Chapter 11
The Dilemma
1 year and 9 months later (12th January 2017)
I was lying on the bed, thinking about the time between now, and since I completed Yamamoto's two tasks. I really should have been asleep by now, considering we all will be traveling for Tokyo tomorrow for the tournament, but I just couldn't. My mind kept thinking of the last 2 years.
Uncle Souichiro kept his promise and helped Yuuki with his abusive father. He didn't tell me the details. He just said that it has been taken care of and I need not worry.
I was still not convinced, but let him be.
After my suspension was over, I went back to school. There, I was tackled by a laughing Yuuki, during recess. This alleviated much of my fear. I didn't tell her at the park, that, I was going to ask for help, but nonetheless, she was spot on in her mind when she thought that I had something to do with it.
I was about to reply negatively when she asked about it. But I realized that there is no harm in telling her the truth.
It wasn't like she would complain about it. I told her that I asked my Uncle to look into the matters and see if he can help.
She profusely thanked me and told me the details. Apparently, uncle, Souichiro followed my idea and sent one of his female acquaintances from Children Service Department to check on her. She tore her father in pieces. In the end, he was given a fine of 9,000,000 yen. He was also told if she ever found him abusing her daughter again, he would be sent to jail. This got him really scared.
He had to open an account in name of Miku and deposit 50,000 yen every month as pocket money. He was also forced to hire a maid. When I enquired about it, Miku informed me that she has been taking care of him and her, since she was 10 years old. This actually surprised me a little. Still, I was angry at her father, that he forced her to do all the household work. No wonder she was an only average student at best.
All in all, while her home life improved 10 times and more, her school life degraded. There were rumors about her that she exploited Sasuke (the guy who tried to rape her) and then blackmailed him; she is a slut and so on (the usual crap if you ask me). One by one, her friends came under peer pressure and left her but she stood tall and ignored them. I was very proud of that. I don't know where the rumors started but I had a suspicion.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any proof at that time. I couldn't even go to teachers about this as even some teachers were whispering about her. I didn't know then, but some boys were teasing her and the teachers weren't doing anything like usual. It all changed when I came back. I could see she was happy and relieved to see me. While she ignored them, she wasn't immune to their glares and barbs. This showed on her face. She had some dark circles under her eyes.
Once they saw me with her, they knew better than to keep up their teasing. At least not while I was in the vicinity. Still, I felt bad when I learned this later on. I had one mind to go search for them and beat them up for everything they said about Yuuki, but she persuaded me otherwise.
The best thing, I saw was the scared face of Sasuke, when I came across him one time in the washroom. He was still in the cast even after a month of his beating. He didn't wait for a second and promptly fled from there, making a mess of his pants. I was perplexed about why he would do that. This happened 2nd and 3rd times too.
One day I was just walking in the corridor when I saw him talking to his friends, I went near them without being seen and heard from him that he was the one who started those rumors. I intentionally coughed to get his attention, this had the desired result. He fainted on the spot.
Now, he knew that I knew what he did. But, I didn't want to beat him again. Apparently, he had nightmares of me. On one hand, I was proud, on the other, disgusted. In the end, I decided to teach him the lesson by pranks. I paid the school-known prankster to prank him in humiliating ways and blame me but only for the 1st prank so that he knows I am the one behind the pranks. 1 Day detention was worth it in the end.
His life became hell but somehow he kept coming back. I was somewhat impressed with his determination and stubbornness.
This continued for a while, whenever I would get bored I would also just go in his sight and make an angry face at him and he will flee from there. I amused myself from these situations a little too much. Later on, I felt a little guilty for bullying him but he just got a slap on the wrist when he should have been expelled or spent a year at least in Juvenile. In the end, he changed school just after the midterm exams.
The sour face of my previous homeroom teacher when we accidentally met in the corridor was also quite humorous. Apparently, my mom didn't like that he lied about me and tried to manipulate her. She directly went to the Board of Directors to file a complaint about him. In the end, he was demoted and put on probation. He also got quite an earful from my mom in the Lobby where other teachers and students could see and listen and that too on the same day after getting demoted.
Say what you will, but that was the best thing I liked about my mom. She knew where to strike and how to strike on someone to get full profit. Apparently, she learned this when she worked on Wall Street for some time.
