The next year, Bryce and all his lackeys quit school. I even heard Bryce left the country.
Smart kid.
And when the year began, all my efforts finally paid off. The trained smile sat easily on my face now. The practiced conversations went smoothly. The jokes I had repeated to myself in the mirror slipped out naturally, timed just right. I blended into the class as if it.
Still, a thin thread of doubt never snapped.
Would things break again. Would society abandon me again. And worst of all, would Siri abandon me.
Those thoughts lingered quietly in the background, like static you only notice when the room goes silent.
Then came the school president elections.
Being the top student of the class, Siri was immediately drawn into it. She explained everything to me, how the system worked, what presidents were supposed to do, how campaigning functioned, how votes were counted, every detail delivered with her usual precision. I listened, nodded, absorbed it all.
But one thing stood out above the rest.
Elections were how humans chose their leader.
That idea intrigued me.
Becoming president meant more than a title. It meant four hundred plus students choosing you. Trusting you. Wanting to follow you. It was validation in its purest form. Proof that I had truly become part of society. Proof that I belonged.
Proof that Siri would not leave me.
So I enrolled in the elections, alongside Siri.
The initial days of campaigning were easy. Students favored me quickly. They laughed at my jokes, smiled back when I smiled, gathered around me without hesitation. It felt almost unreal. But soon I hit a wall. My speeches fell flat. They were logical, structured, clean, and yet something was missing. People listened, then drifted away.
Siri helped me refine them. She softened my wording, adjusted my pacing, trimmed the sharp edges. Slowly, I improved.
Then the first mock results came in.
I was favored at sixty percent for male president. Siri stood at only thirty percent for female president.
That was the first time Siri ever asked me for something.
She said she wanted to win with me. Not just win, but dominate the elections, the way she dominated every competition she entered. Her voice was calm, but her eyes burned with intent.
From then on, we worked together. The goal was clear. Eighty percent favorability for both of us.
We started by studying our competitors.
Siri's biggest rival was a senior named Lily.
According to the populace, she was pretty. I could not grasp the concept of beauty, so I did not understand it, but many of the boys idolized her. For the girls, she was cute, someone they wanted to protect. There was even a nickname for her, Glass Rabbit, which later became her campaign symbol.
The comparison fascinated me.
Just as people saw a rabbit as something cute and delicate, something to pet, protect, care for, and hug endlessly, they saw Lily the same way. It was strange, because that was not how I saw rabbits at all. Maybe it was because I lived with Goku for so long. To me, rabbits were delicious.
There was one memory of Lily that lingered vividly.
She got hurt once. Her hand bled, bright red against pale skin, and people swarmed her instantly. Voices softened. Hands reached out. Someone fetched first aid. As she cried and stumbled, shrieking softly while others hovered around her, I understood how perfect the title Glass Rabbit truly was.
She looked exactly like the rabbits I hunted with Goku.
Fragile. Panicked. Bleeding.
Delicious.
I would have lost control if Siri had not suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me toward another campaign group. The moment passed, but the image stayed.
Alongside Lily, I learned about my own competitor.
Another senior, Raj.
Raj was brilliant. He topped every exam. His speeches were powerful, confident, far better than mine or Siri's. He had already served as vice president, which made him experienced and capable. He even shared similar facial features with other so-called handsome boys, though darker skinned. For reasons I could not understand, people did not consider him good looking.
Again, human beauty standards escaped me.
We also learned how the populace viewed us.
Girls liked my smile and thought I was good looking. Boys liked my jokes and enjoyed my speeches, but they did not fully trust my capability yet.
And as for Siri, she was considered the top beauty of the school, a fact that made me quietly happy. She was seen as intelligent, just as I knew she was, and exceptional at commanding others. Yet despite all that, people did not like her.
While Lily was seen as a princess or a goddess to be protected and worshiped, Siri was viewed as a ruthless knight. Someone capable of making their lives difficult. Their fear was not unfounded. Her speeches made that very clear.
