COTE - Collection of Stories

A few days have gone by and I've yet to make any friends still.

Once again, I found myself sitting alone at my desk during lunch, eating the meal I prepared last night instead of getting something from the cafeteria. I did, however, buy an iced tea for my drink from a vending machine. I've been wanting to try cooking for a while and finally got the chance—and, not to brag, but I think I'm already pretty good at it. 

Actually that's not important right now. Shifting back to the making friends thing.

My left seatmate, Manabe, and I have talked about once or twice, both times I wasn't able to keep up a conversation with her, and because of that she hasn't talked to me since.

My relationship with my right seatmate is much better. She was really mean to me on the first day for some reason, but I've gathered that it was just because she was in a bad mood or something similar—not because she had a grudge against me. Usually, she's not like that around strangers, and she's been a lot nicer since then, the kind of "nice" you'd expect from someone who's naturally cold. 

We're still only neighbors sadly, and I'd like to change that by offering to trade some of my homemade food. This might be the perfect plan since I've noticed she doesn't bring any homemade meals or eat anything I'd consider healthy. I doubt it's only because of her personal preference. While I try not to assume things about people, she's obviously a tomboy, and I honestly think she just doesn't know how to cook, so she goes for cheap fast food instead.

Alright, here we go.

"he—"

*Thump!*

Again? Seriously?

Was my initial thought, but I quickly realized it wasn't Ibuki interrupting me this time. Instead, it looked like Manabe had bumped into my desk, knocking over my iced tea. 

The can rolled off the edge, spilling its contents out onto the cold floor.

"Ah. Sorry, I wasn't paying attention, haha."

"oh, um... don't worry about it."

After giving me a half-hearted apology and receiving my equally half-hearted acceptance, she quickly rejoined her friend group without considering for a second to replace my drink or cover the cost. I could see her and friends giggling together while looking over at me. If I said anything about it, I could already imagine her snapping back with something like, "It's just a 100-yen drink, right? Stop being such a baby about it." Sure, it's true—I'm not particularly upset about losing a cheap can of iced tea—it's just that it would've been much nicer if she had at least pretended to think about it. She clearly has no intentions of trying to clean it up either.

Sighing, I got up from my seat and left to get paper towels from the girls bathroom to clean up. It didn't take long, as luckily enough one of the girls bathrooms is placed fairly close to our classroom. I pulled out about twelve paper towels from the dispenser, and purchased a second can of iced tea before returning.

I cleaned up the mess as best as I could, though I knew it would need a proper mopping with soap to get rid of the stickiness. After tossing the paper towels into the garbage bin at the front, I quickly sat back down and finished my lunch. There wasn't much time left before the next period started.

Physical Education or shortened to P.E.

I can't help feeling excited over it, as it's the first day of a class that I generally excel in. Still, a part of me is worried, considering this school is for elites. It would be pretty embarrassing if I don't even rank in the top three fastest in my class after claiming to be all that.

A few minutes went by, and I spent that time scrolling through social media on my phone until the bell rang, signaling the end of our lunch period. Although we were told that we would have P.E. right now, we still had yet to be given our gym uniforms, get dismissed from the classroom and finally led to the gymnasium. In the future, we should just be meeting straight there.

Sakagami was the last person to return to class. He's hasn't been a very talkative teacher unlike Hoshinomiya, only handing out our gym clothing, then asking us to follow him in an orderly manner. I shadowed behind Ibuki, both us walking alone in the clump of students in class C.

We stepped into the gym building, where the P.E. teacher was already waiting. He had the kind of physique and face that could easily make him a high school girl's first crush. He told us to change quickly and meet back here, so I headed to the girls' changing rooms.

The changing room was really big, as expected from a school of this caliber. Most of the girls were changing out in the open, talking loudly with their new friends, and being that I had yet to make any friends, I stayed in the corner of the room, near the second entrance. Ibuki, and a girl with light brown hair tied into a side pony tail, seemed to both have the same idea as me.