Yuuki behaved well with me, just a little bit of flirting here and there. I could see she had a crush on me. But still, I was somewhat reserved with her despite that. I also didn't react to her flirting. I knew she was the same Yuuki who was in league with Shido so initially, I kept her at arms' length. Moreover, I didn't know how to flirt.
I also went to my Military Camp training in the summer holidays without even telling her anything.
On the first day of school, she broke down crying in front of me that nobody trusted her, nobody wants to do anything with her even me. I felt bad about it and rectified it immediately by hugging her.
Thankfully she bought the half-truths I told her at that time.
From then on she clung to me as her life depended on it. It didn't take much time for her to win me over. She became flirtier with me. At first, I didn't know what to do but little by little I started flirting back. Initially, I used to stammer whenever she flirted with me, still in a month our positions were reversed. After a month she would blush whenever I would flirt with her. I just had to be bolder with her.
I also realized how lonely I was before Yuuki became my friend. There was Asami but she had her own circle of friends. She only came to meet me when she didn't have anyone else to spend time with. As I said, we were already drifting apart. Now, we only meet only 3-4 times a month.
There were Saya and Hisashi, no doubt, for passing time but they were 2 and 3 years my junior and somewhat immature too. Hisashi just started maturing when he felt the blow of his parents' death but he was still a bit immature, then. Saya is still immature and I don't think she will mature anytime soon.
But Yuuki was different; she had been taking care of herself from the age of 10 after her mother passed away. With her father drinking away his life, she had to sometimes take care of him too. She matured not by choice but by necessity. She was not much younger than me too. We just had a difference of 10 months.
Moreover, Saya and Hisashi weren't there most of the time. I usually meet Hisashi at a freelance Dojo and Saya at her manor, while I met Miku every day. While she was a year junior from me, she still spent all her free time with me like recess time. We even bunked many times to spend some time together.
I even introduced her to my parents after she broke down in front of me, still feeling a little bad about it. My parents already knew about her, how she was almost raped, how her home life was, how her father abused her before uncle Souichiro stepped in, how her father was a drunkard and made a deal with a would-be rapist's father. Already my parents pitied her so when I introduced her to them; they didn't waste any time spoiling her.
Well, my mom was initially wary of her but an hour after they both were smitten with her.
She started coming with me more often to my home from school instead of going to her house. She even started spending some nights in our house. I helped her with her studies in my free time. It wasn't like she was stupid, far from it. I would say she was actually very smart. It's just that she missed her studies as she had to take care of herself and her father. And now that her father was forced to hire a maid, she could properly concentrate on her studies.
I also think that she gave an extra effort to impress me.
And so we grew very close to each other in time. I was not surprised when she and I became so close that you could call her my best friend. Even Saya and Asami were jealous of her relationship with me when I introduced them to Yuuki. They even gave her a hard time about it by backhanded compliments. Thankfully, I already warned Miku of them so she didn't say anything. Hisashi just teased me about her but fully supported me.
I realized quickly that this was my chance to keep Yuuki in my group instead of Shido's.
Still, I wanted her to be ready, so I manipulated her by saying 'how I liked fit girls' and what do you know 2 months later she was quite fit. I even insisted her to take some self-defense classes so in the future she doesn't become a sitting duck. She took the defense lessons but she was not interested in martial arts. Still, to impress me she took the classes and learned at quite a fast pace. Still, I could see it was not up to her alley.
You could call it manipulation but it was for her own benefit.
While I knew she liked me and had a mountain-sized crush on me, I didn't reciprocate that. I played hard to get. I knew her status in school was bad so nobody wanted to be her friend, even the teenage boys who are ruled by their hormones kept their distance from her. While this Japan was different than the previous one, it still had societies and the parents didn't want their boys to get cozy with her type of girls.
Still, I knew if I wanted her loyalty I had to show her that I can get other girls I like and there are many fishes in the pond, so to speak.
Moreover, she was still too young in my opinion. I felt uncomfortable to date a girl less than 16 years old. So that was 1 more reason to deny her any relationship with me.
To get her off my back, I used an online dating app to find a girl.
Thankfully some girls liked bad boys and nobody could fit better than me in that type of image.