From what Siri herself believed a president should be, she and Raj were ideal candidates.
And yet, neither of them were favored.
It seemed humans did not want a capable leader. They wanted someone they could resonate with.
And that someone was either Lily or me.
The solution appeared simple.
I told Siri what I thought she should do. I said she needed to change herself. Her speeches should be less strict. She should act friendlier. Smile more. Maybe even try to be cute. Make more boys favor her.
The moment the words left my mouth, a chill crawled down my spine.
Her smile curved slowly, eerily similar to my own devilish smirk. Her eyes sharpened, feral, like a beast locking onto prey. Her voice dropped, cold and razor edged.
For the first time, I felt raw fear. Fear I had not felt even while hunting beasts in the wild.
She said only one word.
No.
That single word carved itself deep into me.
I never brought it up again.
So I shifted to another approach.
Tried and tested.
The only method that had ever worked for me. The one I had used for an entire year on Bryce and his lackeys.
Fear.
To use it, I needed to be alone with her. That was the problem. Lily was a senior, and seniors did not linger around juniors without reason. Opportunities to interact with her were rare.
So I tried something else.
Something that worked disturbingly well.
I used my smile. I used my face. The things I had recently learned made me attractive to girls. In the few moments I managed to cross paths with her, I smiled the most polished version of myself. I helped her with small, harmless things. Carrying something. Finding a room. Explaining something she already knew.
Enough to make her notice me.
It did not take long.
Within a week, she started following me with her eyes. Then with her steps. Then she came to me on her own.
I took full advantage of that.
Unlike Bryce, who was a beast and gave me chance to properly fight, Lily was a rabbit. And you cannot fight rabbits. You either hunt them with precision, or you leave them alone forever.
I prepared myself thoroughly before meeting her alone. I did not want to repeat the chase I had with Bryce. I did not want to lose control and accidentally break her, or worse, kill her.
When we were finally alone, something snapped again.
She told me she liked me. She said she had liked me even before the president elections, that she had entered the race only to get closer to me. She smiled as she spoke, bright and unguarded. She looked genuinely happy. When I said her name, slowly and clearly, I saw her blush deepen.
This was not part of my plan.
But it was useful.
So I used it.
I took advantage of her feelings and asked her to withdraw from the elections.
She agreed instantly. No hesitation. No questions.
As gratitude, I showed her my gentlest smile. The one that never failed.
Then she did something I never knew I hated with every grain of my body.
She ran toward me and kissed me.
I had heard kisses were warm. I had read that they were sweet, addictive, something that made you want more and more. What I felt was none of that. It felt like my breath was being torn out of my lungs. Like something was crawling across my skin, inside my mouth, inside my chest.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up.
I pushed her away and my hands closed around her neck. I strangled her until she choked, until her nails raked my hands hard enough to draw blood. Just before she lost consciousness, just after her face turned red, far redder than any blush, I loosened my grip.
She collapsed to the floor, barely conscious, gasping and clawing for air. It meant nothing to me. I grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look straight into my eyes.
She stopped struggling.
It was as if her entire world had collapsed in that instant.
I ordered her to withdraw from the elections again. When her eyes blinked weakly, confirming she understood, I let go and walked away.
That same day, she officially withdrew and took a leave from school.
The days after that, she never returned. A week later, we heard the news. She had died in a fire accident at her house while her parents were away.
At first, when she stopped attending school, I assumed that she had simply broken completely. But it seemed her luck was worse than that. She died in an accident while sleeping.
Back at school, things worked out for Siri.
With the strongest competitor gone, her favorability rose to seventy percent. For the remaining ten percent, we negotiated with the second leading candidate and secured them the vice president position.
Strangely, things worked out for me as well.
Siri told me she had a surprise planned the day before the elections. By evening, Raj stepped down from the race. She placed him into the vice president position too.
We dominated the elections exactly as we planned.
Both of us became presidents.