Note:

(This SS talks about what would have happened if Hiyori had proposed Ayanokoji in Volume 11.5.)

"I think I love you, Ayanokoji-kun!"

We were currently at Keyaki mall when she suddenly blurted out those words.

Hiyori had called me here saying that she had wanted to talk about the new books she had got her hand on.

It was spring break and I didn't have anything better to do so I accepted it.

But later when I thought about my plan for the end of the spring break, I decided to call Kei and have her witness this scene between me and Hiyori play out.

I had thought I would judge her reaction when she sees me and Hiyori here and proceed accordingly.

But I hadn't expected her to say something like that to me.

Shina Hiyori, a student from Class C.

She should have been an enemy, and of course, she still is an enemy. 

But things were different between the two of us.

Things were different when the two of us read books together like this.

I enjoyed talking about these books with her and she seemed to enjoy it as well.

By reading books, we had become good 'friends', I guess.

But, never in a million years, had I imagined she would confess to me.

From what I had observed, she didn't seem like someone to say things like this randomly without calculating.

Is this something she had calculated beforehand or not?

I snapped out of that quickly because there were more important matters at hand.

I had to give her an answer.

She is a really good girl and to boot, we have similar tastes in books. She sure is cute and has got a well-endowed figure.

Normally, any guy would have been happy receiving a confession from such a beautiful girl.

But I was at a loss.

I knew she would feel bad but I had no other choice.

I decided to turn her down.

First of all, she was someone from an enemy class.

In the future, a clash was inevitable. At that time we couldn't bother to consider our own feelings and drag our respective classes down.

Secondly, she wasn't going to be 'useful' to me.

Because I knew that this girl lived a completely different life from me.

Our existence should have nothing in common.

However, there were some similarities in our thoughts and ideas.

Why we were able to get close and grow comfortable around each other was still a mystery to me.

So, because of these two reasons, I decided to turn her down.

"You don't have to answer right now. You can take your time. I will wait as long as it would take."

Because of the lack of response from my side, she must have thought that I was having a hard time giving an answer to her right now and showed genuine concern.

But I had decided to turn her down right here and right now.

If I procrastinated on this answer, she might accumulate more and more hope. And if I turned her down after that, all the hope she had built up until then might crumble and she might be overtaken by despair.

I sucked in a deep breath.

I didn't have much to say just two simple words.

"I'm sorry."

I tried to come across as considerate and I think I managed to do it a bit if not perfectly.

For a moment, I could see her face contort and the feeling of heartbreak spread across her face.

But she quickly regained her composure and gave a smile.

That smile was a painful one.

"Aha-aha"

She tried to laugh it off but I caught the emotion hidden behind her pained laugh.

She lowered her head.

I couldn't quite see her face because the view was blocked by her long, beautiful blue hair.

Silence overtook.

"Ayanokoji-kun."

She spoke breaking the silence, but her head was still hung down.

"I knew this would happen. I knew that you were going to turn me down. I know that we are from different classes and this wasn't possible."

She knew that I would turn her down. As I had thought she was a calculative person, so she must have concluded that I would turn her down.

So, the question was why did she confess?

I wanted to ask but before I could she started speaking again.

"But I confessed to you anyway."

She slowly raised her head and looked at me.

"Because I wanted to get rid of this emotion."

"If I hadn't proposed to you today, I would have kept these feelings bottled up inside me and when our classes eventually would have clashed these feelings were bound to get in the way. And I didn't want that!"

"But I also loved you. So, I thought about what I should do and eventually arrived at the answer."

Oh.

I realized what she was getting at.

"So, I thought that if I proposed to you, you would turn me down and it would be like all over."

She looked at me dead in the eyes. 

Her eyes spoke volumes of numerous emotions that were surging right now at her heart.

She knew that I would turn her down which would assure her that the two of us being together wasn't possible and she could fight with her all without being chained down by her personal emotions.

It was a very calculative choice and also a very brave one.

She knew she would be turned down, but she mustered her courage and confessed to me all the while knowing that her heart would be torn to pieces.

I had to admit that she was brave.

"But..."

After a bit of a pause, she spoke again.

"But I had been naive."

Huh? Naive? Why?

The decision she had taken was in the best of interest for her class. So why would her decision be naive?

I couldn't wrap my head around what she was about to say.

"I was fully prepared for this. I was fully prepared that you would turn me down. But it still hurts!"

At that point, the tears that she had been trying so hard to hold in overflowed.

"It hurts! It really hurts! It hurts bad!!"

She started crying.

All I could do was watch and nothing else.

I knew that she was in pain and she was suffering but I couldn't offer a single word to comfort her.

But there was one thing that I had forgotten about myself which Hiyori reminded me of today.

It was something I shouldn't have forgotten.

I realized all over again that I was a terrible person.

I had turned down two confessions by now: one from Satou and one today from Hiyori.

And why?

It was all because of my selfish reasons.

I turned them down simply because they wouldn't be useful to me.

And if I involved myself with them, they were bound to bring me some trouble later on. 

That's why I turned them down because they weren't useful to me.

To me, others were just tools.

I didn't care about what methods I had to use. All that mattered to me was that I win at the end.

Isn't that a horrible thing that a fellow human like me thought in such a way about other humans?

This exchange with Hiyori made me remember who I really was.

I was a horrible human being.