Side Story 5: Black Monologue

Reading Settings

Translator: Soafp

---

On my way home from a part-time job, I passed by a house.

The house of someone I used to be very fond of.

　I caused many problems in the past. Because of that, I hurt many people and lost many things. The same goes for the people who lived in this house.

　I was a simple child.

　From an early age, I was not good at standing out, and at school I would read in the corner of the classroom. I didn’t have many friends, and I was never popular with the boys. My appearance was also very plain; I wore glasses and did my hair in pigtails.

But I was not always plain and dark.

　At home, I was cheerful, and in front of my family I was a cheeky little brat. I was shy, or rather, I just didn’t like the way a lot of people looked at me.

　So I always spoke my true feelings inside without saying them out loud.

“I-I’m sorry.”

　…… Damn it. It’s your fault, you piece of sh*t.

　It was like that. I was apologizing with fright in my mouth and cursing in my heart. Even so, I hid my true feelings, and I am sure that I appeared to those around me as a dark and unsophisticated child.

It is not that I have a dual personality. Just a very intense front and back. A typical small girl who was scared on the outside and was a jerk only on the inside.

　I hated going to school.

　I was bullied in elementary school. In the lower grades, when I was getting along like I was at home, the bullies took notice of me. The bullying broke my heart and I missed a lot of school. My daily life was hard.

　My support was my childhood friend and my first love, my older brother. When I was a child, I adored him as if he were my real brother, and my feelings for him turned into a love affair.

　I knew that love was not fruitful.

　It was my sister that my brother was crazy about. I knew they were in love with each other, and it was a battle that was unwinnable from the start. Sister is pretty in my eyes.

　I was living with smoldering feelings deep in my heart. Although I never made any progress, my brother was my emotional support.

　One day before I was about to enter junior high school. At a family gathering, a drunken old b*****d touched my breasts.

　I was shocked.

　I was well-built, so I had felt the stares of boys at school. I even had a teacher look at me funny. But that was the first time I had ever been touched, and I shivered because I felt so uncomfortable.

　I developed a hatred of men. Other than my father and brother, I had become averse to men.

　In junior high school, my classmates who had reached puberty started talking about love and friendship.

I was still a stranger to them. Even in the classroom, I was a complete nobody. I was only looking forward to reading books, and I made fun of those who talked about good-looking or beautiful girls.

　After finishing school lunch, I went to the library in search of my favorite books. No one ever came near here. It was my own private paradise.

　My life in paradise lasted about a year.

　When I was in the second year of junior high school, that person started coming in and out of the library. He was a dark, gloomy, and shy boy who wore glasses. I couldn’t speak for others either, but he had a very negative aura around him.

　I didn’t even know his name at first.

　While I was reading in the classroom, that boy passed by in the hallway. At that time, a girl in the vicinity started whispering secretly.

“Do you know it?　I heard that that Mukawa is stalking Akazawa-san.”

“Huh, I think that’s a misunderstanding. Yuuhi-chan said they were childhood friends.”

“Is that so?　I heard he got his heart broken, and then–“

　As they talked, the girls headed for the restroom. I wanted them to finish, but they were not talking to me, so I had no choice.

　A childhood friend with a broken heart?

　I am in the same situation. That is why I felt a kinship with Shota Mukawa.

　When I gathered up the courage to talk to him, he was surprisingly normal. He looked gloomy on the outside, but when I talked to him, he was friendly, just like me, and I got excited.

　Mukawa-kun had the same scars as me.

The scar of having had your first childhood friend break your heart.

　We were very similar, and we became good friends. We got along well with each other, but it was like wounded people sharing their scars. I was originally a shy and man-hating person, so I never developed a romantic relationship with him, and I never looked at him in that way.

　The conversation was about our childhood friends.

　It was a little bit funny that we were bragging about each other’s childhood friends even though we were both heartbroken.

Mukawa’s childhood friend was Yuuhi Akazawa.

Even at the time when I had no friends, I knew her as a famous person. She was an idol at school and was often talked about in my class. It was also a topic of conversation that she had a handsome childhood friend, and as someone with a special attachment to childhood friends, she was a person of interest to me.

The mysterious time we spent bragging about our miserable first love was strangely comforting.

　However, such a comfortable time did not last long.

　A guy I didn’t know was coming in and out. I didn’t even know his name, but he was apparently active on the soccer team.

　He was looking at me with a weird look in his eyes. I was uncomfortable because I knew he was looking at my b****t, but I didn’t say anything about it. I was thinking that if he tried to touch me, I would yell out and kick him.

　That day, the incident happened.

　While I was reading in the library as usual, that guy started talking to me in a friendly manner. He had been quiet until then, but it seemed he was waiting for an opportunity to leave the room empty. He came at me forcefully.

　He grabbed me by the arm and I went crazy. I saw the old b*****d’s face in my mind, and I shook him off with all my might. I rolled on the ground, hit my head and fainted.

“……”

　When I woke up, I was in my room.

