After longer than Einosuke would have liked to admit, he dropped down to the ground on the far side of the fence. Kusa stood at the edge of the alley, just off of the sidewalk, watching and waiting. “You took your sweet time back there. I should have left you.”

Beyond mere exhaustion now, sides aching and chest heaving, Einosuke panted, “Seriously… tell me what’s going on… or I’m not moving… another step.”

Kusa poked her head out of the alley, looked both ways. Pedestrians moved along in either direction, on both sides of the street. Vehicle traffic did the same. Nobody paid the slightest attention to them.

She looked back at Einosuke and shook her head as if disappointed. “There’s bad guys looking for me – for us now, probably. What more do you need to know?”

“Uh, how about anything?” Einosuke snapped. He was through with confusion, doubt, and god-damned running. He was a patient guy, but his tolerance had run out. “I don’t understand what the hell’s going on. Like, who are those guys? Who the hell are you? And why are they after you?”

Kusa’s hand dropped to her hip while her other moved to her forehead. Eyes closed, she sighed. “Look – I’m sorry I got you involved and I appreciate your help on the train. I do. But you really don’t want any part of this. Trust me.”

She gestured towards the street. “So here’s where I go my way and you go yours. They don’t know who you are, so you’ll probably be fine, though I’d avoid the trains and stay away from both this area, and Minato where they first picked me up, for a few days. We’re in Bunkyo, by the way, if you didn’t catch on back at the station. You know how to find your way home from here?”

Einosuke grit his teeth at the condescension. Maybe she was sincere, maybe she meant every word of it, and just wasn’t good at talking to people. But her dismissive tone pissed him off. He’d been shrugged off like he was nothing—by Kikuchi—once already today. That stung plenty; he wasn’t about to let someone else give him the same treatment. Maybe he didn’t know what was going on, exactly, but it was clear that this girl needed help.

“Forget it. I’m not gonna leave,” he almost said ‘a girl,’ but checked himself instinctively, knowing it wouldn’t have gone over well, “you to deal with those goons all on your own.”

It still didn’t go over well. Kusa’s expression darkened, her brows furrowed. She crossed her arms over her chest as Einosuke continued, oblivious, thinking out loud now.

“We could hop a taxi so they can’t follow us. Or we could go to the police and I’ll be your witness that you’re being stalked or harassed or whatever. That’s a good idea, actually. We’ve got options here, but splitting up’s not one of them. I mean—” He turned towards Kusa. The look on his face had changed; he seemed almost determined now, as if just the act of saying it out loud somehow made his plans more real. “What kind of a guy leaves a girl in trouble all on her own?”

Kusa’s eyes blazed with fury and a vein popped out over her left eye, pulsing in time with her racing heartbeat. “God damn! Are you stupid or something? I’m sorry I got you involved, but I’m trying to give you an out here! Don’t you get that?

“Yeah, you helped me, but so what? I said ‘thank you’ – what else do you think I owe you?” The look in Kusa’s eyes grew harder, her voice became edged with something sharp, but ragged, like a rusted blade. Despite the danger they were in, her voice rose and she began to draw attention. A couple of passersby looked their way, but hurried on when they saw the expression on the girl’s face.

Einosuke shrank back unconsciously before her fury. Backing away, he stumbled over some unseen bit of detritus in the alleyway. His hand flew out towards the wall for support, but still he went to one knee before regaining his balance. The strangeness, the exertion, the sheer exhaustion of the day caught up to him all of a sudden and seemed to steal every ounce of strength from his legs.

“Well?” Kusa prodded. “What do you think I owe you?”

“Listen,” Einosuke began, very slowly. “Can you just—“

The girl didn’t hear a word of it. “Or maybe you’re some sort of, I don’t know what – a pervert with a hero fantasy? You think I’m gonna fall to my knees and be forever grateful cuz you did me a solid? Well, I got news for you, buddy,” Kusa boomed, “your princess is in another god-damned castle!”

The girl paused for breath, seemingly more tired from her rant than from the long minutes of hard running and climbing that Einosuke was still recovering from.

Kusa asked, “Why do you even care, anyway?” The words were softly spoken; they seemed almost a whisper after her tirade.

She glared down at Einosuke, who forced himself to meet her gaze. He wanted to look away, but couldn’t. He felt ashamed but didn’t know why. He was trying to do the right thing. Leaving someone in trouble, when he had the ability to help, just wasn’t in him.

She’s right, Einosuke thought. There’s no good reason for me to care…

But he did.

He realized something, too: wanting to help was fine, but forcing yourself on someone who didn’t want help was something else, though he wasn’t sure what to call it. Until that moment, he never thought of himself as interfering, but now he saw how Kusa might have felt about it.

He looked more closely at the girl. Somewhere along the way, either during her fence-leaping stunt or during her angry rant, the hood of her sweatshirt had fallen. Her shoulders and chest rose and fell as she took deep, steady breaths. Her rage was spent and in dissipating, it left her as exhausted as Einosuke. They were both running on adrenaline and instinct, she’d just been hiding it better.