Controlee

76. Through Thick and Thin

Rule 70: Anybody can be an idiot if given the chance

Shinsou wasn't really sure what to think. Neither was Aki, from what he could tell.

Otsuka had confessed it all to them of her own free will. She hadn't been forced to tell them, hadn't even been suggested. She'd gone to them anyway, and she'd opened up about everything she'd kept hidden.

She'd essentially been working with a villain. Though, Shinsou didn't feel TT could really be called a villain given the circumstances; his family was being threatened, of course he was going to do as he was told.

It was strange thinking about it. Nothing Otsuka had done had really affected Shinsou at all. It wasn't like he'd ever been attacked, he'd never been in any danger at all. But there were twenty students who maybe could've been in less danger if Otsuka had gone to the authorities earlier (or gone to one of her hero teachers). That meant something.

Still, there was this disconnect. He kept trying to put himself into the situation, imagine how he's feel if he'd been one of those twenty students. If he'd passed the hero exam like he'd hoped, he would've been one of those twenty, would've been at the summer camp with blue flames amongst the trees and coughing on smoke in the air. No matter how hard he tried to think of himself in the shoes of 1-A, he couldn't make himself think like them.

Everything was so mixed up and complicated. The whole situation was one big shade of grey and Shinsou couldn't make heads or tails of it.

But, time had passed since she'd told them. Time for it all to sink in. Time she gave them without seeing them once.

She'd put no pressure on them to see things her way. She hadn't even asked if they might hurry up on making their decision. She'd given them all the space they could possibly need to come to terms on this without even the slightest risk of influencing them.

Time had passed. No text messages, no glimpses of her.

All this time, all this thinking, and honestly the only place it had gotten him was to a very simple conclusion: he missed her.

She was his friend. He'd been terrified for her when she was kidnapped and potentially the only reason she was as ok now as she seemed was because TT had been with her throughout the kidnapping, protecting her. Who was to say what could've happened to her if she hadn't had an ally on the inside?

And now she was back and safe and Shinsou had been so relieved. Going to see her at the 1-A dorms, seeing the animosity her classmates were treating her with, it had reminded him so strongly of a similar scene in reverse. That brief time Otsuka had taken classes with 1-C after her internship, Shinsou and Aki had been the pariahs and Otsuka had stood with them anyway. Doing that in return had been only natural.

Then, of course, she'd explained everything. The animosity made a lot more sense.

Now, days of just plain silence. Shinsou and Aki had only just got her back and now it was like she'd dropped off the face of the earth.

Shinsou huffed, sinking deeper into his mattress.

She hadn't been in the right, necessarily, but she had been justified in her own way. Legally, coercion (family being threatened, and that counted for TT whose whole family was under threat, and for Otsuka whose long lost brother-figure was under threat) was a valid defence for a whole lot of bullshit. Considering that, the level of bullshit Otsuka actually got up to herself was minimal. TT less so from what little Shinsou knew, but this wasn't about that guy.

And, despite the coercion, despite how many people in her place would've been far too afraid to do anything but as they were told, Otsuka had tried to help. The anonymous tips she'd managed to give were small, but they were better than nothing.