paper cranes ; shinaya

i ; cola cans

"Shintaro, you fucktard!"

With a single curse, he captivated all the attention he never wanted.

Whispers vehemently erupted from the clustering crowds, heads turned and eyes fixated on the crimson rivulet oozing down a once-unblemished face. Mishap befell the scarf-donning maiden, his eyes trailing down the vibrant red blood that complimented her muffler in the most twisted way possible.

Much like his gasping peers, he, too, was dumbfounded by the events of just moments prior. He failed to suppress his gaping visage, helplessly watching as the girl slowly lifted her hand, brushing her delicate fingers against the fluid. Drops of blood splashed the waxed floor.

The sight of her stained hands drove the flock into a frenzy.

"Oh my God, are you okay, Ayano?!"

"How did that happen?!"

"Kisaragi did it, didn't he?"

"Who? The hikikomori? How dare he!"

"Bastard!"

"I can't believe this!"

As much as he wanted to deny the fervent accusations, they certainly weren't wrong.

Kisaragi Shintaro, the recluse of the school, had injured the sweetheart of their grade. How? By a flying cola can. As silly as it sounded, that was the only truth he could admit to, but knowing his rowdy classmates, they wouldn't give a rat's ass about the verity if it meant starting another vacuous rumor.

Perhaps this was one of the many reasons why he had no faith in humanity.

It all escalated minutes ago when an underclassman—Kano, was it?— offered him some cola. The kid had been bothering him for an entire week for reasons he couldn't comprehend, and proceeded to ruffle his feathers whenever he had the chance.

He assumed that Kano was finally feeling an ounce of remorse after he presented him with his favorite soda. That was his first mistake.

After graciously accepting said soda, he realized that the can was abnormally lightweight. The can was empty, and by then, Shintaro was sure that he'd commit murder. His original intention, of course, was to toss the can where it belonged in the recycling before hunting Kano down for his 'bullshit mannerisms'.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck was not on his side.

He was standing several meters away from the target, though he soon discovered that his impeccable aim in shooting games was not easily transferred to the real world. Rather than hitting the intended trash bin, the can's trajectory was disrupted by a girl. The opening next to the can's pull tab appeared to perfectly cut her right cheek, and Shintaro found himself utterly stupefied at the occurrence.

He assumed the chances of that ever happening were close to nil. Simply put, fortuity was plain awful. She was ambling by the wrong place at the wrong time, made a victim by the hapless introvert and his terrible luck.

Tateyama Ayano was her name; that much he recalled. If he bothered caring to rack his brain, he'd pick up that she was an exuberant ray of sunshine, relatively popular among the others for her compassion.

Fast forward to the present, and everybody stood enraged by the incident. In the eyes of the ignorant, he may as well be a villain, as the mishap was likely misunderstood by the majority of the bystander students.

Gazes were glued to the solitary and the sweetheart, with half of the cries allocated to admonish him, and the other half to console Ayano. Of course, everything seemed to blend into opaque noise, and he couldn't be bothered to discern the jumble of words reverberating in the hallway.

Kano, you little piece of shit..!

He briskly glanced around, though his hooded underclassman was nowhere to be found. His one-way ticket to escape the center of attention abandoned him amidst the chaos, the vexation leaving a bitter taste in his mouth while forced to deal with the toxic scrutiny. Shintaro never quite understood how his sister dealt with it all the time.

Suddenly, he found himself stumbling back from a rough shove, snapping back to reality.

"Hey, Kisaragi. Are you even listening to us?!"

"This goddamn prick thinks he's better than everyone!"

"Apologize to her already!"

He felt uncomfortably claustrophobic from the infuriated assemblage of students, and one of his first instincts may have been to flip them off purely because of their loud, irking voices. Shintaro knew better than to shoot himself in the foot, and withheld his own indignation towards the situation.

Quietly, his gaze averted towards the girl in question, though it was difficult to observe her with the clumps of other ladies blocking his view by tending to her scratch.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the words were caught in his throat, even resting on the tip of his tongue, but something as easy as an apology was deemed difficult.

The crowd stared at him in anticipation, but he almost wanted to ask them to stop hoping for the impossible. He lightly perspired from the unwelcome stress, and he felt like an idiot, for he couldn't muster a simple "I'm sorry," or anything at all, for that matter.

He felt bad. Penitence was not easily conveyed for the teenager, and he assumed that he already seemed more menacing than not, which most definitely did not help with his case.

"Aren't you going to say anything? Asshat."

The short answer was, no, I'm a coward.

He didn't say anything at all for the longest time, unintentionally riling up his peers once more. Shintaro had never seen them so collectively upset about something; he figured that Ayano must have been one hell of an affable lady for them to be so defensive. It was all too baffling for him, and if it wasn't for the fact that he was entangled in this tempest of a mess, he wouldn't have cared.

With a single accident, he was reduced to the lowest of the low; vile scum and vermin.

The warning bells finally chimed, saving him from pure vengeance. People began to filter out of the hallway to return to their respective classes in fear of being marked tardy, but not without the occasional push and nudge for his filthy actions.

He stood idly staring, as several girls proceeded to escort Ayano to the nurse's office. Was it a girl thing to go everywhere together? Shintaro always thought that it was unnecessary.

By the time he was the only person left in the hall, there was only one thing he could do. Listening to the soft taps of his shoes against the floor, he picked up the empty cola can, and discarded the weapon where it was meant to be.

The recycling bin, not Tateyama Ayano.