There was a lot of clamoring as the student's whispers reached an uproar. His teacher rushed over and tried to pressure him down, but he listened to no one, crossing his arms and confidently addressing the entire school.
"You want war don't you guys?!" He shouted. "The Alphas keep winning everything but who the heck is trying here!? Other than that guy. I think we can show them that we can mean business too!" Ren raised his fist into the air. "Let's go! Change the rules and let us compete!!"
The crowd however was less than enthused.
"Total loon…"
"What is he talking about…"
The students whispers grew louder. Akagi finally reached him, crossing his arms at the base and glaring up at him. "That's enough out of you. So, you think you can just break rules now?"
"Is there a problem, Naoto?" One of the council members asked, not haven left their seat.
"No Haruka, leave it to me." Akagi replied, but Ren felt there was more to it by the murderous look in his eyes.
"Let's calm down," Takeuchi Tamura calmly beckoned him down. "Takeshita-kun, right? Why don't you come down from there?"
"No point in talking nice to him Tamura. Just get him down." Akagi mutely growled. Ren was helpless to resist as he was pulled down by a half dozen Alpha guards, along with hundreds of eyes trying to peer in.
Ren gulped. This was it, they finally had him!
"Akagi-senpai, excuse me," Shino raised a hand. "What are you planning to do? He's clearly just playing around, lets not make a big deal out of things."
'But I'm not playing around…' Ren silently thought.
Ruota sighed, suddenly over his shoulder. "How about the simple beta club president sit back and stay out of things, hm?" He said, with a weird emphasis on the word beta.
Akagi suddenly pulled on Ren's arm making him wince.
"I know exactly what I'm doing, stopping a crisis before it begins!" Akagi shouted. "Since our leader for disciplinary is currently absent, who else is going to take charge?"
Ren's eyes widened. Masanori's job!
"At least be a little more gentle Akagi-senpai," Hajime shouted, pushing past the crowd along with Hikei. "You're far too rough with him right now."
"Just back away everyone. I'm doing my job, and he's getting what he deserves." Akagi's voice was so blatantly threatening that Ren got a chill down his back as he leaned down with a righteous glare. "For disrupting Sports day you can spend the rest of the day in study hall while Aruki-Sensei considers your punishment."
Ren glared daggers back at him, having some confidence being in a crowd of onlookers. He wasn't buying it. Just study hall? They were going to lock him up, jail him for real! Ren shook his fist and raised it up higher to the crowd.
"Come on! Do you want to be babysat by a bunch of jerks!? Let them get all the glory?! We're more than that, we're just as tough!!"
Akagi scoffed. "You're funny. A little guy like you? You're barking up the wrong tree looking for trouble. No one's going to-"
"I say we do it!"
Someone stood up on the bleachers and shouted.
Ren pumped a fist and smirked. 'That guard's not so bad after all!'
Akagi waved a hand dismissively. "Except him!
"Yeah right!" Someone else stood up. It was a familiar face, but one rather surprising.
'The guy from the locker room?'
Ren had forgotten about him, but here he was, coming through for him!
"Not you too," Akagi shouted at him rather viciously then faced the crowd. "Listen! Everyone should know, this isn't how we play! Don't you know the point of the game is bringing us together, not forcing us against each other!!"
"Yeah but what's the point of being brought together if you're just gonna drag us along and do everything yourself?!" Another omega shouted.
"He's right!" Teru finally spoke up. "You've been exploiting your power over us too much lately and everyone is sick of your abuse! We should do it, but not for all the games," He raised a single index finger. "One game! The scavenger hunt! And, the other side picks the items!"
"We can beat the Alphas with that!" More students shouted.
"Let's do it! Maybe we're sick of being pushed around by jerks who only protect themselves!"
One of the Alphas shouted over. "Oh yeah? We know who you're protecting!"
There was a brewing riot forming. Omegas clustered together throwing insults and Alphas stood their ground throwing glares and snarls while Beta students sat in the middle trying to squeeze into the background. Ren's mouth was agape as a flurry or excitement filled his chest. This was it, the revolution!!
"That's enough!"
Then, a powerful voice boomed over the field. The teachers had returned. At the front of the group one of them stepped forward. Ren recognized him as the teacher that was in the council room with the student council before.
Before surrounded by the other Alphas he hardly stood out, but next to the other teachers he held a higher air of authority, like he was someone important. Was he it: the boss?
"Is this any way to act when we have guests on the grounds?" He shook his head. "What would the headmaster think if he were here today? What the guests would think if they were over here yet? Consider your actions after today's events, but we must remember we have a schedule to keep to."
Ren sighed in relief. There was still a headmaster he had yet to meet. Suddenly he was pulled forward as Akagi stepped up to the teacher, lowering his head in an extremely apologetic bow before shoving Ren in his face.
