Hostile Territory?

Everyone was a little relieved when class ended. The old tension of preparing was over, but now a new tension was settling in. People were discussing the possibility that they could be the one who would win the extra ten points. Benjiro walked slowly down the staircase and tried to find a private room, but the school was still too full. As soon as he was outside, he ducked behind a section of the school that looked devoid of people.

He took a quick sweep around, and let out a deep sigh of relief. He had been afraid at first, but once he got going he actually felt good. It was only a classroom, but standing in front of that small crowd, although terrifying, felt almost natural. It was a mixture of terrifying but fun that he would come to cherish. It was like that feeling people get when they're on a rollercoaster or right before they jump off the high dive at a pool.

He stood against the wall, smiled to himself and started to chuckle. With such a difficult task completed and knowing that good work was done, Benjiro couldn't help but laugh to relieve the tension from his body. It started off small, but pretty soon he was cackling like a crazy person.

He was lost in his own world and it wasn't until someone had to say "Hey, punk" and he felt something hit him in the back of the head that he was brought back into reality. He abruptly stopped laughing and just slowly rotated his head to face, yet another girl crossing her arms, wearing the outfit of the soccer team and a very unamused face, glaring him down. She had two other girls with her, both of them equally scary. He wasn't sure why he was being confronted, but he didn't like the look he was receiving, as if he were some kind of criminal. It wasn't the first time he received that look, but that didn't make it any easier.

"What are you doing here?"

Benjiro didn't say anything, but he didn't like the accusatory tone being fired at him

"I said, why are you here?"

"W-what does it-t m-matter to you?" He stumbled, but tried to keep his voice level

"It matters to me when I find some weirdo standing by the window just outside the girl's locker room, creepily laughing. Were you hoping to get caught?"

He was about to protest, but stopped.

"I-I'm sorry, w-what?"

The girl's glare became even darker.

"I'm not playing around. You had better give me a good answer for why you are here, or I'm going to get angry."

Benjiro pressed himself against the wall, unease mounting higher by the second.

'What do I say? That I was just walking by and wanted somewhere private to sit and think? No, they still think I was trying to peek into the girl's locker room. Note to self, if I ever come by this area again, just keep walking.'

He was yanked from his thoughts abruptly when the lead girl marched up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. He felt afraid, but couldn't help noticing that she used a very nice scent of shampoo.

"You had your chance," she said before lifting a well-muscled leg and driving it into his stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs. Benjiro fell to the ground, gripping his aching stomach, trying his best to remember how to breathe and not throw up, on this girl's shoes. Pissing her off any further would probably be fatal.

"That's your only warning. If we catch you or hear any more stories about you peeping then the next time we won't be so lenient."

The two other cronies came over and pulled him to his feet. He was a little unsteady, but this pain was nothing he couldn't withstand. He walked forward doing his best to not let the anger he felt show on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the three girls leave for their practice. When he saw that they weren't facing him, he extended a fist, and raised one finger.

The walk home was nothing special other than the fact that if the emotion of being pissed off could be given physical form, it would have looked just like Benjiro. He wasn't sure which he was seething from more, the fact that the girl hadn't even given him a chance to explain himself or the fact that she had pretty much ganged up on him with those other two. He plugged in his ears and scrolled until he came to something that adequately suited the mood, because at the moment, ripping and tearing was exactly what he felt like doing.

Whenever these songs came on, he liked to picture himself as some sort of warrior on the battlefield, taking on thousands of enemies single handedly and laughing as they attempted to bring down an unstoppable force. Charging headfirst into enemy lines with a gun and a sword or maybe a chainsaw in hand sounded nice. Swing left, right, vertically take a quick sweeping rapidfire shot as they try to flank you from behind.

He whipped his head around and in the middle of his imaginary battle, he saw a non-imaginary parent and child, the latter of which was pointing a finger in his direction. Benjiro immediately snapped back to reality and resumed walking normally, hoping that woman hadn't seen what he was doing. He cursed inwardly, reminding himself that he couldn't act out his fantasies in public without people noticing. The rest of the walk was mostly Benjiro making sure he didn't start play acting.

When he got home, he was still in a bad mood. The former exhilaration was now soured. But, not wanting to dwell on the unpleasantness, he decided to brush up on a hobby that he hadn't done in a while. Walking to his room, and zipping open his kit, he noticed that he still hadn't opened the stuff he bought the week before. He took the kit to the bathroom, flipped on all the lights, cranked on his metal as loud as it would go.

Benjiro smeared the glue on his eyebrows, wincing a little as it pulled on the hairs until they were flat. He took out his beauty blender, dipped it in and dabbed the foundation on his face. His skin wasn't exactly dark, but the tone made him look as pale as a ghost. It kind of tickled, and he had to resist the urge to scratch his cheek. He took the eye shadow out, and decided that red looked like the best option for now.

"This is probably going to make me look like I'm sleep deprived or something."

He took the brush and made a bunch of small strokes around his eyes. Another brush and another powder, black this time, and his eyebrows and eyelids contrasted sharply against the pale and red. A little black lipstick, some hair gel and using a comb for a hard part, and he was almost done. He took his contact out of the container and put it on. Having a dark eye and a bright blue one alone made most people a little uncomfortable.

"Seriously, why are people afraid of heterochromatism? If I met someone with two-toned eyes, they'd be my best friend."

There he was: Benjiro's alter ego. The man whose role he disappeared into whenever he wanted to openly and loudly express how he felt. His face which he normally kept in 'default' suddenly was contorting into something monstrous. He popped his eyes out, cocked his head to the side and pulled his lips back into a sneer.

"Why should you care about that girl's stupidity?", he spoke in a raspy growl, "If she feels like presuming you guilty before innocent, then that's her mistake. Maybe one day she'll cross the wrong person and they'll knock her flat. I'd pay all the money to see that."

He didn't know why, but he liked the contrast between the disturbing appearance he gave himself and the officiality of the school uniform. With the look and voice down, he took his guitar from his room, and started to perform for the empty furniture. He strummed the strings a little more harshly than he meant, but it felt good to yell for a little while.

"I wanna use you and abuse you!"

Still couldn't hit those notes without some coughing. He was in the middle of trying to play while sliding across the floor on his knees when the doorbell sounded.

"Odd, the mailman should've already made his drop-off when Dad was here."

As it started dinging again and again, Benjiro let out an annoyed sigh. But a small smile crept onto his face as he imagined the ringer seeing him. He opened the door and standing in front of him was Akiko.