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"Kamukura-kun, why can't I see where I'm going? Why did you make me put on this blindfold?" Chiaki Nanami asked in her unique innocent curiosity.
"Do not worry, Nanami-san. I will not let any harm come to you. You have my word." Izuru Kamukura replied, as quiet as always. He was guiding Chiaki with a hand on each shoulder. Izuru could predict virtually anything in the world, but this girl was constantly surprising him, so he found himself in the rare position of wondering whether or not she would like what he had planned.
"Okay!" Chiaki's reply was as short as it was trusting.
They walked away from Izuru's car for a bit longer before Izuru instructed curtly, "Wait here." Chiaki heard him talking to someone else, but wasn't close enough to make out the words. She tensed when she felt someone touch her, but relaxed when she heard Izuru's voice again. "Let's go."
A few minutes later, Chiaki's next step was far less stable than the one before it. "Woah!" she flailed about a bit before feeling Izuru holding her steady, which naturally turned her cheeks bright pink. She was guided to a chair and sat when she was certain she was properly centered over it. Izuru's footsteps faded to...where? Why was she hearing a motor??? Chiaki gripped the sides of her chair as...wherever she was lurched forward. The motions felt even more dramatic, more pronounced, because she couldn't see.
After what felt like hours but was probably 20-30 minutes at best, the sound of the motor died and all Chiaki heard was the sound of waves, if she had to guess, and footsteps approaching. Izuru took her hand and guided her to stand before removing her blindfold with the other hand. Chiaki was right: they were on the water. It was water as far as her eyes could see, until she looked behind her and the land looked almost like a hairline-thin mass on the horizon, the sun setting behind it. Turning back to face the twilight growing in front of him, Chiaki could only muster one word: "Wow!" That was barely over a whisper, as if speaking too loudly would utterly and permanently shatter the peacefulness around them. It was a bit chilly, being February and all, but Izuru had already warned her to dress warmly, so she had.
Chiaki took some tentative steps to the edge of the boat, resting her hands on the cool metal railing as she took in the view with a wide smile. The faintest hints of a smile played on the corners of Izuru's mouth, watching Chiaki's uncertain steps. He could, after a few minutes of being still, predict the waves, and thus the boat's motions, well enough, but Chiaki could not.
Izuru took confident steps towards Chiaki but he found that even HE, Izuru Kamukura, hesitated before he could work up the nerve to wrap his arms around her. A very surprised, "Kamukura-kun???" escaped Chiaki's lips, still speaking as quietly as she could.
Conversation was still Izuru's weak area, and the years hadn't changed that. Sure, he knew everything about everything, but he couldn't make himself CARE about most conversations, when he already knew how they would go. "SHSL Faking It" had apparently been beyond the ken of what Hope's Peak could implant into him. So when Chiaki expressed surprise, the idea of "warming up" to his point was immediately discarded as a "waste of time." "Thank you, Nanami-san. Thank you."
"Ummm...you're welcome, Kamukura-kun...I think... But...what for?" Chiaki decided her balance was stable enough to take one hand off of the railing, resting it on Izuru's arms wrapped around her torso.
"Isn't it obvious? For everything. If you had not been catching your 'Pokemon' at the only time of night the Steering Committee allowed me to be outside, I would not have met you and I would still be their prisoner. I also would have remained in the dark as to who I was before. At first, I only cared what happened to you because of residual feelings from Hajime Hinata, but that is no longer the case. Moreover, you always saw me as a separate person, as I am. Most women in your position would only have seen Hinata and considered me a 'thief' of his body, and similar nonsense." Izuru held Chiaki even tighter as he continued, "I was bored to death of everything. Living itself held no purpose, except to exist as Hope's Peak's lab rat. I could predict everything, perfectly, and craved something, anything that I could not predict, even if it was 'messy.' You were it. You were, you are, that unpredictable factor I was craving, Nanami-san."
Chiaki nodded to indicate she was still listening, but Izuru's choice of words was, to her mind, far less guarded than usual. She tried to wrap her mind around being too bored to see the point in even being alive. The idea was totally foreign to her. "And that's why you used your Impostor talent to escape, right?"
"Precisely. Once I was free, establishing my own identity was child's play hacking, and Hope's Peak realized they could not 'reclaim' me without involving law enforcement, and not before I would have leaked to the press that they had been experimenting on students. I knew the bluff would never come to pass, or I would not have made it. I know the results would have made you sad." Izuru's words were far from trivial, but he always spoke in the same tone one might expect for describing a stamp collection.
"I would've been afraid of the Reserve Course students protesting or something. Can you imagine the chaos that would have resulted???" Chiaki mused.
"It would have been anarchy. I will spare you the details." Izuru cut off that thread of discussion abruptly. "Through everything that has happened since then, you have stood by me, as my own person. I can see my entire day from the moment I awake, except for you. Nanami-san, you are the one thing I cannot predict. I..hope..." Why did Izuru sound uncertain??? That NEVER happened! "...I hope you will remain with me, forever, by my side." With that, Izuru buried his face in Chiaki's hair. How could his face feel so warm???
Chiaki, careful with her footing, spun around in Izuru's arms and embraced him, grinning and figuring this was probably the one and only time she would ever see him blush, even a little. "I would never abandon you, Kamukura-kun!" Rasing her head from his chest for just a moment, Chiaki said, "I was sad when Hinata-kun left, and yeah I was sad again when I realized he can never come back, but you're you, you're here now, and you're my precious friend, too. You were alone for so long after you were created, and that was very sad...I think..." Resting her head on his chest again, to the sound of his heartbeat, she replied, "It would be too sad to ever leave you alone again."
"Nanami-san..." Izuru whispered, looking off to the side. This evening was supposed to be for Chiaki, for her enjoyment, (and to get away from the noise of the city,) but his heart was pounding even harder than hers, and he would've sworn his cheeks were getting redder than hers. How had that happened??? That wasn't what he had predicted at all! "Nanami-san," he said again, a bit louder this time, as he gently placed a hand on her cheek. Now the blush level was getting a bit closer to even...maybe...
Sliding that hand down to her chin, he bent down and gently placed his mouth on Chiaki's. (Why did Hajime have to have been so much taller than her?!) Surprisingly, Izuru felt, at that moment, a stirring somewhere in the back of his mind, in the deepest recesses that still sometimes manifested the teeniest flickers of Hajime. That flicker seemed...happy? The thought popped into Izuru's mind, unbidden, "Take care of her, Kamukura-san," before the flicker died away once more.
In all of the years Izuru had inhabited this body, that previous self had only been perceivable once...maybe twice before? If that? This, also, was something Izuru had not predicted, though he supposed that maybe he ought to have anticipated it, in a moment that carried such strong emotions for most people. It would, no doubt, be years longer before it happened again.
Pulling his lips away from Chiaki's, the couple embraced tightly, as the last flickers of sunlight disappeared behind the coast of Japan. After what was probably a good 15 minutes but felt entirely too short to both of them, Izuru sighed and gestured to where Chiaki had been sitting. "I only rented this vessel for an evening. It will be a problem if we do not return to the shore soon."
"Okay, Kamukura-kun!" Chikai beamed at Izuru as she took her seat. "My cheeks must be pink from how cold it's getting...I think..." Chiaki wasn't fooling anyone, herself included.
Another faint smile played on Izuru's mouth as he started the motor again. It was too bad there was no where in the steering area for Chiaki to sit. Izuru was musing that it would have been nice to hold her hand...just for the warmth, of course.