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"It was you; you took my wife away from me."
Sitting across from her, her father sways his with cheap liquor-filled glass, eyes focused on the amber liquid because he can't look his daughter in the eye anymore.
Salty tears drip down her reddened cheeks; how dare he mention the woman she never had the right to grieve for?
Digging her nails into her palm, she tries to stay calm; tries to convince herself that her dignity isn't worth the beating she will get; that heaven is a lie, and her mother can't hear her husband talk to their child like that.
Grinding her teeth together, she realizes that all her attempts at regulating her anger fail; so Natsuki does what she always does; bootle it up until she can release it elsewhere.
"First, you took away my wife, and then you took away what was left of my reputation by being a goddamn queer; it's your fault that we have no more customers, you know? And then I'm kind enough to still feed you, to give you clothes and a roof over your head, just for your ungrateful ass to complain about how I address you? You are my son; I don't care if you want to be a girl; there's nothing you can do to change it."
He isn't yelling, and it scares her; it means his rage is boiling up to explode later when they don't have as much distance between them as now.
"Don't you have anything to say for yourself? Did you finally run out of excuses?"
Fuck it.
"How in God's name would I have killed mom? Tell me how I could have been responsible for her sickness as if any human is capable of giving someone else an incurable disease? It wasn't my fault, and you are a grown-ass man; you need to fucking accept her death and move on. I don't come home and yell at you because I'm sad she died, so you shouldn't either!"
The glass previously in his hand crashes against the wall, missing Natsuki's head by no more than an inch; it serves no purpose besides making her angrier.
"Yes, you killed her! You're a murderer and a liar on top of that! I spent years of my life caring for you-"
He bitterly laughs at her, mocking her.
"What care? Tell me how you're taking care of me, right fucking now! There's no food in the house, the house is long overdue for a renovation, and the school gave me my uniform!"
She won't accept his mockery, his intolerable unaccountability, and his blatant hatred for her; she will fight back.
"I gave you a uniform! The right kind, even! You act like this and then wonder why everyone hates you; and why you have no friends?"
"I-I have-"
Words get stuck in her throat, her airway tightens, bullets of sweat drip down her face, and she can hear the blood rushing in her ear; she doesn't know how much she will regret that one moment of weakness yet.
In the forever ongoing millisecond of silence, a hand comes to backhand her across the face; hard knuckles under labor worn skin hit her left cheek; she was too stunned to scream no matter the pain.
Before the girl had time to recover, a second hit came; she could barely even see the movement of her father's hand through her tear-filled eyes.
Blows continued raining down on her too skinny body; other people have the luck of a thick layer of fat to soften hits and protect their inner organs; she swears she heard at least one of her ribs crack.
She's lucky to get away without any permanent organ damage, or if none of her broken ribs puncture her lung, but she always had that luck up until now, so why should that change?
Pangs of pain course through her nervous system, one message after another traveling through her body just to be ignored by her as she motionlessly stares at the ceiling.
She doesn't remember when she fell down; everything is a hazy, foggy sensation of motion and hurt, of the sound of her body hitting the floor and the dull ache in the back of her head, the crack that followed the impact.
Eventually, it stopped; he wouldn't beat her to death just yet, not today.
She knew better than to say anything now, but again, she should have known better than to not anger him in the first place.
"Why do you always make me do this? Why can't you be the good little boy I had all those years before you decided to act like that? Do you even know how I feel after doing this? How guilty, miserable, and goddamn angry I feel afterward? Don't answer; I know you don't care. And before you even think about telling anyone, you started this, so you have no right to complain."
Rolling over, Natsuki watches the droplets of her own blood sink into their carpeted floor; she will have to clean that up herself later; otherwise, it'll stain.
She hears her father wordlessly walk away, leaving her to deal with the injuries he caused her herself, and she knows very well she can't fix a broken nose herself.
Slowly standing up, she reaches up to her face, wiping the blood pouring from her nostrils with her sleeve, the red dirtying her pink sweater, sinking into the fabric.
Broken ribs, she can handle; there are still some prescription painkillers in their cabinet leftover from her mother, but a broken nose is so much more apparent and disfiguring.
Going to the hospital isn't an option; they would ask questions, and they can't afford health insurance; leaving it alone isn't an option; seemingly, the best option would be paying her a visit again.
A few months ago, the seventeen-year-old in her club named Yuri mentioned wanting to study psychology after she graduates; and she bragged about how she had already studied for the entrance exam to med school.
Their dislike for one another was noticeable, and she admits that she shouldn't poke the older girl like that, but who can blame her?
They are more alike than Natsuki would like to admit, and she loathes the other girl for being like her, being like she wishes she could be.
For having what Natsuki wishes she could have all for herself; because she deserves it after having lacked it for all her life.
The other girl lacks the pain and suffering she experienced, and the utter unfairness of it makes Natsuki want to let her feel just a bit of it.
In the end, Yuri got some hand-on-hand medical experience after Natsuki climbed through her window in the middle of the night to ask her if she could fix her dislocated shoulder.
The excuses are all the same: "I got jumped by some guy." or "I fell down the stairs" Natsuki knows that no one believes her anymore, but they don't care enough to question her further.
