A Penny for Your Thoughts
So, another chapter which provides a lot more analysis into this new life coach like situation with Kise, along with gaining more insight into Kise's problems. Also some subtle hints to Suzume's past. Hope you enjoy. Tell me what you think. I don't bite. Also, never count on me to update this fast. I must have been on a roll, because this hardly ever happens. Don't hate me.
Chapter II - It's Like Reading
"I'm Sasaki Tomomi from class 1-A. Kise-san, I like you and… and I'd really love to become your girlfriend."
Kise looked at the girl in front of him rather blankly. Confessions grew into a daily thing for him, receiving notes in his shoe locker and having to meet girls outside to spill their feelings for him, their full and honest feelings. He'd normally smile and reject them, with his full and honest feelings, giving them the play-by-play, 'it's me, not you' spiel. But now, it weighed heavily on his mind.
It had been a week since Miyakigawa Suzume left that day after entering her number into his phone, telling him to talk if he needed it, but he didn't talk to her. To be honest, he didn't want to whine to her, to seem weak and vulnerable, and especially about such a petty problem. And he didn't know where to start with her, and how she would actually take it if he did message her. She might have seemed open, but Miyakigawa could have just simply told him to shut up if he did message her. Rejection for friendship scared him just a little.
All the girls confessing to him increased, probably wanting to snatch him up before Christmas. And honestly, he didn't like hurting people's feelings, but he didn't think their confessions ever were really honest.
"What do you like about me?" Kise asked this time, eying the girl in front of him – dark hair, innocent looking, simple and kind of cute. She looked nervous. And he wondered, what about him did she really like if she hadn't even exchanged a couple words with him.
"Ah… I… I think you'd be the perfect boyfriend. You're talented, you're good looking… and you always are so cheerful I can't help but admire you. I always buy Zunon Boy because of you," she said shyly, looking up at him through her lashes.
Kise knew she buttered it up quite a bit. He bit his lip and answered, "I'm sorry. I don't think I can measure up to your standards, Tomomi-san. I can't return your feelings. You're a pretty girl; you'll find a much better boyfriend than me."
She buttered it up and she only liked his appearance, his skills at basketball, all those aspects which didn't matter at all in a relationship. She liked him physically, but she didn't exchange even a few words with him to understand how annoying he could be sometimes – didn't understand that he got a 13% on the last biology test, didn't understand anything about him really. It hurt more than he thought it would, to finally hear it honestly from one of his fans. He wanted to become friends with them all, but apparently his efforts and smiles never counted for much – being cheerful lay on the backburner next to his job as a model.
Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, as almost clumsily, she complained, "H-how can anyone get close to you, Kise-san? All the girls say that a normal girl will never be enough for you and I wanted to confess and tell you my feelings, but you're just brushing them aside! I don't want another boyfriend, I want you!" Tomomi looked heartbroken and he knew he hurt someone's feelings again. He felt a little bad. "So, to be with you, does someone to have to be a curvy model, a super gorgeous girl who's also just as talented as the Generation of Miracles when it comes to basketball, Kise Ryouta-sama? Is that it? No one here can match up to that!" With that, tears spilling down her flushed cheeks, she ran down the deserted hallway, not even giving him a chance to answer.
"When did I ever say I wanted a perfect girl? You were pretty enough…" Kise mumbled distractedly. Sighing, he prepared to go to practice with Kasamatsu.
That right then, left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth and he didn't like it. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he looked at the contact, 'Worst Basketball Player Ever' for a moment, and wondered if this new sense of self doubt that plagued him was a good enough reason to talk to Miyakigawa-senpai.
Looking at her laptop screen dully after finishing most of her psych paper, Suzume felt unbearably tired. And her back was stiff after sitting with a bad posture for so long. Deciding to grab a snack then, and enjoy the fact that she had the apartment to herself for the moment, she stepped out of her room and into the kitchen to set something up.
Her roommate, an unbearably ditzy girl who went out drinking every single night, sometimes to bring men home that Suzume was left to kick out in the morning, hadn't come home from her late night escapades the night before. Her little sister seemed a nice enough girl, but the woman she lived with, not really. Suzume could only comment on the deceptiveness of appearances then, because she looked well enough when they first met. They rented out this two bedroom together, a decently sized place with some nice stainless steel appliances, hardwood, and cream couches paired with dark wood tables and chairs. They decided on the soft green colour for the walls, and decorated it with art they both created and shopped for alike. But little did she know that the roommate would be a terrible, terrible person to live with.
