Chaoskouji

Arc 4 Chapter 12.5.4 - SS Kushida 2

Once again, we won another exam, thanks to the brilliant leadership of Kiyotaka. It was great to be getting more points and moving up the rankings. I would be receiving 25,000 points a month from Ryuuen thanks to Kiyotaka, and every bit helped. Having to be social and friends with everyone meant I constantly had to spend money.

Thank god that Kiyotaka cooked meals on my nights off, or I wouldn't be able to afford to eat.

I didn't care about the class competition, not really. The allure of 100% placement didn't bother me. I was competent enough that I could get myself into whatever I wanted on my own merit, or just find a wealthy man and live my life through high social circles, fulfilling my greatest desire. It was nice to have more points but having to fight with other classes only made my job to befriend everyone and learn all their secrets that much harder.

But everything was getting so much more complex. Kiyotaka found me useful, and kept me by his side in the exams, pushing me into a position of leadership. It wasn't where I wanted to be, because there was no faster way to alienate friends than to lead a battle against them, but... I suppose I could put up with it.

He had promised to keep me out of the leadership role and had been getting Horikita and Hirata to take over. But if he really needed my help, I suppose I probably wouldn't mind.

There was no one else he trusted, after all. Only me.

It was a scary thought. Kiyotaka was such an enigma, someone I didn't understand at all. And yet, he trusted me. And I trusted him.

I don't even know why I opened up to him. Things I hadn't ever told to my closest 'friends', feelings I had never admitted out loud, to anyone ever. And yet, I had told him. All of my darkness, my hatred, everything that was wrong with me, I for some reason let it out to him.

And he didn't care. He still trusted me, even after all that.

It was... something new. Something different. Never once in my life had I opened up to anyone, let anyone know the real me. And yet here was the biggest enigma, because that was the only word I had to describe Kiyotata, I had ever met, and he didn't even care.

This feeling... what was it?

Even now, looking back, it was embarrassing to remember how I acted. Throwing myself at him, like a lovestruck teenage girl. That wasn't me. I was the one who knew the secrets of those girls. No, it was joy. Hope, a ray of light in my dark life. The first person to accept the real me. How could I ever give that up?

The apathetic, emotionless, ruthless genius who had no idea what a normal life was like. Constantly I was seeing him try things that no one else would. Weird, unusual things, much like a child. He tried five times watered down coffee, just to see what it was like.

And then there were the things he said. About never experiencing trust, about never having a friend, or being close to his parents. It wasn't completely unusual, but there was something strange about it, something unnatural...

Ah, but I couldn't understand him. It was enough that Kiyotaka trusts me.

I had opened myself up to him. It was something I never thought I'd do in my life, not truly, but I had. And now there was no choice but to stand by his side, not that I'd ever choose anywhere else to be.

Kiyotaka offered me power, influence, but most of all...

He offered me genuine, indiscriminate friendship. Something I had never once had in my life. It was amazing, the warmth of another human who cared. Something I had missed for as long as I could. He filled a gap inside of me that I had forced myself to ignore, until I no longer remembered how a person should feel.