Hi, I'm trying to take out the rust in my writing. I'm alive!
But yeah college is a big hammer to the face. I still get very homesick – and while, yes, I am not the family favorite, I do miss my comfort zone. So you could call me comfort-zone-sick instead hahahaha.
Disclaimer: Noooooo
31: The Hurdle
Oh, the things she did for love.
If you were wondering, Sokudone made it outside of the school.
And out of the mess inside her office.
But now she was stuck in another one. And this one made her wish she was back in the office.
"Ah, if it isn't my favorite," Fudou paused, letting his loud remark enter the ears of those within a two meter radius. Sokudone froze in her steps, fully aware that her probation officer heard every decibel of it. Fudou let out a signature devious smile and Maki suddenly, finally realized something was going on between the president and the delinquent. "School president." The brunette finished. He studied Gohin's expression, his own smile still plastered on his face. Sokudone exhaled, collected herself, and walked over to her two assistants. "Do that again and you're out of this school," she whispered.
"Say that louder and he'll get you out too," The delinquent whispered back, jabbing a not so discreet thumb at the probation officer behind them. Gohin continued to keep an emotionless face as he studied the behavior of the two.
The blackette turned to her crimson-haired assistant. "What are you up to?"
"We're studying profiles of all the presidents and bigwig names attending the benefit gala this Saturday," Maki straightened in her seat. She never actually knew why she was being replaced, only that neither she nor the president could say no to the change. "Shachō will just need to focus on her clothes and beating Raimon to the best catch." Sokudone grinned. "That's a fine plan; have we found clothes for Akio yet?"
Maki raised her eyebrows at the president's slip up. 'Akio'? She blinked a few times. "U-uh, no, not yet."
"Tomorrow afternoon?" Sokudone offered a soft smile at the brunette seated beside her, but only Fudou saw the killer glare in her eyes. He returned her look with a hungry expression. "Whatever the lady wants."
Oddly enough, both Gohin and Maki had simultaneously concluded that there was something going on between the two.
"Shachō," Maki rushed behind Sokudone as the latter walked back to her office to check how the mess was faring. The blackette turned to meet her soon-to-be-dismissed secretary. "Maki," The crimson-haired student had a searching look in her eyes. "Shachō, can you at least tell me what's going on? What am I missing?" Sokudone tilted her head. "'Missing'?"
"I've done a decent job at being your secretary and I still managed to be an equally good Student Council president; why am I being booted out?" Sokudone's eyes widened. She had honestly thought they were doing Maki a favor by relieving her of a very heavy duty, but the result proved otherwise. Gohin had told her Maki was going to be grateful. All she saw was dejection. "Why can't I fight him? Why can't you? Why did you choose the school's most menacing delinquent to replace the highest-positioned officer?"
Sokudone felt a pang in her heart. "Maki, see A— Fudou for what he's worth, not for what he's made himself to be," The two girls resumed walking to, at the very least, a corridor with the least amount of people to overhear. "My father was proud of him; Fudou is, albeit in a generally less appealing way, Yuuto if we talked about brains here. I wouldn't mind taking Yuuto in so you could wholly focus on the Student Council, but the guy is your Vice President, and I think it's the two of you together who make the Student Council as admired as it is now."
Maki blushed at the compliment.
"We need the two of you there, not just one. On the other hand, we have a very idle Fudou Akio who has no commitments whatsoever. And he's also seen my father at work. I need that. I need to know what he's seen so I could make my presidency work, so I can make this school as admired as it was when my father had taken over."
The two students stopped in front of the Student Council room, where Maki was headed, but how Shachō knew without her having to say, she didn't know. "He is not a disappointment, take it from me," the president insisted as she slid the door open. To her relief, the goggle-wearing Vice President was there, hunched over a couple of papers. "She's all yours, Yuuto," Sokudone grinned albeit suggestively.
Kidou stood up, and if the girls could've seen behind the goggles, rolled his eyes. "She had always been of the Student Council, you thief."
"Hey, ease up on the insults; I've officially dismissed her."
"Human trafficker."
"She was willing to work with me!"
"Slave driver."
