Classroom of the Elite: Checkmate

Chapter 16 - Passive

"... I like you! Please go out with me!"

Wait... what?

♙♘♗♖♕♔ 🄲🅷🄴🅲🄺🅼🄰🆃🄴 ♚♛♜♝♞♟

I admit, my emotional state wasn't the best.

Seeing Kiyotaka so close with Horikita-san yesterday hurt. The worst part was that I thought about their relationship all night and couldn't get a single whiff of sleep.

In short, I was a mess.

My lack of rest led to an inevitable downfall of any reason I still had in me, which prompted me to follow Kiyotaka after classes had ended for the day. He left the classroom without talking or saying goodbye to anyone, which meant that he was probably meeting up with someone who wasn't part of our class.

I knew that following him was wrong and a violation of his privacy, but... no — I had no excuses for my behavior.

Kiyotaka ambled down the stairs next to some other students neither of us knew or cared about. He continued towards the school building's entrance and glanced at the cluster of people in front of him. After staring at someone for a few seconds, he made a sharp turn left and vanished among the crowd.

I hurried outside the building after he was gone and looked around. Too many people crossed my line of sight during that time, so I had lost trace of Kiyotaka's figure in this mass of students.

"Uwaahhh!"

A loud scream rang through the area, whereupon every single person in the vicinity turned towards the source. Due to this sudden shift, I caught a glimpse of something I had never deemed possible.

The quiet and somewhat expressionless boy in my class had apparently sneaked around Ichinose-san from Class 1-B and scared her. Even though all these gazes were homing in on them, he didn't seem to mind this situation at all as he regarded the young woman in front of him with his usual stoic expression.

"Ayanokouji-kun no baka!"

A sharp pain pierced through my heart.

These words, the surprised yet gentle smile on her face, their familiar appearance, as if they had spent time with each other frequently, and the usual poker face that Kiyotaka wore...

It hurt.

It pained me that I wasn't the one receiving this scare.

That I wasn't the one smiling at him right now.

That I wasn't the one so close to him.

I knew little about Ichinose-san, but the bits and pieces I had gathered from the other girls in my class painted a clear picture about her as a person. During my time at this school, I had met her once, during our get-together with some of the Class B girls after Yamauchi-kun was expelled.

She gave off a kind and vibrant aura, which was unique to her alone. Even with the little knowledge I possessed about her and the other students at this school, I felt that she was even more popular than Kushida-san, which couldn't be an easy feat to accomplish.

The conflicting emotions that were swirling around inside me couldn't be explained with words.

The two of them looked cute together and I couldn't have felt more frustrated by this feeling.

Both him and I, I just wanted us to be happy.

Preferably together.

If it was Ichinose-san instead of me, I could at least rest assured that she would care for him as much as I would. She was a better alternative to Horikita-san, but I wanted to see neither of them with him.