The World Was Slam-Dunked on Me, And I Wanted to Learn the Moves

Learning to blend in was the foundation of our society, but also the failure of the outsiders who didn’t match the rest of the group. To blend and blend and blend until I was nearly invisible, having lost all identity except the secrecy of my nighttime hobby… was that all that was left for me?

No. Again, I declare, no.

I rode to Wakami’s estate in the dead of night.

If we could remove the leash we liked wrapping around each other, we would. Probably. The problem was that I was frantic for money, and I was on a tight time frame. Rash decisions would come naturally. So, it was best to cool off and avoid them however I could. Therefore, it was time to cook.

Yes. I was cooking to cool down and save myself and my family’s future. I wasn’t running away. I wasn’t…

No.

Forget about the money. I needed to crack my cage, this iron shell of locked self-control. I needed her, a classmate who was uncontainable, unrepentant, and burned with what I was apprehensive of: unapologetic desire.

I needed to demand to be known.

Therefore, I would meet the person who shattered decorum by her very existence, as I did in my past.

Saionji Wakami, the beautiful disaster, spinning as a ballerina as she made the world lay itself bare.

Field: Finance Conglomerates

Collective Rank: Second in the Academy

Lineage: Unconfirmed but whispered to have scandalous ties

Radiant, reckless with a beauty that made the Academy Upper Echelon nervous. Didn’t believe in shame, turned every weakness into a crown. Her admirers thought her insane curiosity was a performance. Least to say, it wasn’t; her terrifying nature was who she was.

“Why do you fold yourself so neatly, Shinohara-san? Who taught you to live like you’re waiting to die safely, huddled in a corner all alone?” What she did to me? She undermined my code of conduct and threw me onstage to force me to exist. She shone a spotlight on my private chef-side, “If food is the only way to love, because you believe everything else you touch will break, then yes, I’ll eat every last bite. But don’t mistake my hunger for acceptance. I simply want to taste how much it hurts you to feed me,” and destabilized everything better than I currently could myself. Wakami could turn herself into a mirror that I hated, but couldn’t look away from.

Where Yui comforted and cultivated, Wakami enflamed. Where Kotone re-opened my eyes to the world, Wakami threw a globe at me dared me trick it like a basketball, more and more matching the growing roars inside of me.

I finally snapped today, when Wakami dared me to cook at the Academy, a challenge, livestreamed. Five classmates were surrounding us at the time. Wakami revealed she made them sign contracts of secrecy after I exploded at her for the dearth of care. It wasn’t Shinohara Rintarō bearing the red necklace, it was Shinohara Rintarō, the MidnightChef.

Laughing her head off, she knew what she was doing, playing with the twirling globe. I could sue her, but that wouldn’t help my family business or remove this red necklace on time. The courts wouldn’t settle on time.

She dunked the world on me. Slam!

The buzzer was about to go off. I had to settle on time; I had to settle with myself.

Not because I was ready.

Because Wakami called me a coward. Because Yui looked in me. Because Kotone believed in me. Because I finally desperately wanted to remember the feeling of the globe in my hands.

I arrived at her estate. Wakami didn’t show herself in the kitchen. Per usual, she vanished as a spirit of chaos, but the fire remained in my lungs as I prepared her dessert.

Until ultimately, I approached Wakami’s dining room for my opening debut, my first dinner with the perfect Academy queen who performed flawlessly, but once alone, was even more broken than I was. Our co-dependence was a tragedy that could devour us both.

She was uncannily quiet. I, for the first time in a while, wasn’t too happy for it.

Subsequently, when the clinking of our utensils stopped, and our lips were cleaned... “I want to know about weaknesses. Within myself. I have the unpleasant suspicion mine were confiscated at birth, nurtured to be the perfect heir to the torch of my conglomerate. My apologies for living vicariously through you, Rintarō-san.”

“You have weak points, Wakami-san. You struggle with spicy food.”

“True. True!” She cackled, “How exquisite that triviality can still conquer a person like me. Perhaps that’s why you interest me, Shinohara Rintarō. I am sure you find ways to connect to others’ shortcomings in manners only you can. A complete commoner, staring too long into the abyss… and still capable of kindness. Someday, won’t you make time to save me too?”

I said nothing. I wanted to try.

“I will,” I held at last. “But before that, there’s someone else I must be of use to. I’m not yet strong enough to do it alone.”

“Humbled, are we? That necklace has done its job.”

“More than just the mark drives me,” I replied. “The people I’ve met showed me I require support to carry this. When the world threatens to drown you, strength lies in asking for help. I’m giving it everything I have.”

“You cannot save her. You can’t. You will fail her mother as well.”

“I can do what I can. If you’re willing to lend your hand, I’ll do everything within my power to make the outcome different.”

“As much as I despise confessing it, with permanence, people remain lost if they are carried. Salvation comes from deciding to stand. It must be born within. Outside influence only provides the grounding. You became her reason. That is all. That is everything.”

“You contradict yourself, Wakami-san. You ask to be saved, but denounce the idea of being carried. Do you want my help, or do you merely want to see everyone fail interestingly?”

“Both, Rintarō. I adore my fractured nature. I cherish it as a singular treasure. If I possessed any desire to be reduced into something obedient or sweet, it would merely be to enjoy the intellectual challenge of climbing out of such a state. I seek to be moved; I crave the thrill of the unexpected. I must break the equations of this world that yield only singular solutions. My curiosity demands I witness if people can escape their cages entirely of their own volition.”

“I think you’re underestimating Kotone-san.”

“Do I?”

“You are,” I revealed. “And me. I’m here exclusively to secure assistance, separate from your tests or admiration.”

Wakami’s laugh came as if my audacity pleased her more than any compliment ever could. “Then you will owe me a debt with weight. A debt that endures even after you feel better.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I jested. “I’m already drowning in debt.”

“You are capable of climbing out. That’s the way I see you now. The kitchen knight kneels before yet another queen. How darling. And still, how admirable. You kneel, but with your dignity intact. It’s enough to make me want you too.”

I held her gaze with conviction, because she was asking instead of daring, and such a thing was infrequent. “Then assist me. And watch closely.”

“I intend to,” she articulated luminously. “Purely out of fascination. Help your Kotone-san. Protect your precious little store. Destroy what must be destroyed. And if it breaks you, so be it. When you return, bruised but changed, I want your scars. All of them. I want the data. I want proof that broken things can move, not because they are dragged, but because they choose to run.”

I nodded. “I’m done running from things. It’s time I chose my path.”

Wakami beamed as if such a success was the flavor she was dying to taste, superior to any of my meals. “Then you will have proven something rare,” she declared from the view above. “And I will want more. Show me, my darling chef, your belief in people.”