章 17: Chapter 17
Karma had always known about Asano Gakushuu.
A boy with an intellect to rival a genius but also a maturity that probably stemmed from trauma. Anyone could look at Asano Junior and see the daddy issues gushing out.
There was always something or the other going on with him, and everything seemed to stem from their deep seated family issues.
Maybe at one point Karma could have said the daddy issues were one sided, but with the amount of public humiliation the whole school had witnessed from both members of the family, he could safely say that it was very much mutual.
Just like how Asano Senior had messed up his son, said son also messed with his sperm donor.
It would actually be a funny show for him. If only, Asano Gakushuu hadn't taken one look at him and decided that he was something.
Karma didn't know what.
Asano Gakushuu did a thing. He looked at people and instantly decided they were 'his'. There was no similarity that he found between himself, Sakakibara Ren and Kamiya Hinata, and yet they were all people Gakushuu had taken in.
Akabane Karma would like it to be noted that he did not want to get involved in the family drama. Or the class drama.
So why the hell did he keep following Gakushuu?
Ren was the one who ended up confronting him on it.
"You can just go talk to him instead of lingering around here," Ren spoke up unexpectedly from beside Karma as he watched Gakushuu from a distance, rejecting a girl.
Karma absolutely did not startle. Or yelp.
Ren looked at the other boy with an amused look.
"I don't want to," Karma said flippantly, trying to play it off.
"Yeah, and you haven't been following him around," Ren replied sarcastically. "Did you think he hadn't noticed? You have met up at least 50% more this month than the last, and Gakushuu hadn't gone out of his way enough for it to increase that dramatically. So it's you who has."
Karma clicked his tongue.
"We're friends. It's not exactly a big deal," he admitted, feeling irritated at being exposed too easily. This was the problem with smart people.
The Principal induced partial blindness in people, but Gakushuu had always been a firm believer in looking at all the ugly truths of the world.
Probably another reason why he suffered so much under his father's guiding hand. He didn't want to just close his eyes and ignore people (himself or his father) in pain.
"Hmm," Ren roved a judgemental look over Karma's untidy uniform, lack of tie and wrong jacket on his shoulder and shook his head in disappointment.
"I don't know what he sees in you, but I'll help you just this once," Ren told him distastefully. "Gakushuu goes to the park to relax, and only goes to three cafes when he wants to be around people that aren't us. He hates anything sweet, so good job on Valentine's but he's possessive, so bad job by giving it to everyone in class A. Don't compare him to his father and-"
"Wait wait wait!" Karma interrupted, surprised at this sudden outpour of grossly personal information.
Generally, he would be up to sitting down and listing all the weaknesses and teasing Gakushuu about it, but he didn't miss the underlying implication.
"Why are you telling me all this?" Ren looked at him like he was stupid.
Karma sort of might be feeling a tad bit stupid.
"You can't spend time with him when it's just class A students and with the way you're going…" Ren wrinkled his nose like Gakushuu did when he saw something distasteful.
"... You don't like me but you're encouraging me to be friends with him?" Karma clarified.
Ren nodded readily.
"I'm representing class A and doing this since half of them either want to kill you or will make you want to kill them. I doubt your restraint and replaced all of them by veto," Ren explained and Karma wondered what the fuck was going on, while also preening at the thought of class A being so wary of him.
How adorable.
But also, last he had seen, class A had been a pretty normal class, granted, that was almost a year ago now, but that still counted, right?
Gakushuu hadn't really talked about his class, so Karma hadn't ever cared, but he didn't expect them to confront him instead.
He hummed then accepted the information dump.
"I don't really care what you want from me, or him," Karma didn't really point but it was obvious he meant Gakushuu and Ren showed his first hint of a smirk at that, Karma narrowed his eyes at the response. "-but I'll just do what I want."
Something rubbed him wrong about this. He didn't like becoming predictable.
Also, he had literally never been told he had done a "bad job" at a prank, no matter how subjective the person saying it.
"And," Karma let a threat slip in his grin, and felt oddly satisfied at the way Ren watched him calmly instead of flinching or even getting wary, "maybe you should sleep with an eye open from now on. A friendly suggestion."
Then, Karma noticed that Gakushuu had already left and so he turned and walked away.
Behind him, Ren groaned, and Karma smirked, an idea to ruin their next few days forming in his head.
He was ticked off by the 'help', though. Karma's eyes flashed with irritation at the interference from class A.
Ren might have said Gakushuu was possessive, but Karma didn't particularly like people sticking their nose where it didn't belong either.
Karma would unravel Gakushuu's habits himself either way. He didn't need someone to spill all the secrets out at once.
Wasn't half the fun in getting to know someone, finding out their habits and quirks? And finding ways to use them against said person?
Then he hesitated for a moment.
Normally he would have turned around and gone back to get all the weaknesses in spite of his suspicions.
But honestly, it was fun competing against Gakushuu. And he hadn't checked Karma's files that were definitely in his father's office or the school system, either.
He shrugged and kept the option at the back of his mind, uninterested.
Either way, it didn't matter.
If he didn't want to, he didn't want to. Did the reasons matter?
Anaya liked Gakushuu.
Anaya hadn't noticed him because of his rank or his biological father. She noticed him because he took responsibility.
In the extended Mizukachi family, Anaya could count the number of responsible people on a single hand.
Old families like hers had about as much drama as irresponsibility. Her father being the most irresponsible one. He had cut all contact from his family, from the old money that helped him start his business and joined hands with the second more irresponsible person, her mother.
In a way, it was supposed to be in her blood.
But Anaya was born to two irresponsible parents who didn't want her.
