[A/N: Sorry for a 5 year wait … I stumbled across my own fanfiction and decided to finally finish Chapter 4]

July 9th 2007:

The morning sunrise illuminated the curtains of Yukino's bedroom. It was fortunate for her that in two weeks time would be the beginning of the Summer Holidays. Yukino woke up, brushed her teeth, took a shower, changed her clothes and walked to school. Fortunately, today Miki was there at school that day so Yukino didn't feel alone for that week. However, her relationship with Reina worsened and as a result Reina made friends with another group of girls in the classroom.

As the day dragged on it was time for Ms Hiraoka to teach her class. Although her inexperience of teaching was present at time, today she looked very determined. On the front desk was a pile of papers, she turned to the bored and wrote the characters in hiragana "I-JI-ME" (Bullying)

"What kind of rubbish is this?" one of the male students groaned.

"Please be quiet," Ms Hiraoka spoke gently the murmurs grew briefly before they died down. "Although you may find this topic to be something that doesn't seem to be relevant with the subject we are doing at the moment. I believe it is best that we discuss this important issue as much as we can."

Yukino gazed at Ms Hiraoka's determined and ambitious eyes. Did she hear about the bullying incident as well?

"Bullying is a major contributor to many of the suicides that occur in high school. Just recently, one of our own students took her own life due to bullying." Ms Hiraoka introduced "I won't call out any names, but instead I have this exercise for you. I want everyone to write an essay on your thoughts on bullying. These thoughts will not be marked but instead I will be reading them and seeing the common points many students have with each other."

As Hatori and Yukino both received the paper, they jotted down some ideas. Yukino looked diagonally on her right Manami was also writing her essay. She turned back to hers and looked at her notes.

Write thoughts on bullying

Anecdotes

The ripple effect?

[Bullying]

Kadokura Yukino

I have many thoughts about bullying. The thought of bullying occurs as a child grows up is widely debated amongst the mass. I absolutely disagree with this idea.

Bullying does not happen only in schools but in places like the workplace, social gatherings…etc. But the main question that I have been thinking when I am writing this essay is "Why do people bully?"

I recall there was an incident where a class received calls which "ordered" them to ignore one student. This student was popular with friends from her junior high school.

Yukino turned to Hirose Nodoka her former idol, she was also a victim of school bullying but ironically she became a bully with the people who bullied her.

However when the tables were turned to the student who didn't know she was bullying her, history repeated itself once again. Are these motives moralistic? Is this why people bully? Is it revenge? Is it strength or is it Superiority?

After twenty minutes, Yukino concluded.

In conclusion, bullying is a crime which can cause major damage to a person's wellbeing and can cause a ripple effect from the bully and those who are bullied to the ones who are around them.

Class finished and Yukino handed her essay to Hiraoka-sensei and went to have her lunch on the rooftop with Miki.

"That was a strange class wasn't it?" Miki asked

"What do you mean?" Yukino inquired

"Hiraoka-sensei does things with good intentions doesn't she," Miki stated looking over the horizon where the city landscape was clearly visible to her "But, I must say the classroom doesn't seem to be respondent to the issue that she wants to address."

"It's possible that they don't want to be the scapegoats if the true perpetrators are exposed so they must join in," Yukino suggested. Miki ignored the landscape for a brief moment and looked at Yukino sternly.

"Isn't this what Reina would do?" Miki asked.