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Sugishita’s head rested on his desk, dozing off despite the noise of his rowdy classmates. But his head whipped up in full attention the moment Bofurin’s leader began morning announcements.
“Oh!” Umemiya tacked on at the end, “and happy birthday, Sugishita-kun!”
Those simple words from his favorite person were enough to brighten Sugishita’s mood, even if it didn’t show much other than the small hint of a smile and light in his otherwise tired eyes.
Unfortunately, his classmates had to ruin the moment.
“It’s your birthday?!”
“Sugi-chan, you should’ve told us!”
“I-I can’t believe I forgot! I even have everyone’s birthdays written down!”
“We should celebrate!”
A low growl emitted from Sugishita as he once again buried his face in his desk, trying to block them out. Classmates continued to pester him for several minutes before finally leaving him be. He could still hear them speaking, but their conversation grew more muffled and unclear as sleep overtook him. He continued to nap through morning classes, only half-aware of the lessons being taught - it wasn’t like students in a delinquent school were held to normal standards anyway. He was only vaguely aware when the bell rang, signifying lunch break. But his cheek felt glued to the desk beneath him, and his eyes remained sealed as the desire for sleep overrode the desire for food.
He was more than annoyed when a hand settled on his shoulder, shaking him awake.
Eyes peeling open, Sugishita glared up at the culprit, finding a vice captain staring down at him with a one-eyed mischievous smile. A snarl played at Sugi’s lips as his nose scrunched in displeasure.
“Sugishita-kun,” Suo greeted him. “How about a game of Oni Gokko?”
“No,” he replied bluntly.
But Suo just chuckled at his response. “We’ll play the Koori Oni version,” he explained. “And you’ll be the Oni. See how many of us you can tag out, yeah?”
Sugishita lifted his head from the desk, eyes narrowed. “No,” he repeated.
“Aw, don’t be like that!” Tsugeura cheered.
“It’ll be fun, Sugi-chan,” Kiryu added.
“Wouldn’t you like to beat Sakura?” Anzai challenged with an impish grin, earning an indignant squawk of offense from their class captain.
“Who said I was playin’?!” Sakura shouted.
“You know he’ll attack you either way, Sakura-chan,” Kiryu pointed out.
“Umemiya-san said he’d join,” Nirei chimed in, startling when Sugishita’s attention immediately zeroed in on him. “U-um— I mean— We were talking about it in a group chat, and a lot of the others think it’ll be fun. Umemiya-san wants to play, but only if you’re the Oni, Sugishita-san.” The blond trembled under Sugishita’s intense gaze, his notebook shaking in his hands.
“Wouldn’t want to disappoint Umemiya-san, would we?” Suo added teasingly, a sly look in his eye as he leaned down to meet Sugishita’s glare.
With a sudden burst, Sugishita stood, long arm swinging out toward his vice captain. But Suo easily evaded the attack with a swift side-step.
“Oho? Starting already?” Suo taunted him. “You’ll have to be quicker than that.”
“Ha!” Sakura smirked, already preparing to dodge an inevitable attack as Sugishita immediately moved toward him. “As if his slow ass could catch anyone.” Like a cat, Sakura easily jumped over the arm swinging toward him, leapt to the side and rolled across a nearby desk before landing on his feet again. “That all ya got?”
Everyone joined in, throwing around playful insults and challenging remarks. Each comment grated on Sugi’s nerves, causing him to grow more and more agitated as his far nimbler classmates dodged his attacks with ease. He might have a lot of power behind his swings, but speed and agility were not his strong suit - even he knew that. His classmates were all taking advantage of it too. And he had to play against the whole class and then some?! It would be near impossible for the Oni to win this game, and all Sugishita wanted to do was nap at his desk, but no, he just had to get dragged into some stupid rigged game of freeze tag. Venting his frustrations into his every move, Sugishita aggressively reached toward every person in his vicinity, throwing his whole body into each lunge.
The room exploded into absolute chaos as classmates hastily shoved desks and chairs in an effort to block the Oni from getting to them. They scattered as Sugishita rammed through the obstacles in his path and charged toward them, hands grasping at air with a grip they knew would hurt if he’d caught them. It was clear from his sharp movements and resting scowl — Sugishita wasn’t just playing.
