Kaichou in Training
By: K-promises-fall
Disclaimer: I do not claim to own Mai Hime in any way.
You realise something. And it's amazing to you that you never realised it sooner, because you are Kuga Natsuki and all you ever really do in your spare time is sit and think whenever Shizuru is not there to distract you.
It is also puzzling. You sit on the leather couch you bought with illegally obtained funds and think about how screwed up your life used to be, and how screwed up it still is and how you manage to make it appear as though it's the opposite. You think about how your reputation at school has changed from notorious bad-ass lone wolf to technical genius and possible Kaichou candidate. You sit in your clean and spacious two bed room apartment and wonder at how timid glances in the hallway turned to worshipping stares and excited smiles. And you wonder especially at the –sama that got attached to the end of your name. You wonder at the giggles you hear whenever a group of girls walk by you when they see you entering the student council room and at the hush that falls over grinning students whenever you hold Shizuru's books for her when it's time for you to take her home.
You realise that these people look up to you. That they stare at you with wide eyes and see a shining example of the good every human being is capable of; that even Kuga Natsuki, who used ditch classes and deck anyone who smiled at her or dared to attempt to talk to or get to know her could do a complete one-eighty and turn into someone they could go to and ask for advice. And you find that you don't really mind this because they are so awestruck that they never get their mouths to work in time to talk to you anyway.
These are all things you have taken note of whenever you walk the halls of Fuuka High.
But this is the first time you ever really connect that reason with the deep fundamental change that's taken place inside of you.
You've changed.
You've changed because of Shizuru.
But what you've only just realised is that you've changed into Shizuru. You do not mean this in some "oh my god I'm a Shizuru carbon copy" way. Neither do you mean that you now regularly drink tea and participate in traditional Japanese events. You are not as graceful as Shizuru (though you believe that there is a sort of gracefulness in your movements that comes from various martial arts trainings). You do not speak in the elegant, round-about way Shizuru does. You still retain that basic part of yourself that is you; that has always been you. You still tend to be blunt when you talk and you still rather omit the truth than tell an all out lie. You're still a bit of a rebel and it shows in the single piercing you got at the top of your right ear which Shizuru likes to touch sometimes as if she is curious about how it feels, if you feel it at all. You still speak using as little words as possible and have yet to break out of that habit where your voice gets low and scratchy when you're talking to someone you don't really know.
You're still yourself in other ways too. Ways the students and faculty of Fuuka never see.
You still go to bars and talk to Yamada, he is still your informant, only instead of giving you information about your mother he is giving you information on the new jobs that have become your source of income. You still rather work on your bike yourself and frequently get oil stains on your white school blouse because you are too lazy to do much but take off the blazer and put on some pants when you get home. You still eat mayonnaise straight out of the jar. You still get into fights behind bars and clubs (you are now good enough not to get hit in your face and rarely get hit at all). You still play with guns, though they are illegally gained because guns aren't really legal in Japan at all, but it is fine because you never fire them anyway, you mostly take them apart and clean them in a ritualistic manner and now it doesn't even take you five minutes to take apart, clean, and put them back together.
You still visit your mother's grave once a week and throw flowers over the edge of the cliff every anniversary.
You haven't really changed in any of those things.
And it's in those things that you've found yourself changing into Shizuru.
Because where students used to be aware that you were bad news and not likely to go anywhere in life, now they believe that you are a converted saint set to take over after their precious Fujino-sama. You have become like Shizuru in the sense that your private life and school life are completely, totally, painfully separate. You are like Shizuru in the way that these girls and boys with adoration in their eyes don't know the dirty things you get involved in. They don't know of the fights, the late nights, the extortion, the hold ups, the breaking and entering or any of those things. They don't know of the tattoo on your side that links you to a very private underground group that runs the underground area in and around Fuuka. They don't know the disgustingly cheesy things you say to Shizuru when you're alone, or the things you and Shizuru do late into the night that could get you banned from the school church and have Yukariko on her hands and knees constantly praying for your souls.
They don't know of the plans you and Shizuru make for the future, where she takes control of the business world above ground and you take note of every little thing happening below. (Granted Shizuru doesn't really know these plans either, but you are sure she suspects.)
They don't know the way Shizuru sometimes fingers your tattoo and asks if you want out. They don't know of the way Shizuru can scream and yell and how you shout right back at her in arguments that you thought you had already gone over and found solutions to.
They don't know.
They don't know because you don't allow them to.
They don't know because even though you are more active in school and seemingly more approachable, all you have done is followed Shizuru's lead and created a mask.
You have a mask, you realise. A mask that Shizuru helped you create so that you didn't end up in jail for life as soon as you turned 18. You have a mask that not even Mai can fully see through.
So what you have realised is this. That you have a mask. That Shizuru is the one who helped you make it. And that Shizuru is the only one who can see through it, just like you are the only one who can see through hers.
And that the only way the two of you will make it through your lives is if one of you steps up and says no. If one of you stops playing the dangerous game of pushing the fences of the underground.
You wonder if Shizuru will be able to do it.
And you realise, and this is the real big realisation, that Shizuru is even deeper into everything than you are. That you are merely following her lead.
You realise that perhaps Shizuru is merely waiting for you to drag her out of it and away. To drag her away just like you do when she is surrounded by fangirls.
Sitting there on your couch, you breathe deeply.
And you wonder if you can live up to her expectations, when secretly, you are her biggest fan.
End
Author's Note: I'm really not satisfied with that ending line, but for now, it has to stay. Look at me uploading all the fics that have been sitting around on my laptop.
Hope you enjoyed!
~K-promises-fall.