Chapter 15

A male bully at school has decided to cause trouble for Mayu and Kengo, making sport of the fact that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Akira is asked to intervene, but what will she actually do ?

## Features of This Chapter

### Transition Milestones

Akira puts her own welfare aside to help another girl, something that she would never think of doing in times past when she was a loner.

### Relationship Evolution

Akira 'goes to bat' for Mayu, taking on the school bully, at her own peril.

### Lessons Learned

Bullies are not indefeatable. They can be brought down and readjusted by a variety of means.

ORE GA WATASHI NI NARU MADE ( UNTIL I BECOME ME )

CHAPTER 15 OF THE MANGA (Revised English Translation)

## Previously

On the morning of New Year's Day, the schoolmates invite Akira to accompany them to the Shrine for holiday ceremonies. Akira accepts, even though she has caught a mild cold. So Akira bundles up, and with a face mask, heads on out. The ceremonies were good, Akira got to pray at the Shrine, but the real treat was spotted by Erika. She points out the fact that Mayu and Kengo are at the Shrine, walking arm in arm, just like a loving couple. The girls go nuts with gossip, except for Akira, who can't understand why girls at this age go bananas over romantic intentions from boys ?

## This Chapter's Story

Mayu and Akira enter a classroom the morning after New Year's Day, only to find two boys intently staring at them. "Here she comes. She's here !" Akira wonders, what gives ? Several other classmates are staring at the blackboard. On the blackboard, one boy, Yuto Kikuchi, the school's bully, has drawn graffiti saying that Mayu and Kengo are lovers ! He calls everyone's attention to what he has done.

**" STOP IT !!! "**, screams Mayu, as she takes an eraser to the blackboard.

Yuto forcefully grabs Mayu's arm, stopping her, and telling her that it took a while for him to draw that intricate kind of graffiti.

**" Let me go ! "**, screams Mayu.

Just then Kengo and Shouma come into the classroom with a hearty 'Good Morning', not knowing what is going on. Someone asks if Mayu's pitiful boyfriend has dared to show up ? Yuto now has his arm around Mayu's neck, locking her in a submissive hold and shouting that today you two need to be more explicit with the fact that you are dating  ! I can help with that ! He throws Mayu toward Kengo, and tells him to "Catch!" Kengo holds Mayu in his arms to steady and protect her. The other classmates now join in with heckling and cat calls---" Kiss, Kiss, *KISS* ! Do it, *DO IT*! **KISS**, **KISS** !!! You two already do it when you are alone together, **so why not now ?** A girl bystander tells Akira that things are getting out of hand, and to go call a teacher ! " Why me ? ", questions Akira ?

In a flash, a long buried memory forcefully rips it's way into Akira's mind like a shotgun blast ! It is of themselves, as a bratty male, taunting girls at school way back when. The boy here and now is the spitting image of what Akira was like as a male bully! This realization ignites and touches off a wildfire in Akira's mind, heart, and soul !

***" STOP IT !!!!!!! ",*** screams Akira with her eyes now looking like a forest engulfed in flames !!!

Akira comes right up to the boy and addresses him one-on-one, right in his face! Cocky as hell, Yuto shoots back at Akira---

" What are you talking about ? The good part is just getting started ! Understand that you are not wanted here, and just get the hell out !!! "

Akira grabs his shirt just under his neck with her clenched fist, and with white hot 'welding arc' flames in her eyes, screams---

" Don't you see Mayu Ishii **HATES** attention like this !!! "

*" LET GO OF ME !* Seems you got the bad habit of grabbing people from Watai ! ", bullies Yuto.

Akira gives the boy's shirt a forceful tug ! **" WHAT DID YOU SAY ? "**

And with that, Akira releases her grip on his shirt. But with her other hand wrapped into a tight fist, she plunges her fist, with an almighty body blow, into the boy's chest ! It solidly connects, but Akira feels immediate pain in her fingers and knuckles.

***" APOLOGIZE , to Ishii-san !!! "***

The boy is thrown backwards, awkwardly stumbling, with a shutter rippling through his body, as Akira reloads for another hit ! But Shouma grabs Akira's arm and tells her to CALM DOWN !!! He then yells at Yuto to *'knock it off, you went too far,' and just apologize !*

" ....that hurt.....", spits out Yuto with a dark, horrid look on his face.

*" Apologize ! ",* repeats Akira.

In half a second, Yuto takes his stance, and with his face contorted with pain and revenge, sends a fist back towards Akira's face ! And in another half second, that fist connects with flesh, making a loud ***" SMACK "** !*

It happened so fast ! The fist did target a face, but it was Shouma's face that somehow wedged itself between the boy and Akira, and Shouma took the full brunt of the blow !

