Chapter Text
Horuda had always been a disappointment.
For as long as she could remember, she'd never been able to make her parents smile. Every time they so much as glanced her way, the stress lines in their features would stiffen, molding together to form rigid wrinkles and sharp edges. Frowns were a frequent gesture that crossed their faces, often caused by their turbulent office jobs.
The worst part was that they were quiet about it. They were never impressed with her, but they would never voice their opinions out loud either. Instead, there was always a wall of distance in between.
Their constant silence screamed louder than anything they could've ever said to her. She didn't mind the solitude, but sometimes it left a sour taste in her mouth.
So Horuda's life, up until high school, was a rather stagnant and uneventful story. All of her attempts at befriending peers throughout her childhood had either been short-lived or died through anticlimatic means, like with distance or a lack of shared interests. If someone were to take a peek of Horuda's day-to-day routines and examine them like a show, they'd leave from the sheer boredom of it all.
Every morning, at the crack of dawn, Horuda would rise and eat, in hopes of leaving the quiet emptiness that she often awoke to. Her parents were workaholics, they didn't know when to take a day off and the most she'd exchange with them were a few words or an awkward silence if she ever did see them around.
Recently, she made it a habit to visit school an hour before classes even began.
By the time she had entered the grounds of Akademi High, it would always be 7:10 AM sharp. Every morning, she frequented the rooftop before plopping down on a bench and cracking open a book.
She thought nothing would change with her lonesome ways. Though she wasn’t all that content with how things were, she was fine with everything staying the same.
One day, however, something did change.
Musume Ronshaku happened.
Maybe it was because even though nobody knew Horuda, they still did at the same time. Right off the bat, they could tell that she was timid, that she wouldn’t fight back because it wasn’t in her nature to. She was passive, obedient, a total doormat if she was stomped on. If a strong wind pushed her, she’d simply get blown back and carried away by the breeze.
At first, Horuda thought she had imagined the noises. Every now and again, whenever she walked the corridors of Akademi High, she could hear them.
The whispers.
They were hushed snippets from a distance, all occurring in unison.
But it wasn’t just that.
Then there were the eyes.
The heat of their stares would linger on her, stalking her every move. Even though she didn’t know why at the time, Horuda was already becoming self-conscious because of it.
She tried to ignore the signs, but she couldn’t once she found them glaring right back at her on her desk one day in black marker.
Hideous.
Stupid.
Useless.
No one needs you.
Go kill yourself.
The words screamed at Horuda with so much spite, with so much raw hatred, that it made her nauseous. Everything around her blurred as tears swelled up in her eyes.
She didn’t know what else to do other than to ignore this too, but to no avail. Their words kept coming back at her, no matter how many times she scrubbed her desk clean.
At one point, Musume and her clique even managed to smack Horuda’s head upside down with chalk erasers, leaving for her to cough on the remnants of the white dust, her lungs burning in the process. The cacophony of their giggles rang sharp in her ears, resonating within the chambers of her mind with a distant echo.
One day, they even discovered her usual spot on the rooftop during the early hours of the morning, tearing apart the place that once served as her safe space. Their snide remarks jabbed at Horuda during any given moment, prodding at the shattered remains of whatever was left of her self-esteem.
No matter where Horuda went, they were always on her tail, always lurking beneath the shadows with mocking grins and haunting laughter.
With every day that dragged on, Horuda was gradually breaking apart, questioning her existence as her sense of self began to crumble. Eventually, depression also crept in, hitting her with full force.
It prompted her to get out of the house one day, deep into the evening and even deeper in the town, where a bridge above water stretched out beyond the outskirts of a local park.
It had been built over a river bank, the currents swaying with a steady pattern and glimmering underneath the moonlight.
And though she didn’t think she had the courage to actually do anything, Horuda still stood near the edge of the bridge, wavering between life and death with a blank look in her eyes.
She didn’t know how long she was there, frozen in time while a numb sensation overtook her limbs. Sleep hadn’t been easy for her, only coming in and out through irregular hours. All she wanted to do was imagine being put out of her misery for good, though she still clung onto a shred of cowardice to this day for not being able to go through with that wish.
She didn’t see a point in living anymore, but she didn’t know if she was ready to stop either.
Just when she was starting to lose feel in her arms, she suddenly felt a hand yanking her by the wrist.
The reality of her situation washed over her like a cold tidal wave, jolting her back to the present. She felt herself being pulled away from the internal storm, felt herself being drawn forward, face-to-face by a guy that towered over her.
His blond hair was slicked back in some places while ruffled in others and a long scar ran down one eye. A glower darkened his face, his teeth bared in a disapproving scowl, as he quickly withdrew his hold on her.
It was Umeji Kizuguchi, one of Akademi’s most feared delinquents.
Immediately, panic rooted Horuda in place as he stared down at her with a steel gaze. Fire burned in his amber irises, flashing bright with enough intensity to swallow her whole.
This is the night I die, was the first thought that occurred to her.
Horuda wanted to run, but her feet were still planted to the ground, refusing to cooperate.
“I’ve seen you around,” Umeji blurted just then, before she could open her mouth to plead for her life. “You’re the emo chick that Musume girl likes to bitch about.”
Horuda could only blink in response. She didn’t really know what to say to that.
“I may not fucking know you, but I do know that it’s too damn early for you to be giving up like that.”
Still, she was speechless, a whirlwind of error signs overloading her brain.
And then, without anything else to say, Umeji decided to end the conversation at that before making an abrupt leave.
With his back turned to her, he simply shoved his hands in his pockets and left, leaving a dumbfounded Horuda to stand there and reflect over what just happened.
After a while, she took a moment to be grateful that nothing really happened. She shook off the encounter while walking back to her house and tried to dismiss it as a one-time thing.
Horuda didn’t think too much of it, she didn’t want to think too much about getting involved with someone like Umeji Kizuguchi, and she just hoped to survive another tomorrow.
That was all she could ever ask for.