The Collision Course
The moment Akio Hukitaske stood up and walked toward him, Hikata Yakasuke felt a surge of paralyzing terror, quickly masked by a frantic wave of performative energy. He'd intended to control the dynamic, to deliver his jokes from the safe distance of the doorway, forcing Akio to accept the ready-made version of their relationship. But Akio had closed the distance, shattering Hikata's carefully planned trajectory.
Hikata's grin was fixed, aching. "Whoa, whoa, social distance, pal! Did I say something wrong? Was it the eternal youth bit? I'm willing to negotiate the sidekick paygrade!"
Akio stopped directly in front of him, close enough that Hikata could smell the faint, clean scent of antiseptic and cold air that always clung to the blue-haired kid. The violet eyes, usually so distant, were fixed entirely on him, searching, analyzing.
"You're not here to be funny, Hikata," Akio stated, his voice a low, clinical murmur that cut through the classroom noise like a scalpel. He didn't use an aggressive tone; he used an analytical one, which was far more terrifying. "You're here because you decided you could no longer afford the solitude. You came for the antidote, but you're still afraid to swallow."
Hikata felt a cold tremor run down his spine. This was the moment. The risk he'd taken. Akio saw the truth, and he was already reaching for the deepest wound. Hikata's only defense was fierce, unrelenting resistance.
"Antidote? Man, you've been reading too many manga!" Hikata countered, throwing his head back in a loud, forced laugh. He slapped Akio lightly on the shoulder—a clumsy, aggressive gesture of false familiarity. "I came because I heard this class was dull, and I was going to offer my services as a live-action distraction! Plus, you look like you need a hug from a professional joke-deliverer."
Akio didn't flinch at the slap or the joke. He simply lowered his gaze to the spot where Hikata's hand had briefly rested, then slowly met his eyes again.
"The greatest concentration of a toxin is always at the source," Akio observed, his expression unreadable. "You believe your past is a toxin. And you believe if you touch someone, you will poison them."
Hikata's heart hammered against his ribs. How does he know? Did Hakurage send someone? Is this a trick?
"Woah, heavy stuff, doc!" Hikata stepped back, breaking the physical contact. He jabbed a thumb towards himself. "Look at me, pal. I'm a lightweight! My biggest toxin is an addiction to terrible puns! You're mistaking me for some brooding drama club reject. Come on, let's sit down before the teacher sees us disrupting this beautiful lesson on chemical bonds!"
The Battle of the Masks
For the rest of the period, Hikata was relentless. He pulled a chair right next to Akio's desk, invading the quiet kids personal space. He peppered him with non-stop, inane chatter.
"So, blue hair, huh? Did you lose a bet? Or are you secretly a time traveler who forgot his hair dye formula? Hey, is it true you grew up in a pharmacy? Can you mix me a batch of 'Motivation-Max' for homework?"
Akio answered only when directly addressed, and his answers were always short, precise, and subtly designed to pull Hikata back to reality.
"Genetics, not a bet," Akio stated. "Time travel is scientifically volatile and ethically dubious." When Hikata joked about the homework formula, Akio replied: "Motivation cannot be chemically synthesized. It must be generated internally, by confronting the inertia of one's fear."
Every one of Akio's observations was a clean, sharp needle aimed at the core of Hikata's performance. It wasn't about winning an argument; it was an act of aggressive, unsolicited empathy, trying to chemically dismantle the protective shell.
Hikata, however, was fighting for his life. His life, as he knew it, was predicated on the rule of Laughter Saves, Confession Kills. If Akio knew about the blood, the screams, the terrifying grin of his brother, the hero would run, and Hikata would be irrevocably, tragically alone again. He would have failed his mother's last, desperate lesson.
In a brief lull, as the teacher turned to the blackboard, Akio turned to Hikata, his voice dropping again, his gaze intense.
"You are forcing a persona that requires immense energy," Akio murmured, staring at the faint, nervous tremor in Hikata's hands that even the jokes couldn't hide. "Your internal reserves are depleted. Why do you choose this specific, exhausting defense?"
Hikata's forced smile tightened, becoming a painful grimace. He felt the cold, familiar terror—the ghost of Hakurage standing behind him, demanding silence.
"It's just who I am, pal," Hikata hissed back, his own voice losing its cheerful facade, laced now with genuine desperation and a terrifying rage. "I like to laugh. I like to make people laugh. What, is that a crime? Do you want me to cry for you, Akio? Is that the only way a trauma expert like you will approve?"
The words were brutally unfair, spat out from the deepest well of Hikata's fear. He was using his pain as a weapon against his only ally.
Akio didn't react with hurt or anger. His expression deepened with a profound, almost weary understanding. It was the look of someone who had seen exactly that level of internal exhaustion before, maybe in a mirror.
"I don't require your tears," Akio responded quietly. "I only require your truth. A structure built entirely of jokes is unstable. It is not designed for weight, only distraction."
The Scars of the Yakasuke Line
The sheer, stubborn persistence of Akio broke something essential in Hikata. He felt a sudden, terrible flush of heat—a familiar chemical surge of rage and panic. He couldn't sustain the performance any longer. He shoved his chair back, making a loud, grating sound that drew the attention of the whole class.
"You know what?" Hikata stood up, glaring down at Akio, the forced cheer utterly gone, replaced by a raw, deadly hostility. "You're the one who is unstable! You look like a ghost! What, did you crawl out of a cryo-chamber? Why are you even here, acting like you're some genius hero who has all the answers? What's your secret, Akio? What formula makes you so superior that you get to lecture me on my life?"
The class went silent. Akio remained seated, his calm a stark contrast to Hikata's explosive energy.
