{Koyuki}

Once the fight ended, the crowd of students who came to watch started to disperse. They chattered amongst themselves unintelligibly as they scurried back to their classrooms. Some of them remained in the hall, likely waiting for their teacher to get back before they returned to class.

I stood in the doorway, my mind racing.

‘This is all my fault.’

This thought stood out the most among the others.

My vision blurred with tears. I ducked out of the doorway and leaned against the wall, trying to calm down.

‘I forced him to go, and he went and pummeled another student before class even started.’

“He was already pissed..”

The mutter was all but silent, drowned out by the deafening commotion.

“Hell, I might as well have thrown the first punch.”

That made my stomach turn.

What made it worse was that, in my eyes at least, I basically had.

Later, I was told by Saiko (who'd apparently gotten the information through a chain of like, four or five other people at least) that the other boy was apparently talking shit about someone who was in his class last year. A girl.

It didn't take long for me to put two and two together. He had been talking about me.

Whatever he said made Ayato (the ‘silent, angry, tall kid’ as his would-be classmates had dubbed him) mad enough to coldcock him in front of everyone.

According to Sai, the specifics were kinda fuzzy but that was the gist of it.

I asked Ayato about it at home. His response was:

“Yeah, pretty much. Kid's an asshole.”

“Oh.”

That was all I could think of to say. His nonchalant attitude towards the situation was something that both terrified and amazed me.

Especially since he had gotten himself suspended. Indefinitely.

The principal eventually decided on three months due to the severity of the other kid's injuries (broken nose, sprained wrist, some bruises).

The teachers said Ayato was lucky to be let off so easily.

I decided to stay home with him during his suspension. The teachers were opposed to it, but the principal said it was fine as long as we both turned in our work on time, which we did with very little difficulty.

Around that time, the two of us did a LOT of reading. Not just school related books, of course. We read plenty of manga and light novels, but we'd apparently picked up on enough of the academic portions of our reading material to exceed our grade level.

Because of that, Saiko and Dazai strongly believed that we were ‘eggheads’ and would make sure that we remembered it by addressing us as such. Pretty much every day.

After the three months were up, Ayato wanted to continue working at home. I did, as well. We'd just gotten used to it.

We talked to the principal and (if for no other reason than to avoid another fight) he agreed.

He gave us a list of conditions that we needed to meet in order for this arrangement to work.

1. Turn our work in on time (earlier, if possible)
2. Take exams in person (always, no exceptions)
3. Keep the highest grades in our class (never falling below third place)

Simple enough. We’d agreed without hesitation and easily kept up our end of the deal.

We completed our work and walked to the school every morning to turn it in as well as to pick up new assignments, staying there during exams. Our test scores were the highest in the grade, which seemed to irritate everyone else (which, in all honesty, was pretty fair). No one ever messed with us, though. Probably because they were scared of Ayato..

As my brother had predicted, our extended presence at home went almost completely unnoticed by our parents.

Our free time was mostly spent on hobbies, baking practice, and hanging out with Saiko and Shoko. Usually the four of us played video games, watched horror movies, read manga, or went to karaoke together.

Things went on like this until roughly one week before graduation.