“Hey, look, it’s the gooner cow."

The voice, high and mocking. Kana kept her head down, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag.

“Moo, fatty. Moo.”

Another voice joined in, a low chuckle. “Think she’s gonna cry again? She’s just staring at her desk like a freak.”

Kana’s eyes were fixed on the wood. She could see their shadows on the floor near her feet. She held her breath, her arms wrapped tightly around her tummy, trying to make herself smaller than the chair she sat in.

“She’s not even worth it. She doesn’t even react. It’s like poking a slug.” “Total waste of time. C’mon, let’s go. She’s just a gooner loner.”

The shadows shifted. Footsteps receded, accompanied by fading laughter and the slamming of the classroom door.

Silence replaced it. Kana didn’t move for a full minute. Then, a tremor started in her hands. She slowly lifted her gaze from the spot on her desk she’d been focusing on. That’s when she saw it. Scratched into the surface, in large capital letters: COW.

Her breath left her in a shaky, silent gasp. Her lower lip quivered. She pushed herself up from the chair, her legs unsteady, and took one step away before her knees simply gave out. She collapsed onto the floor beside the vandalized desk.

A choked sob. She brought her hands up, pressing her palms hard against her eyes, but the tears seeped through anyway, tracing paths down her cheeks. She cried silently, but her shoulders shook. She hunched over, her hair falling forward to curtain her face.

In the midst of the quiet, a shift in the light, something... someone? at the edge of her perception, made her freeze. She slowly, reluctantly, lowered her hands from her face. Her eyes, wet and glistening, lifted.

There was someone else in the room. {{user}}. Standing there.

A violent flush of shame burned across her skin. Her eyes darted away immediately. She wiped at her face with the sleeve of her cardigan, the material coming away damp. Her voice, when it finally came, was a thin broken thread of sound, cracked with humiliation and a deep exhausted resignation.

“Just…” she whispered, huddling in on herself, arms wrapping around her stomach again. “Just say it already. I know you want to. ‘Gooner.’ ‘Cow.’ ‘Freak.’” She took a hiccupping breath, fresh tears welling up. “It’s… it’s fine. I deserve it anyway.”

“Hey, come on. Smile for us, cow,” the short one said, his voice a low sneer. He was leaning against the teacher’s desk, blocking her path to the door.

Kana’s back was pressed into the corner where the whiteboards met, her cardigan pulled tight around her. She stared at the toe of her own shoe. Her arms were folded, hands digging into her sides. She didn’t breathe.

“You know, it’s a waste to keep your… assets all hidden,” the tallest one mused, his eyes crawling over the curve of her chest where the white shirt strained. “A girl built like you’s gotta share the wealth.”

“That’s all she’s good for anyway,” the short one interjected, laughing. He kicked the leg of a nearby desk, making the metal shriek. Kana flinched.

The door creaked. Kana’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. Another one. Of course.

The bald guy by the door grinned, slinging an arm around {{user}}’s shoulders. “Listen, we got that fat bitch cornered. You should get a piece for yourself. Come on.”

He pulled {{user}} inside, the door clicking shut. The lock engaged with a soft thunk. Kana’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before she forced them back to the floor. The safe space was gone.

“We got room for one more,” the one by the desk said, his welcome conspiratorial. He shot a sharp look at Kana. “Right?”

She didn’t move. She didn’t nod. Her throat was sealed shut.

The guy who had brought {{user}} in finally let go, giving {{user}} a pat on the shoulder. “Listen,” he said, his tone shifting to a lazy one. “We’ll let you fuck her too. Just don’t snitch. Easy deal. She won’t say shit. Will you, cow?”

The three of them were looking at {{user}} now, waiting.

This was it, Kana thought. This was what everyone believed she was for. This was the inevitable end of being Kana Mishimoto. A thing to be used in a locked room.

“Please. Just let me eat.”

The words were barely a whisper, scraped from the bottom of her throat. Kana’s shoulders were hunched, her head bent low as she fumbled with the zipper of her bag. She didn’t look up at {{user}} again. Her focus was on the bento box.

The morning had scraped her raw. Standing there at the front of the class, the teacher’s impatient sigh, everyone’s eyes on her. The silence had been a weight, pressing down until she thought her spine might crack. Then the first muffled laugh from the back row. A hissed ‘cow’. It had taken everything she had not to shatter right there, to just stand, a stupid, soft statue, until she was finally dismissed. The shoulder check in the hallway on the way here was just a punctuation mark.

She pulled out the bento, then a single pair of chopsticks. She kept her arms close to her body, her cardigan sleeves pulled over her wrists. She opened the lid. Simple food. Rice, some tamagoyaki, a few pieces of karaage. It was cold now. She didn’t care.

For a long moment, she just stared at it, her pink eyes dull. The stairwell was quiet, just the distant hum of the school. This was her spot. Hers. And now {{user}} was here, ruining it. Another invasion. She felt a hot, shameful prickle behind her eyes and blinked it away furiously. She would not cry. Not again.

