Chaoskouji

Arc 4 Chapter 6 - Kasumi

I walked across the deck, making my way over to Kikyou. She was leaning on the railing, staring out into the darkness beyond, probably pondering thoughts more twisted and warped than anyone I had ever come across.

I reached her, but she didn't show any sign of noticing me, too lost in her own mind. I leaned next to her, resting on the railing, attempting the impossible task of seeing what it was that she could, to see the world in the way she did. A fruitless endeavour. One could never truly understand how someone else saw the world.

After a while, she suddenly noticed my presence next to her. A slight turn of the head, recognising the sleeve of a school uniform, eyes darting up to see my face, widening as they recognised who it belonged to.

"Oh, Kiyotaka-kun! I'm sorry, I didn't notice you there. I guess I got a little distracted, hehe..."

"Don't worry, there's no one around," I reassured her. She allowed herself to slump a little, shoulders dropping as the tension left her body.

"Oh, thank god."

She sighed, before moving to one of the chairs nearby and collapsing down on it, strings cut from the marionette that was Kikyou.

"Big day?"

"Big week. Really, I never thought a holiday would be so tiring."

There hadn't been a single moment on this holiday, for the last week and a half, where Kikyou had been able to guarantee a moment alone. There was always the risk of someone catching her, and she had nowhere private to retreat to. For someone living a lie, one that caused them to suffer, it was a cruel existence.

I stayed leaning against the railing, this time facing towards the seat she was lying on. It was hard to notice, mostly due to her skill with minimal make-up, but I could see on her face how much she was struggling. The bags under her eyes, almost perfectly hidden, proved just how little sleep she had been getting. The constant tension that led to small cramps and sores in her body, which she forced herself to get through with almost no outward evidence of her suffering.

Then there was the faint smell of vomit I could detect off the edge of the ship. I was fairly confident she didn't suffer from seasickness.

Kushida Kikyou.

She was a fascinating person; with the most twisted mind I had ever come across. Her ability to lie and deceive was near perfection, her understanding of how to manipulate a situation to her advantage was incredible. She routinely forced herself to do things she hated, pushing herself beyond healthy limits to get what she wanted.

She had told me why, or at least one version of why she was like this. It made sense, to an extent. She wanted to be the best. It was something I could understand well enough, but I felt there was something missing.

In a rare moment of honesty, she had told me her story. How she needed to be the best, and she knew she would never be better than everyone at everything, but she could be the best at being nice. In her own words, she would 'be nicer and kinder than everyone else'.

I knew she hadn't lied when she told me this. Everything she had said was the truth. It was the omissions I was curious about, and I couldn't allow such a gap in my understanding of her. Kikyou was the most important person to me in this school, and I was gambling all of my actions on being able to control her. If I was to do so, then I would need to know her, inside and out.

The only question now was how to find this out.

"Did you have a chance to catch up with your roommates?"

"Yeah, I went back for a bit, spent a couple of hours with them. I just needed to get out for a while. It's sickening, being around them."

I had seen her around every now and then when we weren't meeting up ourselves. Always, she was surrounded by at least two or three people, laughing and smiling perfectly, being the best friend one could ask for.