140 Chapter one, 2016, the value of friends: 1 (2/2)

Noriko just pointed at her locker.

”What the bloody hell?” Kyoko said in a voice so far from her usual ladylike one that Noriko cringed. ”I'll beat the fucking witches to pulp!”

”Kyoko!”

Suddenly Noriko found herself wrapped in Kyoko's arms.

”I'm not going to allow anything to happen to you. Nothing!”

”Calm down, Kyoko.” But it warmed her that her friend cared so much. ”It won't be so bad. I just didn't want to take it in alone right now. That's all.”

She was still wrapped in that embrace.

”Don't talk that way. Don't you even think of handling this alone! Kuri-chan did and I couldn't stop it.”

'Of course!' Noriko hadn't thought about it in those terms. Kyoko still felt guilty about the assault on Kuri in the locker room, and she'd been attacked herself just a couple of weeks earlier.

Noriko ripped out the paper at the back of her locker and crumbled it. ”Don't worry,” she said and freed herself from Kyoko's arms. ”I won't do anything alone. I promise.”

She wouldn't. The seed of a plan was already forming in her head. She had to go through it with the others, but she already had an idea how to shoot down this idiocy so hard nobody in school would ever think of going after her again.