Chapter 40: Deeper Insight

[Tatsuya]

"... What's wrong with you?"

I looked at her horrified expression and paused.

Her question was interesting.

It was as if all unnecessary thoughts were pushed away from my mind.

Kushida disappeared, her room faded away into nothingness and I found myself in the familiar void. The same void I felt I was in the split second my phone burst open like a bomb.

By concentrating, I transcended time, even eliminating superfluous concepts like sound.

In hindsight, I never gave much thought about things like why or good/bad. I simply did what I wished to do.

I'm fully aware of every single action I've taken since I arrived in this world. This world that was full of fictional characters—

No.

Fictional Characters that were now undoubtedly real living breathing humans.

If I were to briefly summarise my actions then all I would come up with was- Blackmail, rape and murder.

With all this in mind, Kushida's question "What's wrong with you?" Was entirely valid. I didn't have some womp womp backstory to cry about, nor did I have divorced parents.

I wasn't a sociopath nor was I a psychopath.

I was simply human.

I'm Adrian Frost.

Evil and Good were arbitrary terms that I didn't care about now.

I could afford to not care now.

Humans by nature are self-preservative.

Laws act as external constraints, providing a deterrent through the threat of punishment, which appeals to individuals' rational self-interest.

Emotions and morality, while influential, vary among individuals, making them less reliable deterrents.

Legal consequences offer a consistent and society-wide framework, shaping behaviour through fear of punishment.

But what if this fear of punishment was removed?

Individual actions would then boil down to morality.

A good example of this was the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment or the equally infamous Milgram Experiment.

While there were some differences the essence of these experiments was the same—No consequences.

Wasn't it funny how simply absolving the constraints around the heart can allow people to commit 'evil'?

I was always self-aware yet I never really bothered thinking too deeply about it.

But her question unintentionally sent me down a deep rabbit hole.

I wondered, would I feel guilty? Would I feel myself panicking emotionally from the horrors I've done? Would I lose sleep? Would I feel nauseated with myself?

But unexpectedly I was glad.

I felt even more at peace as if a heavy burden had been removed from my shoulders. I could finally feel myself connecting to these people, I could finally assimilate with these people.  

I'm content with who I am, I'm Tatsuya Yamamoto, a simple dimensional traveller with the freedom to do as I wished.

And I'll continue doing so till I can, till my last breath. 

***

Kushida looked at him with confusion, his eyes had turned blank, like how a robot would become after turning its switch off.

She couldn't stop herself from shivering.

Her body refused to obey her.

She didn't want to cower, she didn't want to fear him.

But her heart wasn't listening.

He gave her some hot coffee.

How romantic, right?

What a considerate action after ravaging her body. Perhaps if this was a cliche romcom she would become one of those female leads that slowly falls for her rapist who starts taking care of her.

No. Kushida felt nothing but disgust for him.

No matter how charming he was, for Kushida he was the most ugly existence at the moment.

It was deeply disturbing how nonchalantly he was sitting after committing such a heinous crime.

Did he not understand the weight of his actions?

Does he not realise that he'll have to face jail time if she decides to report him?

Yes, she could most likely destroy his life but he would in turn destroy everything she had built up till now. That was equivalent to destroying her life.

But in the end, if he takes things too far and doesn't restrain himself both of them will have to go down the path of mutual destruction.

She could only hope that h—

Suddenly, Tatsuya shifted in place as light returned to his eyes. A warm smile erupted on his facial features creeping her out.

"How does it feel, Kushida?" He asked.

The hands holding the mug became tightly gripped, if she had more strength maybe the mug might've shattered.

"... It feels awful. It feels disgusting. It feels unfair."

Tatsuya didn't interrupt her.

"What did I do to deserve this? Can you tell me? Hey pervert, do you know why I act like a little angel?" She asked him with a blank look in her eyes.

Tatsuya was inwardly shocked that even after such a traumatic event Kushida Kikyo was able to revert to her original self, bit by bit.

"No," he lied, "I know your past but I'm not sure I have all the details. I just know you caused the destruction of your class."

"I see..." She muttered, "Did Horikita-san tell you this?"

"You could say so." He lied again.

"What a bitch..." She whispered to herself before looking at Tatsuya, "I hate you."

"Wow, what a surprise." Looks like his sarcasm rubbed her the wrong way.

Kushida shook her head.

"I hated you from the start of school." She took a sip from the hot coffee and her body shivered once again.

"Oh?"

"You're better than me in academics. You're better than me in sports and you're more popular than me. I hate it." She took a big breath, "Growing up I always thought I was special, that I was better than others but as I grew up I realised that my talents were limited. I couldn't be the smartest, I couldn't be the most athletic."

Her eyes, resembling pure gemstones that shone with a dark light, peered at Tatsuya.

"So I simply decided to be the best at being kind, to be the most loved individual. It filled me with delight, pleasure, when people shared their secrets with me and considered me their best friend. But it was too much to bear mentally. Do you know how exhausting it is to listen to bitchy girls whining about each other or trying to ignore dirty perverts that had nothing but sex in their minds?"

Tatsuya didn't disturb her. His face was completely neutral as he listened to her vent her feelings.

"I couldn't take it anymore but dropping the act had too many consequences so I created an anonymous blog. I poured all my feelings there, I never felt so relaxed in my life... But—"

Her brows scrunched up in regret.

"It was a mistake. Someone from my class found the blog and even if I hadn't specified the names and stuff it was easy to understand that it was my class that was being talked about in the blog."

"Isn't it funny?" Kushida looked at him with a broken smile, "I simply vented my feelings on the blog like how they vented their feelings to me. So why was I hated so much? Why did they forget everything I did for them? Am I not human?"

"But then again, I guess because I was human I made an even bigger mistake. I decided to expose all the dirty little secrets they had shared with me. Hehe, I destroyed the class and no one could do anything to me since what I said was nothing but the truth."

(Image)

She sighed, "I was determined to not make the same mistake again but I still needed to vent my feelings."

Heavy silence enveloped the room.

"Hey... Tell me, what did I do wrong?" Tears glistened at the rim of her eyes, "Why did something like this happen to m-me? WHY!?"

She yelled furiously, her moistened crimson eyes looking hatefully at Tatsuya.

________________________

Author Note- This was an interesting chapter to write. Now give me those stones, I was supposed to sleep instead of uploading this (⁠〒⁠﹏⁠〒⁠)

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