The men she invited over, so constantly there, just seemed to account for the space and needs of a second roommate, unfortunately.
Deciding on some cabbage rolls, Suzume moved to get the leaves off the cabbages, then cut the giant veins out of them so she could roll them. Unfortunately for her, her constant moaning and groaning over her crappy roommate coupled with a knife, led to a cut on her finger.
"Shit." The cut stung and blood dribbled form the thin slice on her index finger. Putting it under some cool water and grabbing a band-aid from the cupboard above the sink in the washroom, she wrapped it around her finger and sighed. "Not what I was hoping for today," she mumbled.
Then, her phone rang, surprising her. Walking over to the counter where she placed it, Suzume took a glance at her called ID and didn't recognize the number. Shrugging, she tapped the screen to answer the call and held it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Ah, Miyakigawa-senpai… it's Kise from last week," the voice on the other end said a little reluctantly. "If you remember…"
"Ah, Mr. 13%-in-biology, is it?" Suzume could almost feel his frown on the other end of the line. So, the kid finally decided to call her after one week. Settling down on one of the couches, she prepared to give him undivided attention for whatever he had to say. "Kid, with what we went through, I doubt I'd forget. That vomit pretty much bonded us for life," Suzume joked. She heard his laughter on the other end of the line. Furrowing her brow a little, she did noticed he sounded a little bothered. "So, what's eating you, kid? You should have called me a while ago at the first sign of it bothering you. I don't bite."
He paused for a moment and then started with, "It's kind of hard to say over the phone… and I didn't know if you were the type to bite or not. I didn't want to be yelled at for calling you," he told her a little too honestly with a small smile, she knew.
Looking over at her incomplete with-no-filling cabbage rolls, and the cut on her finger, she snorted. "Kid, you have so little faith in me. I don't look that scary, do I?"
"Of course not, Miyakigawa-senpai!" Kise answered a little too brightly.
What a liar, Suzume thought, biting back a grin. "Tell you what, Ryouta-chan. Hard to tell me over the phone? Meet me at…" She thought for a moment of different places she could meet him at. "Meet me at that café, Bonbon, near Kaijou. I'm assuming you go there since it's the closest high school to your place, right?" She needed something to eat too, so going to a café seemed the obvious choice. Cabbage rolls definitely didn't agree with her right now if they caused her to get injured. Well, screw you, cabbage rolls, who said I needed you? she thought a little bitterly. I can get my own professionally made food. Suzume glared at the cabbage in disdain. "I'll pay for you too, so just… splurge and tell me about your issues, okay, kid?"
"Alright," he answered a little mischievously, "If your wallet can handle it."
"Before my wallet, consider the condition of your waistline, kid," Suzume shot back. She took a glance at the clock on the wall and said, "I'll meet you there in thirty or so minutes."
"Alright then, Miyakigawa-senpai. And don't worry, my waistline will be fine. You should be more worried about your wallet," Kise told her, matter-of-fact, and then hung up the phone without waiting for her reply at all.
Pulling the phone away from her ear, she laughed heartily. "Cheeky kid…"
Perhaps she would buy him the entire menu then, if not for anything else, then interesting banter he provided her with. But she did wonder what he called her up for. Suzume felt content that he trusted her enough as a good enough person to listen to his problems. As she suspected, she doubted anyone listened to him often enough. Sometimes, everyone needed someone to listen to them. Suzume looked at one contact in her phone, a little melancholic, before pulling on her jacket and her shoes.
Kise couldn't believe Miyakigawa Suzume's generosity when she said that food was on her. Of course, he definitely had enough money to spare with his modelling career, and from his family in general being slightly more well-off, but still, someone treating him was a nice treat. He wondered where he would start with telling her about what he found himself near brooding about earlier on in the day. Somehow, he found it difficult to get the words out. Even so, he suspected a day out would get his mind off of things, send his mind to happier places for a little while rather than the sea of self-doubt that it had drowned itself in earlier without the slightest bit of treading water.
The café that Suzume mentioned, Kise visited before – a nice place only a few minutes from Kaijou, with a casual interior and friendly service, and a place that students often visited. Their sweets were particularly tantalizing, and Kise knew that if anyone would love it, then Murasakibara would.
He saw Suzume at the entrance, taking a drag of a cigarette, much to his surprise. When he approached her he greeted cheerily, "Hey, Miyakigawa-senpai! You smoke?"