First, I undid my bowtie and tossed it haphazardly into my locker. Then I slipped off my blazer, carefully folding it to keep it from wrinkling. My skirt was next, thrown in without much thought. And as I finished unbuttoning my dress shirt, I felt someone's gaze scanning up and down my body, prompting me to glance sideways. There was Ibuki, crouched at her bottom locker, staring directly at me. I placed my hands on my hips, and then we engaged in a quiet, but long and intense staring contest.

(slightly nsf art)

"You two going to make out, or what?" The brown-haired girl with a side pony tail standing behind Ibuki asked, having somehow sensed sexual tension created through our eye contact.

With that our staring contest had ended, with us mutually turning towards the bizarre girl who had probably wanted to see some real live lesbians kissing.

"Hah?" Ibuki hah'd, annoyed at being asked that.

"i was thinking the same thing. is that not why you were looking at me with such lewd gaze, ibuki?" 

I jokingly tried to frame Ibuki as a lesbian after she practically molested me with her eyes. We barely knew each other, so it didn't make me feel bad to attempt to use her to experiment what is and isn't fine to do within a normal friendship. 

"Wha—You!" She stood up and stormed over to me, getting uncomfortably close, but then appeared to realize how pointless it was to start a fight here and took a step back. "Tch. Whatever." she added, quickly slipping on the rest of her gym uniform before walking out.

"She must of been real embarrassed to leave that quickly, I suppose I was right about her wanting to kiss you then." The brown-haired girl said, also putting on the rest of her clothing before walking out alone.

That brief interaction wasn't enough to draw any solid conclusions yet. Still, when combined with what I've learned about ordinary people through social media, it suggests it's been a decent starting point.

Once I finished dressing, I walked out of the changing rooms and stood near Ibuki again. The brown-haired girl from before had moved to the other side of the gym, which didn't surprise me. She looked like a fellow loner and probably wasn't interested in continuing to converse.

"Alright, seems like everyone's here. Gather up." 

The teacher brought the class closer together so he wouldn't have to shout.

"I know it's a little sudden but, I'd like to get started already so... why don't we start with some cardio to examine your physical abilities. Run three laps around the gym, chop chop."

"Eh? C'mon teach, we just got here. Can't we start off with something a little easier?"

Ishizaki, a name I've heard too often due to his group's tendency to be obnoxiously loud, complained about how abrupt it was. His friends quickly joined in, voicing their own dissatisfactions.

"You're right, assigning something this hard might be unfair so early. How about an adjustment? Four laps each. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?" he responded, his tone full of sarcasm.

"What that's even worse sensei!" Ishizaki shouted back, as our classmates snickered.

"Fucking idiot." I heard Ibuki mutter.

From what I could tell, P.E. Teacher-sensei sense of humor was something that wasn't generally found funny by the younger generation. In other words, my classmates were likely amused not by his sarcasm, rather by getting to watch Ishizaki and his friends endure more hardship than themselves.

No one else appeared to want to complain, so we started running in circles. Although the gym was large, the laps went by quickly because I jogged at a fast pace. Ibuki and Kinoshita were the only other girls in class who could keep up with me. I've heard that Kinoshita is thinking about joining the track and field club, and Ibuki has a physique similar to mine... for the most part.

After finishing my laps, I sat down on one of the side benches and waited for the rest of the class to finish. It didn't take long since most of our class was athletic, with Kaneda and a girl with long silver hair tied with black ribbons finishing last. I wasn't sure about the girl, but Kaneda didn't strike me as the type to put in physical effort unless the teacher was watching. The teacher had left to grab dodgeballs during his last lap—was he worried someone would report him for not finishing all three laps, so he decided to complete them after all? I wasn't sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

"Oh wow. This class is pretty athletic, the other three first year classes were all pretty average physically speaking if you ignore their stand alone players, but you all finished rather quickly. Good job." He said, clapping slowly after placing the bag of dodgeballs under his arm. "Well let's move on to something more fun now, yeah? 20 Vs. 20 team dodgeball, and the rules are simple. If you get hit in the face you're safe. If you catch a ball the person who threw it is out, this rule does not count any ricochets. And finally you are not allowed to pass this line in the middle as it will be what separates you from the other team."

