The Girl Who Loved A Beautiful Devil ~Karma AkabaneXReader~

Chapter 2

 It was incredibly hot for a spring morning; I was sweating profusely as I stood leant against a wall in the spacious but crowded Hall of Kunugigaoka Junior High School. I supposed it was because of the global warming that scientists worldwide had been stressing about. But the fact that all students from the entire school were gathering in this hall for the new semester's assembly didn't help with the humid weather either.

I let out a faint sigh as I tore my gaze from my friend as well as fellow classmate, Asano Gakushuu, who I'd been staring at for quite a while; I was planning to question him for more information about the mysterious redhead named Akabane Karma that I had an unexpected encounter with the day before and whom I'd later found out from Asano that he was from the same school as us but much to my dismay, he seemed to be busy with the assembly preparations. It couldn't be helped though; I guessed that was the downside of being the Student Council President.

Deciding to give up on waiting for Asano to finish, I removed myself from the wall and headed outside to get a cold drink from the vending machine to quench my growing thirst. It was indeed a struggle moving through the enormous crowd of sweaty students that left my breathing ragged and my sense of smell completely lost for inhaling too much of the odorous-sweat-contaminated-air.

I then made my way towards the vending machine which was placed next to the left side of the school hall. My eyes lit up when I caught glimpse of a familiar head of crimson hair whose back was bent slightly in order to insert the money into the slot of the machine and without thinking, I leapt forward and gave a light tap on their shoulder. They immediately turned around and I was greeted by those unique mercury-hued-eyes that I'd secretly hoped to see again.

"Hey, stranger." I said as a way of greeting and Akabane Karma broke into a smile as he took in the sight of me in all of my Kunugigaoka Junior High uniform glory.

"(L/ N)-san," he smiled, flashing his oddly-attractive-canine teeth at me. "What a nice surprise, I never thought I'd see you here. You didn't tell me that you're from Kunugigaoka Junior High."
I could feel my smile turning into a grin as I placed both my hands behind my back and replied, "Well, it's a small world, Akabane-kun."

Karma shook his head, erupting into a contagious laugh that sounded like the sweet chiming of bells to my ears. "Please, call me Karma, I'm not a big fan of formalities. It's already quite considerate of me to be using honorifics at all."

"Um..." I murmured and furrowed my eyebrows vaguely as I looked at him. "I don't really think that's... such a good idea... I'm not really comfortable calling someone that I'd just met a day ago by their first name let alone someone of the opposite sex."

The attractive redhead cocked an eyebrow at me and his innocent smile was instantly replaced by a devilish smirk that made me impossibly weak in the knees. "Oh? And why is that?"

"It..." I mumbled, feeling vaguely embarrassed. "It seems kind of intimate..."

"Don't worry," he smirked and leaned forward to whisper in my ear. "I like intimate."

A delicious shiver ran down my spine as I felt the heat of his breath hit the shell of my ear. He then pulled away moments later much to my disappointment and I couldn't help but smirk at him as I said, "You really are doing an awful job at convincing me that you're not a playboy."

His smirk grew, revealing those pointed-canine-teeth once again. "Hey, not everyone can be perfect."

"I guess that's true," I hummed in agreement. "And back to our earlier topic, you didn't tell me that you're from the End Class either."

Karma gave me an impassive look before bending down to get the drink that he'd bought from the vending machine. "So was the whole purpose of starting a conversation with me just now so you could laugh and make fun of me for being in the E Class?"

"N-no!" I blurted out, eyes wide. "I would never do something like that! I- I actually hate it when all the other students mock and tease you guys just because they have higher statuses and what not, they tend to all forget that they themselves aren't much different from you guys and it angers me so much that they do!"

The redhead blinked at me a few times with an unreadable countenance and I'd admit that I actually began to feel slightly nervous and self-conscious under his rather intimidating gaze. After several more moments of uncomfortable silence, the smirk eventually returned to his beautiful face as he said, "That's good news then, because now I won't have to beat the daylights out of you."

