Gakushuu learnt something new after hosting a school wide dance- becoming famous was easy.
Well. Maybe easy wasn't the right word.
But, it wasn't difficult.
Gakushuu had everything he needed to be famous, even the steps were laid out for him. It was practically fate. It was bound to happen some way or the other.
Gakushuu had a beautiful face. It showed strength. No matter Gakushuu's clothes or words or even actions. His face and expressions conveyed a sense of confidence and strength.
When people looked at him, they naturally sensed that he was somehow superior. It was his charisma. It stole attention from people. It invited jealousy.
It brought out their lust, greed and envy for him.
Even without memory of his part life, he was well aware of the ugliness of humanity.
His father would show it to him deliberately, and then show him how to crush it under him.
People were complex, but they were also pretty simple. And this was why Gakushuu wasn't surprised by kidnapping attempts.
Gakushuu was a pretty boy. Maybe no one could call him delicate, but no one could refute the fact that he was pretty in a way, very few things were.
Pretty like a mirror shattered and then brought together like a kaleidoscope. It wouldn't break a second time, but the marks of the first were always left behind.
So. Kidnapping.
Yes, kidnapping happened.
But it was extremely short lived.
Gakushuu had barely even been thrown in a car when someone came, rescued him, dropped him outside on the street and drove the car full of unconscious potential kidnappers away.
It was hilariously short lived.
Gakushuu didn't tell anyone but he got enough clues to deduce his father had somehow been behind his prompt rescue.
He didn't even get scolded for being surprised enough to get thrown in the car, which would have been rather shocking if his father hadn't immediately rearranged his schedule to make time for them to spar.
Well, mostly him learning how to avoid getting ambushed.
In the first place, Gakushuu wasn't someone who got easily ambushed, but, it wouldn't be a mistake to say that it was his weakest point.
Ambushes were supposed to be surprise attacks, after all. If the attacker was either more skilled, or Gakushuu was more unprepared, it could go either way.
Midterms were simple enough when compared to the stress the third years were going through.
Their midterm and finals were practically one after the other. Gakushuu started looking over the student council work, which wasn't as complicated as people were led to believe. Mostly because, the most important decisions were made by the Principal, and not the council itself.
The council was mostly there to handle the details of school events, the student body or complaints of a not-serious nature.
Of course, Gakushuu hadn't expected the amount of complaints they were receiving. There were prank complaints, actual complaints, serious complaints or problems that should have been noted, but weren't.
But Gakushuu directly receiving the position of Vice President so blatantly was unprecedented. It was obvious what the actual Vice President was doing- announcing to the student body that Gakushuu was gonna be the next Vice President.
A challenge and a dare all at once.
Though most of the people who would dare go against the Vice President, were just second year delinquents, and first year loved Gakushuu already, so.
It was an easy win.
Though he still didn't like getting help from the other boy at all.
('He's a threat' Gakushuu thought.
"What happened? You look like you're about to blush again," Ren snickered. Gakushuu scowled.
"Shut up.")
Winter break, on the other hand, was like being back before Junior High all over again. And not in a good way.
Ren was busy, his classmates were busy with their families or taken away by their parents for some reason or the other.
A few were inspired by Gakushuu and the class and insisted on learning more or doing more.
Basically, most of his classmates and friends were busy . And Gakushuu was roaming busy streets, trying to avoid the explosion of family theme and sweets everywhere on the 25th of December.
So of course, that's when he heard the sound of a fight and when he went to check it out, he spotted an exceedingly familiar figure.
He waited till the fight was over to approach. Wouldn't do for one of them to brain Akabane just for Gakushuu.
"Akabane," he acknowledged, giving a distasteful look at the slumped over bodies scattered on the dark road. His eyebrows lifted when he counted the number of people.
"Did you get injured?" He asked curiously. Karma let out a huff, before standing up and facing him. There was a sharp mischievous look on his face.
"Nah, these are small fries," Karma grinned at the twitching body and it stilled again.
"If you want better fries, you should go eat at a better restaurant," Gakushuu deadpanned. Karma snorted, at the unexpected joke. Then looked at him consideringly.
