Regret & Resilience

~Reina’s Perspective~

As soon as the heavy door slammed shut, I got hit with a wave of guilt; my hand was still hanging awkwardly in the air, trying to reach out to the space where Kaito was standing just moments earlier.

My hand slowly dropped limp to my side. I sank heavily back into my chair, my knees suddenly feeling too weak to even support my own weight.

“What did I just do...?" I whispered the words, sounding small and hollow against the empty walls.

The realization tasted like poison on my tongue... Did I really just call him a liability?

The only person who understood me as a person, the only person who truly saw me beyond the suffocating weight of the Kujo name.

He was the one who had walked into this room early specifically because he was worried about the target on my back... He was concerned about me, and I had thrown his kindness right back in his face to protect my own pride.

“No... You don’t have to explain, Reina... I get it.”

His voice played back in my mind, but it wasn't the anger I had expected that terrified me. It was the complete, utter lack of it. Kaito Akizuki, the most stubborn person I knew, the type of guy who would never go down without a few jabs, just looked at me with eyes that were completely hallowed...

I buried my face into my crossed arms on the desk. "I didn't mean it," I choked out to the empty room, tears of frustration and immediate regret finally stinging the corners of my eyes. "Kaito, I didn't mean it..."

But he wasn't there to hear it.

I waited for him to come back, but twenty minutes dragged on, and class was about to start, he still has yet to come back. Every time the doors swung open, my head snapped up in a desperate hope that he would walk through.

He never did.

When the professor finally walked in, settled at the podium, and started calling out the attendance roster, the anxiety in my chest turned to pure dread.

"Akizuki, Kaito?" the professor called out, looking over his glasses.

There was no response. Just a brief, heavy silence that felt like it was suffocating me from the inside out. The professor let out a quiet grunt, scribbling something down, and marked him as absent.

I stared fixatedly at the blank notebook page in front of me, my vision blurring.

Congratulations, Reina. You’ve completely driven away the only real connection you ever had.

~Kaito’s Perspective~

I sat there in the library for a long while, reading about the lessons that I was supposed to be listening to today. And the next thing I knew the afternoon bell rang.

I just slowly packed my things into my bag and walked out of the academy, while Reina's words still clouded my mind.

By the time my shift at the konbini started, I was only a shell, with emotionless eyes and almost mechanical movements.

I was leaning against the back counter, the glow of my phone reflecting in my eyes. I was looking at it again—the photo. Reina’s small, hidden smile. The way her shoulder was almost touching mine. It felt like a relic from a different lifetime.

"Kaito, if you stare at that screen any harder, you're going to set the store on fire," Haruna said, slamming a crate of drinks down. She walked over, her brow furrowed. “Oh? Are you in with the scary girl? You guys look really good together.”

I quickly tapped the power button and placed the phone down on its screen. Which only raised Haruna’s concern.

"Kaito? You’ve been in a trance since you clocked in. You look... destroyed."

“...”

"Did something happen? You've got that look people get right before they give up."

"I don't want to talk about it," I said, my voice sharper than I intended.

"Kaito—"

"I said I don't want to talk about it, Haruna!"

The outburst echoed in the quiet store. Haruna flinched, her eyes widening. A surge of guilt, but I didn’t have the energy to apologize.

I stared down at the floor, the tiles blurring into a gray mess. "Haruna... tell the manager I’m taking the day off tomorrow. I... I can't come in."

Haruna’s concerned expression vanished, replaced by genuine, heavy worry. "Kaito, Don't do this. If you stay home and rot in your apartment, you’re just going to overthink until you go crazy."

"Look, whatever happened, it’s just noise. Come to work tomorrow." She reached out, her hand hovering near my sleeve, trying to anchor me. "We’ll just do the inventory in the back. You won't even have to deal with customers. Just don't isolate yourself."

"I've made my decision." I was looking at her, but I wasn't really seeing her. “I... just need to disappear for a bit," I said, grabbing my things.

"Kaito, listen to me—"

"I'm sorry...” I interrupted, storming out the konbini, my steps sounding like thunder against the tiles.

"Kaito! Come back!" she called out after me. But I didn't turn back. I pushed through the glass doors, the chime of the bell sounding like a final, mocking goodbye.

I didn’t head home.