He began separating us into teams, aiming to make the match as even as possible based on what he could tell about our abilities. Ibuki, Kaneda, Ishizaki's group, Manabe's group, and several others were on the enemy team, while my team included Ryuen, the American student, the silver-haired girl, the brown ponytail girl, Kinoshita, and a number of other students.

The teacher placed three dodgeballs on the center line and told us to wait by the walls until the game began. He stood still for a few seconds with the whistle in his mouth, before abruptly blowing it to begin the match.

A small number of students from both teams rushed to the center, but the majority, myself included, decided to hold back because of the limited dodgeballs.

The balls were spread out just enough to prevent anyone from grabbing more than one, leaving Ibuki, Ryuen, and Kinoshita with one each. Ibuki, having gone for the center ball, had to step back, exposing herself to attacks from both directions and nearly guaranteeing her elimination.

On the other hand, both Ryuen and Kinoshita were standing by the center line as they would have the advantage in this situation, forcing the other team to move as far back as they could to not get hit. 

The first move came from Ryuen, who launched the ball with precision at a boy named Tokito, taking him out within seconds of the match beginning, though he sacrificed one ball in the process. Kinoshita followed suit Ryuen's example, targeting one of her friends and quickly eliminating her as well.

All three balls were now on the enemies team side.

If they wanted to play strategically, their best move would be to target our strongest player. Coordinating all three throws at once from different angles would make it nearly impossible for even someone like Ryuen to dodge. Then they would likely win just by having a stronger overall team. 

That is, unless Ryuen decided to use his classmates as shields—actually, it looks like that's exactly what he's planning to do. He shoved one student in front of him, using the blue-haired trap-looking boy as a shield. The poor guy is probably too intimidated to say no, so he's just awkwardly standing there, acting as a human barrier.

It also appeared like the other team wasn't nearly coordinated enough to play strategically, as Ibuki rushed forward with her ball while her other teammates watched. Her eyes were locked on the pony tailed girl that accused us of being lesbians, throwing the ball as fast as she could and hitting the girl on the chest, knocking her out of the game.

The game moved fast after that, with both teams losing players left and right until only a few were left on each side. On our team, it was me, Ryuen, and one other Japanese boy whose name I still didn't know, while the other team had Ibuki, Manabe—who was barely still in by sheer luck—Ishizaki, Komiya, and one other boy. 

On our team, Ryuen and I were the only ones with a ball, while Ibuki was once again the one holding a ball for the other side. She'd been responsible for eliminating the most people on our team, so her teammates kept passing the ball to her, clearly lacking confidence in making their own attack. Ryuen was the strongest player on our team. I had only taken out four people, second to my magenta-haired teammate by two, I wasn't particularly proud of that.

"Oi, Kiyomi. Let's throw both of these Ibuki at the same time. She's not fast enough to dodge it coming from both of us." Ryuen, who had missed her two times already, finally decided to ask if I was willing to cooperate.

I wasn't sure how he learned of my first name, nor why is he calling me by it, but that wasn't too important right now. This was a solid strategy to get Ibuki out of the match. Ishizaki, Komiya, and the others weren't very accurate, so eliminating Ibuki first would pretty much ensure us the win.

"alright." I replied, giving a nod for further agreement.

"Good. On three then." He replied, distancing himself from me. "One... Two... Three!"

The moment he finished counting, I launched the ball as quickly as I could. It flew past Ibuki, who narrowly dodged it, and instead slammed into Manabe's face. A little bit of blood spurted from her nose as she fell to the ground.

That's... not good.

"Kukuku, nice shot Kiyomi." Ryuen said smirking, and I noticed a few other students laughing at the shot. Manabe might not have been as popular outside her friend group in the class as I thought she was.

I watched as a few people, mostly her friend group and the teacher, rushed over and tried to confirm if she was feeling alright, before making my way over to her myself. 

"uh... sorry manabe. that was my bad."

I raised my hands as if I was apologizing, pretending to feel bad about hitting her in the face. Honestly, though, I still felt a bit bitter about her spilling my drink and walking away without a care in the world, so I didn't actually feel the least bit bad about what I accidentally did.

