It was 8:00 am.
Arata quickly changed clothes in a flash of light and took to the streets, walking the remaining couple hundred metres to Chiba Academy.
He was not late by any means.
As he entered the gates, he instantly frowned.
There was a large crowd of girls all huddling up in one corner of the corridor. They were all chattering, their voices brimming with excitement and hope.
Just hearing them speak was utterly unbearable.
Arata's senses ate superhuman, so despite not being anywhere close to the crowd, he could hear them all and the loud noises really annoyed him. Especially when he could hear each individual request that they made.
They were so overbearing...!
He walked closer to the crowd, not out of curiosity or anything, but because he needed to unfortunately pass through them to actually get to class.
As he approached them, his ruby eyes trailed into the crowd and observed through the gaps.
He heard the words "Mei" "Mei-senpai" and a bunch of other nonsense numerous times; so much so that he was actually getting a headache.
Apparantly, the unfortunate victim of this mob of people was Raiden Mei herself.
She was stuck against a wall as a crowd of people would start shouting and making requests.
"Mei! Please take my bento!" One of then offered a bento to Mei, damn near pushing it close to her face.
"No take mine!" Another interjected, pushing others nearby away.
Those girls were probably elbowing each other and stomping on each other's feet as they all argued for permission to hang out with Mei, who just seemed utterly helpless.
"Why would she take yours?! My bento was perfectly made with all the love I have for the wonderful Mei-senpai!"
"She doesn't need your love or your friendship! She already has me!" Says a girl who Mei has never seen before until that point.
"Uh, I–" Mei tried to say something, but she was cut off by someone else, who asked her to go out with her.
"Please go out on a date with me, Mei!!"
Due to the low population of males, even with the concept of polygamous relationships, majority of the women still ended up without any partners.
So, they turned to each other.
Such behaviour is honestly normal and Arata was not surprised in the slightest.
But Mei was just feeling uncomfortable. She didn't get to talk, her voice was suppressed under their shouting. Because of the crowd, she was cornered to the wall and couldn't get out.
And to make matters worse, the crowd was actually growing bigger as more students pooled in. To the point where the corridor was almost so full that you couldn't walk through it.
So Mei was pretty frantic about the whole thing.
Mei simply wanted to get to the classroom!
Seeing such a huge crowd, in such close proximity and all of them acting so wildly, Mei felt intimidated.
No, she was scared.
Mei never had to deal with crowds like this. Not even during lunch breaks, where students tried to crowd her, was it this bad.
Her classmates would usually keep them away from her.
And outside of school, her bodyguards made sure nobody dared to bother her.
But there were no bodyguards here this time.
Mei wanted to get out of this. But there were too many people!
If only there was someone that would do something about this.
If only...
Meanwhile, Arata was pretty annoyed by the crowd blocking his path, and even more annoyed at the way they targetted Mei.
He pushed through the women, all of whom let him through the moment they saw him. And yes, their attention also shifted to him as well.
"Oh my god! It's Kurokami-kun!"
"My glorious king Arata is here!!"
"Please accept my home-made love!"
— Who gave you permission to call me by my first name ? And why would I accept your "love" when I don't know you ?
Just as Mei started to genuinely panic, she felt a hand clamp around her wrist.
She turned her head and came face to face with Kurokami Arata, who frowned at the crowd.
"Stop bothering us." He said, making Mei blink at him.
"Kurokami-san...?"
At first, he helped because he didn't like the way they were bothering Mei.
But now, they were also bothering him!
"Get lost!" He snapped at them and pulled Mei out of the crowd, ignoring all the people that tried to say something.
He managed to pull Mei out of the crowd and his pace immediately amped up.
He didn't need to say anything. Just one look into Mei's eyes and she could already tell what he was thinking.
They had to make a break for it.
This fangirls were was deadly as any zombie horde, and Arata did not have the patience to deal with them after that frustrating morning he had.
He was still thinking about the honkai beasts that randomly appeared out of thin air and he didn't want to be bothered by overbearing crowds of people first thing in the morning!
And so, Mei and Arata ran down the hall and into their classroom.
Arata sighed as he walked up to his table, while Mei put her hands on her knees and panted slightly.
"What an unpleasant crowd..." Arata mumbled.
"I wouldn't say that..." Mei panted, not wanting to call them "unpleasant".
"Then how would you describe it ?" He questioned.
"Uh... Wild ? Intense, perhaps ?"
Hearing that, Arata nodded his head.
"Intense indeed."
He then turned back at her and questioned her if that was what her daily situation was like.
