Kushida Kikyo

My name is Kushida Kikyo, and I am a student in Class D of the first year at Advanced Nurturing.

In everyone's eyes, I am always smiling. I take the initiative to help my classmates, I remember everyone's little habits, and everyone likes me very much.

But no one knows what kind of person is hidden beneath this gentle and cute mask.

Ever since elementary school, I discovered that as long as I completed a small task, people around me would praise me.

Every time that moment of realization came, I could clearly feel my own worth.

That is why I became so concerned with the gaze of others.

However...

As I slowly grew up, I learned where my limits were.

No matter how hard I tried, there would always be someone better than me, and I could no longer rely on grades or sports to win praise.

So I thought about it; I could only do the things that no one else wanted to do.

Tutoring others!

Running errands for others!

Comforting others!

Being kinder than anyone else! Being more empathetic than anyone else!

Thanks to all of this, I became "number one"...

I became the most popular person!

The pleasure of being relied upon and trusted was truly so exhilarating for me!

But...

Being the first to do the things no one else wants to do... is actually extremely painful...

Of course it's painful.

So painful...

So painful.

So painful!

But...

I must endure it!

In order to maintain my popularity, I have had to let go of some things I had already obtained.

So I endured and endured... I kept on enduring...

But...

To keep enduring the pain forever...

It's simply impossible.

So I found something to support my spirit—a blog.

I could vent all the inner pressure that I couldn't tell anyone else on it.

Only after venting would I feel much better!

But one day...

A classmate happened to discover that blog.

Even though I didn't write my name, anyone could tell it was me just by reading the content.

Seeing it filled with countless bad things about the whole class, they surrounded me to question me; honestly, I don't blame them for doing that.

But I was the one being ganged up on. (Scornful)

Before...

I had helped everyone in every way possible! Yet they turned their backs on me!

Whether it was the boy who confessed his love to me! Or the girl I kindly comforted after being dumped by her boyfriend!

However...

That boy was truly disgusting; I had wanted him to just drop dead anyway!

As for the reason that girl was dumped? You only need to look at her face to know.

At that time, I was bullied by almost the entire class, and I truly felt that my life was in danger.

After all, I had angered almost everyone. (Indifferent)

So, I brought out my weapon.

I spilled everything.

Those were their true faces that weren't written on the blog.

Like who he was cheating with. Or how she was bad-mouthing another girl on an underground website.

They are all the unspeakable truths about them!

And then...

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The sharp blades that were originally pointed at me have all been redirected toward others!

It can't be helped, right? (Cute voice)

Who told them not to praise me?

Although the class collapsed at that time, it was already near graduation, so no matter what, there was nothing they could do.

After graduation, I finally escaped that place and came to this isolated Advanced Nurturing University.

But...

Why... why... why!

Why won't you let me go!

Uesugi Hara! Horikita Suzune!

Why do you have to appear here!

Why do you have to become stumbling blocks on my path to popularity!

Horikita Suzune is fine, but Uesugi Hara, by what right are you here! With your grades, you could clearly go to the top-tier universities, so why come to Advanced Nurturing University!

Uesugi Hara was my classmate in high school.

When we first met, he was a very strange person. He looked good and had great grades, but he lacked common sense to an absurd degree, like someone who knew of a thing but was seeing the actual object for the first time—that kind of awkwardness.

Although it took him less than two months to look like a normal person, he still left a strange impression in my heart.

He would either space out or sleep during every class, yet his grades always topped the grade level.

He would just open the love letters girls sent him, take a look, and throw them away, occasionally commenting, "Superficial," or "Does no one care about his inner beauty?"

But after observing him for three years, I truly never discovered any inner beauty in him.

He rarely participated in class activities, and I never saw him have any close friends.

I heard he used to be from some big family, but after the family went bankrupt, he was the only one left.

I had wanted to get on his good side, after all, he was very popular among the girls.

I often invited him to hang out, but I was always rejected. As time went on, I gave up, and our relationship remained just that of ordinary classmates.

In the past, some boys would cause trouble for him because of the girls he rejected—in his words, those boys were "simps." But the next day, their legs would be broken; it was said they were beaten by the local underworld near his home that night.

There were similar incidents afterward, but the results were almost always the same: their legs were broken by the underworld.

I don't know if it had anything to do with him.

I also became increasingly interested in him, desperately wanting to know his secrets.

But until the class collapsed, I never heard any secrets about him.

I only knew some useless information, like him being interested in money or working part-time jobs, and so on.

After the class collapsed, he was the only one who stayed out of it. His constant "spectator" attitude angered many people.

But that day, I saw with my own eyes how he stood before the whole class—over twenty people, regardless of gender—and took them all down one by one, then dragged them to the restroom with a grin on his face. The image still makes my scalp crawl to this day.

But more than that, what chilled me to the bone was what he whispered in my ear on graduation day: "Girls shouldn't have such strong curiosity about boys, you know."

He knew everything; he just didn't care. That suffocating feeling, like being coiled by a python, is something I never want to experience a second time.

I thought we would never meet again, but that familiar voice on the bus ruined all my plans.

Although I don't think he would proactively go around telling people, I'm afraid that if someone mentions me, he might chime in with, "Kushida-san? That was my high school classmate," and then spill all those things.

Sitting across from me was Uesugi Hara.

The warm light of Palette Cafe fell upon him. He held the sugar jar, adding spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his coffee. His movements never stopped, and the sugar in the jar was visibly diminishing.

"Kushida-san, what do you need from me?" He finally put down the sugar jar and picked up the cup of coffee that looked sickeningly sweet.

I stared at the cup that was turning into "sugar water," my mouth twitching uncontrollably. Can it even taste good with that much sugar?

But I didn't ask that. I just clenched my palms, looked at him, and kept my tone as calm as possible: "I just want to ask you to keep my high school secrets."

"That's a difficult request." Uesugi Hara stirred his coffee, his brows slightly raised. That "troubled" look made my blood boil, and my knuckles tightened, but since I was the one asking for a favor, I had to suppress my anger.

"I'll give you 30,000 points every month." I bit my lower lip and threw out the condition directly.

"30,000 points, huh?" He drew out his tone as if weighing the offer, then asked a moment later, "That's doable. But what if you can't come up with these 30,000 points in the future?"

I froze, not expecting him to ask this, and instinctively retorted, "Impossible! The school gives us 100,000 points every month, how could it not be enough!" I truly couldn't understand why he would worry about such a thing.

"What if?" he asked softly.

"What if... what if..."

I didn't know how to answer him. Yes, what if I really couldn't come up with it? Would I have to... have to sell my body? But after observing him for so long, I never saw him show interest in any girl; he threw away every love letter he received. That method probably wouldn't work at all.

I clutched the hem of my shirt, my mind in a chaotic mess, unable to come up with a single word to respond.

"We'll talk about it when you can't pay up in the future," he said indifferently, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Fine."

I let out a sigh of relief, my fingertips flying across my terminal as I transferred thirty thousand credits without a moment's hesitation.

"I'm leaving now."

With that, I grabbed my bag and stood up to leave; just looking at him for one second longer felt irritating.