Stealing Spree

“Don’t talk to me. I’m not here for you.” With a click of his tongue and an extremely annoyed look that could possibly challenge the Vice President of the Student Council when it comes to that kind of expression, Goto Kenji replied to my earlier greeting.

He’s appalling to look at but still, who am I to back down from it. I simply smiled to further annoy him.

And from where he’s not looking, my hand remained clasped on Kana’s. No matter what, she still needed that courage that I could give her and the push to not feel guilty, ending this guy’s delusion on thinking that he could still get her back.

“Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, I will be interrupting your talk when I feel like I need to step up for Kana. Back then you talked about how I might be corrupting her and influencing her decisions, feel free to confirm that.”

“Alright, Onoda-kun. Stop talking for now. You can stay there but let them do the talking. You can do that, right?” Ishida-senpai interjected, not waiting for Goto to rebut my words.

She surely saw that there’s no end to it if we continued bantering at each other. Furthermore, I’m not the main cast today.

“You got it, senpai. Kana, the floor is yours.” I nodded at the supposed mediator and smiled at the girl who’s still gathering her courage.

As I closed my mouth shut, I kept my calm and unrelenting gaze to the guy who’s already fuming from his seat, uncomfortable from all that.

He knew that if he flares out again and tries to use violence, there’s no way for him to win against me. Due to that, his only choice is to persuade Kana with his words.

Too bad for him, like with Ogawa, that was nothing more than a pipe dream.

“Kenji… Whatever you want to say to me. You can say it now. I will not run away or hide behind my friend anymore. And if you ever think I am being manipulated by this guy next to me, that’s where you’re critically wrong. I have my own mind and heart. Both are screaming his name.”

After five minutes of silence, Kana lifted her lowered head and faced the guy across the table. Her earlier manner wherein she couldn’t even look at him properly was gone.

She finally gathered enough courage to face him. And with our hands still connected below the table, she’s maintaining a stable supply of that…

Although she’s still not confident to deal with him alone because of her guilt over what she did to him, with me by her side, she could forget all that.

“… What’s good with him? We've been together for two years, Kana! For d*mn two years! How long have you known him? One month? God! You even jump shipped to him in less than that. Can’t you see that you’re just being impulsive? Have I ever mistreated you? Have I done anything that hurt you? No, right? If pushing you to do it with me is the catalyst, then I won’t ask for it anymore, just come back to me.”

Halfway through his words, Goto broke down into a mess. His tears spilled from his eyes, flooding the table in front of him. His heartache could definitely be felt through all those. There’s no doubt, he also loves Kana to the point that he can show this kind of face in front of her. This is his last chance in getting her back. Even if he made a fool of himself, he’s prepared to do that.

However, when I thought about the things that I witnessed him doing… any budding sympathy that might’ve been rooted from witnessing this kind of act from him had been cleanly pulled out.

Anyway, even if I developed sympathy over his situation, there’s no way I’d give Kana back unless she chose it herself.

Just by the fact that he tried to bring Ishida-senpai to a love hotel, taking advantage of the girl’s infatuation with him was something unforgivable.

Even if they ended up confessing about that occurrence to Kana, it wouldn’t erase that… after being blue-balled, he immediately turned to their ‘best friend’.

Well, judging him with my moral standards sounds like irony but as he’s someone who’s living on that side of normalcy, he’s simply unforgivable.

We could say that it’s an impulsive decision on his part but what’s done is done. If I hadn’t seen them that day, Ishida-senpai would go through with it and… she'd definitely be racked by her guilt towards Kana.

The Club President who I came to admire would also become a broken mess due to that.

Although there’s that possibility that they would end up going out with each other, I doubt that was going to happen.

She immediately confessed the next day to Kana after all.

And looking at her this time, she’s biting her lips as a trace of sympathy towards the guy flashed on her face. However, sympathizing with him and acting to help him have different meanings aren’t the same thing. She remained steadfast in her role as a mediator, watching out for when she needed to interject.

“No, you never mistreated me, Kenji. I do not resent you over anything. You courted me for a year and I eventually accepted you. Believe me, I tried liking you the same way you liked me. I gave in to some of your advances because of that label… But Kenji, you see, I fell in love with this junior. He opened my eyes that what I’m doing before is just going on to the flow. The flow that you created. I let myself be dragged around by you.” Kana responded. Even though she tried to be as cold as possible, her words also somewhat cracked around the middle.

She’s a great girl. Even after everything, she’s feeling the guilt from choosing me over him.

“But that’s not the case now, Kenji. I can decide by myself. And I choose to love him. You talked about the two years you spent with me but the month I spent with him, a lot of things changed. Haven’t you noticed? I can now talk without stuttering all over. I can now stand and not be totally lost in the environment because of my cowardice. I can now speak what’s on my mind rather than surrendering and agreeing to the majority… I’m no longer the Nogizaka Kana that you knew. I’m sorry if I didn’t break up with you on a good note… Let’s redo it then. For your own peace of mind…”

Kana stood up from her seat and let go of my hand. She then looked at me and lightly smiled. Her eyes were filled with her confidence. Her confidence to put an end to her previous relationship.

Upon seeing that I could only nod at her and return a smile.

As we reached a mutual understanding, Kana then walked over Ishida-senpai. “Rumi, thank you for being here. And thank you for being a great friend. I truly appreciate it. I know that you’re more concerned over our club than making other friends but after this, can we hang out together? Just the two of us. Or we can also bring Karen and Mirae-chan.”

“You overpraised me, Kana. I’m not that great of a friend. I stayed with the two of you because of him and as you said, the club. For those two years, I cared for him more than you…”

“I knew that. I mean, you’re infatuated over him while I couldn’t get away from him until… Ruki showed up before me.”

“… You really changed, huh? Go on and do what you must. Let’s talk about this later.”

“Un. We will…” Kana hugged Ishida-senpai for a bit. Following that, she finally moved towards Goto whose hands covered his ears, he didn’t want to hear Kana’s words and that’s the only escape he could think of.

At least, if he’s like Ogawa, he’d surely run out of this room by now but this guy… he knew that the inevitable was about to come and whether he liked it or not, there’s no escaping from it.

“Kenji, I cheated on you and I fell in love with the guy I cheated with. Let’s break up. The problem in our relationship isn’t you. You’re a great man. Just with your perseverance alone, you’re already ahead of many. Unfortunately, even after our time together, I cannot fully invest my feelings for you. I tried. I really do. I’m sorry.” Kana said all that in one breath. She didn’t extend her hand to touch him or anything but she made sure to say it next to his ear.

And at every word she uttered, the guy trembled in despair…

By the time she finished, Goto had already broken down.