"Um, I think we should get going," Maki interrupted as she stepped inside the room. The president's final words echoed in her ears, getting louder and louder by the second. "Thank you for your hard work."
"Thank you for yours," Sokudone smiled wistfully at her. She turned on her heel and left. Maki followed the questionably hunched figure of the president as she walked away in the dimly lit corridor. The crimson-haired Student Council president hesitantly slid the door close. "Kaichō."
Maki turned to her right-hand man. Kidou crossed his arms, looked away, and, without Maki knowing, shut his eyes tight. "She's gone through worse. She'll be fine." But Maki let out a humorless laugh. "Is there anything possibly worse than Fudou Akio?" And yet, Kidou didn't budge. 'You have no idea how wrong you are.'
It was nearing half-past five, and Sokudone was far from the office. Kami knows what had already gone on while she wasn't around. And she had to deal with Ak— Fudou, too, for the rest of the week, at least until the benefit gala. As she walked back to the office, the blackette had a feeling that she was forgetting something drastically important.
"The ball? It's eight months away, why would I worry?" Sakuma's voice echoed on the adjacent hall. "I don't need a date; don't listen to everything Sokudone says." As quickly as a thrown knife, the president discreetly stuck to the nearest wall and modified her breathing. 'I didn't say anything to— is that who I think it is?' Sokudone's dark eyes brightened in the dark corridor. "It's not necessary to bring a date," Sakuma assured the person on the other line. Moments later, Sokudone heard the faint footsteps of Sakuma approaching her.
But the steps were too quiet, and Sakuma had no reason to mute his sounds.
Immediately, Sokudone lurched to the direction of the catlike pace and was surprised to have her mouth blocked by a fruity smell of a hand as she smacked her own palm to the presumed area of the mouth.
"And who said they couldn't make matches while they were on probation?" Fudou's dark teal eyes demanded.
"Sokudone's not bringing a date, for all I know. She had gone with Genda last year but he's got a girlfriend now – which is another thing I don't understand why she did." There was a pause as the tealnet listened to his phone. Fudou stealthily pushed the petite blackette against the wall she had previously stuck to. The raw panic in her eyes satisfied him. Sakuma's voice was disappearing into another hall away from his two eavesdroppers. "No, I don't hate his girlfriend; I just don't understand why she had to get him one. Genda's fun now – always has been, but I just miss it when it was just the four of us."
The brunette bit the president's finger to talk. Sokudone recoiled almost immediately. "You're the only one who thinks this is a good idea."
"No, I'm the only one who knows why," The blackette attempted to push the leaning boy away from her. He relented, a slight hesitation in his gesture, but the president paid no heed to him as she headed back to her office. She worried about how much time had actually passed since she had left those two alone…and whether they had found out about the tape recorder. That would be so bad.
But Fudou pulled her back to the wall again with a renewed force.
"Stop meddling in people's lives and telling them who to fall in love with!" He yelled at her, anger boiling. His grip on her shoulders tightened, and Sokudone tried not to wince at the increasing pain. "Have you never tapped on your own feelings? Have you never thought about theirs?"
"Why are you suddenly meddling in my life and telling me what not to do?" Sokudone asked, curious. "I have thought of everyone's feelings but mine. That's why I'm doing this."
"They can find love on their own. You're forcing it on them." That wasn't supposed to be how it was. "I want them to be happy," Sokudone pressed. "This is one way—"
"But it's not the best way!" Fudou snapped at her. "Of all the geniuses, how could you be so daft?"
"You didn't like it when Kageyama got you a husband at five, did you? Why are you doing what he did to you?" Fudou's eyes bore into her, and Sokudone returned the glare. "Is this your revenge, onna?"
"That time was different from this, and his methods differ from mine," She argued, "There is just too little love in this world, Akio," her knees buckled, but Sokudone didn't give in. "I'm just trying to spread it."
I've been gone for so long – college and stress and all other illnesses I won't worry you with had consumed me and it was difficult to get out of that slump. It still is. I'm trying. Wow, this took so long and I think my writing has rusted. Whaddaya guys think?
-wanonymous