"All right, let's go eat," Karma started walking back into the crowd of people. Gakushuu blinked in confusion for half a second before following the other boy.
He was the one who suggested food, why was he following Karma then? He sulked a little but followed him through the crowd trying to throw him in different directions.
A warm hand clasped his own.
Gakushuu scowled harder.
"I'm not getting lost!" He half shouted to reach Karma but the other boy pretended to not hear him. He clicked his tongue but didn't remove his hand.
Then they reached the fast food joint and Gakushuu wished he could turn break time instead.
"Fries!" Karma grinned victoriously at Gakushuu's annoyed scowl, then dragged him in.
Gakushuu could have said a lot of things to prevent them from actually eating there. Maybe his father's ban (he would want to defy it more), or even how he literally hadn't had a proper burger before (no, that would make him more insistent) or maybe just lie about Gakushuu not liking fast foods (true, but he hadn't tried enough of them to make a proper opinion. 43% chance of him seeing through the lie though).
But instead of insisting anyway, Gakushuu let himself get dragged by Karma, let his food be ordered by him and went along with him to sit at a table.
Then they started talking and bickering about things. Somewhere in the middle Karma talked about his new friend in his recently demoted class D, and Gakushuu ranted about Karma falling into class D as a student in their Top Five.
Karma smiled, and Gakushuu didn't completely hate the whole thing.
Neither of them talked about either of their absentee parent figures.
There was a shiny Christmas tree, and people taking pictures under it. There were free items shoved in their hands that Gakushuu almost automatically gave Karma, before realizing it wasn't Ren and wincing. Then realizing Karma probably wouldn't give him shit about free stuff anyway.
"Not like I can take them home," he shrugged, feeling surprisingly honest. Karma, as expected, didn't give a shit.
There was a live concert on the streets, then fireworks from some place and Gakushuu bought a half decent scarf that was far too expensive, and handed it off to Karma.
That one he didn't take as easily as the free items and Gakushuu took on his insistently curious look for a few minutes before sighing.
He leaned in close and whispered in his ear.
"Happy Birthday!" His cold nose brushed against Karma's warm cheeks, and then he pulled away, grabbed Karma's hand to pull him along the crowd instead of standing in the middle of a busy street.
When he looked back, Karma's eyes were sparkling brightly, a grin on his face.
Gakushuu found a pair of gloves delivered to his house on his birthday.
Gakushuu didn't watch the first sunrise of the year. He didn't go to a shrine or watch it on television.
Gakushuu was studying.
After winter, they would have their finals and he would be buried in work. Studying needed to happen before he got busy.
So he studied, did tests, went through his own work, then his father's work. He created his own tests and completed them almost as he was done choosing.
He created tests for his classmates and studied through the rising and setting of the sun.
Then he studied the rest of winter too.
When school resumed, it was almost a relief. Gakushuu wasn't allowed on the student council work anymore, and he did his class rep duties with Anaya.
Everyone discussed their holidays and Gakushuu mostly brushed his off as competitions and new year events.
January finished quickly and February started. Then the students started thinking about Valentine's Day.
Gakushuu didn't really celebrate most holidays anyway, Valentine's had never been an exception. Though he did give obligatory White Day gifts back to people, he clearly mentioned that he wasn't accepting any feelings.
His return gifts were always on the same theme. Like bulk purchased chocolates.
It still made the people giving him gifts happy (a lot of them just didn't leave a name and they were touched he could tell from the Home Ec. skills or you know, the CCTV footage, to see who left gifts for him).
That year was about to be slightly different because Gakushuu wanted to build a good bond with his classmates, and when he received their obligatory chocolates, he decided that he needed to go an extra mile.
And if he was doing it for his classmates, he could just go it on a mass-produced scale and just give it to everyone else too.
So he ate himself sick on the boxes of chocolates that came for him. He disliked sweets and his class was mostly aware of it, though he still received sweetened chocolates.
There were white chocolates and dark chocolates and normal ones in different shapes and sizes.
The most memorable moment for him was when opened a plain box and took out a piece of chocolate and ate it.