"I failed," Akio said simply, his voice audible in the profound quiet. He didn't look away, meeting Hikata's furious gaze head-on. "The business is destroyed. My life trajectory has been violently altered. And I carry the knowledge that I was not strong enough to prevent the collapse."
He paused, his violet eyes darkening with an ancient, unbearable sorrow. "If you require a detailed explanation of my instability, you can have it. But it won't change yours."
Hikata felt the air punch out of his lungs. He had expected a clever deflection, a clinical dismissal, not a confession delivered with such quiet, devastating honesty. Akio hadn't just revealed his weakness; he'd offered it up as a shared formula for pain.
But Hikata's trauma was too deeply ingrained. He couldn't accept the shared wound. His brain was screaming the truth about the Yakasuke line—the absolute horror of the blood on the kitchen floor—and he had to keep Akio away from the contamination.
"That's nothing," Hikata sneered, desperate now, aiming for the deepest cut he could find. He leaned down, whispering the words through clenched teeth, his face inches from Akio's. "That's a bad day. My brother murdered my father, left my mother to rot, and then tried to beat me to death for being his chore-kid.That is a toxin. You are a genius, Akio, but you are a lightweight. You have no idea what real darkness is."
He saw the flicker of Akio's expression—not shock, but an instantaneous, deep pang of pain and overwhelming sympathy. The knowledge was absorbed, cataloged, and instantly understood. Akio didn't really listen to what he was saying but didn't care, because in truth he never wanted to hear it which later on would lead to him quistioning Hikata on the truth in Volume 3 but that's another story.
Akio didn't recoil. He reached out and gently took Hikata's wrist, his touch light, non-aggressive, but utterly firm. He gently pulled up Hikata's sleeve, exposing the small, faint, jagged scar on Hikata's forearm—the one he'd received three years ago, when he tried to replace mental pain with physical reality. He could see through through him and that he was hiding it.
Akio looked at the scar, then back at Hikata's horrified, exposed face.
"I see the formula," Akio murmured. "The shame. The guilt of surviving. The isolation. But I also see the persistence. You are not a toxin, Hikata. You are a highly reactive compound, violently seeking a stable bond."
He released Hikata's wrist, the contact lingering in the shocked silence.
"You believe you are protecting me by keeping me distant," Akio continued, his gaze unwavering. "You believe my history of failure will be compounded by your history of trauma. But I see something else. I see a shield that needs another hand to hold it."
The Chosen Friend
The truth, laid bare and unflinching, robbed Hikata of his breath, his anger, and his defense. He stood there, frozen, the exposed scar on his wrist feeling like a beacon of profound, undeniable shame. He hadn't just confessed; Akio had pulled the confession out of him, analyzing the wound before Hikata even knew he was bleeding.
He stumbled back, his legs weak. The faces of his classmates were blurred, distant. He saw only the terrible, smiling face of his brother, Hakurage, mocking his weakness.
He knows. He knows everything. He's going to run. He's going to tell someone. The shame... the shame is here.
A cold, visceral fear of true, eternal solitude washed over Hikata. He had risked everything, and now he was about to lose the only anchor he'd found.
But Akio didn't run. He simply picked up his notebook and his bag. The bell hadn't rung yet, but Akio was done.
Hikata watched, panic spiking in his heart. "Akio, wait! Where are you going? You can't just—"
Akio paused at the front of the class, looking back at Hikata. He offered no dramatic exit, no final judgment. He just gave the slightest, almost imperceptible nod—a gesture of acknowledgement and acceptance.
"I'm going to the library," Akio stated simply. "I'm going to research how a structure built under impossible pressure can be reinforced without collapsing."
He looked at Hikata, and for the first time, there was a hint of a promise in his violet eyes.
"And you, Hikata, are coming with me. If you are going to be my friend, we will do it properly. No more apologies disguised as jokes all the time. We will start with a single, stable bond."
Akio walked out of the classroom, leaving Hikata standing alone and exposed in the center of the silent room.
Hikata's entire body trembled. He had confessed the most gruesome secret of his life, and the hero hadn't fled. The hero had simply given him the next step in the formula.
He felt the familiar, crippling wave of terror—the desire to turn and run back to the dark closet—but the image of the crimson-banded hero and the simple, firm acceptance in Akio's eyes held him fast.
He took a slow, rattling breath. The adrenaline subsided, replaced by a deep, weary sense of inevitability. He felt the cold truth about his past, about his brother, and his mother's tragic sacrifice. But now, it was mixed with a powerful new component: the simple fact that Akio Hukitaske knew, and Akio Hukitaske stayed.
Hikata forced a grin—not a joke, not a weapon, but a choice. It was weak, wobbly, and almost genuine.
He adjusted the collar of his uniform, gathering the last shreds of his chaotic energy. He spoke not to the class, but to the ghosts in his head.
"Snap out of it, Yakasuke," he muttered, repeating his earlier mantra, but this time, the despair was fading, replaced by a strange, fragile hope. "Embrace the fear. We're going to the library. Wether Akio Hukitaske liked it or not, I would become his true friend. And I'm going to make him laugh for real."
Hikata turned and walked toward the door, chasing the silence and the only person who had ever truly seen his pain.
(And soon, their bond became real again. Hikata reintroduced himself—and fortunetly as he had in Volume 1, Chapter 2—only this time and for the first time doing this act, it wasn't an act. The same introduction that once masked his pain now carried truth. Once more, he became Akio's first friend—the one who would lead him toward something worth a lifetime. But this time, Hikata didn't laugh to hide his wounds. He laughed through them. These were not jokes born of pain disguised, but of pain revealed and accepted. And in that moment, Hikata chose to let them both forget the weight of what came before. That was where their story truly began.)