ALL NOVEL Chapter 15: The Contradiction
“What a long day.” I thought, letting out a sigh as I made my way home from the school. The weight of today’s events was settling in, each step feeling heavier with the thoughts swirling in my mind.
“These thirty days might come back to haunt me later on. I guess I let my curiosity take the reins over my decisions.” The words echoed in my head, and with them came a mix of regret and curiosity—a conflict I hadn’t expected when I first made my proposal.
I had planned everything meticulously. Every answer, every rebuttal, calculated down to the finest detail. Yet, despite all that, I couldn’t have predicted the unexpected reactions from the student council. I thought their alignment with the administration was inevitable—that they would just follow protocol, treat me like a case file, and push for me to stay. And yet… there was something more in Kenzaki’s words. A hint of genuine concern, almost like he had a personal stake in this.
It threw me off.
I had anticipated opposition, not care. Control, not concern. I hadn’t factored that into my plans. And now? Now I was left wondering if my decisions—if these thirty days I proposed—might backfire in ways I couldn’t see just yet.
"I thought I was prepared," I murmured, shaking my head slightly. "But maybe I didn’t prepare for everything."
That’s the irony, isn’t it? I had laid everything out in my mind—the steps, the escape routes, the worst-case scenarios. Yet, in doing so, I’d tied myself into a web of my own contradictions.
On one hand, I was dead-set on leaving. My withdrawal from the academy had been inevitable. The reasons were crystal clear. There’s nothing here for me, no future worth fighting for. I don’t belong in this place full of people with hopes, dreams, ambitions.
Yet, on the other hand, something kept pulling me back. Curiosity, perhaps? This strange desire to see what would unfold, to test the boundaries of what the academy would do with a student like me.
“I said it was self-assessment,” I muttered, the words bitter on my tongue, “but in reality, I just want to see what will happen. What I’ll do. What they’ll do.” Contradictory, see?
I scoffed at my own foolishness. I was like a chess player who’d meticulously planned his moves but was still interested in seeing how his opponent would react, even though the outcome seemed inevitable. I claimed to know my own future—yet I left a door open for something else. Something unpredictable.
It was almost laughable.
I live in a world of contradictions. I reject their concern, but I felt a twinge of something when Kenzaki asked about my future. I don’t care about this place, yet I’ve just given them thirty days to prove me wrong. I seek solitude, but I’ve thrown myself into the very center of attention.
“I’ll show them how self-sufficient I am. I’ll prove it to them why I don’t need any of this.”
And yet… part of me wondered, what then?
What happens after thirty days? When I’ve proven my point, when I’ve demonstrated that I can stand on my own without their help—what comes next?
“I just need peace,” I told myself, but even I knew that was another contradiction. Peace was the last thing I was chasing. If peace was what I wanted, I would have stayed gone. I wouldn’t have proposed thirty days to the council. I wouldn’t have given myself a reason to stay.
The truth is, I’m searching for something I can’t name. Something beyond peace or self-sufficiency. But I’ve built my walls too high to let myself acknowledge it. So, I continue down this path, full of irony, contradictions, and uncertainty.
"Thirty days... We'll see what happens."