Side Story - Kazuya and Shiori (1)

When I looked back at my life, I realized that it was never an ordinary one before I met her.

I was born into a family of yakuza who specialized in combat and torture as its sole heir. Thus, I was burdened with more expectation than anyone else as I grew up. When the other kids around my age was still struggling to properly walk and run, I was already learning how to kill a human efficiently. But since I never knew of another way to live, I grew up without ever questioning those harsh lessons.

I grew up excellently, always striving to receive my strict father’s approval and acknowledgement. Because that was the only thing I was taught to seek, I devoted myself to achieve it. In a way, I guessed I was the epitome of obedient, well-behaved child that all parents wanted to have.

When I started school, all of my classmates avoided me like a plague. A normal child would be heartbroken from being ostracized so blatantly, but I was never a normal child. I was already educated by Kazami to see other children as ignorant, foolish lambs that could be slaughtered at any time. Therefore, I didn’t have any desire to get involved with them as well.

In my mind, I never once doubted that I’d quickly finish my formal education, take over the family, and become a greater family head than my father. It didn’t matter if I had to walk this thorny path all on my own, and I never once stopped to consider any other paths that I could take. However, the reality that I thought I knew so well began to change when she entered my life.

*****

The classroom was abuzz with the excitement of freshmen who just entered high school. Even from outside the door, I could hear those innocent kids chattering about their new school life. I scoffed, not bothering to hide my disgust.

“It’s just another three years of school.” I thought to myself. “Just another boring, monotonous days of being trapped in class while listening to the teachers droning about things that I already knew. I can never understand what’s so fun about that.”

I roughly slid the door open, resulting in a loud sound that made everyone inside turn to look at me. The moment they saw my scarlet eyes, all of the commotion earlier died out like it never existed. I strode inside without a single care and chose a random seat near the window. This was what always happened in the beginning of each school year, so I paid them no mind.

After a moment of deafening silence, the chattering slowly returned, albeit at a drastically lower voice. My new classmates all stole a glance at me, each of their gazes held different emotions. Fear, annoyance, resignation, curiosity. As usual, not a single gaze held any positive feelings toward me.

I looked outside the window, hoping that the damn homeroom would hurry up and start already.

“Hey, who is he? Why is everyone suddenly so quiet?”

Among all the chattering, one particular voice rose above the others. Perhaps it was because she didn’t bother to lower her voice like everybody else. Piqued by the unusual question, I glanced toward that person.

It was a girl with soft brown hair that reached slightly below her shoulders and a pair of gentle black eyes. Those eyes contained curiosity within them as she stared fearlessly at me.

“She's like a rare species of herbivore.” I couldn’t help but think of her as so. With her delicate body and dainty limbs, I could easily snap her in two. And yet, she didn’t seem fazed by the intimidating aura that surrounded me.

“Shiori! Stop looking at him!” The female student sitting next to her whispered frantically. “Rumor has it that he’s the heir to that Kagura Family! You shouldn’t get involved with him!”

“Hmm…” Shiori muttered, still keeping her gaze trained at me.

She abruptly stood up from her seat and made her way toward me. The whole class was staring at her bold move with gaping mouth, unable to fathom her nearly-suicidal action.

“Hello, my name is Kirigaya Shiori, a fellow student of Class 1-A. What’s your name?” She greeted me cheerfully and even offered me a handshake.

I stared silently at her for a few seconds. I was just as shocked as everyone else in the room, but fortunately I’d been trained to keep my poker face no matter what happened.

“…Kagura Kazuya.” I replied curtly, letting displeasure oozed into my voice to convey that her attention was not welcomed.

But she either failed to grasp it or simply ignored it, because Shiori continued to talk with her carefree tone. “Then, are you really related to the famous yakuza group, Kagura Family?”

I sighed and spat out, “Yes, I am. What’s it to you?”

I’d expected her face to change the moment I answered, and she didn’t fail to meet my expectation. However, instead of changing to fear, her black eyes sparkled brightly.

“Wow, that’s so cool!”

Shiori leaned closer to me with excited face. I reflexively drew back, startled by the closeness between us.

“Tell me, are you—?”

Before she could finish her sentence, the first period’s bell rang.

Shiori pouted with a sulking face, but she still drew away from me anyway.

“I still want to ask a lot of questions to you, but oh well!” Shiori shrugged. “Let’s talk again later, okay?” She waved at me before returning to her seat.

I sat there, stunned by the unexpected development. “…huh?”

