COTE: Rewritten

Chapter 3

The entrance ceremony was boring. That's it, really. Nothing worth talking about.

Although, I did gather a few clues whilst I blatantly ignored Sakayanagi.

Eh? You wanna know what clues I'm talking about? I'm not telling you! It's a surprise.

You'll find out later when the party starts. For now, I need Kikyou.

Ah, and there she is! Speak of the devil. Walking next to her new friends. There's no doubt in my mind that they're creating plans for the free period we have.

Unfortunately for you girls, I need to take your friend for a bit.

"Oh, hey Kikyou!" I called out to them.

The girl (toy), turned around to face me (her owner). 

"Oh, it's you!" She exclaimed with the same enthusiasm as I had. "Did you need something?"

"Can we talk right now? It's something important." Technically, it wasn't a lie. It was important, extremely important. Just, not for the reasons one would expect- I was just really, really bored.

"Oh, um. Sure!" 

"Um, Kushida-san, who is this person?" asked Onodera.

"He's, um..." Kikyou seemed to be struggling to answer her friend's question. I'll guess I'll help her out.

"I'm Ayanokouji Kiyotaka," I introduced myself, to both Kikyou and her friends. Since I hadn't even told my own toy what the name of her owner was. Silly me! "Kikyou and I are childhood friends. We went to the same kindergarten and elementary school before I moved away for middle school. I didn't expect to see her here!"

"Y-yeah! That's right!" Kikyou stammered. As expected, her friends nodded their heads in understanding, completely ignoring Kikyou's strange body language.

Of course, how could I expect a few defects to notice something this subtle? My expectations are too high.

"You wanted to talk, right? Then let's go!" Kikyou grabbed my sleeve and dragged me far away from her new friends. Usually, I would prefer to be the dominant with my toys. But maybe being submissive isn't too bad every now and then.

As my mind continued to wonder, we abruptly stopped behind a random building.

"What is wrong with you?!?" Kikyou screamed. "I try to talk to you on the bus, then you tell me to stop faking my personality and then call me by first name when I haven't even introduced myself to you! And now, you're telling people that we're childhood friends??" 

Oh, she's mad. Toys aren't supposed to get mad at their owner, are they? What should I do?

Do people punish their toys? 

"Kikyou, please shut up. You're my plaything. Just go along with whatever I say, and I won't reveal who you really are. And as a bonus, I might just tell you how I know your name." 

"Your plaything?? I'm not just some toy! And what's stopping me from telling everybody that you tried to rape me?" Kikyou attempted a counter attack. 

"Your parents moved to Shibuya last summer, didn't they?" 

"H-how do you know?" It failed.

"One call is all it takes for you to become an orphan, Kikyou. Don't make any wrong moves. Just let your owner decide things for you".

"You're kidding me, right?" Kikyou had long lost her composure. Her large smile that came with her facade had disappeared, and her eyes were wide with shock.

"You have a pretty shitty home life, don't you? You, your sister, and your parents live in a single, two bedroom apartment. Your rent continues to rise, and both your parents work to earn enough for you and your sister to eat." 

I turned around, facing my back towards Kikyou. If I saw her facial expressions, it would be far to easy to determine what she would do. I had to test my very first toy, after all. A toy's endurance and quality is of the utmost importance, so there really isn't any point in keeping a broken play thing. 

If she doesn't believe me and ends up reporting me for attempted rape, then I will do exactly as I said. However, if she accepts the truth, and sees me as her owner, then she'd have passed the test. There's no way for me to lose, just different ways for me to have fun. 

Just how I like it.