Look! There's Horikita - with Ayanōkoji!"
"She's always hanging out with that guy!"
"The two of them must really like each other!"
The comments being passed about herself made Suzune Horikita cringe. She was digested at her schoolmates' ideas that she liked the person she was sitting with. As far as she was concerned, nothing could be further from the truth, With her usual cold stare fixed to her face, she turned to face the boy right next to her. Kiyotaka Ayanōkoji was sat next to the girl, the gaze on his face as emotionless as ever.
"Why don't you just go off and leave me alone?" Horikita demanded rudely.
"'Cause I was sitting here first," Ayanōkoji answered in his monotone voice. "I didn't force you to come sit here next to me."
"Well I didn't expect being sat next to you would bring such humiliating comments my way."
Ayanōkoji raised an eyebrow. He didn't understand Horikita at all. The antisocial girl always insisted she didn't need friends and preferred to be on her own - yet whenever she saw the impassive, she hardly hesitated to come over to him. She hardly had any problems talking to him about what was on her mind. He was always willing to listen to what she had to say - regard of how scathing some of her remarks about him could be.
"Why on earth would anyone think we like each other?" Horikita huffed. "The idiots in this school never fail come up with such stupid scenarios!"
"Well, they're not all wrong in what they're saying..." Ayanōkoji murmured. "You are always hanging out with me."
"No." Horikita narrowed her eyes icily. "That isn't true. Hanging out is what friends do. You and I are not friends. We sit next to each other in class, we talk to each other and that's it!"
"If that really is it - then why are you talking to me now after class?" Ayanōkoji questioned. "I'm not stopping you from going off and basking in the isolation you try so hard to insist is superior to companionship."
Horikita stared. Ayanōkoji couldn't tell if she was taking his words into consideration - or was just taken aback by the sophisticated words he was using in his counterargument. Whatever the explanation for her expression, she kept it to herself as she turned away, gazing towards the sun setting over the school grounds.
"I just fail to see the logic of our schoolmates who are suggesting we like each other," she said. "It's not like you and I are alike in any way."
"Oh I wouldn't say that. The two of us are not too different. We haven't formed any bonds with our classmates or joined any groups; we just tend to keep to ourselves. It's like you and I are separate from the rest of this school."
"That's how I choose to be," Horikita insisted. "I had no intention of taking part in any social circles before even coming to this school. I willingly chose not to have friends. It's hardly surprising that you can't make any with your nature..."
For a moment, Ayanōkoji's gaze darkened. He had been struck by the crude comment Horikita had made about his lack of friends at the school. Her boorish words triggered something inside the strange boy. Something which had been there since his difficult childhood spent in the White Room.
"Guess you're right..." he sighed. "You and I aren't alike at all. After all, I'm much stronger than you..."
"Stronger than me?" Horikita sniffed. "I highly doubt that. Don't be so arrogant."
"Oh I am. I can easily overpower you, Horikita." Ayanōkoji stared at her coldly as his golden eyes glinted ambitiously. "After all, I know your weakness..."
"My weakness?" Believing she did not have such a thing which the boy had just brought up, Horikita glared at him, certain he was talking nonsense. "I have absolutely no weakness whatsoever, Ayanōkoji."
"Who's the one being arrogant now?" Ayanōkoji's gaze went even more bleak as he shuffled along the bench towards the young woman. "I guess you leave me no choice but to expose your weakness to bring it out of you."
Without warning, the brunette boy lifted up his hands. He directed them straight towards Horikita, grabbing a tight hold of her sides - which he started to mercilessly tickle.
"AHH!"
Horikita shrieked as Ayanōkoji's actions on her wiped the aloof look from her face. Her eyes went wide as she felt his hands gripping her sensitive spots on her body. All her self-control had been thrown to the winds as she felt the boy's fingers and thumbs brushing against her sides.
"Cut it out!"
Ayanōkoji ignored the girl's hysterical demands as he continued to tickle her. He felt her trying to squirm away, but only firmed his grip on her. She was just as helpless as she had been when he had first tickled her to snap her back to reality during the hearing between Ken Sudō and three Class-C students. There was no chance for Horikita to escape the grasp over the young man who had been raised as a child in the White Room, giving him abnormal strength and abilities.
"Aww, look at that! Ayanōkoji is tickling Horikita!"
"That's so cute! The two of them really do like each other!"
Through the torture she was going through, Horikita could hear the comments being passed about her and her attacker by some of their passing classmates. She wanted to correct them that they were wrong - but only cries and yells escaped her lips as Ayanōkoji kept tickling her. She felt her dignity slipping further away. What the boy was doing to her was degrading enough - but for it to look to their classmates all the more like the two of them were dating couldn't be any more humiliating for her.
This was not what the young lady had come to this elitist school for.
Still ignoring Horikita's hollers for him to stop, Ayanōkoji kept on tickling her. The expression on his face remained as blank as ever - giving away no hints over how powerful he felt over his tool who he was in total control of.
I hope this'll teach you, Horikita, he thought, that you shouldn't antagonise a guy who is an incredible expert - at piano and calligraphy.
