Chapter Text
There’s something…wrong with me.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt empty. Incomplete. Like there’s a part of me missing, and I can’t find it. I never felt anything; not anger, sadness, happiness, or anything else. I was like a doll.
When they first found out, my parents were concerned. They took me to the doctor, but they said there was nothing wrong with me. Nothing they could fix, anyway. My father didn’t stop there, however. He kept trying to bring those lost emotions out of me. He would take me to exciting places, give me lots of gifts, all to see even a small smile on my face. It never worked.
My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t worried at all. In fact, she seemed a little relieved. She told me that she used to be like me when she was a child. She felt broken, like I did. One day, she said, she met someone who filled that emptiness inside of her: my father. When she would see him in the hallways of their school, the same school I go to now, she never felt empty or broken. She felt whole. She still does. My mother said that one day I will find that person.
I hoped I would too.
The children at school weren’t very nice to me. I was often ridiculed by my classmates. In my childhood, I only made one “friend.” Her name was Taira. She told me that I should at least pretend to be normal so the other kids would leave me alone. I didn’t care, but Taira was so insistent on it, so that’s what I did. I started acting. By watching other people, I was able to properly act out different emotions. Happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy, and fear. I could pretend to feel all of these emotions. Much to Taira’s delight, the other kids stopped bullying me so much.
Pretty soon, I started acting at home, too. My father was ecstatic. He was overjoyed that his daughter was finally normal. My mother was happy, too, but she knew it was all an act. She knew I was pretending to feel all of these emotions, and she let me continue. She told me it was very thoughtful of me to pretend for my father’s sake. I merely nodded, and we carried on with our days.
Thanks to my acting, I made more “friends,” most of them introduced by Taira. In happy situations, I acted happy. In sad situations, I simulated grief. In fearful situations, I pretended to be scared. My “friends” had no idea, and it stayed that way until high school came, and we all went our separate ways. One of my ‘friends” went to a fashion school. One went to a different country for high school. Taira enrolled in a school for theatre and acting. I started attending my mother’s old school: Akademi High.
Akademi High is an extremely prestigious school, one of the best in the country. It has some of the top scores for all subjects, and it used to be known to be extremely strict. After some changes, the school became a little more relaxed. Students were allowed to bring their phones to school and accessorise their uniforms, and the entrance exams for the school even got made a little easier. I hear it was in hopes of attracting more students since the school’s student count had declined throughout the years. My mother was joyful to hear I got a high enough score to attend the same school she did.
At first, my father said I shouldn’t. Something about rumours surrounding my mother. I didn’t hear the details. Eventually, my mother convinced him it was fine, and they enrolled me. From what I heard, the headmaster was not happy, but since there wasn’t a definitive reason to decline my enrollment, he let me attend.
The first week or two of school I don’t remember much of. It was a bunch of introductions and navigation of the school. It was pretty big, which was expected. There were a lot of… personalities in my new school. A lot of them were loud and obnoxious. A lot of them were mean and hateful. A lot of them were just plain weird. My class, class 2-1, didn’t have many of the bad personalities in it. In fact, it didn’t have much personality at all. The rest of the people in my class seemed almost like me in a way: empty. Not all of them were like that, but the majority was.
It was when I was walking to this class one day when the biggest thing in my life happened. It forever changed who I was as a person.
When I was turning a corner to head up the stairs to my classroom, I accidentally bumped into someone else turning the corner. I wasn’t walking that fast, but I still managed to fall to the ground. That’s when I heard it. Her voice.
“Ah, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?”
I looked up to see a girl standing above me holding out one of her hands. Her straight black hair hung to her chest, and her other hand was clutching a book. Everything else around us faded away, and I only saw her. I was only focused on her light brown eyes looking into my grey ones. I could only feel her soft, slender hand as she grabbed mine and helped me up. I could only hear her voice and footsteps as she excused herself and headed to class. Was this what my mother was talking about? Was this my missing piece?
Was she my soulmate?
I was so focused on her that I didn’t realise someone was trying to talk to me. I snapped back to reality when they snapped in front of my face
“Hey,” they said. “Can you hear me? Class is about to start. Get moving.”
A tall, black-haired girl wearing glasses stood in front of me. Instead of a black and red uniform like the rest of the students, she wore a white and red one with a red armband on her left arm.
“Why are you still standing there? Get to class before you are late.”
“Okay,” I said and started walking to the stairs. I would have to find that girl later.
The entire class period, I was wondering about that girl. I wondered what her name was, what class she was in, where she would be eating at lunch, what book she had with her, how she kept her hands so soft, what her family was like, what they would say when they met me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I didn’t want to stop thinking about her. I wanted to know everything about her. I wanted to feel her hands again. I wanted to stare into her eyes like I did in the hallway. I wanted to hear her melodious voice again. I wanted her. I decided then that I would do anything to get her. What would that come to? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I would do anything. I would pay any price. I would travel anywhere.
She will be mine. I’ll make sure of it.