It took me quite a while to get my brain rebooted, so I ended up missing most of what the homeroom teacher was saying. When I came to my senses, we were in the middle of introducing ourselves to the class.

“…hello everyone, my name is Kirigaya Shiori!” She stood up and beamed at everyone. “I came from a small town in the countryside, so there’s a lot of things I don’t know here, but please treat me well!” She bowed politely.

Her cheerful personality, coupled with her gentle face and delicate-looking body, instantly caught all of the male students’ attention. They smiled back at her with stupid lovestruck look on their faces.

But of course, it didn’t sit well with the female students.

“Heh…so she’s just a countryside chick.” One of the girls chuckled derisively.

“No wonder she has no common sense.” The other girl agreed maliciously. “Let’s see how long she can survive here.”

Only one girl, who had warned Shiori earlier, glared at the other girls. I presumed that the girl might be Shiori’s childhood friend or something, seeing that she willingly defended the person in question.

“…huh? Why did I care about her so much?” I suddenly realized. “Who cares if she made some enemies? It has nothing to do with me.”

I shook my head and went back to minding my own business. When it was my turn to introduce myself, I simply stated my name before sitting down again. No one dared to meet my gaze, not even the homeroom teacher. I bet the teacher was regretting his choice of homeroom class, just like every other teacher before him.

And thus, my high school life began uneventfully—save for that single girl.

*****

A few weeks passed by after that first day. Just as I expected, high school wasn’t that much different from middle school. I’d already learned all the materials up until college level, so I was bored out of my mind during classes. The teachers’ reaction toward me could be categorized into two—they either pretended that I didn’t exist, or they relentlessly went after me to prove their superiority. However, the latter quickly gave up when I answered all of their questions effortlessly, even for questions that weren’t taught in class.

As a result, I had all the time in the world during classes. Usually I’d spend it planning my training regimen or strategies for my next mission, but lately I found myself acquiring a new pastime—namely, watching people. Though, to be exact, I was watching only a single person, Kirigaya Shiori.

After observing her for a few weeks, I felt like I finally got a grasp on her personality. If I had to say one thing that stood out the most from her, it was her kindness. Kirigaya Shiori was kind to a fault.

Despite being mocked by the popular girls for her countryside background, Shiori never once returned their insults. She’d simply smile and gloss over it, causing the other girls to seethe even more. If you asked me, it was a more effective and cruel tactics than firing back with insults.

Her kindness didn’t only extend to particular person. She was kind to everyone, even to those who were ostracized by the other students. She was the only person fearless enough to talk to me in class, despite my constant scowls. And when some of the boys harassed a timid boy by knocking over his books, Shiori jumped in without any hesitation and started lecturing them about the preciousness of books. She even helped the boy collect his books, all while asking if he were alright.

Thanks to her stunts, Shiori’s position in the class plummeted to the lower caste. I might not be involved in the class’ politics, but I could see clearly that she was slowly being ostracized. As they said, the nail that stood out got hammered in first.

Today as well, Shiori had arrived at class with drenched appearance, despite the warm weather.

“Shiori!” Her childhood friend, Aya—if I remembered her name correctly—immediately jumped to her feet with pale face. “What happened?!”

“Ahaha…I don’t really know as well.” Shiori scratched her cheek while laughing awkwardly. “I was just walking inside when it suddenly rained so hard, then it abruptly stopped. I didn’t even get the chance to get my umbrella out.”

“You…” Aya sighed in resignation. “Wait, you brought umbrella to school? Despite the weather forecast?”

As Aya spoke, her hands never stopped fussing over Shiori. She busily tried to wipe Shiori dry with hand towels.

“Huh? Yeah, I always brought one. I mean, how can I prepare for sudden rain otherwise?” Shiori tilted her head with puzzled look.

“Shiori…Tokyo doesn’t rain as often as back home.” Aya explained. “So you don’t have to bring one every day.”

“But it rained just now, Aya!” Shiori insisted.

As the two argued about weather and umbrella, some of the girls were chuckling maliciously instead. They seemed oddly proud of their petty harassment to Shiori.

I rolled my eyes and gazed outside the window. It was clear that they dumped water on Shiori when she walked into the school. It also explained why those girls bothered to come early today when they usually came barely on time.

Since Aya couldn’t completely dry Shiori before the bell rang, she decided to change into her gym uniform instead. She earned a scolding from the teacher for wearing the wrong uniform, but Shiori accepted it with a light-hearted laugh. Never once she pointed a finger to accuse her bullies.