"Sunaeda-Sensei, what do I do with him attempting to disrupt the events today?"
But the teacher barely gave him more than a glance and gave Akagi the stern glare instead of Ren. "I'll have to see what Aruku thinks of this. But you should know where your role lies, Akagi-kun. Now Takeshita didn't actually interrupt events did he?"
"But, teach…!" Akagi started but just stiffened and stepped aside, letting the teacher walk past him.
The teacher addressed the students. "Now though we have our usual picks every student is encouraged to participate, and allowing the omega students an activity they feel comfortable in partaking in feels like a very good addition, doesn't everyone agree? I'm sure those who are most capable will come through. Let's continue preparations now, come on!" He said, and the other students nodded along obediently, and just like that everyone resumed their normal preparations.
Ren also nodded without realizing, but he was far from persuaded. He agreed to give him a chance, but Ren knew exactly why.
'They're going to try to cheat I bet, to make us feel weak by forcing us to lose! But I'll play dirty right back, and prove to them we're just as capable!!'
"Sensei…" Akagi murmured. He shot a typical glare at Ren then stomped away.
He turned to his class with a bright smile, expecting them to be at least a little thrilled at the idea. There was no need to complain about not having equal teams anymore! What he was met with instead were hostile glares though, and he feebly winced back.
His homeroom teacher cleared his throat and readressed the clipboard in his hand. "Let's all calm down and enjoy today. What will you participate in Takeshita-san?"
"Huh? Well, I wasn't going to…" Ren weakly replied.
'I'm trying to beat the Alphas! I'm the single worst omega to choose for this. This body is practically made of paper and strings: I'd get creamed out there!'
"Hm," His teacher wrote something on the clipboard, "I think you could do fine in the multi-legged race…."
"H-Huh? Wait, did you maybe not hear me?"
"Since you have so much energy maybe the ball roll as well…"
"I-It can't be me!" Ren cried, but he couldn't stop him from adding his name to the list no matter how much he pestered.
Ren was placed in a group of four other students of his class who gave him an equally icy greeting. He looked between them with a nervous smile. "Let's try our best to win today, alright?"
"This is all your fault. Why does it seem like everything is about you?" muttered one of the omegas with disdain.
"What do you think is about me?" Ren asked, but before he could get an answer a whistle was blown.
"Time to start! First game: Knock out Tug of war!" Tamura called.
And so the games began. With the rules thrown out for equal teams things became even more disproportionate than they were before. The classes with more Alphas simply won more, but Ren did notice that the omega students were actually trying when they had to participate.
The tug of war wasn't even close, but they did pretty well in the ball rolling race.
When they got to the calvary fight, piggybacking onto each other to knock out the person on top into the sand pit, things got weirdly tense. Ren could swear that the Alphas were holding back but, he had no idea why they would when this was clearly war.
Ren actually got to fight with Ryusei, just on different levels, and due to Ryusei's massive size it gave the beta on his shoulder a massive advantage so Ren lost quickly. When he rose to scowl at Ryusei he had already walked away.
They finally got to the three legged race and Ren was with the omega from earlier so he whispered to him. "Hey, what you said earlier…"
"What?" Was all he said, and they had no more time before they were off to the races. Ren tripped four times before it became clear they weren't going to be close to winning.
'I knew I was a bad pick!' Ren grumbled into the dirt. 'We'll be flattened like mochi and the omega moral will never recover! How will they ever listen to a weakling like me?!'
"Get up," The student said, helping Ren to his feet.
"Thanks… I guess everything is my fault." Renn sighed, clearly disheartened.
"Yeah. Hm," The student frowned and crossed their arms. "Okay, I guess it's not ALL your fault really."
"Then what isn't?!" Ren loudly whined.
"Whatever Akagi-kun said to make all the Alphas turn on us. Happened overnight…"
"Huh?" Ren asked, but they were pushed to the side as the next occurred. Ren pestered the omega hidden behind the bleachers after grabbing water, as their class picked someone else for the next event.
"Why's them being mean suddenly have anything to do with me?" Ren asked.
"Well there's a rumor. The Alphas are banned from talking to you."
Ren stared, mouth agape.
"They're… they're what!?"
"It's only a rumor: there's no proof but, they act like it is. It would have been fine if it was just us keeping your privacy, but now they act like we did something wrong when we're only doing what they told us to."
They suddenly held out a hand. "Yazawa Chihei."
"Oh. T-Takeshita, Akira?" Ren greeted back.
"Why do you sound confused about your own name?" Chihei asked. And Ren could only weakly smile back.
Ren was about to return to the stands to prep for more events, but suddenly thought of Shino. He looked around for him but couldn't find him with his class so he walked back to look around. As he looked through the back wings he heard the sound of people fooling around and turned away. Was it just him or was it becoming more frequent as the day went on?
"Is that all you have to say?" A familiar voice laughed. "I thought you wanted something from me."
