The sky, reflected in the fountain in the park near her school, is beautiful. It reminds her of glass, elegant and delicate in a way that the slightest touch would disrupt it. She finds that it does, and the water is cold and invasive, but she does not get to see it return to its previous form.
The girl yanks her head back far too quickly, and she falls to the ground, the water out of view. She looks up at the real sky now, past the girls pulling her long pigtails loose. Michi finds that she often wishes that she were a bird.
But if she were a bird, she would be two different kinds, and her flock would peck at her feathers. She knows this, because the thing that always brings her back to reality is the pain. One of her classmates has a heeled shoe pushing into her cheek. It is always like this.
When she returns to her empty home at the end of the day, bruised, hair disheveled, she spends very little time looking at her reflection, but is not sure why.
Something already disrupted couldn't possibly be made worse, could it?
Her teachers tell Cecily that she is a failure. She never has and never will amount to anything. Linda, long since used to those words, had already resolved to do what she wanted
( ... )
Maiko makes stuffed toys and sometimes she gives them away, and sometimes she keeps them. It's a childish hobby, an unfashionable one that her friends would laugh about, but she still has a shelf lined with them. In the centre of her collection there's a family of rabbits, one smiling in a pale floral dress, one white-haired with blue glass eyes she sees in the mirror every day, and a smaller one with simple glasses. Sometimes she whispers secrets to them, but mostly they're just there, because talking to toys is for children.
Maiko doesn't tell anyone that each of her freshly-made toys has a tragic secret that will cut their stuffing short, an illness spoken of in black button eyes, a wound hidden under a cute little patch, a broken heart.
Saburo hates weakness. He hates the weakness in everyone around him, the dwindling numbers of people with names he can remember, the new-comers who weep until they can't. Saburo's tears have long dried up, so he steals them from the others with harsh words and fake little smiles, and there's no fairness in God or heaven, so he'll claw open their scabs and drag them all down to his level with his own shaking hands. Because Saburo knows the truth.
The thing Saburo hates the most is that every time he promises to himself that this time, he won't scream, he lies.
Rin thinks someone is talking to him, but then he forgets that, thoughts darting away like fishes into the river of humanity. There's a pretty girl who waitresses and dreams of bigger things, a man who listens to the cracks on the sidewalks while holding his tin, passengers in his mind in a train heading away on adventures and he wants to follow them away from the ache of a heartbeat
( ... )
Miyoko does his best, but he's fourteen, and his body has demands. He can't go without sleep for more than a night, and there's few jobs to take when you're not even legal. He demeans his intelligence with anything he can, does his homework in scant minutes, and the table is still barren and his mother's smile is fragile. Miyoko has long stopped paying attention to the idea of a social life, friends, conversation, because the complex dance of niceties and cliques reminds him of nothing more than the herds on your average documentary, and he doesn't have the time. (Also, he isn't very good at it, but it's easier to consider it being shunned from the herd than having been rejected by his peers
( ... )
He has long-since realized something is wrong with him. The way he sees people, the way he sees the world. People talk about him behind his back. He knows this, but doesn't mind. There's nothing to be done about it, after all
( ... )
She walks about Raitou unnoticed. With a very small build, and completely unremarkable black hair and eyes, she blended in perfectly anywhere she went. Even if someone saw her, no one noticed her; their eyes would just slide off like she was a mundane piece of scenery. Even when those dark contacts nearly blinded her and she bumped into people, a quiet apology and hurrying along the way made sure no one ever remembered her existence
( ... )
Her big competition is soon. She's too excited to think of anything else. She stays up at nigiht, stretching and practicing, and just imagining what it will be like to win. Her days, she spends sleeping through classes
( ... )
Gourou is fourteen, and he is on top of the goddamn world.
Yes, even as he was getting punched in the face by his classmate for having punched him to begin with. They didn't get along, Gourou didn't like him or his stupid face, and that was all the reason he needed. They were fighting in the schoolyard and already there was a crowd gathering around them, curious onlookers who would back away as soon as a teacher came, none who personally sided with either of them but did because they could. That was just how these kinds of fights went.
Gourou responds with headbutt, once everything is slightly less blurry and he has some idea where the other boy is, and is met with hands that try to tug him to ground along with him.
He is the red-eyed devil of this stupid school, and he has a reputation to keep. If he can't deal with this, how is he supposed to take on anything?
