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Unfortunately, not everybody gets what they want. The world would be in ruins if they did. This was certainly true for Mafuyu Asahina. Living up to the unrealistically high expectations set by her peers, teachers, family, and even herself got tiring after so long. Though she was grateful that people thought she could reach these expectations, she knew she couldn’t, and that fact destroyed her mentally. Why couldn’t she be just a little more intelligent? Why couldn’t she study a little harder for that test? Maybe then she could’ve gotten full marks.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only problem Mafuyu faced. She relied on Mizuki, Ena, and Kanade for the love and support she never received from anyone else. Nightcord at 25:00 showed her how to love, how to feel. But there was one special Nightcord member that made Mafuyu feel special. Ena Shinonome. Before Nightcord, Mafuyu would’ve described Ena as her friend, because friends feel like this toward each other, right? But now, after Nightcord, she realized it wasn’t a friendship she wanted with Ena, it was a relationship that wasn’t platonic. Issue was, Ena didn’t reciprocate the feelings Mafuyu had. Ena often spoke of love and crushes and what not, but she always said she saw the Nightcord members as platonic friends. Not only this, but also the fact that they were hardly compatible; Mafuyu was a super blunt and honest person and Ena was a tad bit sensitive. They were constantly bickering. There was no way in hell that Ena would want to date someone like Mafuyu, who was so, so, honest to the point of cruelty.
Every day, Mafuyu thought of Ena. Every second, every hour, Ena Shinonome was on Mafuyu’s mind. Maybe this was why her grades went from 100% to 97%, thought Mafuyu, maybe she just needed to accept the fact that Ena would never love her back. But the reality was too painful to face. Mafuyu referred to Ena as her girlfriend in her head, but she knew that it would never be true. Unfortunately, the two weren’t meant to be with each other.
It’s not like these were the only problems either, Mafuyu’s mom was extremely homophobic. Even if Ena did like Mafuyu back, it wasn’t like they could be open about it with anybody. Tell the wrong person and Mafuyu’s mom would find out, then Mafuyu would be isolated from her friends once again.
Mafuyu couldn’t tell anyone, either. Kanade and Mizuki were way too close to Ena to be able to know about her slight crush. So basically, she was alone. She thought about telling Shizuku, but Shizuku’s dating Airi. If Shizuku told Airi, Airi would probably tell Ena. Maybe Mafuyu just wasn’t meant to love or feel. Maybe if she just ignored her feelings, focused on her school more, maybe then she wouldn’t have to deal with this.
Months later, Mafuyu’s feelings of love for Ena slowly died down. The warm feeling in her heart stopped appearing, and all the time spent thinking about Ena turned into time spent studying.
Mafuyu was never the type to care about crushes and love until Ena.
Mafuyu was never the type to love somebody like this.
So she stopped.