I stayed motionless, my mind working furiously. He came to recruit me. I’ve only been out of the academy for a few days. I was accepted into third division before I even graduated. Liz and Micah, too. I am a skilled fighter, yes, but not that good! I’m no good with Kido. Why does everybody want to go after me? It doesn’t make any sense.
“Donnelly-san?” Kira’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. “Are you okay?”
I smiled at him the best I could and hopped off the desk. “I’m fine!”
“What did you say?” He asked, tentatively.
“I said no, of course.”
He seemed slightly relieved. “Oh, good.”
I looked at him, curiously. “Why is it so good? I’m only good at zanjutsu and mediocre at hakudo.”
He looked at me and I could tell he was trying to find the right words. “You see, you graduated from the academy after only three years and you were one of the top zanjutsu fighters there. You have a lot of potential, so we wish to be the ones to help you reach your fullest. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were also those who were going after you sister, who scored high marks in stealth, kido and hakudo, and your cousin who was high scoring in almost all the areas and is very perceptive and smart.”
I nodded, still thinking. I had been one of the top fighters at the academy? But I had only sparred with a few people, the teacher included. I guessed that would be who marked me as such. I smiled remembering the fight we’d had.
I’d come to him after class and asked him to teach me more about sword fighting. We had met in the class and he requested that we just fight to see where I was at. After about five minutes, I landed a hit on him. After half an hour, I had small cuts from head to toe, but he had two deep gashes where I had accidently hit him too hard. He had won, of course, but he told me I was far above average and from then on I received special training. But above average would mean that I was only better than about 50% of the other students. That didn’t mean I was amazing or anything.
I excused myself, still lost in my thoughts. I wandered down the street to my room. Since I had barely graduated, my room was empty and lonely looking. I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I took out the jug of sake I bought and drank a few cups. My mind had long since wandered from the words Hisagi had said to how he looked when he said them and, well, how he looked in general.
I’d be the first to admit that I was incredibly shallow when it came to guys. Although I would magnify even the slightest flaw, I would also magnify every good thing. Perhaps that was one of my so called ‘fatal flaws’ but truthfully, I didn’t much care. I figured that any guy who met my expectations would be pretty damn perfect. It may be conceited, but I wasn’t going to settle for any less than 90% perfect. Even with my high standards, Hisagi-san was 99% perfect aesthetically. His well-toned body, his spiky black hair, even his tattoos. He was beautiful to me. Of course, he was a fukutaichou and I was an eighth seat, but was that really important? Yes. But even if we were on even ground, I knew barely anything of his personality. Maybe I was shallow, but not that shallow.
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