Ren couldn't help a curious look over to see Hayashi Ruota. He could only hear murmuring so he tried to get closer to see who he was with.
"You're oh so interesting. Why do you care about the disputes between the Alphas and omegas when you made the choice to abandon them?" Ruota said sensually into Shino's ear, running a hand up another student's shirt feeling their chest.
"Will you tell me?" Shino said, words ice cold.
"Nothing comes for free…" Ruota murmured with a sickening satisfied smile. "You want nothing to do with me but you need me," He gave a haunting chuckle. "Shall I give you what else you need? I wonder if you're dying to reveal yourself to me. I'd be the only one to know, to smell it… now isn't that simply priceless?"
Ren could finally see the other students' faces and called out to him with surprise. "Shino-kun?"
Ruota flinched and instantly pulled away. Ren ran up to Shino, obviously happy to see him. "Shino-kun, I have something to… uh."
Ren noticed Ruota's glare.
"It's you." He said, the harshest in his voice apparent, his eyes cold and harsh. He looked much more intense than his usual demeanor.
Shino stepped between them and pushed Ruota back. "Just go."
Ruota regained his usual composure and silently turned and walked away.
Shino smoothed down his shirt as Ren sighed with relief. "Good riddance. He didn't do anything weird to you, right?" Ren asked, but didn't actually believe anything did. Shino wasn't like the other kids that were messing around after all, for one he was a beta and they were usually pretty normal.
"I'm fine. What did you want?" Shino sighed and leaned against the wall.
Ren explained the rumor he heard earlier, sitting down next to him.
"I'm sure it's not true," Shino responded. "The student council is infamous for being stringent and pushy, but hard to upset. So any of them going out of their way like that is a big deal. It would require something of major significance to cause so much of a stir… you know?" Shino looked at him but Ren had buried his hands into his hair and buried his face into his knees.
'Really!? Man, I really am public enemy #1 to the Alphas!!'
Shino tried to calm him down. "It might just be something being used. They probably roped you in as fuel for their fire."
'What do you mean? I AM the fire here!' Ren silently weeped.
"Relations between Alphas and Omegas aren't ever peaceful anyway," Shino went on. "This security in this place gives is only temporary, after all. There's the world outside still waiting for us." Shino looked more troubled than usual, staring off into space.
Ren looked up confused. This was one of the few times someone has ever mentioned the outside to him, but it was so unexpected he had nothing to say.
Shino raised a finger. "While you're listening can I ask… what's up with the shadow troupe?"
"Huh, troupe?" Ren asked, and Shino pointed vaguely forwards past the wings, but Ren couldn't see anything.
"Not very sharp eyed are you?" Shino stated bluntly. "Try looking a little closer."
Ren didn't know what he meant but tried anyway, trying his best to follow his eye.
Finally he saw a face hiding in the shadows, Teru was glaring at him, recognizing him by his dark blond spiraling curls. Ren didn't expect to see him there, and the moment they locked eyes he was already gone.
"What?!" Ren gasped. How long had he been there?
Shino cleared his throat. "Hinaguchi-senpai usually doesn't mean harm, I think he's trying to protect you. He just has a certain way of doing it…scary if you aren't careful." Shino nervously smiled but, Ren didn't see it. Ren was not listening.
'I'm being stalked?! How did I not notice that before?!' He internally fretted, now silently reconsidering his stance on the guard being fine after all. He just couldn't understand them!
The previous event ended so Ren and Shino returned to their classes for more activities. His teacher finally had mercy on him seeing him slump over after the obstacle course and Ren got to rest until the final event.
Ren stood in line at the starting line as they finally began to scavenger hunt. A few rows down Ren could see Akagi searing eyes on him. This was no longer a contest about competing classes, this was about Alphas and Omegas, and that was made clear when each class chose only one Alpha and Omega to participate per class, and the pure animosity between them made it clear they were competing against each other.
That made Ren all the more excited. They all felt they had a chance, exactly what he hoped! Not even the Alpha student glaring at him was messing with his mood, so he completely missed the weird look he gave to the other runners, instead focused on giving Teru who was in the running a thumbs up. Regardless of his intentions or his opinion of him, Ren got a lot of confidence seeing him! Teru turned away, not meeting his eye.
Everyone grabbed their paper from the jar folded so the words couldn't be read.
"Students were asked to pick objects that can be found within the school grounds, under 15 kilos, and they have up to 45 minutes to find the item on your paper," Tamura explained. "The team with the least total sum time will be declared the winner so try to help your fellow teammates reach the finish line quickly!" He then smiled then winked at the students, looking much too excited. "Allllright~! Three, two, one… START!" He shot the starting pistol and the crowd cheered.
Ren quickly unfolded his paper and read the words.
His face went blank.
'Huh? W-What? What the heck is this!?'