"Do you really have to deal with that every single day ?" His tone of voice and his eyes carried pity... and familiarity.
Because he, unfortunately, has had to go through this exact same situation many many times.
It was specifically because of those incidents, that he developed a dislike for large crowds of loud, overbearing people.
"Well, yes... Fortunately, not everyday. They do try coming up to me the same way they did today, but... I usually come several minutes earlier, so the number of students are a lot lesser. Also, I usually manage to find my way to class before they could surround me." Mei explained as she approached her seat and put her bag down.
"But today... It seems I couldn't make it in time. I was delayed on the streets today, so when I arrived, I was swiftly swarmed."
"Why were you late today ?" Arata questioned as he leaned back on his chair.
Mei sighed.
"I didn't delay anything. It's just... Apparantly, a sinkhole appeared in 6th street earlier today, which is unfortunate because I usually to pass that street to get here." She remembered the random sinkhole in the middle of the road.
The road was shattered and the ground was pulling things in. The walls and lamp posts around it was also sinking, with one or two lamp posts already destroyed.
It was sudden.
It didn't exist yesterday, which means it either happened at night or sometime before she left.
"A sinkhole ?" He asked, puzzled by it.
"Yes. I have no idea how one suddenly appeared, but the authorities have blocked off that street and they're working on fixing it already. Because of that, my driver needed to take a longer route and I was delayed." Mei explained her predicament, making Arata hum in response.
"Welp...! At least you didn't get caught in it, right ? It would've been pretty bad if you got into an accident like that." Arata decided to play it off with a positive thought, making Mei smile.
"Yes. That would be quite dangerous." She agrees and sat down next to him.
She then turned towards him and smiled brightly.
"Thank you for helping me, Kurokami-san. I honestly didn't know what to do there."
"Oh, it's nothing Rieze-san... I only did what I believed was right."
Arata responded with a smile of his own.
"And besides, I know what it feels like. I've been through this and I know how to get out of it." He added.
Mei gave him a wry smile.
"Kurokami-san... My name's not Rieze."
"Hm ?" He stared at her, unblinking.
"My name's not Rieze." She repeated herself.
Arata blinked.
"It's not ?"
"No. My name is Raiden Mei. 'Raiden'."
"Oh, my bad. I'm terribly sorry, Raisen-san."
...
Raiden Mei stared at him blankly.
She didn't know whether he was actually trying to make fun of her or not, but considering the expression he was making, she assumed he was genuine.
Was this his memory issue ?
Her father did inform her about his forgetfulness, but she didn't imagine it would be like this!
"Um, Kurokami-san. May I ask a question ?"
"Go ahead." He permitted her, now curious about her question.
"Are you by any chance, bad at remembering names ?" She questioned.
Arata frozen when she asked that, his body going stiff. He did not want to admit it.
He was bad, yes. That was true. His memory was horrible and his forgetfulness is even worse. But he truly did not want to actually admit it. He'd rather deny the truth.
"Uh..." He sweated, unsure of how to answer.
"Do you have any memory issues ?" She asked, slightly concerned.
Don't at me like that...
Damn! She was making him feel bad! He already knew that he guessed her name wrong!
It wasn't my fault that— Okay, it was my fault for sacrificing my ability to properly retain all my memories — but still!
"I have amnesia... I don't remember much of my childhood... And I have a... condition, that makes me forget random things frequently..." He muttered, his voice drastically lower, as his face fell.
It was embarrassing to say it. Especially knowing that he did it to himself.
He was the worst at remembering names.
The only two names he actually fully remembers are "Otto Apocalypse" and "Prometheus".
"Oh..." Mei's face also fell.
Now she felt bad for asking. He likely had a mental condition that impaired his memory.
Mei then looked at him confidently and said, "If you ever feel down or need my help, don't hesitate to reach out. I'll help you out with anything you need, Kurokami-san. Because you're my friend."
Arata looked at her and smiled. He didn't want to be pitied, but he didn't mind her feelings concerned for him.
"Then I'll be in your care."
"You can depend on me, Kurokami-san. And maybe, in the future, you won't forget my name."
Mei looked forward to it. She looked forward to a future where Arata would remember the name of "Raiden Mei" and never forget it.
"Ah! Could you give me your phone, Kurokami-san ?" She suddenly requests, making him raise an eyebrow.
"Let's exchange contacts! You haven't really talked to anyone this past week and you don't have anyone's numbers."
"I could add you in the class group chat too."
Arata stared at her blankly, before extending his hand and handing his phone over to her, allowing Mei to type in the numbers and create the contact on the phone.
[Raiden Mei], it said.