Hiroshi's POV(Part 2) - Dead Logic

I was in second year when gambling became a constant hobby of mine. Eventually, gambling followed me into school. I knew the school would never allow actual gambling, so I didn't introduce it that way. I softened the concept.

If two students disagreed about something, they could settle the matter with a game. Whoever won would have their decision accepted. If two people wanted the same position, they could make a wager. If a group couldn't decide where to go or what to do, they could leave the decision to a game.

It didn't necessarily have to be money. The competition was what mattered. Just a way to settle arguments. People liked it. I liked it even more. Soon, games became part of my social environment. All my friends enjoyed betting things in the slightest context.

And after I became student council president, I found myself surrounded by people who enjoyed that mentality. They were never afraid to bet. They also enjoyed the uncertainty of gambling. People who understood the strange thrill of putting something valuable on the line.

Eventually, I got bored from it as well. So I decided to make the biggest gamble of all. My position as the student council presidency.

"Anyone who could beat me in a gamble would become the next president." I shouted at the council room. Everybody stopped at their tracks and stopped whatever work they were doing. All eyes were at me.

"I would willingly resign. There would be no complaints from me afterward. No excuses. If someone could defeat me, they deserved the position."

It was the purest form of the philosophy I had developed since childhood. If something was possible, then someone should be able to accomplish it. If someone was better than me, they deserved to surpass me.

And if I lost, I would accept it. That was the rule.

My challenge sounded too unbelievable to others to believe. Nobody rushed at first. An uncertainty was working in everyone's heart. They were thinking, "What was it even about?"

Few days after the declaration, a first year girl entered the room. She was the first person to accept my challenge.

I still remember that game. She was different from everyone else. I could tell that immediately. She didn't need to tell anything. Her eyes said all the story. A complete pitch black eye. Soulless. A facade of seriousness that she wore 24/7.

I accepted and a custom game was designed. Neither I or she played this ever before. And she lost. That was the time I realized I had to add another rule on the ones who challenges me. One chance! None can challenge me again if they lose.

Later, some more students challenged me. None of them could win. Those victories reinforced something I had already begun believing. Perhaps I really had found the limit of everyone around me. Perhaps the reason the world felt smaller wasn't because I had become arrogant. Perhaps I had simply reached a place where very few people could follow.

I never realized how dangerous that thought was. For years, I had believed that losing meant that someone else had become better than me. But this wasn't like that. Nobody had beaten me in the game I had created. Nobody had taken the presidency from me through superior skill.

My entire structure had simply collapsed. I lowered my eyes. Then one day…

"How could you!" I was shouting at Sota. He used to do all the work related to computers for our student council.

"Now the teachers are badmouthing me!"

The worst part was, it happened during the election season. It surely ruined my image in front of others. But I thought about letting it go. As the damage couldn't be undone. My reputation's damage. But the real crack happened after a few days of that incident.

I heard footsteps. I was in front of the old building. People shouldn't be there. That place was too…dark and spider webs. Nothing less than a horror mansion. It poked my curiosity so I went to check.

There, I saw something I couldn't believe. Some boys and girls were beating a girl. That girl was on the ground, completely wounded. They were Ondo's friends. They were helpers in Ondo's run for presidency.

I couldn't just let that cruelty continue in front of me. So I stepped in. I tried to warn them at first. But they didn't listen. Instead, they stood to fight me. I used every fighting technique that I had learned so far and knocked them one after another.

But when people entered, that victim girl accused me of doing all the things. She said that I was the one who had been harassing her and Ondo and his people tried to save her.

It was a complete lie and the opposite of the truth. My situation also looked like that. No matter what I said, her explanation seemed more acceptable to others. Plus my reputation was a little damaged at the first place. So they believed it was the extent of mine.

I had to drop out of Kobama high school. My parents couldn't tolerate my downfall. Maybe their son's too much success made them comfortable enough that suddenly, the snap was hard. I kept living on a separate apartment for many days. My parents didn't say anything. But I feel like they disowned me…indirectly. My entire life was basically ruined.

Today, I looked up. Someone was knocking at the door. Nobody was supposed to come. My small apartment was all dark with the little light coming through the covered window made things visible to see.

I looked through the peephole. A girl was standing there. She was the last person i expected to be here. It was that girl who falsely accused me back then.

I quickly opened the door, "Why the hell are you here, huh?" I lost my cool.

She lowered her head, "I am sorry." an apology came from her. But I shoved that away.

"Now you are sorry? I tried to save you back then!"

"I am here to apologize by sharing with you a way to prove you are innocent!"

"Huh?" her words caught me off guard. I couldn't get it. The school had it crystal clear. I was the guilty one. So what was she…

"Can I come in now?

For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. Now that I looked at her closely, she was the same girl who challenged me in that gambling challenge. The first ever challenger.

I remembered her losing. I remembered the confidence she had carried into that game. And now she was standing in front of me after everything had happened.

"What are you saying and what do you want?" I asked.

She looked at me calmly.

"I want to offer you a gamble."

I almost laughed.

Of all the things she could have said, that was the one I hadn't expected.

"Another one?"

"Yes."

I stared at her.

The person who had once challenged me and lost was standing in front of me again, offering another gamble when I had already lost almost everything that mattered to me.

I should have walked away.

Instead, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.

A spark of curiosity. For years, I had searched for something that couldn't be mastered simply through skill. I had found it in gambling.

And now, after losing my reputation, my position, and the identity I had spent years constructing, someone was placing another gamble in front of me.

I looked at Shuhi.

"What are the stakes?"

She smiled faintly.

"That depends on whether you're willing to bet."

For the first time in a long while, I felt that the world had become large again.

Chapter 62 - Hiroshi's POV(Part 2)