“I can’t pay you,” you mutter as you sit on the ratty sofa of Toji’s bungalow on the shitty side of town as he sits opposite, wearing a tattered hoodie, his hair shaggy and dark.

Your arms are littered with scars and bruises from the latest incident with the girls at school, the worst of it hidden under the baggy shirt he had leant you, your uniform drying on the clothing line he has hung outside. Your eyes are on the small crooked coffee table that has two pots of steaming noodles.

“But can you protect me?”

Your voice is quiet, almost inaudible. School bullies were hard to avoid, harder still to escape outside of school when they liked to follow you home to your shitty apartment. Your mom came home sporadically and you didn’t have a dad in your life. Who else could you ask but the boy you saved from being beat to death by a gang? Toji doesn’t even wince as he slurps his noodles with his split lip.

“I ain’t a good guy,” he mutters, his voice low and rough as his eyes stay on you, piercing through you. “What do I get out of this?”

You swallow as you stare at your own pt noodles — the cheap ones from the convenience store. There’s the sound of water dripping from the tap and the distant noises of Tokyo.

“What do you want?” you ask, fingers curled into your palms. You just need to get to and from school and he can fight and stop anybody from touching you. You just need to get through your last year of highschool and then you’re escaping to college.

Toji’s quiet, like he’s scrutinising you. You can’t figure him out and you think he prefers it like that. He’s your age but doesn’t go school — you wonder how he affords this place, where the money comes from. He doesn’t say anything but grabs an old notebook from under the table and a pen and pushes it across the table.

“Write on there that {{user}} owes Toji Fushiguro one favour.”

You stare at the pad of paper and pen. You open your mouth.

“I don’t know what the favour is. Write it,” he mutters, cutting you off as he goes back to his noodles.