The rest of the morning after home room and roll-call was taken up by the welcoming and commencement ceremony, followed by lunch.
Shoko and Jiao were the centre of interest for a large number of their fellow students. Several other Yokai metal fans had shyly come forward, led by the girl from their own class, the one with the large round glasses and her brown hair in twin plaits. She’d approached slowly, clutching her school binder with the Yokai Metal stickers on it. Behind her stood a wedge of half dozen other students, some older, each with their own Yokai Metal merchandise, like tribal markers.
“Uh-um, sorry to bother you…”
Shoko beamed a broad smile and springing up form the table they were sitting at, took her by her clenched hands and drew the shy young girl over. Jiao had waved the rest of the small group over as well.
Leading the shy young girl to sit down on the bench between her and Jiao, Shoko grinned like only a kitsune could.
“It’s no bother! You’re very welcome.. um.. I missed your name during roll-call. I was so nervous, I thought I’d forget my own name!”
“I..I.. I’m Haruko, Isobe Haruko… I, I mean, we’re all f..fans.”
Shoko grinned.
“Oh cool! I’m glad you like our music! Ah… sorry we don’t have any pictures.. that’s what stars do isn’t it? Hand out signed photo’s… I suppose we could sign something else if you like. And talk! I want to know everything about you Haruko-chan!”
Haruko blinked several times, taken aback.
“Ah… I think I’m supposed to say that… which I do!”
Shoko laughed.
“Sorry, sorry! This is the first time we’ve met fans!”
Haruko blinked again, visibly puzzled.
“But… but… you did interviews, all of you…didn’t you?”
Shoko shrugged.
“Yeah, but they were interviewers, not actually fans! I mean, we had a script with our answers and everything. So that doesn’t count. Ask us anything!”
“Ohhhh… you really mean we can ask anything ?”
Shoko nodded, followed somewhat more cautiously by Jiao.
Haruko opened her mouth, but was pipped to the post by a taller, black-haired girl with cheeky grin.
“Hi, I’m Nomi ! Your drummer, she’s a real Oni?”
Shoko laughed at the small pout from Haruko, but she nodded.
“Yep! Her names Yuko, she’s sister to our bass player Yuri and they’re Jiao’s cousins. You already know Tatsuo our keyboard player is Jiao’s big brother… and he’s their clan leader!”
The girls all went ‘ohhh’ or similar... then Haruko jumped in.
“H.. how did you decide to come out, as yokai…?”
Shoko exchanged a look with Jiao, who shrugged, then silently said over Haruko’s head.
<sup>>></sup>Tell her.<sup><<</sup>
Shoko nodded.
“It was Paul-sama’s idea, but we didn’t ask him first we… we came across Baby Metal on the internet, and I, no, we all loved their music and wanted to do something like it.. so, we just sang and recorded ourselves with what we had to hand. Once we uploaded it, it went viral… which shocked all of us. Then Paul-sama found it and.. well I don’t think we ever decided to come out, we just did ! I’m not sure it ever occurred to us not to… Paul-sama needed a public face for all Yokai, something people would like, as part of his plan to save the temple and all of us living there..and.. well we just wanted to help you know?!”
Haruko nodded, then looking around, swallowed hard. Reaching up she brushed her plaits aside, and from behind them brown rabbit ears emerged to stand upright and proud. Shoko’s eyes widened, and she breathed out..
“Ohhh.. Usagi-chan!”
Haruko blushed furiously, pulling her ears down and hiding them in her plaits again. Shoko blinked, and then gently reached out, brushed aside Haruko’s hair, and lifted her long silky brown rabbit ears. Shoko shook her head slowly
“Chīsana usagi, don’t hide them, please. They’re beautiful. Be proud of who you are Haruko. We thought we’d be alone, the first yokai at school. But here you are, here you’ve been all along! Pretending to be human and hiding in plain sight.”
Haruko’s blush deepened. Until the black haired girl, Nomi spoke up.
“You mean, here we’ve been, all along!”
Shoko and Jiao looked around them. Nomi was sporting a pair of cat’s ears and tail, several of the other girls were other sorts of yokai. With a grin Nomi half-sung a line from Yokai Metal’s ‘Hey, Hey we’re Monsters’
“Hey hey, we’re Yokai, and we’re coming down your street!”
Haruko and the other girls collapsed laughing, and giggling Shoko started to sing, infectious laughter bubbling up in the cracks of her lyrics. The others happily joined in, laughing as they fluffed lines or improvised ones.
The mood abruptly soured as the bully from before and his circle of sycophantic friends, swaggered up. He stopped, a safe distance away Shoko noticed, and eyes went wide.
“What do you know?! A whole load of freaks and animals!”
Shoko sighed, and glared at him.
“You back for more? I’m not going to do it with you, you know. Or do you want one of your boy friends to do you instead, and this is your way of getting them worked up?”
The shocked silence told Shoko that she’d said that out loud.
For a moment no-one moved, then with an inarticulate bellow the bully lowered his head and charged at Shoko.
Shoko sprang up onto the table, out of his way, as to her he lumbered forwards slowly… Shoko suddenly realised that Haruko was frozen, and would be in his path. For split second Shoko wasn’t quite sure what to do. She could snatch Haruko out of the way, but if she did that the boy would crash head first into the wood and concrete table and bench set. Also, the way Haruko was sitting, with her legs tucked under the wooden slats, if she moved her without warning Haruko would get bruises and possibly scrapes all up the back of her calves.
Jiao started to move, glacially slow to Shoko, but obviously intending to intercept the boy. Shoko in that instant decided she would take care of the problem, she’d been the one that provoked him, it was her responsibility.
To everyone else Shoko seemed to blur, she was moving so fast. One moment she was standing on top of the table, the next she was standing where the young bully had been, and he was sailing through the air to land in the nearby flowerbed sputtering and covered in dirt, but otherwise unharmed.
Shoko stood with her hands on her hips.
“Ok, for the last time. No means no! I’m not playing with you any more. You don’t like yourself and you keep taking that out on everyone else. Go away and leave us alone before I have to hurt you.”
“
Nomi shouted...
“Don’t you dare think your dad’s important enough he’ll get you out of trouble this time Tomiso! I’m telling Ms horrible racist bigot!
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Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
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