl?’ She smirked at Kunie. ‘Oh, right.’
At lunch, Kunie decided to eat alone by the steps. On the way, she passed a male student she didn’t know. Apparently he knew her.
‘Hey, what’s scissoring?’
‘Huh?’
‘I mean, you’re the expert, right?’
‘What’s that supposed to…’ Realisation dawned on her. ‘Okay, fuck off.’
The boy snickered and went on his way. Kunie groaned and rubbed her temple as she sat down with her bento box. At least her mother included teriyaki chicken.
She found herself wondering what ingredients Masami would add to chicken to transform it into one of her unholy abominations. Once the thought entered her brain, she shook her head to shake away any memories of that girl.
People whispered as they walked past her, thinking she couldn’t hear. ‘Who’s the mystery girl? That teacher said she liked a girl, right?’
‘None of my business. Still, kinda trippy, right? Never thought there’d be one of those people at this school.’
‘Oh, I saw a girl give her a love letter. Maybe they’re an item.’
Kunie twisted her upper body towards the gossipers and scowled at them. ‘Go bother that girl instead of me.’
She tore the chicken into smaller pieces with her teeth, not caring about the teriyaki sauce spreading onto her face. Something wasn’t adding up. She wasn’t the only lesbian at the school, so why was she getting all the attention? What about the girls who liked sending her love letters?
She stood up and began searching each classroom for one of the girls who had a crush on her, leaving her bento box on the floor. It didn’t take long for her to find one of those girls.
If there was one word to describe the girl, it would be ‘nondescript’. Average height, medium-length black hair and proportional facial features with no parts that stood out.
‘Hey, can I talk to you for a moment, uh...?’
The girl’s smile dropped. ‘Kuri Satou.’ However, she still followed Kunie outside of the classroom.
‘So, um, what’s it like, you know, liking girls?’ Kunie asked. ‘Has anyone given you crap for it?’
‘Oh, my class generally doesn’t care. Some of the girls in the art club…’
Kunie put her hand on Kuri’s shoulders. ‘What do the girls in the art club do?’ Her voice sounded a little harsher and more desperate than she had hoped.
‘Just, you know, comment about how they bet I can’t wait to start drawing naked portraits. Sometimes they also put fake love letters in my shoe locker. I don’t pay attention to those anymore, though. Fool me twice and all that.’
‘Wait a minute, fake love letters?’
‘Yeah. But my one to you was real. They send the fake ones to any girl they suspect is a lesbian, even if they actually aren’t. I think they just like to humiliate people. To be honest with you, I thought you were one of the people they got wrong, since you never, you know, responded to my letter.’
‘Oh my god, I am so sorry. I just didn’t know how to react. I don’t really know you well enough to be able to return your feelings, but I appreciate you for writing that letter. Probably took a lot of courage.’
Kuri looked down. ‘Yeah, it’s all good. If you want someone to talk to about your struggles, I can lend an ear.’
‘So, um, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but what got you interested in me? We don’t exactly know each other.’
As Kuri continued her answer, her face got redder and redder. ‘Oh, well, I would walk past you every once in a while and notice how pretty you looked. Then I saw you defending one of your friends one day, which was when I heard your name. You exuded confidence and I was super drawn to that. Um, thanks for talking with me, even if you don’t feel the same way about me.’
‘You’re welcome. Good luck with dealing with the art club girls. See you around.’
With that, Kunie returned to her empty bento box and brought it back to her desk. She then decided to stroll through the school. She was tempted to stop by the art club room and trash the place but remembered a key detail in Kuri’s words. Some of the art club girls.
However, she managed to spot a girl who may have been in the club. Or rather, the girl spotted her.
‘Hey, it’s the dyke! I knew I was right about you. Thanks for helping me win a bet.’ Kunie turned around and power-walked away from her. ‘Hey, where are you going? I thought you liked getting girls’ attention. By the way, what got you to hate men?’
‘Leave me alone or I swear I will hang you by your eyelashes over a pit of fire!’
‘Wow, no need to be so angry. I guess that’s supposed to be expected, though.’ After giving her a smirk, the girl eventually did leave Kunie alone.
Kunie realised that her classroom, despite containing Dooru’s Dooru-ness, was the safest place to be for now. She sunk into her chair.
Masami tiptoed towards her. Great. She had to be there. ‘Could we maybe be able to talk?’ Kunie turned her head away. ‘I want to apologise and tell you something.’ A shake of the head from our incredibly mature Kunie. ‘Come on. Please? I won’t bother you again. It’s just kind of important.’
With a big sigh, Kunie stood up and followed Masami outside the school building. They walked to the athletics track. While Kunie dropped on to the grass with no care as to how she looked, Masami sat down as gracefully and cautiously as a fairytale princess with a fear of germs.
Kunie grumbled, ‘What is it?’
‘I’m really sorry. For two things. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you the other day. You may have started it, but I should have finished it.’ Kunie opened her mouth to argue, but Masami’s sudden hand on hers shut her mouth. ‘I’m also sorry that you have to go through all this. You don’t deserve it. I know what it’s like to be-’
Kunie pulled out strands of grass from the ground. ‘No, shut up right now. Whatever it is, you don’t know.’
‘How can you be so sure-’
‘You have no idea what it’s like!’ Those little pieces of grass became huge clumps. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to have everybody at school take your personal life and make it their business. You don’t know how it feels to become the school laughing stock. You don’t know what it’s like to receive comment after comment after fucking comment about your sex life. You know why? ‘Cause you’re nice and safe in your little closet.’
‘Closet? How did you...’
‘Come on, Masami. We both know you like Sahana.’
Masami blinked. ‘Huh? Sahana? The one I like is you, idiot.’ Her jaw tightened as she fought against the temptation to act as if she had just made a joke.
Kunie dropped the bunch of grass in her hand. ‘Seriously? I can’t handle having you lie to me about that shit.’
‘Why would I lie about that? Kunie, I love you.’
The expression on Kunie’s face fluctuated with frightening speed. First, her eyes were wide and her jaw agape, then her mouth curled into a smile with eyes that squinted as if holding back tears. Her eyebrows met and the smile morphed into a frown, her eyes full of fire. Finally, she looked at the ground with the eyes of someone who had never even heard of the word ‘confident.’ This last expression made Masami’s heart beat as fast as that of a scream queen in a horror movie. She could barely recognise the girl she loved.
‘Look, I don’t know if going out is such a good idea for us,’ Kunie said in a voice devoid of life. ‘Now that my secret’s out, I don’t really want to deal with relationship trouble on top of that. Plus, what do we even have in common? We’d be a disaster as a couple.’
‘I… guess so. And you like Sahana, anyway.’
‘The hell made you think that? I don’t see her that way, and even if I did, that would be even more of a disaster. She doesn’t care about me at all. She didn’t even comfort me when I got outed. Maybe if she wasn’t so self-absorbed I could have worked through this easier.’
Those words pulled Masami up until she was standing. ‘You know damn well that Sahana isn’t self-absorbed! Stop slandering her and blaming her for all your problems! I shouldn’t have even bothered trying to make amends with you since it’s clearly a one-way street.’
She ran back inside, breaking the red string I had so carefully placed around her finger. I gasped and tried to repair it as best I could but to no avail.
Kunie looked down at the dirt where she had pulled grass from, at the mess she had made.
ns 15.158.61.5da2
