Cote: Retelling

Chapter 7.1 (SS): A Peaceful Lunch

(This is around a week after the swimming lesson. It's basically a short side story, like the ones you see at the end of each volume, but this one's here because it has plot significance.)

After soccer practice today, Hirata, Shibata and oddly Watanabe all had plans after, so it's just me and Kotetsu today. He invited me to hang out, so now we're at the Chinese restaurant with the good Takoyaki, enjoying a meal. Well, I only bought Takoyaki to save money so it can't really be called a meal. Kotetsu got spicy mapo tofu, which he was eating with fervor while sweating all over. Is it that spicy?

"Damn, this restaurant slaps like you said. Ayanokouji, how'd you find this place?"

"Shibata heard about it from a friend who heard about it from a store employee. A cult favourite, apparently."

"I can see why. This mapo tofu *takes a bite* is *takes another spoonful* great. *Takes a big spoonful*"

"Kotetsu, pick between eating or talking."

"Don't worry, my mouth is big enough to do both."

"I don't think the size of your mouth matters."

"Don't mind the details!" He says with a chunk of tofu on his cheek. I point and he wipes it off with a handkerchief, looking embarrassed. Or is it just the spice?

"Man, this school is great. I'm so glad I managed to get admitted."

"The 100,000-yen thing is very luxurious, to the point where you wonder how they aren't bankrupt."

"Well, that's great too, but I think the best part is the 100% acceptance rate to whatever university you want. I'm really dumb, so I was really glad when I got accepted. God, the party we held when my results came back...the entire house was a mess." He says with a wistful expression.

"What did you do?"

"Well, we had food, of course. There was everything from sushi to fried chicken to Takoyaki... speaking of which, can I have one?" After I offer him a Takoyaki, he continues with this story. "Thanks. Wow this is good too. Anyway, I invited a bunch of my friends too. Watanabe was also there, and the whole thing was a joint effort between our families. Anyway, after eating me, Watanabe and our friends went out and stayed up all night, going around shops and just messing around. We had the greatest, messiest, most poorly supervised game of soccer, chased around neighbourhood stray cats for no reason, had a tree-climbing competition...We acted like idiots and it was great. At the end, midnight passed and we returned home messy and tired..."

Kotetsu talked on and on after that, talking all the way back to the dorms. This short interaction between me and him wasn't anything significant, but in my perfect memory it's something I recalled often in the following days.

If my theory about classes competing was true, then it was likely Kotetsu's ideal image of this school would shatter. He mentioned how happy his family was when he got admitted. How would they react if he came out of highschool and, after not seeing him for three years, he came back with a defeated expression for not graduating with the 100% university guarantee?

A little while after finalizing my theory on the roof, I realized if it was true, the 'normal' life the students wanted to lead would be affected. Interacting with other classes, using your points, behaviour, etc. Since then, I've tried my best to avoid clueing other students into what I've noticed. Honestly, I wanted to kick myself for all the clues I gave to Horikita, but thankfully she was too self-absorbed to figure it out.

I've seen enough competition and fights. They don't interest me anymore, since no matter what it is I'll never lose if I want to. I've crushed plenty at the white room while competing with the other kids, completely overwhelming them and ingraining that there was an unbridgeable gap between us. It's no longer interesting. I used to feel bad afterwards, but after destroying people time and time again I felt cold. I soon realized whatever suffering, defeat, misery, terror or despair they felt, the same would never happen to me. Nothing mattered as long as I won in the end, and I never lost.

This completely unknown, 'normal' life interests me far more than some competition I know I can win. So, to some degree, I hoped that my theory wouldn't turn out to be true, since that would put a wrinkle in this 'normal' life I wanted to observe.

I didn't escape the white room to come to a lesser white room, I came to a highschool.

Though my hope is likely in vain, let's cross my fingers for now and make the best use of this first month.

Author's Notes

So, I have a question to ask you guys. I've actually pre-written a lot of this before publishing. Right now, I have the entirety of volume 1, plus a bit of volume 2, finished, but I'm wondering how often you would like chapters released. I would like to space out each release, since that gives me more time to write chapters in advance.

Comment how often you want chapters here, and I'll take them into consideration.