The teacher knew that the ball must of been flying pretty fast to cause someone to bleed from their nose, that could have caused some serious damage. Manabe was not technically knocked out, but he paused the game anyway and let her be walked by one of her friends to the nurses office.

The entire time she was being escorted out of the gym, she was glaring at me. It looked as if she hadn't accepted my apology, and there currently wasn't anything I could do about that. Maybe buying her some canned iced tea? That might smooth things over between us. I can't see in any way how that could possibly go wrong. 

Though, It'd be best to think that all over after we finish this game.

Ryuen hadn't thrown his ball after finishing his countdown for some reason, so he still had it. Was he just trying to make me waste mine while keeping his? I couldn't understand the reasoning behind that. Does he actually want to lose then? Or did he just end up choking?

Ibuki took the second ball and held both in her hands, choosing not to pass one to her teammates. She raised her arms to her chest, preparing to easily deflect any attacks as she moved closer to us, and stopping just by the dividing middle line. She shifted her gaze from me to Ryuen, keeping an eye on him for an attack while eyeing me as her next target, still holding off on her throw.

We were stuck in a stalemate for about 15 seconds, which wasn't much time, though it felt drawn out because of the tension. Ryuen, probably bored with the standstill, moved forward, aiming the ball low at Ibuki's legs. The ball zoomed through the air, but Ibuki had preemptively jumped at as she saw Ryuen get ready to throw, letting the ball fly under her, and giving the other team all three balls.

This was looking real bad for our side, we only had three players, meaning if just two of the three balls manage to hit someone, it'll turn into a five on one which is basically a guaranteed loss.

Ishizaki picked up the ball Ryuen threw, and then awkwardly looked over at the short blue-haired tomboy. "Uh, Ibuki-san. Do you want to give Komiya one of your dodgeballs? If we copy their strategy and throw them all at Ryuen, then we should win."

She gave Ishizaki the side eyed, yet surprisingly obliged with his request, throwing the ball in her left hand over to Komiya. Then the three of placed themselves apart from each other almost in an attempt to surround the magenta-haired delinquent. 

Of course he wasn't just going to let them do as they wanted, taking refugee behind our final alive teammate. Though, I did notice he was being a bit rougher this time than he had been with his previous meat shield. Twisting the kids arm behind his back in a way that meant he had no choice to act as his shield, while also glancing over at the teacher a few times. 

Oddly enough, the teacher hadn't said anything about his slightly violent actions. It was really confusing, not to mention contradictory. One of the school rules state that bullying is prohibited, and that strict actions are taken against anyone that is found to have done that, so why exactly is he just watching this play out? Is this one of those schools that only care when it negatively affects them? 

I'm both introverted and unpopular. Doesn't that make me a prime target for bullying?

Am I gonna get bullied?

No, no, I'm probably just overthinking it. I'm sure sensei is just ignoring it because it's only a dodgeball match, and while the kid hasn't given his consent, he hasn't refused it either. If this was actual bullying there's no way he would let this slide, right? You think so too, right?

With a human shield between Ryuen and the three dodgeball holders, their strategy couldn't proceed without breaking through it. Komiya stepped up for the task, launching his ball at the helpless wall, who could do nothing to defend himself with his dominant arm restrained. His restraint didn't earn him any leniency either, as Komiya didn't want to throw a soft ball if it meant getting caught and knocked out of the game. The ball crashed into his chest, probably leaving a mark I couldn't see under his shirt. Now, it was five against two.

Ryuen advanced to grab the ball, dragging his unwilling human shield alongside him. Once he grabbed it, his bulwark that should of left the field a while ago was let go. What shocked me, however, was that as soon as his shield left, Ryuen fired the ball at Ishizaki with incredible speed. It was as if winning didn't even matter to him. Forcing people to act as literal barriers only to discard an actual shield as soon as he got—did he value them solely based on the feeling of control he got over them? I'd believed he had mellowed out since our first meeting, though now he appeared even more scary.

