“Hey, I don’t think he’s enjoying that. You wouldn’t like it if people talked shit right in front of your face, would you?”

It was the first time someone had ever stood up for him. “Playboy.” One of the bullies sneered at Kanae, defiantly.

He wondered when the rumors started. He was nowhere being cool or beautiful or even a playboy. It was ridiculous. Kanae could only give a bitter smile in return. What did they know? And yet, the rumors circulated so quickly that they were taken for truth:

“He sells himself.”

“One of his customers bought him a house.”

“He likes girls, but he prefers boys. He has one first-rate body.”

“He worked as a host and he was number one at his bar. I’ve seen him recently in Kabukicho.”

He wasn’t from Tokyo and didn’t know anyone there, so he didn’t have any sort of reputation or friends to help him fight the overwhelming surge of nasty gossip. He was just the weird “new kid” that everyone speculated about, who was too pretty to be normal and too quiet to be innocent. Hence, the rumors became truth, and suddenly Kanae became known as the whore who would sleep with anyone, male or female. It was unbelievable that anyone could call him a whore without even knowing about him or his prior relationships, but he wasn’t about to make his situation any more difficult than it already was. It was hard enough to get used to life in such a big city, so if that’s what everyone wanted to think, then he might as well let them.

As long as he knew the truth himself, that’s all that mattered. It became so commonplace for others to ask him who he was currently sleeping with that he learned to just laugh it off. And yet, that was no easy task. Almost every time he entered a public place like the school cafeteria, someone would ask him about these supposed “boyfriends” and things would get really nasty, really fast. With people so eager to provoke him, he learned to just ignore them and keep his cool. That’s how he’d survived.

“When was your first time? Where? With who? How many people have you gone down on? And…what’s your favorite position?” the stranger had asked, turning to the others with a grin.

The boy had chuckled. The bastards didn’t take well to being interrogated. They immediately fell silent, not expecting to be given a taste of their own medicine. Kanae felt trapped; he didn’t want to cause any trouble, but now it seemed like he had. “I guess it’s pretty crowded in here. A bar would be a more comfortable setting, hmm? Come on, lets go.” Not even giving Kanae the chance to answer, the stranger took his right hand. Kanae was pulled to his feet, finally realizing who it was that had spoken in his defense.

“Oh!” Kanae gasped aloud. The person who had stuck up for him was the most famous person in the university!