She reached the end of her cigarette, and pulled it out of her mouth, throwing it on the ground and stepping on it. "It's a bad habit. Perhaps I shouldn't have been doing it where easily impressionable kids could see me," Suzume teased him to gently deflect the subject. Perhaps she would tell him someday during their exchange of secrets, why she started in the first place.
Of course, Kise knew that she carefully evaded the subject, skillfully so. He didn't push it if it was painful for her to talk about. The last thing he wanted would be for his listener to get angry at him, leave, and never want to be his friend again. "You're so mean, I'm not a kid," he uttered predictably, if only to play along.
"You are a kid." She chuckled at his pout and only realized then that he reminded her more and more of a puppy. Perhaps a show dog, judging by all the admiring glances he got on the street even now. Looking serious, she continued, "Now, you ready to get fat, Ryouta-chan? I've heard this place has some pretty delicious Mont Blanc and I've been dying to try it ever since someone told me about it."
"Eh, Mont Blanc? Is that your favourite dessert, senpai?" Kise asked curiously, as he held the door open for her and they both walked in.
They both chose a table in the far corner, near the window so they could observe the people walking outside. Suzume noticed then just how many people looked like students in this place, how many with actual uniforms, and many who seemed about that age. They all seemed to know who Kise was, and to her, it felt like a celebrity walking into a store. Trying to ignore the glances on her for walking beside him, she sat down across from the happily smiling boy, seemingly used to all the attention, shimmering like a diamond amongst regular people.
"Mm, I really like Mont Blanc. Especially when there's pumpkin instead of chestnut. But I like most desserts too," Suzume explained, looking at him for a moment with a small smile. "So, what's your favourite dessert?"
"Tiramisu," he replied without skipping a beat. "It's delicious." He noticed then, the band-aid on her finger when she placed her hand on the table. He asked, "What happened to your finger?"
"Cut it while trying to make cabbage rolls," Suzume replied with a scoff. "I swear that knife hates me. I never got this many cuts before I got it. But my exhaustion might also be to blame."
When Kise looked at her then, he saw the bags under her eyes and how pale she seemed. "Stayed up all night doing work?" he asked, to which she nodded. "Get a good night sleep tonight," he told her sympathetically. It must have sucked to not have a good night's sleep again, when the week before she must have been suffering due to Aika. He also imagined university students didn't get much sleep. She looked like death, to put it simply. The loud yawn that she released only a little while after didn't help with that comment. "Does that mean this is only an excuse so you can have lunch?" he inquired with a laugh.
"Mostly, but I also wanted to listen to you, kid, so don't get all disappointed on me." Suzume flicked him on the forehead and chuckled when he looked a little annoyed.
The waitress came over soon enough and, unsurprisingly, she recognized Kise. With a flush on her face and a strange sort of fidgeting that Suzume could only compare to an odd, tribal dance, she began to speak, "O-oh, K-kise-san! I didn't know you came here. I'm from Kaijou too! C-class 2-C Tanaka Ayane! I admire you a lot! You're so handsome and good at basketball!"
Suzume watched with a bored look on her face as the girl attempted to get him to acknowledge her with her flattery. She also noticed the ever so subtle hurt as Kise began to sparkle with that fake charisma of his. Watching him carefully as the events unfolded, she thought that would be better to figure out his issue rather than him stating it outright.
"Ah really, that's nice! I'm glad I have a lot of fans in Kaijou," Kise answered her easily. Suddenly, the faces of all the other girls who he rejected came to mind, faded and fuzzy, merging into each other in his mind like some sort of optical illusion telling him they'd been the same person all along, including Sasaki Tomomi. His basketball was natural to him, and so was his ability to model, and so he didn't see why people should respect him for that if anything. He didn't like it at all. He thought people should have respected him for being a nice person, or something like that. "Okay then, Tanaka-chan, can I start off with a lychee bubble tea and a Tiramisu then?" He looked over to Suzume, who observed his situation, not with a smirk like he expected, but with a blank look on her face, almost analyzing him. Kise thought that she was trying to see his reaction to it, and his defensive mechanism to that was always to hide it. Hastily, he said, "What would you like, Miyakigawa-senpai?
The girl's attention focused on the previously invisible-to-her woman. "Are you his girlfriend?" she asked slowly, although she really didn't believe it herself. She didn't think Kise would ever go for an older looking, almost frumpy looking woman.
