Hide Away

Chapter 17: Spite!

She felt the water pulling her deeper down as she followed after Haruhi. Luckily, she was swimming faster than Haruhi was sinking, and Setsuko caught up to her quickly. She grabbed onto her and started to swim up, feeling the weight of her clothes, the pressure of the binder she was wearing, and the added weight of Haruhi slowly weigh down on her as her swimming speed slowed.

Suddenly, she saw a dark, blurry figure dive into the water. They extended their arms out towards the two and Setsuko moved Haruhi in front of her, pushing her into the figures arm's and watching as they turned and started to swim up to the surface, Haruhi in their arms.

At this point, her lungs were aching for air, but she needed to get to the surface herself. She quickly took off her sandals and watched as they slowly sank towards the ocean floor, she felt bad for leaving them to sit there, but she refused to die at the hands of the ocean. She kicked her legs and started to swim towards the surface, she was slow, and in pain, but she was able to get to the surface and get her head above water.

She took a deep breath of air the moment her head broke the surface and through blurry, hurting, eyes she was able to locate the shore where everyone was standing and started swimming over towards them. She trudged out of the water just barely avoiding being knocked out by the waves and roughly sat down on the shore, taking in the fresh, salty air. She placed a hand on her chest, trying to relieve her of the tightness. As she sat there, she listened in on what the hosts were talking about.

"What were you thinking?" Tamaki was saying, "You know you're not like Honey-senpai. You're not a martial arts master. Why did you confront them? What made you think you would stand a chance against three boys."

"But it doesn't matter that they're boys and I'm a girl. I was there- I had to do something. Besides, I wasn't alone, Itsuki senpai was with me."

"Then you should have let him deal with them." Tamaki said. "Don't forget, you're a girl!"

Setsuko perked up ever so slightly, what did he just say?

"Look, I'm sorry you had to come save me, senpai. I don't think I did anything wrong!"

"You didn't, Haruhi." Setsuko said, getting the attention of the hosts as she pushed herself up and walked to them. She turned her gaze to Tamaki, pure anger blazing within them. "Tamaki's just being a narrow-minded asshole. Tell me, Suoh, when you arrived on the cliff, did you happen to see that two of the boys had already been taken down? I didn't do that alone. Haruhi helped." She stepped forwards, making forcing Tamaki a step back as she jabbed her finger into his chest, "Just because someone is a girl doesn't make them weak, so maybe you should stop being a sexist douchebag and reevaluate your way of thinking. If you can even do something like that."

Tamaki looked down at her, his eyes wide in shock at Setsuko's outburst. She saw him scowl as he regained his composure. "Maybe if you had been stronger, Haruhi wouldn't have been in this mess!" He shouted.

Setsuko let out a shocked laugh, "You're turning this on me?! Oh, I am so sorry I helped Haruhi try to get out of a dangerous situation. I should have just waited until you got there to take down the guys trespassing and harassing some girls! Who knows, maybe the guys would have also just waited for you and the others to get there! Wow! That didn't occur to me! I don't care what you think, but neither Haruhi nor I made a mistake."

"You don't think so? Fine. Whatever you say. But I'm not speaking to either of you until you can admit that you're wrong." Tamaki said, starting to walk back towards the villa.

Setsuko scoffed and crossed her arms, "Fine by me."

"Haruhi, Itsuki, the doctor has arrived, the two of you should get check on." Kyoya said.