He nearly died right then. Because he was pretty sure that there was wasabi filling in there.
Someone spent time to take out the original filling of the chocolate, he guessed something like peanut butter or white chocolate filling, and put wasabi there instead.
The following chocolates from other people felt almost tame in comparison, so Gakushuu made himself eat another. Cause he was a complete masochist.
Of course there was two .
And the other had hot pepper instead of wasabi. Gakushuu still didn't know which he preferred because both of them made him tear up.
So Gakushuu came to class the next day with red eyes, looking for all the world like he had cried himself to sleep.
The pictures went viral.
When White Day came, Gakushuu gave every person who gave chocolates a candied apple.
In different shapes.
He himself created the ones he gave to class, changed to suit their specific tastes and gave general animal related ones to the rest of the people.
("I can't believe he's giving it to everyone who gave him a gift," a girl whispered to her friend. Said friend hummed, watching Gakushuu talk to another girl and hand her a 'thank you' candied apple lollipop.
The girl groaned in disgust.
"Don't blame the sweet! It's really good!" She protested as she bit off more of the hard candy. The girl without the candy pouted.
"...I heard he gave everyone in his class an animal-shaped taste-specific candied apple," the girl said under her breath, watching the other girl open the wrapping to find a normal candied apple lollipop.
"I'm kinda jealous," the other girl replied casually, noisily chewing at the pieces of candy in her mouth.
"...Same," the girl sighed.)
Gakushuu's most special candy, of course, had to go to only one person.
Gakushuu walked to class D with a smile on his face that made a few students part to give way to him.
Or maybe they wanted to see the show.
He spotted Akabane Karma easily and he smiled, walking inside the class and dropping the candy on his desk.
"Thank you for the chocolates, Akabane," he gave a tight mean smile. "They were a delight ."
Gakushuu had found out that Akabane had sneaked in chocolates for all the boys in class A, which was even more annoying. But Gakushuu had gotten the special two in one offer and received both chocolates filled with different fillings, unlike the others who received one of each.
Karma picked up the candy and rolled it between his fingers, warily eying Gakushuu.
"Will this explode if I open it?" He asked, and Gakushuu smiled.
"I hope you enjoy it. I made it myself." Then he put a hand on the table and let Karma see the challenge in his eyes. "It's even got layers. "
Karma's eyes lit up. He grinned. He looked at the candy in his hand and the mean look on Gakushuu's face and slowly opened it.
It looked normal.
Karma gave it an experimental lick.
"That's pretty good," Karma lied easily. Then he took another lick, showing Gakushuu his thorough enjoyment of the candy. Gakushuu narrowed his eyes, watching.
Karma took it a step further and popped the whole thing in his mouth.
There was a crunch sound as Karma bit into it. He froze for a moment, and Gakushuu smiled victoriously.
"Wow. This is pretty good!" Karma said, casually pulling out the lollipop stick the candy was attached to and bit into the pieces in his mouth, chewing it quickly.
Gakushuu scowled as he watched Karma eat his hours of hard work.
"So glad you're enjoying it," Gakushuu said, disgusted before swivelling on his heel and walking out.
The moment Gakushuu left the vicinity of the class, Karma spat out the pieces and finished his own bottle of water in a few gulps, then he grabbed someone else's water and drank that too.
He teared up a little and slowly drank his third snatched bottle of water.
The class snickered and Karma sniffed, his taste buds were dead. They were absolutely completely dead from the terrible mix of Karma's own medicine.
He gave the remains of the candy a wary look. He had no idea how Gakushuu had managed to make a hot pepper top layer to a hard candy, but when Karma bit in (while severely underestimating his 'layers') he tasted the shock of what felt like frozen wasabi on his tongue.
Was that even something that could be done? Did people do things like this??
Karma was almost offended he hadn't managed to find a way to make hot pepper and wasabi look like delicious candied apple lollipop. Was Gakushuu some kind of cooking genius too?
Also, hadn't Gakushuu finished both his chocolates?
Karma made an expression of 'challenge accepted' and picked up the candy again.
Hmm.
Was that mustard...?