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The taste of blood dripped from her mouth. Gosh, it hurts. It hurts so much. She kept on weeping and sobbing, her fractured body inflicting a thousand knives on itself for every inch she moved. Kotoko's footsteps retired as her brain became dizzier and groggier. It dulled her ears, unable to pick up the screams around her or even her own cries over the static noise building up. Oh, she could picture it well; her body among the piles of trash thrown at her again. A cutter piercing through her entire torso, flowing red, and the hysteric laughs around her. She knew that at least a few bones would be missing next time she woke up, if she ever did. Not a matter of concern to anyone surrounding her.
She closed her eyes, her breath slowing to the rhythm of her heart. There must have been a second or five of agonizing anesthesia before drifting off somewhere else. Mama, Papa… Please pick me up… The pain… It hurts…
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"Mu… Can you hear me?"
… Huh?
Her eyes lazily opened up to the faint light of a nearby lamp. Everything was foggy, but her vision still allowed inspection of her surroundings. Some medical equipment was scattered on her bedside table. Its drawers were opened, and various medicines were stored in them. Raising her gaze towards the door, a hunched-over, blue figure covered in bruises stood on its frame, one arm covered in gauze and the other holding a cane, making up for a broken leg.
"Haru… ka?"
The boy jumped back, not expecting an answer.
"Mu...! You're alive…!"
He almost jumped as he made his way in, sparkling eyes nearing at an impossibly fast rate. Mu covered herself up to her ears with the blanket, taken aback by his enthusiasm.
"Why… are you here?"
"Me? Uh. I-I just wanted to make sure you were doing well… Is that okay?"
She wanted to muster that it was fine, but the stinging pain as she tried to answer made her groan.
"Don't move!" Haruka exclaimed a little too loudly. "I-I mean… Shidou said you should rest as much as possible if you want to heal properly- I mean, y-you don't have to if you don't want to, of course, but..."
Haruka avoided eye contact, fiddling with his cane and observing his surroundings as if waiting for permission to continue.
Distaste filled her tone. "Shidou said that? But it's not like I'm hurt or anything, right?"
"Huh? Don't you remember?"
Mu shook her head.
"Really? Kotoko hit me first… You were second…"
His glare got lost somewhere beyond the depths of an ocean.
"I was too weak… Kotoko caught you because I couldn't even defend myself. She beat me over and over, and then she did the same to you. Stupid me. I should've been able to fight against her. The others arrived in time to help you, but I… I…" Haruka caught himself back in reality, his body temperature dropping. "I-I'm sorry! I-I shouldn't be making this about myself!"
Mu ignored his last comment. "Is that so? You poor thing…"
"E-Eh?!"
"To beat you up like this when you're already weak…" Her eyes bore into his damaged body, chills dragging up her spine and down. That could've been her. "What a despicable human being… Look at what she made of us, look at what she made of you. I don't understand…!"
She started hacking, and Haruka immediately approached her trembling body. "Muu, are you alright?!"
"Don't get any closer!"
She swung a hand at him, and he backed off faster than she could register. Such a mistake. He stood right there, trembling and wide-eyed. Her stomach churned at his vulnerability. Terrible. So terrible… If she was to lightly blow air on him, he'd probably fall like a candle's flame onto the floor. Or maybe something more dramatic, like an aquarium breaking into trillions of pieces with a single tap of a finger. She didn't know which one she'd loathe more to witness. She didn't wish to find that out.
"Haruka, I-"
…
"Nevermind. Bring me some water, will you?"
A pause took over the room. He observed her. He analyzed her. A prey figuring out their hunter's next moves. Before the tension became a crushing weight upon her, he nodded, and feebly stepped out to fulfill her request.
She was left alone. Alone, and alone. Her despicable, poisonous tongue had done it again. She could not bear to hang more empty eyes on her shoulders. Whether someone cared, or not cared, it seemed like her veil of grandiosity could never be lowered. Her innocent verdict had been a mistake. The prison guard took a jab at her biggest flaw, and now that she found out about it, all truth was left in shambles.
The voices ran their mouths behind her back. One by one, they uttered all the words she had grown used to overhear. She could no longer discern her thoughts from the apprehensive blows to her pride. She wasn't capable of doing that. They overthrew her reign of serenity. They decided it was time to get rid of her. She was thrown away and apart like they had once done. Someone who used to understand her, tolerate her, now looked down on her decaying body and laughed at her pathetic screams for help. She had come back in circles. A mobius strip.
Mu sighed for the last time. She was swallowed by the depressive silence of her new-found solitude, as momentary as it was. The blankets hid her from the agonizing reality she was abandoned into, the only shield she could rely on from then on. She closed her eyes. She would departure, even if for a few seconds, from the heavy weight of her broken crown.