“Fuyuki-chan’s absent for the first time. I finally don’t have to see that girl’s face! I don’t even know if I could last being in the same room as her anymore! ” The brunette huffed.


    “I don’t even know how that girl lives without being disgusted of herself.” The redhead snided.


    My heart tightened.


    I should be happy, right? That girl loved by everybody is gone. The girl who gets the eyes of all the boys who see her. The girl that everyone fawns over. The girl who reeks of attention. That pretty face and bright personality… Why… why do I feel like this…


    Fuyuki-chan… Are you okay?


    “Akane-chan?”


    “Akane-chan?”


    “O-oh, sorry about that…”


    “Don’t tell me you actually feel sorry for HER of all people? ” The brunette snorted.


    “No! It’s not because of her! I… I just didn’t get that much sleep last night. It’s not because of her! ”


    The brunette raised her eyebrow. “Anyways, let’s go celebrate this day. A day where we don’t breathe in the same air as hers.”


    “Count me in! ” The redhead smirked.


    I let out a meek smile.


    ???


    We were walking around the massive halls. You could see people laughing around, including Kaede-chan and Haruka-chan, but to me, it was like an asylum. I was choked by the air that surrounded me.


    All I could think of were scenes of the girl crying alone. Sobs filled the room. Her room felt emptier than ever.


    It felt like I was being drowned by guilt. The air got thicker than ever.


    “Akane, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the redhead said.


    I scrambled to think of an excuse. “I… I just remembered a scene from the horror movie I watched last night. It was really unsettling…”


    “Akane-chan, you should stop watching horror movies; I can’t go around looking like I hang out with nerds.” The brunette huffed.


    I let out an awkward chuckle. “I won’t anymore, Kaede-chan…”


    “Good.” The brunette gave me a menacing stare.


    The atmosphere only got darker and darker as time went by. I desperately wanted to escape but didn’t have the courage to escape.


    ???


    “Akane-chan, why… are you leaving me now, like the rest of them? ” The girl said in between sobs. Inside her empty room, she was in a fetal position. Her eyes were puffy.


    “No… Fuyuki-chan… I… I’m sorry…”


    “You’re no different from them! ” The girl raised her voice. There were now three of them circling around me.


    Their eyes were as red as blood, and their bodies were slowly deforming into a black blob.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    “Why, Akane-chan? WHY!! ” They growled.


    ???


    I opened my eyes to see the pink ceiling that’s darkened by the sky. Dark air filled the room. My heart was beating 1000 times per second. I could feel it slowly tightening. Hot tears started falling from my face, creating a puddle on my pillows. I checked Instagram and saw that my latest post got 3.2K views. The tight feeling in my chest didn’t disappear, so I checked all my posts containing my selfies to see how many likes I got. Despite this, it never disappeared. If anything, it only made things worse.


    Fuyuki-chan… Why was I so stupid to let myself treat you like that? You’ve done nothing but treat me with kindness. You even accepted me for liking Lolita fashion, manga, and stuff they deemed as weird. You’d always be there when I needed you, but when you needed me the most, I went along with Kaede-chan and Haruka-chan to treat you like you didn’t exist. You deserve way better, Fuyuki-chan. Now, you won’t even come to school, and it’s all my fault. If I…


    I continued to sob for hours, wallowing in my self-pity.


    ???


    While I was having lunch, I couldn’t help but stare at the girl with short jet-black hair.


    Maybe she knows how Fuyuku-chan is doing, but what about Kaede-chan and Haruka-chan? I can’t ju— No, I’ve done enough damage to Fuyuki-chan.


    “Uhhh, I need to go to the toilet for a moment…”


    They both nodded. I then approached the girl. She was just casually wearing her headphones but carried a concerned expression.


    “Umm, Takahashi-san, can we go somewhere more private? I just really need to ask you something…”


    “Okay,” the girl said blankly.


    Not wanting to be seen by my friends, I lead her towards an empty classroom.


    “How’s Fuyuki-chan? She hasn’t come to school for more than a month…”


    Her eyes furrowed. “Yeah, that’s the thing; she refuses to leave her room, and when I visited her yesterday, she said that she didn’t want to see me. I was thinking of personally visiting Kobayashi-san or asking my parents to tell her terrible father that she’s not okay…” I could feel the hatred in her eyes when she mentioned Fuyuki’s father.


    “Honestly, as much as possible, I don’t want to contact her father, but if it helps Fuyuki, then I will,” she reluctantly said.


    “We can try convincing her father together, although the prime minister has been pretty hard to contact ever since that happened all those years ago…”


    “My parents are pretty close to him, so I’m not really worried about that. I’m more worried that if I see him, I might end up doing something stupid.”


    “I just really want to make it up to Fuyuki-chan after everything…”


    She gave me a pained smile. “To be honest, I feel that way too. I already broke my promise to never leave her years ago, so I can’t leave her again.”


    It helped ease up my guilt.


    I should probably be more like her…


    ???


    Inside the living room of the Takahashi household were 3 adults with slight wrinkles on their faces who were chatting happily across from me and Takahashi-san. I looked at Takahashi-san, who had a firm expression. She looked at her parents, and they seem to have gotten her signal. “We’ll go straight to the point. The thing is we’re quite worried about your daughter, Kento. Chi-chan said that she hasn’t left her room for more than a month.” Takahashi-san’s mother said.


    “We know that you’re still struggling to cope with Honami’s death, but your daughter needs you. You haven’t even seen her ever since the accident happened,” Takahashi-san’s father said.


    The prime minister averted his gaze. “I… I don’t know… her bright smile just reminds me of Honami so much that I can’t bear to see her.”


    “I understand that, but your daughter’s not okay. She really needs you.”


    The prime minister’s eyes swelled. “I… I just miss her. She didn’t even do anything wrong, but her life was still taken away! ”


    “It was an accident; neither party did it on purpose,” Takahashi-san’s father retorted.


    “But why did it have to be her! Why… why! ” The man broke down in tears.


    “I get that you miss her. I’d probably react that way, or maybe even worse, if I lost someone dear to me, but what about your daughter? All her life, she grew up all alone. Her mother is dead, while her father was never there for her,” Takahashi-san reassured.


    The man that resembled Fuyuki-chan so much still seemed hesitant. Suddenly, the girl beside me snapped. “Just help your daughter for god’s sake! Don’t you know that she’s become an empty shell of that bright and energetic girl you recall? She’s not the same anymore! Oh yeah, of course you don’t know because you refuse to even look at your own daughter, your own blood and flesh. You’re the only relative she has! Just go see her! She needs all the support she can get right now. Is it really that hard for you to care for her? ” Everyone went quiet. You could feel her seething rage.


    My heart skipped a beat from the sight. My eyes were glued to her the entire time.


    She’s so cool… I could’ve been like this to Fuyuki-chan, but I never did… I chose to be an idiot and let my envy get in my head. I admire you, Takahashi-san…