Chapter 24 – Why Don’t You Try Spitting It All Out?

“I am truly, truly sorry!!!”

“Ah~… It’s fine already. So I’d really like it if you raised your head soon, but…”

Right in front of Shinta, Kaoru was prostrating herself in a dogeza, rubbing her forehead against the floor. The reason things had turned out this way was actually quite simple.

Kaoru had fainted from the sheer shock of the unexpected first kiss—or rather, the accidental lip attack—but her consciousness returned surprisingly quickly. She woke up only a few minutes after he started nursing her collapsed form in the center of the dojo.

“Nn… Nnn… Hah!”

“Ah, are you awake, senpai?”

Calling out to the awakened Kaoru, Shinta harbored a sliver of anxiety in his heart. Although he had successfully and safely subdued her rampaging state when her madness exploded, he had still stolen her first kiss, even if it was an accident.

(I probably gave her a pretty big shock. Haa… Well, I should at least prepare myself to get punched.)

Shinta had braced himself for the worst-case scenario of getting beaten to a pulp, but the action she took completely defied his expectations.

“…I’m.”

“I’m?”

“I’m so sorryyy!!!”

Fully regaining her senses, Kaoru dropped into a dogeza right then and there with a loud apology. She prostrated herself with such impossibly smooth movements that he was left dumbfounded and unable to stop her as she kept her forehead lowered and began to apologize for her mistakes.

“For someone who is both a member of the kendo club and the Disciplinary Committee to beat down an amateur with a bamboo sword is unforgivable. Please, exact whatever punishment satisfies you!”

“Umm, could you calm down for a second?”

Far from being condemned, he was instead hit with a wholehearted, sincere apology, leaving Shinta at a loss for how to respond. Troubled over how to handle this, he first pleaded with Kaoru, who was still maintaining her dogeza, to calm down. After a brief back-and-forth, Kaoru finally regained her composure and broke her posture.

“I am truly sorry.”

“I’m telling you, it’s fine already. Besides, please let me be the one to apologize. Um… even if it was an accident, doing something like that…”

At Shinta’s vague words, Kaoru remembered the events from right before she fainted, and she blushed furiously.

“U-Umu. That is not something you need to apologize for. To begin with, it was an occurrence resulting from my own rampage. You are not at fault in any way.”

“No, but it was your first kiss, wasn’t it?”

“That is… Nnh, if possible, could you not dig that up again? Even I am a girl of a certain age, I can’t help but be bothered by it.”

Writhing in embarrassment, Kaoru pleaded with him to forget about the kiss already, and having it pointed out like that left Shinta reflecting on his own lack of delicacy just as she bowed her head deeply for who knows how many times now.

“I know I am being persistent, but please allow me to bow my head one last time. I did something truly inexcusable. If you wish it, I am prepared to accept any punishment.”

“Hmm… Even if you say that…”

To be blunt, any anger Shinta had toward Kaoru had already completely dissipated. He had honestly been pissed off while she was rampaging, but seeing her so docile and shrunken down now completely drained him of any hostility. That being said, no matter how much he told her not to worry about it, her overly earnest personality meant she likely wouldn’t accept his forgiveness without being penalized for her mistakes.

(But still, thinking about it calmly, there’s a risk this person could go on another rampage in the future, isn’t there?)

Although Shinta no longer held any feelings of anger toward her, he couldn’t completely discard his anxiety. This time hadn’t turned into a disaster simply because he happened to be used to fighting, but if she were to explode with that madness against an ordinary student, she could easily injure someone. Kaoru herself seemed painfully aware of that ticking bomb, spitting out self-deprecating words with a dry smile.

“Still, I suppose I’m a lost cause. To think I would wield my strength at the mercy of my instincts on school grounds, and against a junior, no less. It seems… my ability to regulate myself is fading…”

“Senpai…”

“I’ll just be completely honest. Kamiji-kun, somewhere in my heart, I had decided that since you are the reputed Legendary Ex-Yankee, you would be able to handle my unreasonableness. Completely one-sidedly, and selfishly…”

Hearing her confess this, Shinta could see how ashamed Kaoru felt about her foolish actions. Venting her madness onto a junior she barely had any connection with was an absurd act of self-gratification, making it obvious she viewed herself as the lowest of the low. She confessed that on the day she called him to the disciplinary committee room, she had inwardly rejoiced at the development. Taking advantage of the questioning, she thought she had formed a connection with the man renowned as a Demon God, using “practice” as an excuse to lay out a scheme to vent her stress. Even though her rational mind understood it was wrong, her continuously accumulating stress had kicked away that rationality and prioritized her instincts.

“Even during our so-called practice, all I did was spew out my pent-up frustrations. I’m just… so tired…”

The sight of her spitting out words as if she had given up on her own future was far too painful to watch. The dignified girl he had met for the first time was nowhere to be seen, leaving only a frail girl trembling in fear of her own bad habits standing before him. Before he knew it, Shinta was speaking words to comfort her, wanting to stay close to the girl harboring such suffering all on her own.

“Senpai, if it’s alright with you, why don’t you try spitting it all out right here and now?”

“Kamiji-kun, what are you saying…”

“Weren’t you raging about your daily stress during the fight? The expectations and admiration from those around you—you went on a rampage because you didn’t talk to anyone about all that pent-up frustration in your chest, didn’t you? So try purging all that toxicity from your heart right here.”

Those words hit the bullseye for Kaoru. Admired by everyone as an infallible superhuman, she never had the opportunity to confess her weaknesses, which was exactly why her negative emotions continued to accumulate and finally exploded. Having vaguely figured out the cause, Shinta decided to let her spit out everything she wanted to say.

“Just venting your complaints to someone can really change how you feel. So, please try spitting out all the dark stuff you’ve been wanting to let out. I’ll listen to every last word…”

In response to that proposal, Kaoru remained silent for a while, but eventually, perhaps opening her heart to Shinta’s caring spirit, she began to recount the anguish she had been bottling up bit by bit to the junior in front of her.