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The bruises on Chan's knuckles should phase her, but she's more occupied with the lipstick on her cheek.
Time and time again, she is the one to suffer.
So why now? Why, when she is finally getting what she rightfully deserves, it's at the hands of a monster?
Chan can't remember a single day of her childhood where she'd been treated like a child. Perfectly poised, tall and elegant– Chan Yanagi was a girl that was never allowed to be a girl. Instead, she'd been a woman longer than she knew how to divide.
But in reality, Chan never really mastered division either. Mathematics bored her, and Science confused her as well. Language Arts was better, but not by a large margin; which left only History as a formidable ally to Chan's academics. Not that anyone knew, however. They just expected her to know everything. She already looked like she skipped a grade, so how could she struggle?
Music and History became diluted interests in her mind, when she discovered one day that, if she played by their expections, then nobody would suspect her of cheating.
In Junior High, when she beat Jamberite for the Work Ethic Award, she only felt the amount of shame that she was allowed to: 3.14 units.
(And then some.)
Being a sly woman was a job, but it wasn't one that she took easily.
People began to fear her. Control her less. And she liked that, as much as she began to loathe it.
Before, people had kept their distance under the expectations of Lone-Wolf Chan, but now, she finds that it's out of fear. Had she always looked so scary? When her gaze lingers on someone for slightly too long, is it really worthy of a gasp and escape?
She used to stand in front of the mirror, stretching her lips with her fingers, dissatisfied with what she saw. Her smile would waver. Her lipstick would smudge.
Most of all, she did look scary.
She looked just like her mother.
"Her mom was on the news, didn't you hear?"
"I always knew something was wrong with her."
"But she was the top-student last year…"
"Was she ever nice, though?"
The whispers trailed after Chan through the hallways. She used to think gossip was stupid, but now she thought of it as a weapon.
Way to prove them right, Chan.
Her mother, previously a top-private-investigator, had been exposed for being one of the most prolific and modern serial-killers.
Now Chan was left to clean up after the expectations she'd been left.
Be good in school.
Be good as a person.
Chan may have transferred, but she still felt alone.
No matter what she did, people would never see her. Either from her previously-set expectations, or from what her mother had done. Even her own father refused to look her in the eye. He was probably happy to send her away. Chan could always tell.
But when the stench of blood crawled towards her, and her cheerful-facade began to crack, it was harder to pretend like she couldn't.
Chan wasn't the smartest.
But she'd be damned if her mother didn't teach her a few tricks.
"Stand up, Yuki." Chan hisses.
The girl before her, covered in blood that's only half her own, refuses to oblige. She only croaks in response, slouched up against the school incinerator: "Why?"
"I'm not a fucking child. I know what you're trying to do. I've seen it. I've known." Chan says, clenching her fists. "Something you've known."
"Can't I play a little with my food? I like it when you squirm." Yuki laughs.
It's so sickening. The red against her. Chan doesn't know if the lipstick is cherry or metallic. She touches the side of her own cheek, smearing the mark.
She feels nothing about it. But this right here– a girl beneath her, at such a physical disadvantage that she can hardly stand…
Is this what the people wanted?
Chan yanks Yuki by the hair, feeling, harnessing, wielding the weight that hangs off the strands. Yuki's head, a ball on a chain, is thrown to the ground.
"My fucking curls..!" Yuki begins. Something that might have been a plea, but is interrupted by a knee to her chest. She grimaces, "bitch!"
Chan breathes heavily, curling more inward as her knee sinks into the fabric of Yuki's shirt. There's creases, leading to where her heart should've been.
"Say another word… I swear…"
Yuki's eye twitches, "swear what? That you'll kill me? That you'll avenge everyone I've killed, or that you'll turn into a monster just like me?"
Chan shudders. She puts a palm to Yuki's neck. Her hands ache, but she can't tell if it's from the bruises, or the tense muscles; so desperately, she wants to kill this girl. So desperately, she wants to kill the girl that she was.
She can be a woman. She can be a murderer.
She can be everything they made her out to be.
"I swear I'll be worse." Chan chokes.
The voices behind her, a low baritone and an airy sob, hardly reach her. She doesn't know if it was ever about them, really. She wants to believe that she'd been moral; a smart student who tried her best, a friend that cheered when needed– but want, want, want– it's all so different from need.
Yuki cackles as Chan reaches for a rock. She knows Yuki's trying to pull her down, hands placed against her hips, but she doesn't relent. Even as Yuki's fingers begin to burn, temperature felt through even fabric, Chan stays focused.
The boulder comes down about ten times. Every hit causes the burning against her hips to flare up. Chan smells smoke. Yuki's face is unrecognizable, but the tightening grip of her hands doesn't give way to confidence. So Chan continues.
It's as though Yuki had an endless supply of blood beneath her skin. The makeup must've been extra reinforcement for it. Eyes that fluttered at Chan, lips that'd brushed her skin just a few moments prior; all useless now, and ruined, and ugly.
Chan pries the hands off of her hips. She's covered in so much red, but the real nauseating part is the stench. She can't breathe.
Ashes fall from the palms of Yuki. They scatter as Chan runs off.
Her eyes burn.