"I don"t like it," Hitomi-chan said. "First you and now Noriko-chan."Kyoko stifled a reflex to defend Kuri-chan. For once she agreed with Hitomi-chan, even though both of them had taken part in the brutal roll call.
"So what? It worked," Kuri-chan said.
"No," Hitomi-chan said. "It didn"t work. You just turned the bullying around. Fine, you"re both scot-free, but d.a.m.n you"ve hurt a lot of people."
"They deserved to be hurt."
There was something in Kuri-chan"s voice Kyoko didn"t like to hear. Something hard that hadn"t been there, not even when they were called "the fatskies" early in ninth grade. Sure, Kuri-chan knew she"d become beautiful one day, but months of being called out for being ugly should still have hurt. Kyoko remembered how it sure hurt her.
"Kuritinchan, please, you want the bullying to stop, not the hatred to start. Just trust me on this," Hitomi-chan suggested.
Maybe Hitomi-chan wasn"t as much an airhead as Noriko would have her to be.
"Shut up! You think you know so much about..."
"No, you stop it, Kuri-chan! She"s right," Kyoko interrupted and grabbed her friend.
Kuri-chan"s face flared with hurt anger. "What, I thought you were my friend."
"Gah! How hard can it be to understand?" "Kuri-chan, we both are. I"m your best friend, remember. I"m telling you she"s right as your friend."
"f.u.c.k you and go to h.e.l.l! Why don"t you just shut up as well?"
That hurt. Before she could stop herself Kyoko lashed out. "Yeah, why don"t I? Just like when you told me to shut up last time." Pent up anger and fear loaded her voice. Kuri-chan recoiled like a whipped dog. "Dammit Kuri-chan, you know exactly how to hurt a friend."
From the corner of her eye Kyoko saw how Kuri-chan cringed from the sudden onslaught. "I didn"t mean it that way." But Kyoko needed fresh air to clear her thoughts, even if it meant running from her friend. She needed Yukio. She needed to feel needed, and loved.
There were no tears in her eyes when she stormed away, and that scared her the most. She was supposed to be the cool-headed one, second fiddle or the wingman. She should have the back of her friend and be the voice of reason, but if she became cold herself instead of cool it was all for nothing.
Kyoko ran down the stairs the way she had seen Ryu do sometimes. Half a flight of stairs at a time. But she wasn"t Ryu, and the outcome was a given. Halfway between the first and second floor she missed a step and flew headlong into the wall beside the windows. Another half a metre to the left and she would have vaulted through the gla.s.s and fallen to the tarmac.
The impact was still hard enough to make her groggy and she staggered down the last flight and walked into the corridor feeding the main entrance and the cafeteria.
She felt dizzy, and something was wrong with her eyes. Fuzzy figures stared at her, arms grabbing just like she had been grabbed that night. Kyoko veered away from the a.s.sault, fell into the vending machines and dropped to her knees.
"Scared! Scared!"
She threw up on the floor.
Someone grabbed her from behind. There would be no getting away this time.
"Yukio I need you. Yukio help me!"
***
The world spun and someone rang with a hammer in her head.
"Will it scar?" a voice asked.
"Where am I?" Kyoko wondered.
"No, I don"t think so. She split an eyebrow, but I could tape it just fine."
There were curtains around her, and the voices came from the other side of them.
"It hurts. Why does it hurt?" Kyoko tried to sit up, but she was too weak and a feeling of being disgusting caught her all of a sudden. Leaning to her side she retched, and for some time there was only the heaving and the pain in her stomach.
When she came to again familiar faces surrounded her bed. Somehow she had ended up in the infirmary.
She saw a Yukio she"d never seen before in her life, and a Kuri-chan smaller than she could ever remember her friend having been.
"Happy now? Desert her when she"s a.s.saulted and tell her you hate her when she tries to help you? Just die you b.i.t.c.h!"
"What is he saying? Don"t do that to Kuri-chan!"
"I"m sorry. It"s all my fault."
"What"s your fault Kuri-chan?" Something was wrong with her. Kyoko felt it even if she couldn"t understand what had happened. It was as if she was dreaming. "I fell into the wall," she remembered.
"Just shut up and go to h.e.l.l!"
"Yukio, what are you doing? Can"t you see she"s hurting?"
"I"m sorry..."
"I don"t want to hear you"re sorry. You hurt my Kyoko so just go away and die!"
"Why are you so angry with Kuri-chan, Yukio?" Kyoko"s head began spinning again.
Someone grabbed Yukio. Someone slapped him. Hard.
"Shut up! She made a mistake, OK?"
"Why Hitomi-chan, why did you slap Yukio?"
Watching Yukio being hurt turned Kyoko"s stomach all over again, and she bent to her side and retched.
"Leave her you idiots! She has a concussion!"
"What"s going on? Why is nurse angry?" Darkness took her again.