*Keiko’s POV*
I was seven years old the first ti I realized how cruel other people could be.
“Oi, glasses! Move!”
A sharp voice cut through the air. A boy, older than , surrounded by his snickering friends. I was just sitting quietly at the edge of the park, reading one of my books about constellations. I wasn’t in anyone’s way. I wasn’t even near the playground.
I ignored them. I thought if I stayed quiet, if I just kept reading, they’d leave alone.
But then — thud.
Sothing hit the side of my head. My glasses slipped from my face and landed in the grass. I blinked in confusion as the blurry figure of that boy picked up his volleyball, grinning like it was a joke.
“Oops, my hand slipped. Sorry,” he said with a mocking tone, then turned to laugh with his friends as they ran off.
I sat there, stunned, one hand pressed against the spot where the ball had hit, the other fumbling for my glasses.
That was… bullying, wasn’t it? I hadn’t understood what that ant before. It was the first ti anyone had treated like that. Or really, treated like anything at all.
Even now, I can still rember how the grass slled that day. How bright the sky was. How my heart quietly ached, but I didn’t cry. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel~fire~net
I never really knew how to cry.
People always said I was a strange kid. An awkward one. Not good at talking to others, not good at making friends. And they weren’t wrong. I was stiff. Awkward. A little too quiet, too plain, too bookish.
I didn’t know how to join conversations, how to play pretend, how to laugh on cue. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to — I just didn’t know how.
My parents… well, they worried about . They told once, when I was still a toddler, I didn’t cry like normal babies. I didn’t laugh easily either.
Most pf the ti I just watched the world with a blank stare, wide eyes following every movent but never quite reacting. And as I grew older, it only made them more anxious.
My father, a hot-blooded man with a voice that could shake the walls, didn’t understand a daughter like . His way of loving was loud, tough, and relentless.
He believed in discipline, pride, and expectations. He believed mistakes were weakness, and weakness was unacceptable.
My mother was softer, but no less strict. Her worry translated into control. Into telling what to eat, what to wear, what to study.
She ant well, I think. But she was scared I wouldn’t survive the world if I stayed the strange, quiet girl everyone overlooked.
So I lived my life inside invisible walls.
School. Ho. Study. Practice. Repeat.
I wasn’t allowed to hang out with friends after class, not that anyone asked to. I wasn’t allowed to go to amusent parks, sleepovers, or festivals. Weekends were for review work and piano lessons I never enjoyed. Sumr was for extra classes and textbook drills.
Even now, part of wonders… was it my nature, or did they make this way? Was I always destined to be the quiet one in the corner, or did I beco that because I was never allowed to be anything else?
I told myself I was fine. That I liked being alone. That books were better than people. That silence was easier than speaking.
But I think… I lied.
Because even though I pretended not to care, deep down, I wished soone would notice .
I wanted to laugh like the other girls. To be called out to play after school. To run without worrying about the mud on my clothes. I wanted soone to look at and think, she’s fun to be around. I wanted to have friends.
I was lonely.
And then… one day, soone did notice .
I rember it so clearly. I was sitting at my usual spot in the cafeteria, tucked away in the farthest corner where no one ever bothered to sit. The noise of lunchti chatter and clattering trays barely reached there, and that was exactly how I liked it.
I was buried in an old encyclopedia about birds — so random volu I grabbed from the library because I didn’t feel like dealing with people.
I was tracing my finger over a page about red-crowned cranes when a voice suddenly cut through the noise.
“Hey, Keiko.”
I barely looked up. I figured it was soone asking if the seat was taken, or maybe a teacher’s assistant reminding not to eat alone in corners like so awkward ghost.
But it wasn’t.
It was him.
Ryusei.
One of the most popular boys in our entire school — the kind of guy everyone either admired or complained about behind his back. Reckless, loud, always getting into trouble, the type people said would either burn out young or disappear chasing so ridiculous dream.
I never paid him much attention. People like him existed in a completely different world from mine. And for so reason… he was talking to .
“Yes?” I muttered, hiding half my face behind my book.
And then, with that infuriating grin, he said it.
“Go out with .”
I blinked. No one ever asked out Keiko Takayama. The weird girl. The study freak. The nobody.
But for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I said, “Okay.”
Maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was curiosity. Or maybe it was because, for once, soone was offering a little piece of the world I was never allowed to have.
And I wanted it.
I wanted to know what it felt like to hold soone’s hand. To sneak out after curfew. To love and to be loved...
It was the start of everything good and everything bad in my life.
He broke my heart a thousand tis. I swore I hated him more days than I loved him. But he gave sothing no one else ever had.
Freedom.
A little, ssy, reckless piece of freedom.
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