Luckily enough, Ryuen's impulsive throw managed to hit someone, turning it into a three on two. The remaining players that are still on the arena is Ibuki, Ishizaki, and Komiya, while our team was just Ryuen and I. This could easily end up going either way.

All three balls are once again on the oppo—Why is Ryuen approaching me like that?

He's not planning on using me as a shield like the other two as well is he? 

No, I'm not going to let that happen. Since he was coming to me, I'd just need to make it so he wouldn't be able to come any closer without risking getting knocked out himself.

He quickly realized that I was trying to avoid him too. Yet, instead of addressing it, he kept closing in, walking forward with a sinister smile, only occasionally shifting his gaze from me to our opponents.

"What's wrong, Kiyomi? Why are you walking away like that? As teammates, we should be sticking together, kukuku."

"b-back away. i'm not gonna be turned into a human shield like what you did with those other two dudes." I replied to his taunt, shivering in fear.

Due that slight moment of negligence, a ball was thrown at me while my head was turned. It struck me directly in the back, eliminating me from the game, and to Ryuen's misfortune, the ball ricocheted back onto the enemy team's territory.

Now, the only one left on our side was Ryuen, with no dodgeballs to defend himself and no human shields to take cover behind. Hence, it was no surprise when the three members of the opposing team launched a simultaneous ball strike, swiftly taking Ryuen out of the game and declaring victory for the enemy side.

That ending was such a disappointment; thanks to Ryuen sabotaging his own team, I didn't even get the opportunity to face them and he was knocked out almost immediately after.

The initial round of dodgeball wrapped up quickly, and since we finished the cardio ahead of schedule, there was more than enough time to have another game, this time featuring five dodgeballs.

This round went by even faster than the first due to the extra balls, but unfortunately, we lost again. Although the other team had lost Manabe, her friend who took her to the nurses was on our side, so the teams were still equal in number. In the end, their well-balanced team easily overpowered ours, leaving just Ryuen and me to try to carry the team, and that did not turn out well.

After that round our gym period had ended, I got changed alone and headed back to class alone. We only had one more period left before being dismissed, and I just napped right through it, then when class finished I ended up walking to my dorm again. 

Alone.

It was really disappointing that the only interaction I had today with someone I wanted to be friends with was a brief 20-second conversation in the locker room.

That's better than nothing, I guess.

---

Ch 2 End

Yes that drawing was absolutely necessary, no idea why u might think it wasn't.

ik if kiyomi was canon she'd probably had shorter hair and chest size, maybe a slightly visible 6 pack, but this is was decided based on very detailed and real and not fake or made up formula i created, hence the look is staying.

writing interactions between 2 basically lone wolf characters + kiyomi bum ass in class C is hard.

i wanted to add more dialogue but i decided against it, becuz i feel like she wouldnr have any friends or people to talk to, and a lot of the dialogue that I could have put in would just be basic shit, so i left it at a minimum

kiyomi knows only the names of students that you'd be likely to hear, that's why she don't know the names of nishino, hiyori, etc. though she knows ibuki only because she decided to relook at her nametag because they were neighbors.

also she's slightly more knowledgeable than canon kiyo thats why she knows about stuff like gyaru or choking

also there isn't enough known about class C characters for them to not be OC, so i'd just added head canons myself, like kaneda being well liked by his class despite how ugly he is, but also being lazy when it comes to anything physical, or manabe being similar to karuizawa fake personality (though this is before Ryuen takes over his class obviously)

ill probably end up rewriting my first fan fic and posting it under this, mainly cuz i loved the idea, but disliked not changing up more of it.

the p.e. teacher may have given off some very slight hints as well this chapter. though he isn't biased to any class so he did that for all the classes.

i think i was kinda vague on how i plan on making this story as well, but i'm planning on speeding through a lot of the main plot and focusing on ones where kiyomi is involved really.

may end up posting a zombie verson of cote too, tho ik know for sure it'd be very short, probably just doing something i'd wanted to see in a zombie fic for a while but kept not happening.

again don't expect frequent updates for this as it is very secondary.

4.3k