The walls of my cramped studio apartment would’ve made everything worse, I just walked, aimlessly throughout the quiet side of the city, my shoes hitting the pavement in a rhythmic, hollow thud that matched the emptiness in my chest.

"You're a liability I can't afford."

When she said those words, I didn't get angry; if anything, I felt a feeling of understanding.

Reina isn't just some ordinary student in the academy, being an heir has a ton of responsibilities. And I understand that she always has to keep up with expectations from her parents and the people around her.

So, when the rumors hit, she scrambled to save everything that she's built up over the years.

I know she's currently under unbelievable amounts of pressure right now...

But it still hurt.

I thought back to the times we were together in these past few weeks, the times when I saw a different side of Reina. The night she spent at my apartment during a storm, the late nights she spends at the library, and even the fact that she went out of her way to take care of me when I was sick...

People called her the Ice Princess because of her personality, but underneath all of that armor, I saw a normal, kind girl that works incredibly hard every day.

The whole sort of fight we had in the classroom only made me realize how incredibly far our worlds truly are...

My fingers brushed against my phone in my pocket. I wanted to check, hoping for a text, but I stopped myself. She needed space, and honestly, so did I.

As I walked throughout the city, I passed by a darkened storefront window that perfectly showed my reflection: a pulled-up hoodie, tired eyes, and hands shoved deep into pockets that held nothing but a phone full of memories and a few loose coins. 

Then I thought of him. Tatsuya Asano, the comparison was a landslide. He’s perfect. He has enough money to last multiple lifetimes; his family has connections with other rich and powerful people, and he has that polished, effortless charm to make anyone fall for him.

He was the complete opposite of me. A student that works the graveyard shifts at a konbini in hopes of a successful future after graduation.

He was exactly the "ideal" person that people in her circle would want standing next to Reina. Not an acquaintance, not a rival, not... me.

...

Tatsuya may have all the advantages over me, the money, power, influence, heck, maybe even the looks—but that doesn't mean squat when it comes to Reina.

He doesn't know the girl who hides away in the empty library until midnight like I did.

He had never seen the Reina who got flustered over a cheap cup of boba or the one who provided me heat when I was hit with a cold. He's only seen the surface of her icy armor, the tip of the iceberg.

Which is why I have to prove myself, carve out my own legacy, and prove to the people who see me only for some low-level commoner intruding in their sacred place wrong.

But most importantly, I must prove myself to her.

If Reina thinks that I’m a liability, dead weight only pulling her down, then I’d do everything in my power to make her think twice before under estimating me.

My pride won't let me live it down if my rival thinks of me like some sort of weak link... Yet beyond the rivalry, I have this sense of responsibility for being the one at fault for these rumors.

For both of our sakes, I’ll step back onto the sidelines and revert back to how it was before. I would let the rumors die down, giving her the room she needs to breathe without me being a threat to her reputation.

And there was only one huge hurdle preventing me from reaching my goal.

The ¥11,500,000... The balance that started everything. The balance that Reina had paid when my scholarship got pulled. At the time she only paid for it out of spite because she had to prove a point... that I do not belong in Seiryu.

She was right, from the very beginning, Merit is completely outmatched by Legacy.

That is the case... for now.

If I ever want to look Reina in the eyes not as a liability but as an equal, I'd have to be able to payback the whole debt. Down to the very cent.

The konbini job wasn't going to cut it. Not even close. I needed to find something that paid more than just enough to survive. I didn't care how hard it was or how many hours of hard work it took, even double shifts at a construction site if I had to.

The people at the academy can say whatever they want about me, I don’t care anymore.

I reached the top of a pedestrian overpass, cars blurring past below me left and right. When the night breeze hit me, it felt like a cold hug, snapping me out of my thoughts and clearing the heavy fog in my head.

"Just you wait, Princess!" I yelled out into the open air. The roaring engines and rushing wind muffled my voice, swallowing the sound, but it felt satisfying to finally let it out. "I may be a liability to you right now, but you'll soon see me as more than just an acquaintance! More than a rival...!"

"...but as a Lov—"

I froze, clamping my mouth shut before the final word could slip past my lips. My face instantly burned hotter than it had all day. “Whoa, okay, maybe that’s a bit too fast,” I muttered to myself, letting out a breathless, self-deprecating laugh.

I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly glad the roaring traffic was there to drown out my own ridiculousness.

"An equal. I needed to start with being her equal first."