"Not that it's any of your business, but no," Suzume drawled. At the girl's relieved sigh and the almost exhausted expression on Kise's face, she continued, "So I'll get the seafood noodles and some coke, please." The woman nodded and busily collected their menus before heading off. Before she walked away completely Suzume said, "You know, flattery like that isn't going to help you get into someone's good books. You have to know them for them."
"What do you know, sloppy woman?" she heard the girl mutter under her breath. "You're not his girlfriend either."
Suzume shrugged and understood that she at least tried to turn the girl into an overall better human being. Until the food came back, Kise looked a little dejected, and Suzume understood from the little display that girls like that were eating at him – and supposed that was why he wanted to talk to her today. "Are girls like that your issue, kid?" She leaned her chin on her hand and gave him her attention, gesturing then for him to speak.
Kise nodded and then with a sheepish grin said, "I know I shouldn't be sad at all. It seems like a stupid problem…" He paused and then continued, "This girl confessed to me today, it's been happening pretty often, but today, I asked for the first time, why? And she said the same thing as this girl too, I'm handsome and perfect and never even bothered to mention who I am. And when I rejected her she told me that a normal girl could never get close to me and called me shallow pretty much… isn't that stupid?" He didn't want her to tell him that she found it a stupid problem, even though he knew full well that other people had better things to worry about. Something stupid like having to reject people constantly felt a little petty in comparison, a little insignificant. But he couldn't help but look down on those people who respected him for no other reason at all.
"Kid, get off your high horse," Suzume told him sharply, surprising him greatly.
The food came back shortly after, and the waitress looked from one of them to the other almost nervously at the tension, before leaving soon after.
Taking a small bite of his Tiramisu, Kise started, "What-" He grew a little hurt that she decided to tell him that after he confided in her. But somewhat hoping to hear what she thought, he forced himself not to let the sting in his heart hurt too much.
Suzume held up her hand and noticed that he looked a little hurt. "Chill out and let me explain, kid, before you start crying on me. And," she continued with a serious look on her face, "if you expect me to coddle you, you've got the wrong person." Sighing a bit, he nodded and gestured for her to continue. "The only reason you find this an issue is because to some extent, you believe you're superior to everyone else – because you're a whiz kid at basketball and because you've got looks. It's to the point where you're sensitive to compliments, kid."
Distracting himself with the wonderful taste of the Tiramisu for a moment, deflecting the hurt of her harsh words, he stopped. Then, he complained, "I don't think I'm superior, I don't want people to praise things natural to me… and to call me shallow when I never asked for a perfect girl." He didn't understand her backwards logic. To him, it seemed like a math equation, and he always sucked at any sort of algebra and trigonometry, the numbers and symbols floating around his head in a terrible concoction he didn't even want to know the contents of.
"To say something is natural to you is to say that you require no improvement, Ryouta-chan, so you basically acknowledged your superiority. That's not a good thing." Suzume clucked her tongue and then ate a forkful of her seafood noodles. She chose a nice place today, she decided. "You go through this thought process; girl confesses to you, saying you're a hunk or whatever else you high school kids call each other, and you think, 'well I know that already, why bother telling me,' right? And then you think, 'well I never asked for a perfect girl, she's bound to be less perfect than me,' right? The way you're going about it is condescending. It's good that you acknowledge other people's flaws, but only if you acknowledge your own. That's why that little bird said that a normal girl couldn't get close to you, because you hold them at arm's length."
Kise didn't want to acknowledge her assessment as correct (but he did acknowledge it as embarrassing, since she sounded about eighty when she said 'hunk') even though he knew full well its correctness, and judging by the sly smile on her face, she knew it too. "I suppose I do kind of hold them at arm's length…" He looked at his food and then up at her face, slowly saying, "But it's not like I want to, I just want them to say something different for once."
Suzume leaned across the table and ruffled his hair. With a grin she replied, "So that they'll see your personality. I understand that too, kid, don't get me wrong, I don't think you're a terrible person. You're a good person, just with a big ego I have to knock down a few pegs. You have your flaws too, you understand that, right?" Kise nodded with a small smile. "Good, just making sure. You have to acknowledge them, because you have them – your bad grades, for one, and your arrogance, two main things I think." Suzume looked at him then and smiled a little. "Next time someone confesses to you and if she reacts badly to your rejection, ignore it. Learn to take a compliment." Thinking up another scenario for him to learn off of, she settled with, "Okay, imagine this – what if I was a model and a basketball king, and I… I don't know, surgically grafted your face onto mine or something. Pretty much, if I looked like you. But with my personality, do you think I'd be just as popular? Come on, don't be shy – I don't take offense." She looked at his reluctance to an answer and bit back a laugh. Suzume loved to see him squirm.