He's fourteen and nobody knows his name. They say he transferred in from some school in Osaka, before that it was Nara, before that Gifu, and a billion other places. He's the new guy, he's always been the new guy, and that never changes.
But he's not content to be the new guy forever, and already he's getting a reputation. A fist-fight in the locker room with one of the older boys earns him respect for maybe being insane if nothing else. He's rude, he's rough, he's a poor kid from the other side of the country, but he's got his heroic moments, in there, and slowly but surely he's winning over a few of them.
When he meets her, the untouchable rich girl with daddy issues and a shady past, and declares on the spot that they will date before too long, she laughs, and even his new found friends are sure he's bitten off more than he can chew. But when she relents, and tells him that if he becomes the best racer in the city, she'll go out with him, he promises
( ... )
There's just not enough hours in the day. He's not even in high school yet, and he's already strapped for time. A different academic club practically every day, cram school on the weekends - he's going to do something brilliant, something award-winning, and he's going to leave this stupid city and his mother's constant nagging to take over the family store behind. He's got to, because the idea of being here for the rest of his life kills him.
The only reason he hasn't snapped yet is the martial arts. He's got his exam for the first dan black belt coming up in a matter of weeks. Every day, after clubs, he pours his heart into katas, into sparring, into a regimen so strict even his instructor is convinced he's going to hurt himself but knows it'd be impossible to dissuade him.
The day of the test comes, a national expo, and Yasuhiro shakes his head when his sensei asks if there's anyone he'd like to invite to come watch, because he knows nobody cares but him anyways, and he's fine with that. Another step closer to being gone forever.
Comments 18
The girl yanks her head back far too quickly, and she falls to the ground, the water out of view. She looks up at the real sky now, past the girls pulling her long pigtails loose. Michi finds that she often wishes that she were a bird.
But if she were a bird, she would be two different kinds, and her flock would peck at her feathers. She knows this, because the thing that always brings her back to reality is the pain. One of her classmates has a heeled shoe pushing into her cheek. It is always like this.
When she returns to her empty home at the end of the day, bruised, hair disheveled, she spends very little time looking at her reflection, but is not sure why.
Something already disrupted couldn't possibly be made worse, could it?
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Maiko doesn't tell anyone that each of her freshly-made toys has a tragic secret that will cut their stuffing short, an illness spoken of in black button eyes, a wound hidden under a cute little patch, a broken heart.
When she goes, she'll have company.
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The thing Saburo hates the most is that every time he promises to himself that this time, he won't scream, he lies.
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Yes, even as he was getting punched in the face by his classmate for having punched him to begin with. They didn't get along, Gourou didn't like him or his stupid face, and that was all the reason he needed. They were fighting in the schoolyard and already there was a crowd gathering around them, curious onlookers who would back away as soon as a teacher came, none who personally sided with either of them but did because they could. That was just how these kinds of fights went.
Gourou responds with headbutt, once everything is slightly less blurry and he has some idea where the other boy is, and is met with hands that try to tug him to ground along with him.
He is the red-eyed devil of this stupid school, and he has a reputation to keep. If he can't deal with this, how is he supposed to take on anything?
Not that he couldn't do that already.
Reply
But he's not content to be the new guy forever, and already he's getting a reputation. A fist-fight in the locker room with one of the older boys earns him respect for maybe being insane if nothing else. He's rude, he's rough, he's a poor kid from the other side of the country, but he's got his heroic moments, in there, and slowly but surely he's winning over a few of them.
When he meets her, the untouchable rich girl with daddy issues and a shady past, and declares on the spot that they will date before too long, she laughs, and even his new found friends are sure he's bitten off more than he can chew. But when she relents, and tells him that if he becomes the best racer in the city, she'll go out with him, he promises ( ... )
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The only reason he hasn't snapped yet is the martial arts. He's got his exam for the first dan black belt coming up in a matter of weeks. Every day, after clubs, he pours his heart into katas, into sparring, into a regimen so strict even his instructor is convinced he's going to hurt himself but knows it'd be impossible to dissuade him.
The day of the test comes, a national expo, and Yasuhiro shakes his head when his sensei asks if there's anyone he'd like to invite to come watch, because he knows nobody cares but him anyways, and he's fine with that. Another step closer to being gone forever.
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