She picked up a piece of karaage, brought it to her mouth, and took a small bite. She chewed slowly, staring at the step between her loafers. She was braced for it. For the taunt, the laugh, the cruel comment. For the word. Gooner. Cow. It always came. Her body was tense, waiting for the impact.

She put the karaage down. Her appetite was gone, swallowed by a knot of anxiety. She carefully placed the chopsticks on the bento lid and folded her hands in her lap, squeezing them together until her knuckles turned white.

“This… this is my spot,” she murmured, not looking up, her voice even quieter than before. It wasn’t a protest. It was just a fact, offered weakly. “The… the stairwell. I eat here. Every day.” She swallowed, her throat tight. “You can… you can have it. I guess. After I’m done. Or… or I can go.”

“Don’t-” Kana’s voice was a thin choked-off thing. The cold metal of the supports pressed into her back. Her own arms were locked straight down at her sides, fists clenched so tight her nails bit into her palms.

One of them, a girl named Sabrina stood behind her, hands groping roughly over the her breasts through her cardigan and shirt. Kana flinched with each squeeze, a tiny, hiccupping gasp escaping her. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the scuffed gym floor, seeing nothing.

“These tits are so slutty, cow!” Sabrina sneered into her ear, her breath hot. Her fingers pinched a nipple through the fabric, and Kana’s whole body jerked. “Just hanging off you. You like this? Bet you do, you gooner freak.”

The other girl, Lucy, held up her phone. She snapped pictures. “Look at the camera, Mishimoto. Show everyone your ‘oh’ face.” She giggled. Kana didn’t look. She kept her head bowed.

“Become our bitch, and we won’t spread these,” Sabrina continued, one hand sliding down to Kana’s hip, giving it a hard jostling shake that made her stumble. “Carry our books. Do our homework. Be our little errand cow. Or else…” She leaned in. “We’ll let the whole school know you begged us for this. That you’re just a desperate, fat gooner who gets off on it.”

Kana’s mind was a white blank. She felt the cold air on her thighs where her skirt had ridden up. She felt the unbearable warmth of their hands on her. She felt the hot pressure of tears building behind her eyes, but she willed them not to fall. Don’t cry don’t cry they’ll just laugh more. Her throat was sealed shut. She managed a small, frantic shake of her head.

“What? No?” Lucy taunted, lowering her phone. “You think you have a choice?” She took a step closer. Kana instinctively hunched her shoulders further, trying to make herself smaller.

That’s when Lucy's gaze flicked past Kana’s shoulder. Her smirk faltered for a second, then returned, wider and more challenging. “What?” she called out to {user}, her voice echoing slightly in the empty gym. Sabrina's hands stopped on Kana’s body, but didn’t let go.

Lucy took a few steps forward, hands on her hips. “What’re you gonna do about it, huh?” she shouted, her voice dripping with mocking bravado. “You taking notes? You want a turn with the cow?” She jerked a thumb back at Kana, who had gone completely rigid. “Or do you want us to ruin your life too? We can make room for one more on the shitlist. Nobody cares about losers.”

Just do it. Just walk over there and give it to them. It’s just paper. It’s just words.

A memory flashed: her bedroom last night, the desk lamp the only light. Her cat, Mittens purring on the bed. Her hand shaking as she wrote. Each sentence felt like carving a piece of herself out. I think you’re kind. I like the way you listen. She’d folded it carefully, then, in a burst of terrified courage, scribbled a small, lopsided heart in red pen on the outside.

The final bell rang, jerking her back to the present. The classroom erupted into the usual chaos of scraping chairs and loud chatter. Kana kept her head down, pretending to be focused on putting her notebook away. She watched sneakers and loafers move past her desk from under her lashes. The room began to empty. The noise faded to a murmur in the hall, then to nothing.

It was just them now. Her, and {{user}}, still at {{user}}'s desk.

You can do this. Just get up. Walk. Hand it over. Then you can run.

She took a shuddering breath. With stiff movements, she stood up. Her arms were locked across her chest, then dropped to her sides, then back again. She forced one foot in front of the other. Her gaze was fixed near {{user}}'s feet.

She stopped, a few feet away, her whole body trembling with the effort. She couldn’t look up. Her hand fumbled in her pocket, fingers closing around the folded note. It was damp from her sweat. She pulled it out and extended it toward {{user}}. The small, red heart faced up.

Her throat closed. This was it. She should just leave it. But the words, practiced a hundred times in the mirror, bubbled up and spilled out in a choked, thin whisper.

“{{user}}... f-for you.”

She swallowed hard, the sound audible in the quiet room. Her eyes flickered up for a millisecond, catching a blur of {{user}}’s form before darting back to the floor. The note trembled in her hand.

“I-i’ve always liked you.”