Chapter Text
I did everything within my abilities to prepare for this fresh start.
On the first day of high school, when I stood before the large double-doors of Rakuzan High, I promised to myself that everything would be perfect. I would make friends. Rakuzan High would be better. It . . . would not be the disaster of middle school.
Yet . . . even as the first semester passed, I found that changing one’s personality is not as easy as changing one’s appearance.
Sometimes, I can hear his voice in my head. My ex-boyfriend, taunting me about how I thought I could run away from it. From him and his stupid views of life. He would say, “You think that dying your hair, changing your clothes, and going to some fancy school is enough to separate yourself from your old image? Don’t kid yourself, Tsukiko. You will never be anything more than what you’ve always been. And don’t you even try.”
I thought I could do it.
He never allowed me to dye my hair, even though I thought it would be cool, even though I thought that it looked daring and fresh. So I figured that maybe, if I added teal streaks to my black hair, that that would be my first step in forgetting him. In moving on. In creating a fresh start and a new future for myself.
But when the first day passed . . . and the next few weeks . . . the whole first month . . . and then, the first term ended . . .
I realize that I never had any hope, after all.
He was right. I can’t change who I am. I am, and will always be, the same person. Kiyabu Tsukiko, entirely normal, completely average and ordinary. Nothing about her that causes her to stand out. Nothing about her that might make you look twice.
It’s a miracle I was able to get a boyfriend in the first place.
And it’s probably not surprising that he dumped me. Through a text message. I haven’t seen him since.
It’s as the second term starts that I’ve resolved myself that I’ll never be able to change who I am. Even so, I really have grown attached to my dyed hair, and I still want to try and be a light to others. So, with my re-newed teal-blue hair, I walk into Rakuzan High for my second term of high school.
It’s on that day that everything begins to change.
I am running. I am running, because they are chasing after me, and I need a bit of peace and quiet, a place to myself.
I don’t know where I am going, but I race up some stairs. More and more steps, until my breath is ragged, my heart pounding. Finally, I reach a door. I grab the handle and jerk it open, and —
I’m on a roof. I breathe in the fresh, clean air, and close my eyes.
Free. Finally. I am alone.
. . . or not.
It’s only after a moment that I realize there is a boy sitting near the edge of the roof, a light novel in his hands, reading intently. He doesn’t notice me. Or if he does, he doesn’t look up at me.
Wait. A light novel? I squint, hoping to catch sight of the cover, but am unable to.
But still . . . if he reads such material . . . I glance at the boy. He looks a little older than me, a second- or third-year probably. He has light gray hair, and a slim, but athletic-looking body. And while he seems invested in the novel, he seems to be the type who’d be heartily disinterested in everything else.
I decide I want him as my friend.
And so, I make that first step that day.
Maybe one of the reasons I decide to approach him is because part of me is still torn up from my boyfriend’s rejection. Maybe it’s because I desperately want someone with whom I can share a common interest. Maybe it’s because I just want someone I think won’t ever like me, but will just be my friend; and someone I won’t like, either, but will treasure as a confidant.
I just . . . want a companion.
Because for as long as I’ve known, such a thing as friendship has escaped me.
So I take the first step, my feet almost moving of their own will. And before I can stop myself, I call out.