“How stupid.” I scoffed as I gazed at her laughing face. “If you never push back, they’ll keep cornering you until you break.”

If I were in her position, I’d secure an irrefutable evidence of their wrongdoing and blackmail them into obeying me by threatening to report them to the teachers.

Of course, Shiori would never do that. She was way too kind to even think of such malicious plan.

“Then, should I be the one to do it?”

I was surprised by myself when that thought crossed my mind.

“If my hands are already tainted, then it doesn’t matter if I add more crime to it, right?” I smiled bitterly.

When the lunch break bell rang, I was still mulling over the idea of taking revenge for Shiori’s sake. My feet naturally took me toward the library, where I usually spent my lunch break. Since people rarely visited the library during lunch break, it became some sort of sanctuary for me to relax.

I found myself reaching for books about revenge and blackmails when I came to my senses. I scolded myself for getting carried away, but I still took those books with me anyway.

I was choosing more books when my ears caught an unusual commotion inside the library.

“—your fault that he rejected me! Don’t get cocky, you country bumpkin!”

“That’s right! Why don’t you crawl back to wherever you came from?!”

The voices grew louder as I approached the source of commotion. Right when I walked into one of the aisles between bookshelves, I heard a sharp sound.

Slap!

My eyes widened as I saw Shiori being slapped by one of the popular girls in class. Her long nails scratched Shiori’s cheek, leaving a shallow trail of blood.

Anger boiled up inside me, but I stopped myself before I could get involved. The emotional part of me demanded that I stepped in and protected Shiori immediately, but the logical part insisted that the girl had nothing to do with me.

Kazami had relentlessly taught me that we weren’t heroes of justice, nor were we champions of truth. Instead, we were the conquerors. Our strength was meant to subjugate and trample over other people to get what we wanted. It was not meant to be used to save the weak.

I never once questioned my father’s teachings, but right now, as I stood still and watched a powerless girl being ganged up in front of me, I started to resent my father’s words.

I wanted to help her.

No sooner than the thought crossed my mind, one of the girls pushed Shiori until her back hit the bookshelf. The impact shook the bookshelf, causing a dictionary book from the top shelf to wobble and fell down.

The world seemed to move in slow motion as I watched the thick book diving right toward Shiori’s head. I could already imagine the book cracking her skull open and painting the library floor with her blood.

“…!”

Before I knew it, I already lunged toward Shiori and caught the heavy book instead.

“…that’s why, stay away from him—huh?”

The girl who had been threatening Shiori faltered when I suddenly appeared in front of her. Her face paled when she recognized my face.

“K-Kagura Kazuya?!” She shrieked and backed away from me.

As if on cue, the other girls also scrambled to distance themselves. Their desperate expression was quite hilarious, since they were trying to be intimidating just a second ago.

“Hey.” I addressed them roughly, without hiding my anger and displeasure. “Don’t you know to keep your voice down in the library? If you’re going to yap like this, go find somewhere else.”

“I…I…we…” The girl stuttered, too afraid to even look me in the eye.

“If you get it, then scram.” I narrowed my eyes. “Or I’ll kill you.”

That was all it took to snap them out of their petrification. With a shrill shriek, the girls raced to escape from the library. Even as they fell and tripped, they didn’t dare to stop for a second. In just a matter of seconds, the library was completely silent again.

“Hey, you…” I turned toward Shiori, half expecting her to be as scared as the other girls.

She lowered her face, hiding her small face behind those brown hair, while her delicate shoulders were trembling. Her hands were clasped protectively in front of her stomach.

I started to feel guilty for scaring her, so I toned down my voice as I said, “I’m sorry, I—”

“Ahahahaha!!”

Out of the blue, Shiori burst out in laughter.

I was stunned as she laughed without a care in the world while holding her stomach. If she could roll around on the floor, I bet she’d already do that by now.

“Did you see the look on their faces when you said you’ll kill them?! It was totally priceless! Hahahaha! Aah, I feel completely refreshed now!” Shiori wiped the tears that came out from laughing too hard.

“Look here, you…” I massaged my temple, all of my guilt had vanished and replaced with annoyance.

“Thank you very much, Kagura-kun.” Shiori smiled brightly as she thanked me. “You really helped me out just now.”

Her sudden gratitude threw me off-guard. I quickly looked away, unsure of what kind of face I should show her.

