Chapter 26: I Didn't Fall in Love to Watch Him Be Erased
She barged into the principal's office without knocking.
Reiko tried to stop her.
Didn't matter.
The board was mid-meeting.The counselor, the principal, two assistant heads, and the Child Welfare rep.
They looked up like she was noise.
Yumi didn't care.
She dropped a stack of papers on the desk — her research.Her screenshots.The chat logs.The photo of the locker vandalism.The image of Akiro's bruises after his last foster stay.
"If you expel him," she said, "you'll be doing it because you couldn't handle the shame of your own silence. Not because he's dangerous."
They said her tone was disrespectful.
She smiled.
"That's the least of what I feel."
She spoke for ten minutes.
Didn't stutter.
Didn't cry.
Then, to their faces:
"You let them push him. You saw it and you did nothing.If he's a bomb, you built him."
Silence.
The counselor shifted, uncomfortable.
The principal looked at the papers.
The Child Welfare rep narrowed her eyes.
"Are you threatening the board, Miss Hoshino?"
Yumi stepped back, voice sharp:
"I'm telling you the truth. If you're threatened by that, maybe you're the problem."
She wasn't expelled.
Not yet.
But she was warned.
And the rumor mill?
Exploded.
"She's going down with him.""She's obsessed.""She's going to ruin her future for a guy who can't even protect himself."
That night, she found Akiro sitting under the train bridge.
The spot only they knew.
She didn't speak.
Just dropped beside him, legs stretched over the dirt.
He passed her a soda.
"Thought they'd suspend you."
"They still might."
"…Thanks."
"No," she said.
He looked at her.
"I didn't do it for thanks. I did it because you're mine."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward.
It was hot.
Charged.
He turned toward her.
"You mean that?"
"I'd burn this school to the ground if it tried to take you again."
And then?
He kissed her.
Hard.
Desperate.
Like she was air and he'd been choking for months.
She pulled him closer.
Onto her lap.
Hands under his hoodie. Up his back. Warm. Real.
His breath caught.
Their foreheads pressed.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
"So are you."
"Then let's stop pretending this is just survival."