After the incident, I shut myself in.

　I was scared. When I was grabbed by the arm, I didn’t scream out, but my whole body stiffened and I couldn’t move. I shuddered, thinking that I had been so shallow as to think of kicking him away.

　After the incident, my brother came to visit me every day.

　Thanks to him, my heart gradually recovered. My brother was already in a relationship with my sister, so my love for him had almost disappeared, but I was still happy.

　It was more than a week later that I went back to school after taking care of my heart.

“Are you okay?”

　It was a gal-like girl who approached me.

“Eh, uhm, …… yeah.”

“Thank God. We were all worried about you.”

“…… is that so?”　

　With her guidance, I was able to integrate into the class.

My classmates were kind to me. They began to talk to me and I was no longer isolated in a group setting. For the first time, I felt that school was fun.

Then I started spending my lunch break in the classroom.

The library was traumatizing, and the classmates talked to me, so I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the classroom.　

　So I didn’t even notice what was going on with Mukawa-kun.

　I guess my classmates were just being cautious of me. No one mentioned Shota Mukawa’s name.

　Then there was an accident in which Mukawa-kun fell down the stairs, and soon after, he stopped coming to school.

After he stopped coming to school, that was. As expected, the rumor had spread too far and I had heard about it.

When I was unconscious, Mukawa-kun was attempting to attack me.

　At first, I believed the rumor. Since I was unconscious, the only source of information was the voices around me. I was terrified of him.

---

　On the first day of school in the third grade, I heard that Mukawa had transferred to another school.

　I was relieved.

　However, it was not until a few days after Mukawa-kun transferred to another school that I realized that this was a big mistake.

　That day, I went to the library. The man who had tried to attack me and Mukawa-kun were gone, so I was able to enter the library.

　In the library, I bumped into Renji Inuyama.

At that time, he radiated a murderous rage. It is only natural now that I think about it, but at the time I was scared because I had no memory of him staring at me.

　The moment my eyes met Inuyama’s, he opened his mouth as if he couldn’t hold back anymore.

　Looking back on it now, Inuyama-kun was kind too. I honestly believe that if I had been in the opposite position, I would have reached out and harmed him.

　Then I learned the truth.

That the woman had accused Mukawa-kun of a crime, that the man who had tried to attack me had graduated without punishment, and that the very sight of that woman and I having a good time together had hurt Mukawa-kun.

I was shocked. I wanted to know the truth, so I questioned her. Yes, that gal-like girl who made me fit in with the class.

“Eh, no, even …… it looked like.”

When I asked her about it, she said that Mukawa-kun had denied it. He said he was only protecting me from the falling book.

　The girl said that she had made her own judgment based on Mukawa-kun’s bad reputation and had just said what she thought was appropriate on the spot.

“It wasn’t my fault. I just said what I thought. Everyone believed it, and that’s what you do every day, right? To tell you the truth, I didn’t think he had the guts either.”

　It was at this point.

　With a snap, a string snapped in my head.

　It was all my fault. It was my fault he had to move out.

　After that, it was …… rough.

　I had a makeover. I went to school with a new look, feeling reborn.

“It’s all your fault!”

While everyone was surprised by my changed appearance, I confessed to them the deeds of that person who was my friend. I went to the trouble of confessing in front of many of my classmates.

　It seems that someone posted the story on social networking sites, and he was slandered by many strangers. He seemed to have lost his mind, became a recluse, and transferred to another school.

　Then, I found out where the guy who tried to attack me went to school and informed the high school that I was about to be attacked. The man was expelled from the high school he had just entered. After that, the man who complained about the expulsion apparently went on a rampage and the police were involved.

On one occasion, I beat up a student who was saying bad things about Mukawa-kun at school. I was willing to use violence to restore his credibility.

　It was my fault that Tobu Junior High School got a reputation as a rough school.

　A fistfight, a big accusation to a withdrawal, and then a police action by a graduate–

　It’s all messed up.

　I did something so spectacular that my family has been informed of my deeds. When I told them what had happened, my parents showed a certain amount of understanding, even though they said violence was wrong.

　However, my sister, who is basically a good girl, said in a big way that violence is not allowed. It turned out to be a sisters’ fight. My brother was confused, but at that time I didn’t care anymore.

“Shut up. You don’t know anything about me, so don’t talk to me like that!”

　I kicked her out of the room. I was bigger than her, so I didn’t feel like I could lose in a fight.

“You’re really annoying me. Get lost.”

　She shed tears at my words and attitude.

Later, when she became a college student, she started living with my brother. That was the last time I saw her. I don’t regret anything, and I don’t feel like apologizing.

　However, the last time I saw my brother’s face, it looked very complicated, and that expression stuck in my mind. Somehow, I knew that my relationship with my brother would remain awkward from now on.

　After that, I finished my retaliation, and I was living my life with a somewhat unfulfilled feeling. I finished my junior high school life with my reversed front and back personality intact.

---