By Zephyria Koi was quickly overwhelmed by the loud chatter of the large men. He was completely disoriented, but they just kept babbling on and on. They were clearly speaking English, but he couldn’t understand a word. Koi frantically darted his eyes around, shrinking back in fear.
“Loser, look at this!”
“Monkey, monkey.”
“No, it’s a dog! Loser, walk on all fours!”
“Woof, woof, woof. Come on, do it! Woof!”
The sound of their laughter echoed in his ears. Cold sweat trickled down his back, and his vision seemed to spin.
He had let his guard down, and the habit had slipped out. He couldn’t even begin to describe how much he had been tormented when they first found out about it. Even before that, Nelson and his gang would bully Koi whenever they were bored, but from that day on, they would pounce on him whenever they saw him.
And now, again.
Koi felt like crying as he found himself in the same situation again, just when he had finally managed to join a new group. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at Ashley. The thought of him spewing words of contempt and ridicule like Nelson made him want to burst into tears.
He barely managed to bite his lip and tremble, but then Ashley’s voice cut through the noise.
“Koi, is that true?”
It was all over. He was completely ruined because of this damn habit. Of course, Corner Niles. Why would your life ever go smoothly? You need to know your place, why were you so excited and messing everything up? Nothing ever works out for you. You stupid idiot!
As he showered himself with self-pity, disgust, and blame, Ashley spoke again.
“Everyone, quiet down, you’re scaring him. I said quiet!”
After calming everyone down, he turned to Koi again.
“Koi, it’s okay. Sorry, these guys sometimes forget how intimidating they are. Just big and dumb.”
“Hey, what about you?”
“Yeah, I’m wronged! Ash Miller, you’re the biggest one of us!”
The guys started clamoring again. It was then that Koi, who had been trembling in fear, realized that the atmosphere was different from what he had expected.
Huh…?
He cautiously raised his gaze and saw Ash and the gang chatting and teasing each other as if nothing had happened. The terrible situation Koi had imagined hadn’t come to pass.
Confused, he slowly lowered his hand from his ear. He cautiously turned his gaze and immediately met Ashley’s eyes. Unlike Koi, who flinched, Ashley smiled gently. As if it was nothing.
The tension slowly drained from Koi’s shoulders. Was it okay…? He cautiously looked around, but another guy quickly jumped in.
“You can really move your ears?”
Koi was startled, and another guy immediately protested, feeling wronged.
“I saw it! Do you guys think I’m a hippo shitting bricks?”
No one paid attention to the guy who was jumping up and down. Everyone was looking at Koi with shining eyes, throwing questions at him.
“Really? Show us, I want to see.”
“Come on.”
“Please, just do it once. Huh?”
Koi was flustered and didn’t know what to do, as he had never experienced this kind of reaction before. But the atmosphere was definitely not bad. Even Ashley was looking at him with an intrigued gaze, so Koi mustered up the courage and cautiously wiggled one of his ears. A cheer immediately erupted.
“Wow.”
“Holy crap!”
“Dude, he’s really moving his ears? That’s so cool!”
“I’ve never seen that before, wow, amazing.”
“How do you do that? Is it training? Could you always do it? Is it genetic?”
“Can you do both? Do it, can you move them separately? Can you move them together? Wow, it works.”
He was overwhelmed by the flood of words, but none of them were mocking or ridiculing Koi. Seeing their reactions of pure wonder and amusement, Koi felt a little more courageous. He slyly wiggled both ears together, and the guys clapped and laughed, grabbing at his ears or frowning and trying to move their own. Of course, none of them succeeded.
“How do you do this?”
Ashley, who had also failed, asked with a furrowed brow. Koi, his face flushed red, stammered.
“It just, I’ve just been able to do it since I was little.”
“That’s amazing. You can do it whenever you want?”
Koi stammered but answered in a slightly louder voice to the other guy’s question.
“Sometimes I can, but sometimes they just move on their own. It’s like a habit… when I’m really happy, or really surprised.”
“Wow, that’s awesome.”
“I knew it, it’s something you’re born with.”
The guys, who had been talking and even whistling, soon moved on to another topic. Koi couldn’t have imagined that his complex would be resolved so easily. Was it really nothing at all?
Dazed, he reached for his vegetable juice again, but one of the guys who had been chattering away grabbed Koi’s juice. He was talking to another guy and didn’t see properly, so he took Koi’s drink instead of his own.
“Oh.”
Koi tried to stop him, but he had already taken a big gulp of the juice.
“Ew, what is this?”
The guy immediately grimaced and checked the drink he had just taken, his eyes widening. Koi felt a strange sense of guilt and muttered.
“I tried to stop you…”
“It’s his fault for not looking properly, don’t worry about it.”
Ashley brushed it off casually. Still, Koi looked around cautiously, and the guy handed back the drink with a scowl.
“Why would you drink something like this? It tastes like a month-old pair of underwear rinsed in sewer water.”
“Have you tasted that before?”
“You’ll know if you ever taste it?”
Seeing the guys bickering as if they had been waiting for this, Koi tried to act nonchalant and replied.
“I’m okay with it.”
The other guys immediately exchanged words.
“No one would drink that stuff unless they were trying to build muscle.”
“Aren’t all the guys who drank that stuff already dead?”
“Hey, wasn’t the pancake you made before for assassination purposes?”
The conversation naturally drifted to another topic. Koi watched Ashley laughing and chatting naturally, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
There had been a few crises, but he had managed to get through them. Koi felt like he had faced the biggest crises of his life twice in a row and patted his chest.
After the crisis passed, a sense of pride washed over him. He was having lunch with the six most popular guys in school, it still didn’t feel real.
Before returning his tray and heading to the building for his next class, Koi subtly called out to Ashley. Ashley stopped and turned around at the sound of his name, and Koi rummaged through his pockets to take out the money he had been carrying around all morning.
“Um, about the money from yesterday.”
“Oh, were you short?”
Koi reflexively looked up at the unexpected response.
“No, it’s not that…”
Ashley tilted his head, their eyes meeting.
“Yeah?”
Somehow, the words didn’t come out easily. Koi looked up at him for a moment before quickly lowering his gaze and hurriedly taking the money out of his pocket.
“Oops.”
Ashley’s lucky bill came out along with the money he had tied up to give him. Before Koi could pick it up, Ashley bent down and picked up the crumpled two-dollar bill first.
“Here.”
Ashley smiled as he readily handed over the bill.
“Looks like you’ve had it for a long time.”
“Yeah…”
There was a good reason for that. Koi mumbled an answer and changed the subject.
“You paid too much yesterday.”
He carefully chose his words, making sure his voice didn’t tremble.
“You even paid for the stuff that was unusable, right?”
He must have left a large sum of money on purpose because he didn’t know how much he had lost. Of course, it wasn’t the time to pretend that they weren’t close enough to receive such a favor, or to tell him not to pity him. But Koi swallowed his embarrassment and salvaged his remaining pride by returning the change to him. Of course, he didn’t forget to thank him for his consideration.
“…Thank you.”
Ashley grinned as usual at his careful words.
“I was the one who owed you first.”
“You’ve paid me back more than enough.”
“That’s good, then.”
Ashley took the money Koi handed him and stuffed it roughly into his pants pocket, then waved his hand and strode towards the gang who were waiting for him. Koi watched his retreating figure for quite a while, his heart pounding.