“…it’s nothing.” In the end, it was all I could mutter.

But seeing Shiori’s smile, I felt that I’d made the right choice by saving her. It was the first time I went against my father’s teaching…and yet, I didn’t regret it at all. On the contrary, it filled me with satisfaction that I never felt before, no matter how many missions I successfully accomplished.

That day, I learned of the simple happiness that came from receiving someone else’s gratitude.

*****

“Aah, found you!”

Shiori’s head popped out from the corner of the bookshelf. Judging from her words, it seemed that she’d scoured the whole library, looking for me.

“You’re here alone again, Kagura-kun?”

She approached me, who was in the middle of choosing a new book to read. I merely glanced at her without hiding the annoyance in my gaze before returning my attention to the bookshelf.

“It’s not good for you to hide away without socializing, you know!” Shiori started her usual preaching without showing any signs of being bothered by my lack of response. “As they said, you only become a high school student once in your life! You shouldn’t waste your youth by staying in the library all the time! Why don’t you try to have lunch with someone? I’ll even volunteer to be your practice partner if you want!”

I chose a book and went to my usual reading chair, ignoring whatever Shiori was saying right now. She trailed after me while still chattering non-stop. Ever since I saved her from the other girls, Shiori started frequenting the library to pester me about going out and socializing with everyone else. She’d made it sound like I was a shut-in, so I wished she’d stop soon.

“…hey, are you listening? Hello, Kagura-kun~?”

Suddenly something jabbed at my cheek.

I turned an annoyed gaze to my side, where Shiori was smiling innocently while poking me.

“…why?” I let out a sigh. “Why do you keep doing this? Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Instead of answering, Shiori fell silent. It was a nice change of pace from her usual chatter, but it also made me anxious. I peeked at her, trying to see if I hurt her feelings from my harsh words.

“Finally…” Shiori spoke up with a soft smile on her face. “I finally made you talk to me.”

I stiffened at her words. She always went beyond my expectations and caught me off-guard every single time. I didn’t remember ignoring her that much, but then again, I also didn’t remember replying to her talk since that day.

“Uh…” As I was working on my courage to apologize, Shiori continued talking.

“And for your question…I did this because you looked lonely.” Shiori answered with a serious look on her face.

“Lone…ly?” I was stunned by her answer. Lonely? I was? Even though I never knew what it felt like to be lonely, since I’m always alone?

Shiori nodded before looking away. Her gaze went beyond the window, toward the clear blue sky. “After seeing that, I can’t leave you alone. Because I knew how painful being lonely is.” Shiori had a pained look on her face as she spoke.

My chest throbbed when I saw her expression. Smile, I wanted to tell her. I don’t want to see you looking so sad. I want you to smile like you always do.

“Hm…?” Shiori’s gaze returned to me. She seemed confused by something. “Kagura-kun, what’s wrong?”

It was after she asked that I realized that my hand unconsciously reached out to touch her cheek.

“No, this is…!” I quickly withdrew my hand and looked away in embarrassment. “I mean, I get it now. If that’s what you think, then do as you like. You can s-stay if you want.”

I felt like beating myself up for sounding so haughty. It was the first time I asked someone to stay by my side, and clearly I could use some practice.

Despite my poor words, Shiori beamed as if I’d given her the most precious thing in the whole world.

“Yes, thank you, Kazuya-kun!” She said it happily.

“And suddenly we’re on the first name-basis?” I grumbled, but I didn’t dislike it.

“Well, you can call me ‘Shiori’ too, you know? Ah! When I think about it, you never called me by my name, did you?! You always called me ‘you’ all the time!” Shiori started scolding me. “Why don’t you try calling my name now, Kazuya-kun?”

“Wha…?! Why?!” I immediately protested.

“Because I want to hear it!” Shiori’s reply was instantaneous and confident.

“You’re really…” My face twitched at her cheekiness.

“…is that a no?” She stared at me with dejected eyes.

I let out a long sigh. There was no way I could win against those pitiful, puppy-like eyes. “…Shiori.”

Her expression lit up in an instant, as if her dejection was just a lie.

“Yes, Kazuya-kun! Please say it again!” Shiori took out her phone and pushed it toward me. “I’ll record your voice and use it for my ringtone whenever you call me!”

“Cut it out! And you don’t have my number in the first place!” I instinctively pulled away from her.

“Ah, you’re right, so can you tell me your phone number while we’re at it?” Shiori wore a sly smirk.

“As if I’ll tell you…!”