He was mad.
Even so, common sense wasn’t so common in the minds of these delinquents, and the Oni’s anger only fueled their own desire to mess with him.
“You move like a sloth, Sugishita!” Anzai shouted, immediately tripping backward with an embarrassingly girlish squeal as Sugi’s arm shot toward his face. Not nearly as flexible as their class captain, Anzai couldn’t catch himself as he fell back and landed on the ground with a thud. He sweat nervously as he stared up at the taller boy, whose glare felt like it was piercing his soul. “I-I mean, uh….nice one!” he tried to appease the other with a cheerful thumbs up, but his hand was caught in a crushing grip.
“Oh shit, Anzai’s been caught!” Kurita yelled. Sugishita’s head swiveled toward him like that of a predator stalking its prey, his eyes steady and unblinking. With a sudden release of Anzai’s hand, Sugishita shoved through the barrier of desks toward his next victim at alarming speed. Kurita scrambled away but tripped repeatedly, struggling to escape the blockade of his own creation while the Oni charged through without pause. A hand roughly gripped Kurita’s head from behind, stopping him in his tracks. The boy choked on his own cry of alarm, and Sugishita forcefully pushed him to the ground - a silent demand to stay put now that he’d been caught.
Two victims down, Sugishita scanned the rest of the classroom, observing the stillness of his classmates as they stared back with bated breath. With a burst of rage, Sugishita lunged toward them—
Chaos unleashed as everyone panicked and rushed to exit the room.
“We’ve unleashed a monster!” Nirei cried out, fleeing for his life as he tried not to get trampled.
Sugishita grabbed several guys who’d gotten stuck trying to fit through the door all at once. His fingers dug into their arms, their legs, their faces — whatever he could grab — and tossed them aside as he charged into the hallway like a rampaging bull.
“It’s like a game of cat and mouse,” Suo joked with an exhilarated expression as he watched Sugishita barrel toward them.
“Yeah, if the cat is a freakin’ tiger,” Sakura grunted out, continuing to run as the heavy footsteps behind them grew closer.
“We’re totes gonna die,” Kiryu said unhelpfully, already looking worn out.
“It’s gonna be worth it!” Tsugeura shouted.
“Is it?!” Nirei yelled desperately, already out of breath.
The group sprinted through the halls, evading students who weren’t in on their game. Others from class 1-1 fell behind as their dash to safety was thwarted by crowds of clueless onlookers.
Sugishita seemed to barrel right through them without a care, grasping and shoving the classmates that he surpassed and tagging them out as he did so. He was getting closer and closer — the main annoyances of his class just within reach—
“Scatter!” Tsugeura shouted.
The five of them ducked and split up as Sugi lunged for them, each taking off in different directions.
Sugishita’s head swiveled after them, his eyes sharp with what could be mistaken as murderous intent. Turning abruptly, he made the choice to follow Tsugeura, who had charged back in the direction they came, toward the classmates that had already been tagged out. Sugishita watched as Tsuge quickly high-fived them, the lot of them springing back to their feet as they were tagged back into the game. Rage boiled within him as his hard work went to waste, and Sugi once again stormed after them, shoving aside anyone that got in his way.
“Oh, crap!” Kakiuchi yelped as he narrowly evaded Sugishita’s grasp by side-stepping into a nearby room. Scrambling behind the podium at front of the room, he braced himself in a starfish stance, shifting side to side, ready to run in either direction as Sugishita hovered opposite of him.
“Hey!” Sakura called from the doorway, taking Sugishita’s attention away from the potential victim. “Thought you’d’a caught me by now,” he taunted with a cocky smirk. Behind him stood the others - Kiryu with that relaxed stance of his, Suo with that annoying gleam in his eye, Nirei with that damn notebook in hand. And worse, there was Tsuguera, accompanied by Anzai and several others who must have been tagged back in while Sugishita was chasing Kakiuchi.
All that work for nothing.
They were toying with him..
And oh did that make him mad.
Sugishita’s teeth ground together, his jaw tight as he glared them down.
Ignoring the class majority, Sugishita focused his gaze on the class captain. If he couldn’t win this rigged-ass game, he could at least get some satisfaction out of beating Sakura.
