Soul for a Girlfriend?

I was sitting in my class because for the past few days I wasn\'t in the mood to do anything, to be honest. Especially after what happened to Lilith. I was a bit mentally disturbed.

And it was taking a toll on my mind as when I was at home, I had no other choice than to empty my mind of those things that I witnessed, but doing it wasn\'t that easy. Lilith did not know about this whatsoever. I didn\'t want to take any chances and let her read my mind and find that stuff out.

I wasn\'t in my right peace of mind to talk with friends or do school work. As I was sitting alone during lunchtime, I noticed Naoto came up to my class. It surprised me to see her standing near my desk with a soft smile on her face.

Though she was actually worried about me, she decided to check up on me. I appreciated that, but I wasn\'t in the mood to talk to her. Still, he was really persistent about knowing why I was acting like that..

After a while, I deliberately turned towards the direction I wanted by lying about why I was acting like that. Though she was genuinely worried about me and lying to her didn\'t feel right, I had my circumstances.

A while of exchange and her trying to comfort me, I decided to play my cards. I was interested to know what was wrong with her since the start of this week, so that was a great opportunity for me.

Though ever since she started speaking, she was standing. And it was quite some time that she was leaning on my desk as her hands were interlocked with mine.

I was also a bit embarrassed as some of the students were staring at me talking with Naoto. I couldn\'t care less about what they had to say or not, but I don\'t like people staring at me. 

Also, the fact that I realised after holding onto her hand for quite some time was that they were oddly soft. Girls generally have softer hands than us boys, but considering the fact that she does kendo, I expected them to be a bit rough.

Of course, I would be a bad boyfriend if I didn\'t let my girlfriend sit while she\'s talking. And it\'s not really gentlemanly to treat a woman like that. I gave my chair to her as she finally took a seat.

I was leaning on the wall behind me, while my eyes were locked on Naoto, who was sitting on my chair with a flustered look on her face. She couldn\'t dare look into my eyes, as I decided to add up her trouble by asking, "Were you affected by those things?"

As I asked that question, she looked at me with a surprised look. Her dark eyes widened up slightly, as her lips moved to speak, but she gulped down those words.

Judging by her face, it wasn\'t very expressive, but I could tell that she was thinking about a lot of things. She finally looked at me and sighed as she said, "I was… and I hated you at that time for that."

Clenching my shirt near the chest, I looked at her and exclaimed, "Ouch…" 

  "You remember that pretty well…" She looked sarcastic and chuckled as I gave her an awkward shrug and said, "Yes I do… let\'s not dig up the past."

"But slowly, I didn\'t even realise when I started to like those things."

Though we were having that conversation for quite some time, I still had no idea what she was referring to when she said \'those things\'. Was it something I\'m supposed to guess? 

My curiosity was rising, as she mentioned that phrase quite a lot during our conversation. Of course, I had a slight idea that she was referring to my personality traits, but I was curious to know what in particular she meant.

I couldn\'t help but ask her, "What are those things?"

As those words left my mouth, her face, which was quite calm a few moments ago, wasn\'t as calm as. Her eyes averted from mine and she smiled awkwardly. It appeared that she was thinking the right set of words but failed miserably at that as her eyebrows furrowed and exclaimed, "I… shut up! I don\'t know what they are…"

Her reaction caught me off guard because I couldn\'t find any reason for her to react to my question that way. But maybe she was confused at that time and got nervous. 

Being confused whether I said something inappropriate, I apologised, "I… sorry…"

We kept staring at each other for quite some time before she chuckled, closing her hers as her shoulders shook. Looking at me, the expression on her face changed into a rather serious one, as she asked, "But listen! I know saying these to you won\'t do shit, but just hear me out."

"Yea?" I gave her a nod as a gesture for her to continue as her eyes wandered around a bit and she started, "I would just ask you to not change… I don\'t like changes…"

What she asked for was impossible. She can\'t expect a person to not change with time. The ability to change is what makes us human. Obviously I wasn\'t the Saishi I was a month ago. She wasn\'t the Naoto that I met a month ago. Changes are a virtue of time for an individual to grow as a person.

Showing no expression on my face, I just looked at her and said in a blunt tone, "It\'s human nature to change, Senpai." 

My eyes were looking at her but for some reason she wouldn\'t look at me. But I knew that she was listening to me as I continued, "Changes will keep coming. It\'s up to you how you deal with them…"

I wasn\'t trying to be materialistic with her. Neither was I trying to sugarcoat her like I did with Reina. Naoto\'s problem was something that only a slap of reality can fix. Being isolated and running away from her problems has affected her perception of reality.