**" SHOUMA !!! "**

Shouma is dazed, and his face now has a purple indentation on his cheek, and blood is gushing from his nose, dripping on his hoodie, and falling to the floor in big droplets. Somehow Shouma manages to bark out a retort---

*" YOU IDIOT*, *YUTO* . . . . . Don't you know that you *shouldn't hit a girl* . . . . .  ??? . . . . . . this really hurts !!! "

[A ways away, near a corner of the classroom, Kengo has his arms wrapped around Mayu, trying to comfort her. She is frightened, upset, and crying uncontrollably, with her face buried into Kengo' chest. The front of his shirt is all wet, but he soothes her as best as he can (\*)]

" Call a teacher ! ", someone cries from the 'audience'.

Later, in the Infirmary, Shouma is sitting in a chair, with a huge bandage on his cheek, and a smaller bandage across his nose. His bloody hoodie has been removed, showing a clean white shirt underneath, The nurse asks Shouma that doesn't it feel cool to have stopped a fight ? No, not really. Akira is sitting on a bed observing the tending to Shouma by the nurse. The nurse eventually turns towards Akira, asking her if anything hurts ? Akira, still with pain in her hand, sidesteps the question by saying, no, nothing. Akira then apologizes to Shouma, saying---

" Sorry! ***I'm*** (lit. *Ore* {masculine}) ............no........... It's because of ***me*** (lit. *Watashi* {feminine}) that it's all my fault........... " Shouma interrupts, saying, " I'm the one who should be apologizing......... 'my friend' (Yuto) is the one who caused all the trouble .......... "

Soon, the door to the Infirmary slides open, and Akira's homeroom teacher pokes her head in. She asks if Akira is okay ? Akira, more or less, is fine. The teacher then asks Akira if she can have a private word with her? This she agrees to. However, Akira and the teacher walk the hallways, both in silence, as Akira's mind brings up other old memories. Akira thinks to herself----

" How could I have ever thought that I have no masculinity left?.........If there is anything that I didn't like about my former male self, it was that I immediately resorted to violence.........I only caused trouble to other people ............ like when I flipped up Nana's short skirt, showing everyone what kind of panties she was wearing.......... ***I*** (lit. *Ore* {masculine}) haven't really changed at all, not one bit ............... "

The teacher leads Akira inside an unused classroom. There inside, three girls are waiting for Akira---Rumi, Chika, and Mayu. Mayu places her hand over her heart and bows deeply towards Akira. Her face and eyes have already been redden and wet, but another round of tears bursts forth. She implores---

" Akira-chan, umm.........**THANK YOU !!!** I ..... ! It's so, so frustating when the fact that I was dating someone became widly known, but there was nothing that I could do about it when I was being teased ! But I was glad when you, Akira-chan, got angry in place of me ! ( Big tears are now dropping to the floor off of Mayu's cheek ) **THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!**

Akira can only cover her heart with her injured hand, knuckles battered and bruised, and blankly stare at Mayu. She thinks to herself---

" ***I*** (lit. *Ore* {masculine}) .......... haven't changed for the better one bit, **not one bit** ........... "

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

(\*) Implied by the story arc and story context, plus circumstantial evidence.

## Chapter Lookback, Commentary, and Opinion

The school's male bully, Yuto Kikuchi, and most of the other students in the classroom at the time he displayed his graffiti on the blackboard about Mayu and Kengo, thought that they would get a kick out of seeing the two kiss one another. This done in a forced and debased way of supposedly showing publicly that they were, in fact, boyfriend and girlfriend, and further, that they would do romantic things, on command, for all to see. Akira, and maybe only a few others, objected to this kind of public humiliation, open bullying, and vile harassment. Akira, then pricked by her guilty conscience of when they were a male bully, intercedes to block any further degraded intimidation of forced love between Mayu and Kengo. This by confronting Yuto, and then using physical force to stop his bullying and bad, errant behavior.

In that classroom, if there was that mob desire to see some form of romantic interlude between Mayu and Kengo, it seems that maybe only one or two students who would be observant as to what happened would discern that they would, indeed, see pure, unadulterated romance right before their eyes. This could be realized by how Kengo reacted to Mayu being thrown into his arms. With the bully being distracted by Akira, it seems likely that Kengo held onto Mayu by putting his arms around her and holding her in his grasp, while ushering her away from the conflict and towards a corner of the classroom. Mayu was, no doubt, crying her heart out, so likely she had her face buried in Kengo's chest. And likely they stayed that way for quite some time to come, until Mayu had calmed down enough to be okay by herself. Right then and there was the real romance to be see in the classroom that morning. The fake romance of a forced kiss never happened, but the real romance of being held by your lover, and being calmed by them, was there for all to see, as least for those who were perceptive enough to discern such an mature, caring, and loving response offered to Mayu by Kengo.

## What Manga Fan's Are Saying About This Chapter

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

(Click on Chapter 16 to be taken to the next chapter.)

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_