I let out a nervous chuckle; despite his innocent and beautiful features, he really did seem like he was capable of doing exactly that.

"To celebrate that you're not one of those self-righteous brats," he started and reached a hand into his pants' pocket to pull out a 100 yen note. "Allow me to buy you a drink."

"Y-you don't have to buy a drink for me!" I exclaimed, holding out my palms as a sign of insistence. "Seriously, it'd be a waste of money, save it for something else."

Karma then gave me a light nod and shoved the note back inside his pants' pocket. "Alright then, I won't buy you a drink."

Just as I was about to let out a sigh, I felt something cold shoved into my opened palms. My eyes instantly shot down to see the bottle of iced tea that Karma had bought for himself in my hands. My eyes darted from the bottle back to the redhead who stood smirking before me.

"You told me not to buy you a drink, I didn't," he began, smirking. "But you never said anything about me giving you mine."

A slow smile tugged on the ends of my lips and soon I was grinning at him. "Well played."

Karma gave a smug shrug and I chuckled; he really was something. Just then, I caught sight of an odd-looking-man dressed in a black robe or something of the sorts with a black cap laid upon his abnormally round head standing behind one of the cherry blossom trees a short distance away. He looked familiar... and it took me a few moments to figure out that he was probably the new E class teacher that Asano had once told me about.

"Um, I think your teacher is spying on us..." I told Karma awkwardly.

He swiftly jerked his head around at my words and we watched as his strange teacher began panicking about being discovered before dashing off at an impossible speed. Seriously, no human could be that fast, but I supposed that it was probably just the heat getting to me.

"I'll make sure to kill him for that later." Karma said as he turned back to face me and I let out a strained laugh. "Good luck on that."

An announcement sounded from the school intercoms, informing students that the assembly was about to begin and that we should all head inside the hall. Karma spoke again once the announcement had ended. "Well, we better get inside," he started to walk away. "It was real nice seeing you again, (L/ N)-san."

"You too, Aka- K-Karma-kun..." I mumbled the last part bashfully but he managed to hear it which caused him to chuckle; curse his remarkably hearing.

"Oh, and I forgot to tell you," he halted in his tracks to glance back at me with that smug smirk of his. "You look good in that uniform."

A swift flame of scarlet colored my cheeks as I held the cool bottle of iced tea tightly in my warm hands. Despite how flustered I'd become from his unexpected compliment, I still couldn't wipe the growing smile off my blushing face.

By the time I looked up again, the redhead was gone and I decided that it was time I head back inside as well. But just as I'd stepped foot into the hall, I was grabbed by the arm and pulled to a corner of the crowded hall.

"I thought I told you to stay away from Akabane!" I heard Asano's voice hiss at me. I looked up to see his violet eyes, usually cool and calm, burning dark with rage. His eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was set in a distasteful scowl as he stared me down.

"Asano-kun, I don't know why you hate him so much," I started in an attempt to defend the E-class-redhead. "He seems like a nice guy-"

"A nice guy?" Asano repeated almost in disbelief and continued to hiss at me through gritted teeth. "He's a psychopath, (L/ N)-san!"

"Asano-kun, you're exaggerating again, stop-"

"I'm not exaggerating, (L/ N)-san! He's cunning and violent; numerous students have ended up in hospitals for severe injuries because of him!" Asano said, his expression turning urgent and slightly desperate. "Why do you think he got sent to the End Class in the first place?"

I stared at him, my face blank and emotionless as I repeated his words on my lips. "Violent... psychopath..."

"Yes," Asano nodded his head at my repeated words and seemed like he was about to say more when one of the members from the Student Council had called for him. The strawberry-blond let out a groan in exasperation.

"Just listen to me and stay away from him, alright? He's dangerous, (L/ N)-san, and I don't want you getting hurt." he said before leaving to join with the rest of the Student Council members.

I blinked my eyes a few times, slowly letting his words about Karma sink into my mind and after a few seconds of thought, a small smile crept its way onto my face as an idea came to me.

I might just pay a visit to the End Class after school that day.