Chapter 4

The Fourth Chapter

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(Izu POV)

At the beginning of the new semester, I saw a beautiful girl with light hair the color of the moon's rays. As I was a lover of beautiful things, she was perfect for me. As I continued to seek after her, there would be more and more for me to love about Ria as time went on.

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I was the studious type, beloved for my intellect and personality that suited it. This was something I had learned all way back in my elementary school days. Other children and teachers alike praised me time and time again. They created a pedestal, and I had no difficulties being on top of it. It seemed to only have been possible because my parents did not give me any expectations themselves. I later figured that this was quite bizarre, for a father in the corporate world and a mother in the law field especially. Instead of my parents giving me rigid guidelines, they encouraged me in vague ways, such as "follow your dreams, Izu", type language. So I ran with it, within reason. I would make myself a girl who wished for the world, and so the world she received.

In middle school, I was put into a position where I used my pedestal to my advantage to see what would happen. Other students flocked to me, trying to get my attention at every moment. Teachers would do the same. This was when "Izu-sama" was born. At first, I didn't enjoy the attention at all as I should have. To the point that I would let it slip occasionally that I wished to have some space in a harsher way. The reactions to that were not ideal and needed to be avoided. I had to take great care to keep up my public persona. Facial expressions, tone of voice, hygiene, and clothing, all of these things needed to be absolutely perfect. While sometimes a struggle back then as a younger child, I got used to perfecting them over time.

After being in the spotlight for a while, something began to grow out of my popularity, as I began to change. My puberty had given me a need for romance, and there were too many avenues I could fulfill it with. That was the time in my life when I sought after a garden of my own design, in the shadow of others which had come before.

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The first few times I witnessed Ria, at the beginning of my second year of high school, ended up quite bleak. After noticing her at the start of the school year, and having been enthralled with her beauty, I saw her become estranged from others. There had always been a system in schools like ours, to outcast students who were different. This was applied significantly harsher to foreigners. Schools in the area would only have a single exchange student if they had one at all. With any of those students, bullying was common. It was the nature of people our age to want to find a single person to destroy, to take the piddling stress of educational life out on the weak. I understood that disgusting fact, yet did not decide to do anything about it until it was Ria who was the victim.

I knew that the second I began to be noticed around Ria she would have too many eyes on her. So I created situations where I could be around her without that becoming an issue. I "happened" to pass Ria's classroom during a certain bullying incident. The girls had gotten Ria to stay late after class to help with the day's assigned cleaning. Instead of lifting a finger themselves, they messed around and made her do all the work.

"You can do us a favor, can't you? We all only just got our nails done yesterday, and definitely can't have that ruined by blackboard chalk." Laid the ringleader bully upon Ria. Her face was shrunken up with a look of disdain upon the pure girl who didn't deserve this nonsense. "Plus, we have to deal with your sorry ass taking up sooo much space in our classroom. Out of the goodness of our hearts, even. Classes like ours don't have to take in exchange students like you. Like, why did we have to get stuck with you anyways? Right?" She nodded toward the other two delinquents.

"Yeah, you're so right!"

"Haha, true, true!" They chimed in to back her up. Scum like this had absolutely no shame whatsoever when it came to be like this for absolutely no reason other than their own amusement.

This banter went on for a while as Ria continued cleaning. When she took up her broom and used a bucket to put them away, one of the girls stuck a foot out from where she was sitting and tripped her. I had an instant knee-jerk reaction to this but kept myself from going into the classroom in order to not get involved. The girls continued to mock Ria while she sat on the floor, stunned for a moment. Her jade eyes began to sparkle as they were about to fill with tears. The cleaning supplies had fallen onto her when she toppled over, meaning she had suffered at least a small injury. Seeing someone like Ria who appeared weak in such a state made my protective instinct heighten. It put me in anguish that I couldn't find a way to get the girls away from her immediately. After a split second of thought, I decided to run past the room and kick the wall as hard as I could. This appeared to have been the correct approach, as I heard the bullies notice that someone was around. They decided to leave Ria alone, in case a teacher investigated. I left after that, leaving Ria to pick herself up and go home alone. It was too early for me to introduce myself to her, I wanted to do so tactfully, so as not to scare her off.

The next time I would interact with Ria was after I found her scouring across campus for something hidden. A few different times during that day, I crossed paths near her and watched her carefully look at different areas for something. Special objects taken by someone they didn't belong to could show in many different places in a school as large as ours. Outside in the courtyard, stuffed into someone's shoe locker, disgustingly thrown into a backward-located girls' toilet area. That last mentioned place was where I was able to find Ria's gym clothes. For me, this was too far of a transgression on the bullies’ part. Unfortunately for me, I had found the clothes after when her class would have had PE, leaving Ria to have to sit out. She would have a sense of normalcy stolen from her yet again, not having one moment of calm. I took it upon myself to take the clothes home with me to wash them. From this, a viewer can understand that the gym clothes were not simply hidden in a corner of the bathroom. I personally found it amusing in a way, that the schools’ "Izu-sama” would have to get creative to procure such items from a dingy, wet location.