"Of course, Miyakigawa-senpai!" Kise said with a wide smile. She just glared at him and forced him to be honest. "So mean, I was trying to be nice!" he whined, trying to stall. He never knew how hard he found it to behave honestly. Perhaps whenever he rejected, he never rejected with his full and honest feelings either. He'd been just as bad as them all this time. "Fine… I don't think you would, not because you're not a nice person, because you are…" He settled for the right and least offensive words. "Sometimes you seem a little unapproachable and you're not… very typical?" It sounded more like a question to him but those were the only words he could come up with to describe her. "And you're blunt and a little too honest…" he finished with.
"Ryouta-chan, I'm disappointed in you. Is that all you can come up with?" she teased, and laughed when he looked a bit disgruntled at her treatment of him. "My personality would be my flaw. I wouldn't get that many confessions either. Which means, to some extent, your fans acknowledge your cheerful personality, just not fully, kid. Don't sweat it though," she continued in a nonchalant fashion, "at least you're not me."
"Actually, being you wouldn't be so bad," Kise complimented. Finishing up his cake and then taking a sip of his bubble tea, he continued, "You may not make a good model, or a basketball player, but you make a good therapist, right?"
"The flattery is killing me, kid. Are you trying to bribe me into spending more on you," Suzume replied, quirking an eyebrow suspiciously. But really, it felt nice for him to acknowledge her like this, and say that she did in fact do a job well done and make him feel better, as well as bring him down a couple notches. Kise Ryouta seemed a decent person, humourous to get riled up, mostly because he seemed about to cry like a kid and not ready to yell back at her.
"I think one cake's good for now," Kise replied with a laugh. "But next time, I'll treat you, okay? You have my number now too. You can call me for anything as well, I don't bite," he joked, referring back to their previous conversation.
So with that, she paid for both of them (after ordering her delicious Mont Blanc, which she knew that she'd request Kise to spend a lot of money on) and they walked out of the store together. Suzume turned to him and with a wide grin, said, "I'll hold you to it. Unlike you, I don't have to watch my waistline."
"Order as much as you want. I have to thank you after all," Kise told her without any hesitance. "Call me up, then."
"I assume today made you feel better then?" Kise nodded in reply to her. To which she said, "Alright, that's good then. I'll call you up or you call me up – and we'll decide where else we can meet, alright, kid?" Suzume then, with a short nod of farewell, walked in the direction to her home, hoping to God that her roommate didn't decide to bring another man home.
Kise nodded and then with a laugh, called, "It's a date then, Miyakigawa-senpai. I won't reject you with my giant superiority complex so you don't need to worry!"
"Real funny, kid," Suzume replied, not turning around at all. "Real funny."
But suddenly, she didn't need to think about her problems either. She felt satisfied just with the fact that she helped him out with his. Suddenly she didn't taste the strangely alluring fumes of the cigarette on her breath. Suddenly, she didn't need to stare idly at that contact on her phone. The bitter aftertaste on her tongue disappeared, since she at least brought down Kise's sky high ego and helped him somewhat, figure out who he was.
And that let her push her own problems under the rug for a little while.
"Kids need that time of self-exploration…" she mumbled to herself, looking up at the sky then. With a laugh, Suzume concluded, "I think I still need time for self-exploration. Does that mean I'm just as much a kid as you, Ryouta-chan?"
The thought made her shake with laughter, since she knew she understood a lot about other people, but barely learned anything about herself in the past four years. Inside, Suzume didn't even know if people would consider her just as much a kid as Kise. Sometimes, she felt like she put up a front for the sake of other people and didn't know if she spouted complete bullshit that they tried to make sense of. Really, how could she analyze other people so well if she couldn't solve the problems in her own life?
How could she understand just about everyone as well as reading a book, and enough to make Kise understand himself? Somehow, Suzume wished that someone did that to her, gave her a puzzle that she'd have to work through slowly like a mouse through a maze, only to find the cheese at the end.
Shaking her head, she prepared to deal with her roommate – get back to reality and things that actually mattered. Like, cleaning up those cabbages unfortunately. Stupid cabbages, she thought miserably.
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