Anaya was left to the Mizukachi family to do as they willed, and her father's ex-fiance, out of some goodness of her heart, raised Anaya to be the respectable proper lady she could be.
Anaya didn't learn business from her father, but she learnt about duty, about responsibility and confidence that could do anything.
And then Anaya went to Kunugigaoka and saw all these in Gakushuu. Her first attempt was greetings, then morning coffee, and then trying to know his friends.
She wasn't anywhere close to as smooth as she hoped she would be, and the position she yearned for was already taken by his childhood friend, Sakakibara Ren.
She spotted the new money on him the moment she saw him. But surprisingly, he was a decent human being, and an even better assistant.
Anaya chose a different route.
Competition wasn't the way to Gakushuu. It was through compliance, not obedience, but companionship.
Even Sakakibara let his guard down after a while and Anaya revelled in being one of the closest companions. She liked being beside Gakushuu and accompanying him for class representative duties.
Anaya didn't like Gakushuu, but she found him to be someone she could trust with her back, which was in a way, more important.
Her irresponsible parents remembered her existence when Kunugigaoka third year top student, ex-Vice President of the Student Council, won the international under 18 swimming bracket. Gakushuu entered the spotlight as the next Vice President and the only student scoring full marks in an exam in all subjects.
Anaya came under the public's eye and her parents came back with eager eyes.
Their irresponsible ways didn't change in the years Anaya hadn't seen them, and they asked her to accompany them and she got handed her father's company and suddenly he was talking about marrying her off?
If she was any less of the lady she was, she would have had them assassinated.
She was already well aware that sometimes, parents really didn't care. And sometimes they liked to pretend like they did.
Anaya wasn't stupid, nor irresponsible.
So she had to take over her father's company before he spouted more of his bullshit.
Also, her "fiance" he kept talking about had already been dealt with.
Her classmates were quite a bit more competent than just that. Unknowing, idiotic and brainless children weren't even worthy of competing against them, let alone asking for her hand in marriage.
If she were to marry, her future husband would have to work for it.
Hinata was a crybaby.
Everyone knew that. Amami, her definite bestie, knew that. Her mean friends knew that. Her amazing second bestie Gakushuu knew that.
But, she didn't like suffering.
She just couldn't avoid it.
There was nothing bad about being happy but, sometimes she couldn't keep it up
She couldn't keep a smile on her face when she knew her cousin was coming.
She couldn't keep a smile on her face at the thought of losing the last remnants of her dead mother due to a stupid hailstorm.
And she couldn't keep smiling when Gakushuu slipped .
Her heart had stopped in her chest. She had watched wide eyed as the boy who patted her head, who comforted her, who risked his life to get something she could live without.
Hinata couldn't laugh. She couldn't cry.
She could only watch him catch himself, injure himself for her.
What was the remnant of her mother when compared to the living breathing person in front of her?
Her mother was dead. She was gone.
Her mother was never coming back.
But the boy who risked his life to hold onto it was still alive and breathing and.
She was useless.
She was a terrible person to ask them to sacrifice even more for her.
It was Amami, the love of her life, her forever person, who finally resolved it for her.
She said, "Become strong."
Hinata didn't know what that meant.
But as the months passed by, she watched Gakushuu. She watched Ren and Anaya and Mori and everyone around her stand at the top with their eyes wide open and not look down.
And she thought, 'Maybe that's what strength was'.
She was a little bit of an airhead, but Amami had always been by her to stop her from walking into traffic or to stop her from tripping over the rooftop fence.
But she wouldn't always be there.
Amami had her own friends, and, Hinata realized, so did she.
She was close to Kazuki but Amami wasn't. Amami was closer to Anaya than Kimiko but the opposite was true for Hinata.
They wouldn't always be there for each other, and Hinata realized she needed the strength to let her go.
Because she had always been the weak link. She could smile, but not through her tears.
She could stand up again, but not ignore the pain like Anaya did.
She could ask for help, but she didn't have the strength to provide it if someone asked her.
What had studying been for her, but an escape?
Hinata had worked like never before for her rank in the top 5.
She had worked to reconcile with her terrible cousin, Tomoya.
She had worked.
And as second year went on and she naturally took up work from Ren without even being asked, she realized she had grown.
She looked around and Amami was working with Anaya. And Kimiko was already looking at her with impatience about their next job.
Hinata smiled brightly.
"Did you go deaf or something?" Kimiko mumbled, looking away. Hinata's smile brightened.
"Nope! I'm just happy about my friends!" Kimiko blushed, mistaking her words. But Hinata didn't correct the misunderstanding because, well, she wasn't wrong.
Kimiko hummed in acknowledgement.
Hinata smirked, a motion similar to Kazuki in his mischievous mood.
"Say, have you heard about that new cafe that opened up? I heard some good reviews…"
クリエイターの想い 
Siera_Knightwalker
Siera_Knightwalker Students of Class A:
Gakushuu
Ren, bestie
Araki, info gatherer
Tadashi Morisuke, rival
Miya, Morisuke bestie
Kazuki Mimeya, messy
Akira, sexist
Masachika Satoi, foodie
Seiji Shiba
Kaito, chika's alt
Asahi, tsun Shuu stan
Seo Tomoya, Hinata's cousin
Natsuhiko Koyama, minion #1
Kimiko, ballet gangster wannabe
Amami, introvert friend
Hinata, extro crier
Anaya, stoic babe
Keiji Shimizu, independent loner
Ayaka, loud baby
Miyuki, shyest
Tomomi
Satsuki
Emiko, tired of shit
Yuzuki, proud richie
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット