"Are you sure you want to do this Kiyotaka?" Suzune asked me, unknowing to whether I would regret my decision in the future.
"I'm adamant," I replied, as lax as I usually sound. I would not regret my decision in the slightest. I've decided to leave my mark on this school, to become known and remembered. Thus, I will become a person who will be so unforgettable that when people bring up my name it's not just some random person who they 'think they've heard of'.
"You don't have to. You can use me like you used me in the past and stay hidden, controlling everything in the shadows. I truly don't mind Kiyotaka." I gently placed my hand on her cheek and maintained strong eye contact with her.
"I'm doing this for the benefit of our class. It's time I faced Sakayangi and Ryuuen head-on." I'll exclude Ichinose for now, she needs to learn how to be a true leader and overcome her defects before becoming even a minuscule offence against me. I do have a plan in mind and I'll inaction it when Class B inevitably drops to Class D. However, Sakayanagi and Ryuuen's chance of winning against me is also very minuscule.
"Although..." I started, "I believe you'll grow exponentially in the future to be able to oppose me, Suzune."
Her eyes widened as she quickly caught on to what I was implying, "Do you mean-?!"
"I'll be transferring classes in the future," I confirmed.
A wave of hurt clouded her eyes as she looked at me confused, "Why?"
It was a simple question really, and it came with a simple answer.
"Because I want to be buried."
Sakayanagi will come for me in due time just as Ryuuen is already planning but even with their combined or not combined efforts, they stand no chance.
She was evidently confused, she knew that I had secrets and capabilities far beyond what she could comprehend, "I'll give you more answers soon Suzune, now is not the right time." I said, removing my eye contact from hers.
"Do you not trust me, Kiyotaka?" She knew that I wasn't in love with her but she loved me. From the time we've spent together over the last few weeks, it's safe to say that she will only continue falling for me. It is but a wish for me to fall for her.
"I trust you." Liar. "However, what I'm keeping inside is something that you simply cannot know Suzune. You, your family, and your brother whom you treasure so dearly would be in imminent danger should it come to light that you know of my origins. I trust you completely, but please, do give me time."
Perhaps if I continue down the path I'm on in feeling these new emotions then maybe, just maybe, I'll tell her. I'd keep her a secret from my father and I'd protect her.
"Are you okay? Kiyo...?" She placed her right hand gently on my cheek, the smoothness of her skin feeling perfectly placed on my face. It was the second time she called out to me with that name, and... it felt right. Perhaps I am already falling.
Am I okay?
I suppose not. Growing up devoid of emotions with a brutal training schedule, learning things that I shouldn't even know as a child let alone at 15 years of age.
The white room torture method is used to make people go insane and they should go after maybe less than a month to get them to admit to heinous crimes but could anyone, even you reading this be able to last 15 years?
Would you go insane?
"I'm okay, Suzu." Liar.
She looked at me almost as if she didn't believe me but then her eyes widened as her thumb caressed my lips, the speed at which she pulled her phone out and took a picture of me was unprecedented.
"A warm, genuine smile is on your face..!" Even I had never seen myself with a smile and was shocked when I saw the picture.
Why was I smiling? Maybe, it was because someone had genuinely asked if I was okay, caring more about myself than herself.
"Shall we go to school now? If we don't leave now, we'll arrive late." I asked, we had spent a little too much time with our talk that we stayed in my dorm for an extra ten minutes.
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Suzune and I arrived in the classroom just as the bell went, which, of course, caused a lot of attention to be directed towards us.
"Right on time Horikita, Ayanokoji." Chabashira said, her eyes thinning as she watched us enter the room with the singing of the bell in the background, "It seems you won't lose points for your timely arrival."
"We lost track of time, apologies Sensei, for walking in so... on time?" Suzune bowed respectfully, giving me a glance to do the same. Everyone looked at us confused, not only because Suzune is usually one of the first to arrive but because we both walked in together nearly late.
"Yeah. Sorry." We walked towards our seats and sat down, waiting for her to start homeroom. She yapped on for some time until she left early, leaving us on our own. I looked at Suzune and nodded. She got up and walked to the front of the room.
"Can I have your attention please?" She said, clearing her throat causing everyone to look in her direction. She looked nervous with a hint of ashamement behind it.
"I have something to confess." She started, hooking everyone on to what she was about to say. I prepared myself to quickly explain afterwards.
"It was not me who led us to victory in the Island Exam." She admitted, "The truth is, I was used as a tool to achieve our victory. Without the person who carried us to victory, we would've ended up in last place," Describing herself as a tool caused her to grit her teeth, but alas, it was the truth.
"Huh-?!"
"What do you mean Horikita-san?!"
"Carried??! It was a team victory!"
Suzune looked at me and doing so, I stood up, my chair scraping against the floor causing everyone to go silent. My hands slid into my trouser pockets as I walked to the front.
"I was planning on staying a secret, but it seems I'll be stepping out of the shadows."
"What is this? A mystery anime?" Sotomura questioned, causing some laughter to echo through the room.
"Okay, Mr. mysterious anime antagonist~!" Yamauchi chimed in, Ike laughing at his words.
"Do any of you know how we truly won the island exam?" I asked, glancing over every one of them.
"Yeah! Horikita found the other leaders!"
"Horikita-san I get that he's your boyfriend but you're pretty much saying he's done all the work."
"Because he did." She muttered, "I was powerless in the exam, I lost our keycard for the exam to Class C, I failed to fight Ibuki, in fact, I lost miserably." She gritted her teeth at her failure.
"Suzune was ill and I turned that into an advantage for us to put it simply. However, let's dissect another incident, Sudo." I turned my attention to the red-headed basketball player and he looked right back at me, raising an eyebrow at the sudden mention of his name.
"Do you remember how you were about to be expelled for failing English? How you were one point off?"
"Yeah, Horikita-san went and told them to remark on it to see if I could gain any more points. Which I did, thankfully." He sighed a sigh of relief, reminiscing on his near expulsion.
"Wrong," I spoke, everyone already seemed to get angry at me with this one word.
"I left the classroom shortly after it was announced that you were going to be expelled. I confronted Sensei and did the only thing I could think of doing. Buying a test point. Of course, Suzune helped me seeing as it was 100,000 private points. And so, Sudo, you owe Suzune and me 50,000 points each for saving your ass from getting expelled."
"This is such bullshit!" Sudo shouted, slamming his fists on the table whilst glaring at me, "You can't buy a test point! That's practically cheating!"
"Did you not hear Sensei when we first arrived? Quote unquote, 'You can buy anything on campus using private points.' A test point falls into the range of anything. We all know that we can buy a class transfer and cancel an expulsion with 20 million points, so what difference does a simple test point create?"
The classroom went silent until someone spoke up, truth be told, I hadn't been expecting said person to say anything, "So you lied to us?" Keisei muttered, his voice darker than usual. He was stood up with his head down, looking at the table.
"Yes, I did."
A wash of worry flooded Harukas face as she sensed the falling of a friend group occurring. Arguments were rare, if not non-existent in our group.
"You could have told us all this information that we missed, but you just kept it to yourself?"
"Yes, I did."
He clenched his fists, "What now? Are you gonna tell us that you've been tanking your scores on your exam? I've noticed you've been getting straight fifties recently."
Well, I suppose it's now or never.
"If I wanted, I could have scored 100% on every exam." Suzune looked at me as if I had just dropped a bomb on her.
"Why?"
Keisei was getting quite frustrated over this matter, was he not?
"What good would that do?" I tilted my head, "If my scores had doubled for English, and I had scored a perfect score, do you think Sudo would have simply been one mark off of passing? Me scoring high would have only boosted the class average, thus making Sudo two or three points lower than the average. Do you really think anyone at the time would have sacrificed any scraps of points they had to save Sudo? Sudo was only able to survive the exams because Suzune and I sacrificed our own points, 50,000 each to save him. If we exclude Koenji, I don't even believe our class would have had 200,000 points in total, let alone higher. So was it really that bad of me to hold back on my scores Yukimura?" I changed his name back to his last name, creating a less friendly atmosphere between the two of us.
"But still-!"
"But still what, Yukimura, do tell me." We made striking eye contact.
"Kiyotaka... you don't have to dig into them like that..." Suzune put her hand on my arm, indicating that I should stop whilst looking at the class filled with shocked faces.
"I apologise for hiding the truth from you all. But now that everyone knows, we will be aiming for Class A and I will lead us, after all, some people want to fight me, isn't that right, Ryuuen, Sakayanagi?" I called out and a mysterious 'fufufu' and 'kukuku' was heard as the door to our classroom opened up revealing Ryuuen and his lackeys along with Sakayanagi with her lackeys.
"Kukuku, I knew it wasn't Suzune who was behind all of this. You fucked up my plans Ayanokoji." Ryuuen laughed, "Watch out Ayanokoji." He kukukued away with his proxy surrounding him, muttering about plans that probably weren't ethical or moral.
"Fufufu, I had not expected you to reveal yourself so early on, let alone at all. However, I will be the one to bury you my childhood friend." Sakayangi said, her cane in hand, looking directly at me. Suzune shot me a glare probably asking why I didn't explain such an 'important' detail to her.
(A/N guys idk when their little meeting took place so idk if it was before or after the island exam let's just assume it's happened tho)
"What the actual flip is going on," Yamauchi asked, hitting his head. However, his movement contradicts itself. He's hitting himself to try and fix his head but in truth, it's probably causing his brain cells to fly away. And if I were a brain cell in Yamauchi's body, I'd want to fly away too.
"Yeah, my mind is so confused right now... so like... Ayanokoji is a literally mastermind working in the shadows saving our asses and he and the cute leader from 1-A are childhood friends AND he's dating our Horikita-chan? Totally unfair! When's my life gonna turn to be cool like that?!" Ike was exasperated, how unfortunate that he was simply a below-average Japanese man. Well, at least he knew me.
"Never."
"Not in a million years."
"You wish."
It was almost as if arrows had shot through him at every insult he received.
"Shall we schedule a chess match, Kiyotaka?" She asked me.
"Tomorrow at 4 pm, at the library," I replied.
She nodded before leaving, the guy who dug Class A's grave in the island exam to Class C by betraying them and giving them their leader: Hashimoto and also another girl who always seems to be around Sakayangi... Kamuro I believe her name was.
Interesting
I suppose I'll leave the rest of the explanation to Suzune because right now, I cannot be asked to explain anything to these people.
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Word Count: 2277
A bit of a late update, but I was hunted yours to know that this mf'ing chapter was hard asf to write since it actually bores me to death.
SLAYY