Blessed Beauty

Chapter 23

Nishinoya was still silently staring at their joined hands, Hitomi in front of him and dragging him to wherever the library in her home was.

The faint blush on his cheeks was very much still present as his eyes flipped up to see the back of her and then back down to their hands. His gaze continued to go back and forth in this dance, the stuttering of his heart accompanying the motion.

Her hand was smooth, her fingers slender. They seemed so elegant, but her assured grip belied their delicateness. Her fingers were a bit cold. Probably from the central air conditioning sheltering the house's inhabitants from the heat outside.

Despite that, Nishinoya felt so warm.

Warmth in his chest. Warmth in his cheeks. He was beginning to worry that his palms might start getting clammy, causing her to let go of his hand sooner than she needed to.

Unfortunately for him, they had reached the library, causing her to let go of his hand anyways. He almost sighed if it weren't for his attention being drawn to a butler opening and holding the door for them to enter.

Hitomi quietly thanked the man, Nishinoya quickly following suit. As the door gently shut behind them, he looked up and around in awe. The personal library of the Fukumoto family estate nearly rivaled that of the large public library that they went to before.

The girl beside him went ahead to begin setting up at one of the tables, but she glanced back at him occasionally, noting the gleam of fascination in his eyes. "Wow! There are so many books here! Have you read them all, Hitomi-chan?" Nishinoya asked.

She hummed in thought. "I'd say I've probably read most, but I have dropped quite a few when they bored me." She sat down, waving her hand over to offer him the seat across from her.

"It's no wonder you're so smart then! You read so much, and you study so hard! I hate reading! Oh, but manga is totally ok!" The libero shared as he took a seat, digging through his bag to pull out various notebooks and worksheets.

Hitomi stared him, his words floating in her head. She'd been paid compliments a superfluous amount of times. Almost all of which were fake, backhanded, or said with the sole purpose of hoping to gain something from her.

She'd gotten tons of compliments about her looks. About how beautiful she was. Beautiful enough to professionally model or to have any man wrapped around her finger. With those compliments always came the jealousy and seething remarks of skepticism.

Doubt about how genuine her beauty was. With how dazzling a pair her parents made, their daughter was of course expected to be just as pleasing to the eye. It was just those very same expectations though that caused the envious to breathe words of doubt.

She couldn't have possibly won the genetic lottery so much. Surely there was something else. A family of their caliber could easily afford surgery. Or perhaps it was an obscene amount of well used makeup.

Those suspicious eyes didn't stop there though. Hitomi's academics were always in question. A girl blessed with beauty and brains? Her family had to have donated lots of money to the school, such that all of her teachers treated her favorably. It couldn't possibly be because she studied or worked hard on her own. If anything, her parents must have hired the most expensive and greatest home tutor. How was that fair to any of the other students?

At first, that only made Hitomi work harder. To prove that not everything was just given to her. That she could hold her own without the need for money.

After years of futility though, Hitomi stopped letting herself react to such petty words. It's why she always gave up doing any sport halfway through. That's how it always was after that.