A New Masterpiece (COTE x OC)

Chapter 5 - Class Leaders

"Oh, I'm sorry. Well, first off, were you in a fight?"

"Depends. What do you consider a fight?"

"Anytime someone resorts to violence for a solution."

"Well... then I may have been in a fight..." I was hesitant to tell Ichinose this, she definitely seemed like the person to have a zero-violence policy. A purely good person who would never dream of her, or her companions using violence in any situation.

Ichinose looked up at me with a surprised and... slightly angry face. "How could you do that, Fukumoto-kun?!"

"It's not like I wanted to fight them or anything, I merely stepped in to stop them from bullying someone. It just so happened that they were willing to use violence. All I did was defend myself, I never intended to hit them."

"They were bullying someone?"

"Yeah, when I came near the alleyway, I heard some yelling, so I came to check it out, and they were forcefully trying to get a student to give them points. So I stepped in."

"So you didn't fight them just on a whim," Ichinose replied.

"No, ma'am. I did not," I responded back, giving a slight salute to Ichinose.

"Hehe~ I didn't know you were like that Fukumoto-kun. I mean most people might've walked by without a second thought, I know I would've stepped in, but the fact you did is amazing."

"You overestimate me. Any normal person would've probably gone to help, so I just did what was normal."

"Normal? I don't think anything you did was normal. From what I saw,you were standing up to four people. Ryuuen-kun and Albert-kun were some of those people too. That's truly astonishing, you must be very brave!" Ichinose looked at me with a warm smile as she finished her compliment.

"No, it wasn't about bravery for me. I just hate bullying."

"You hate bullying? I can understand that bullying is uncalled for and harmful, but you seem to have deeper feelings about it."

"I don't like to admit it. But you could have considered me a bully when I was little. I was that kid in the neighborhood that bullied everyone." I said to Ichinose sheepishly revealing a bit of my embarrassing past.

Ichinose looked stunned. She looked like a little kid who just realized Santa isn't real. "Y-you, were a b-bully?"

"I hate to admit it, but yeah. But, I did learn from my mistakes, I realized what I was doing was wrong and hurt a lot of people. So, I promised myself to change. Now, I try my best to stick up for those who are being bullied. It may be a selfish reason, but I made myself believe that if I could help people now, it would wash over my past mistakes."

Ichinose paused and stared at me for a few seconds, digesting the new information I threw her way. "I don't think it's a selfish reason. Wanting to change and not make those mistakes is good and all. But, you must remember that you still made those mistakes,and they won't be wiped away, no matter how much good you do now. You just have to try and move in a better direction now that you know the mistakes you made."

"I guess your right about that..."

I don't remember the last time I had a heart-to-heart conversation like this with someone. We may indeed have only met a few days ago but, I didn't feel nervous about confiding in Ichinose. She made me feel valued and heard, she didn't offer any "Oh, that's fine, your great now!" type responses. She gave me true and meaningful advice.

I turned to look at Ichinose and gave her a smile, "thank you for today."

Her face developed a pink blush at my response. She quickly averted her gaze from me in hopes of hiding the bright blush on her cheeks.