Eyes locked onto his sole target, he charged recklessly toward the group. Nirei shrieked as Sugishita reached them in seemingly no time, and Suo quickly yanked him aside, Kiryu and the others springing out of the way as Sugishita charged right past them. His goal was clear to them now — Sakura was his next mark.
Sakura, of course, rose to the challenge. Excited grin on his face, he easily dodged every one of Sugishita’s attacks, moving with a swiftness that no one else could match. While it was clear he was struggling with the idea of not attacking back, Sakura still kept up with the game and evaded like it was second nature. He wasn’t going to lose to Sugishita, after all. And so Sakura continued to dodge and leap and duck, and when the Oni lunged for him, Sakura darted to the side and jumped up, kicking off the hallway wall in a short run and landing on the other side of his attacker. “Too slow,” he mocked cockily, running with everyone else toward the stairwell.
Sugishita’s fists curled in on themselves, fingers digging into his palms. He was growing tired of this game. All he’d wanted to do was sleep, but these bastards had him running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But damn it, he couldn’t let them win. So with a new bout of determination, he chased the group again, eyes fixated on the split black-and-white hair amidst the crowd as all of class 1-1 scrambled up the stairs.
“Been a while since we played Oni Gokko, hasn’t it?” Tsubaki’s voice intervened as the crowd of first years reached the upper level of the school. With a grin on his face, the cross-dressing third year stood proudly at the top of the staircase while class 1-1 swarmed past him and continued toward the roof. Behind him appeared the other three Kings.
“Bet ya can’t catch us,” Momose taunted, playful smile peeking out from his hood.
“Sugishita-shi has always been the slowest,” Mizuki teased with a straight face, the barest hint of a smile on his lips as he adjusted his glasses.
“Cut ‘im some slack,” Hiragi said with a fond smile. “He was bound to lose this game from the start.”
Sugishita sent a grumpy look toward his upperclassmen. They were teasing him, as always. But he really wasn’t in the mood for it. He just wanted this game to end so he could take a nap.
“How about one more round, classic Oni Gokko this time,” a fifth voice intervened cheerfully, and Sugishita perked up as Umemiya appeared from the upper stairwell. “Just the five of us, Sugishita-kun. All you gotta do is catch one of us, and the game is over. Think you can do it?”
Sugishita, of course, could never say no to Umemiya. Nodding his head rather frantically, he agreed to the new game, a spark of childish joy in his eyes as his anger completely dissipated.
With that, the five leaders took off, and Sugi went after them.
As expected, they were faster than most of the first years had been and better at evading his attacks — although Sugishita himself was far less aggressive with his strikes than he’d been in the prior game. Still, he struggled to catch them, swinging again and again as they practically danced around him. Until finally, Umemiya called out to him, standing at the edge of the stairs leading to the rooftop. The leader waved his arms, luring Sugi to chase after him, before turning tail upwards.
When he burst through the door, Sugishita startled as the entirety of his class and a few others shouted ‘Surprise!’
Sugishita was completely dumbfounded.
Umemiya wrapped an arm around his shoulders, grinning ear to ear. “Everyone wanted to wish you a happy birthday,” he said, gesturing to the hastily-set-up birthday party, complete with cake and all. “We just thought this would be a fun way to lead you up here,” he laughed lightheartedly.
“T-that’s not all, Sugishita-san!” Nirei stepped forward. The group of first years parted to reveal the corner of the rooftop, decorated with piles of blankets and pillows, and a rather large hammock. “W-we know how much you like to nap, so we thought— well. The third years thought, but we helped—“
“What Nirei-kun is saying,” Suo interrupted, “is that we wanted to put together a place for you to sleep more comfortably. You’ll get a kink in your neck always sleeping at your desk, after all,” he chuckled.
Sugishita wasn’t sure what to say. He’d never been the best at understanding his emotions, but there was something there that warmed him from the inside out. And as everyone eventually filed back to their respective classes at the end of lunch break, he found himself sunken into the hammock, swaying gently as his mind wandered. As much as he hated to admit it — and he wouldn’t — today had been….fun. And while his classmates were the pinnacle of annoyance, still…..he was silently thankful for his friends.