The next morning, I wrapped the clothes up carefully to give Ria. I figured it would be a safe bet to assume that she would arrive early to look for them. Making haste, I found her in a place with as few people around as possible. Instead of moving right away, I watched her for a while to find the right moment. She had been in the entryway by the shoe lockers, slowly peering into the different umbrella holders to see if the clothes lay at the bottom of them. I silently walked up to her from behind and tapped her shoulder. When she turned around, she blushed slightly and looked at me nervously. It seemed that she was aware of who I was.

"Hi, dear. Can I return this to you? I can't say where I found it, as you probably don't want to know. But they're clean and should be in order." I said to her with a gentle smile, wanting to keep the situation calm so she wouldn't become overwhelmed. Ria's eyes shifted around before she let them meet my own for a very short second. Then a soft voice came like the gentle chirp of a baby bird.

"Th-thank you. I.. can take those back. Thank you so much..." Ria stammered through those words. I gleaned that she wasn't one to converse with others much.

"Anytime, it's not a problem." I handed the bag to Ria. She was very careful to keep her hands from touching my own as she took it from me. As I keenly noticed that detail, I felt a small pang in my heart for what I had missed. I nodded toward her as she scuttled away. The scene had drawn some attention from the students nearby. Some hushed whispers met my ears, and I could hear everything they were saying very clearly. I decided to let them talk and make up whatever story. If anything came up in conversation, I could deflect it in my own way.

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The bullying incidents seemed to only grow after I was seen returning Ria's gym clothes. I heard other students spread rumors of different events taking place, and to the end that the situation was well known. Ria would not be able to go a day with her desk clean. Instead, it would be covered in marks of ink, cruel words written across.

"You don't belong here", "Die", and such statements plagued Ria while she took notes during class. Her ability to focus on her studies was nonexistent as she read the words over and over. There were a few days when she would arrive at her classroom, the desk not being there at all.

I wondered if it was all my own fault that this was happening. Considered how it could have been different if only I had been more discreet when I returned the bag to her. Like it or not, my presence had power, power which could work to the opposite effect in a case like this.

The day I saw Ria crying in her classroom, I took myself to my usual bench behind the school. This place was my retreat from my spot in the center of attention. It was a simple slab of concrete under the sporadic cover of the leaves of nearby trees. The spot was like an oasis to me, with a perfect bit of shade. I felt comforted there, and sitting on that bench again gave me slight feelings of nostalgia.

I began to think of Ria, as a wilting flower, someone who would be waiting for a gardener like me to ease back to life. Strands of her golden blonde hair brought to mind the long petals of flowers. Ria's downtrodden green eyes were like leaves about to fall to the ground to me. I wanted to conserve their beauty, but I hadn't yet made up my mind.

There was a small black book I owned, where I kept words of enlightenment I liked to keep in practice. While on the bench that day, I took it out of my pocket and read them again. I lamented about saving Ria while glancing over them, letting the words plant a seed to give me the courage to act. I would not let my principles fall behind this time.

That afternoon I made it my purpose to see Ria again. On that particular day, it seemed that the bullies has spread their lunch on her desk. I found Ria bringing cleaning supplies to her classroom at the day’s end, and I followed her as she took care of the mess the girls had left for her. Even doing so did not make the words written on it disappear. Keeping my distance, I waited for her to leave school, yet she did not. Ria acted as if the days’ experiences had broken her, and she was glued to that dreadful desk. I watched again as her eyes circled the words on its surface. Tears like bits of glass dripped from her eyes on top of the letters. Ria dug her head into her crossed arms and cried into them.

It was a sight that brought my protective instincts to their height. My head went blank from pure anger. Those girls would have to pay for treating her like this. The thoughts of what I would do to them spun in my head as I walked swiftly past the classroom. A second after I was around the corner, I ripped a piece of paper from my notebook and wrote a note on it. I carefully waited there until Ria finally went home. Then I found her shoe locker, which at the time was filled with more "gifts" from the bullies who would never relent to make Ria's life a living hell. Taking care of yet another burden for her, I took the opportunity to put the note in her shoe. I wanted to make sure it could be in a place that wouldn't be found immediately, not wanting to chance that those girls would come back to the locker the next morning and take the paper away. When my work was done, I took a moment to wipe the sweat off of my forehead and return home.

The night ahead of me that day was spent dreaming of a future where Ria would be able to have her life back, a world I would do anything to provide for her.