Well, everyone except the one she doesn't want to dig deeper.
"When did you get jumped? Where? What did they look like?" she is sure that Yuri interrogated her just to pour salt into her wounds, to mock her and make her crumble and break down in front of the other girl so that she could get her sick; sadistic pleasure from it.
Knowing that Yuri wouldn't send the other girl away, she wouldn't pass an opportunity to humiliate her, Natsuki crawls through the open bathroom window.
The cold summer wind brushes her skin, her already messy hair gets blown back; she should have grabbed her coat on the way out.
Trying to retain as much of her bodily warmth as possible, she wraps her arms around herself, the friction of her stroking her skin providing additional warmth.
Taking slow and hesitant steps forward, Natsuki follows a path she is oh so familiar with; Yuri lives on the same street as her, just a ten-minute walk away from her.
Standing on her front porch, Natsuki enviously stares at the other girl's house; it's simply beautiful, a big house with a well taken care of garden filled to the brim with flowers; it's so different from her home.
The wall isn't crumbling and exposing the bricks underneath; the windows aren't dirtied to a point where they aren't usable anymore; it looks cozy, like an actual home.
Picking up the pebbles decorating the garden, she throws them against the window, probably scratching it up.
Suddenly, the front door throws open, an annoyed Yuri standing in the doorframe, looking as if she's about to tell her to "fuck off": as Natsuki would put it.
Eyebrows drawn together, she looks up; just as she spots the bloody nose, her expression morphs into one of concern.
Wordlessly, the taller one steps aside, expression still serious, inviting Natsuki in, an offer she gladly takes, as she was freezing outside.
Looking around, everything in this house seems untouched; no empty bootles anywhere, no broken glass on the floor, and the furniture doesn't have a thick layer of dust on them.
To avoid breaking Yuri's fragile hospitality, she doesn't comment on how it doesn't seem like anyone lives here.
"Sit down on the couch; I'll go get a first aid kit."
She fidgets with that purple strand of hair, twisting it between nimble fingers, curling it, and uncurling it; Natsuki never understood why she does it.
Sitting down on the leather couch, the material being uncomfortably cold, she leans back and rests her aching, dry eyes for a bit.
Flinching, she is woken up by a stinging pain in her nose; Yuri had taken it upon herself to squeeze and rotate it to see if it's broken while she was asleep.
"I apologize for that, but that certainly looks...nasty?"
Timid; hesitant; she doesn't want to do this, but Natsuki knows she feels obligated to help her.
"Oh really, I almost thought it looked good."
She sucks a breath in between her teeth, grabbing the other girl's wrist to stop her from further touching her.
"It needs some bandaging at least; I know you won't go to the hospital."
"You are saying that like I am refusing to; you know damn well-"
Grunting in pain, she stops talking.
"Yes, no health insurance; I know. Perhaps you should tell your parents that they should get it."
"If that was an option, I would have already done that! Do you think I show up at your house in the middle of the night for shit and giggles?"
Just before Yuri can ask her what she meant by that, she yelps out: "Just...fix it up as best as you can, and be done with it!"
Thick silence fills the air, an unbroken tension; Natsuki squirms in discomfort.
"Sure..."
The process of bandaging her nose is awkward; she is asked to hold the tape, and her nails leave rips in the couch as he grips it during the most painful part, cracking it back into place.
"It should be fine now, but...how did this happen?"
"I-"
Just for a second, Natsuki considers telling the truth; she is tired of lying, tired of deceiving others and mainly herself; making them believe in a false, idealized home situation that everyone deep down knows doesn't exist.
"I...got jumped by some random; it's nothing unusual."
"Of course."
Yuri sighs out, the disappointment oh so evident in her voice making Natsuki's heart squeeze together in guilt; she shouldn't feel bad about lying; God knows what she would do with that information.
"Are you going to stay overnight?"
She huffs out: "If you aren't bothered by my mere presence downstairs, of course, I would."
"You could sleep upstairs in my bed if you want?"
"And where would you sleep, then?"
Yuri looks down, rolling that goddamn strand of hair faster between her fingers; she nearly looks flustered, but Natsuki knows better.
"I would either sleep on the couch instead or...we could share the bed instead."
Sensing the pink-haired girl's confusion, she clarifies: "Only if you want, of course, and we would both be sleeping; nothing else!"
Both their cheeks redden; Natsuki's out of pure humiliation and Yuris out of embarrassment and nervousness.
Or is it humiliation? Her heart beats faster, her stomach feels like it's doing backflips, and there is a weird, crawling sensation in her legs; Natsuki is too proud to let the truth show.
Silently, she stands up, walking out of the door without an explanation or goodbye; she would rather sleep under some bench in the cold than spend one more second in this situation.
Yure was too shocked to ask her why she left or to run after her; she remained sitting on the couch, silent tears falling into her lap.
That night, Natsuki slept under a park bench near the school, just to be found by a patrolling police officer, who sent her home.
She did not go home; she walked until she found another place to sleep, which was behind a restaurant's dumpster this time.
That night, Yuri cried herself to sleep, not having to worry about how loud she was, as no one besides her was home.
The next day, both pretended nothing happened; until it happened again, as it was bound to.
But that was a problem for later, wasn't it?