Kizhashi's POV

On a regular weekday, I just got out of shower with a towel wrapped around my body and my open wet hair flowing freely.

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Taking a look at myself in the mirror, a thought crossed my mind.

"I was pretty cute."

This is what others' perception of me was. A cute girl with high spirits and a rather cheerful personality. But only I knew the truth to those claims.

And to my despair, they were all lies. I wasn't even close to what those claims were about. I was a person living with two different lives.

The Koi in front of everyone is completely different from the one when she is alone with herself.

Jumping onto my bed after wearing my clothes, I took my mobile to check for any new texts. And there were new texts from Reina. Reading it from the notification, I wasn't in the mood to reply to that so I opened my gallery app and started scrolling through it.

Looking at a picture of me smiling with Gaisen made me feel disgusted from inside. How can a person even smile like that!? I felt like slamming my phone on the wall at that moment.

I took a deep breath, calming myself, and tapped on the 'delete' option. I can't keep pictures like that. Another picture popped up in which I was with Reina and some other girls. A split wave of anger washed over me as I smashed my mobile on the pillow beside me and clenched my jaws.

I buried my face on the pillow and let out an internal scream for a moment. My heart was racing, and I was feeling uneasy.

Looking at those pictures makes me want to throw up. Looking at that face, smiling with no worries.

Who the fuck is that?

I wasn't angry at Gaisen or Reina. I was disgusted with myself. How can a person even keep living a fake life like this and be proud of it? Act all high and happy!?

I was dating one of the popular boys in our school year and many people used to look up to me. Many girls wanted to be my friend. But despite all the attention I was receiving, the fact that I despise myself still hasn't changed.

Nothing has changed at all.

Everything is how it used to be. I just adopted a way to survive my cruel fate.

Now do I believe in fate? Of course, I can't say for sure if the life you're going to lead is already written out like a script or not but I'm sure that our actions are what decide the fate of our life.

And my actions have only caused me pain and suffering. Did I deserve the agony I was put through? What did I ever do to get a fate like this? Why do I have to suffer like this?

Why?

Why?

Why?

A question I've asked myself infinite times is that it doesn't carry any weight anymore. Why did I end up getting the shorter end of the straw? Why is it always me?

I wanted to change myself, but even at this school, everything was the same. Maybe to begin with, I didn't have any intentions to change. Perhaps for the better or worse, I myself wanted this. I was living a life I chose with my own actions.

Why? Because I knew myself better than anyone else. Have I ever wondered if I was a powerful person or not? To be specific, was I capable of being independent?

In our lives, every person contemplates the fact of their existence. The meaning of their lives.

I also did that like every other person out there, but what did I get?

Was I strong?

I wasn't.

Was I as happy and fulfilled as I appeared to be?

I wasn't.

Then who even was Kizhashi Koi?

Her existence was nothing, but a facade. A lie that made up in order to protect herself. Protect herself from her past. So that she doesn't have to go through all of that again.

I was just a loser who wore the mask of a fake smile to convince others I wasn't completely trash. I was a leech who needed to suck off somebody to maintain their own life at a steady pace.

I was pretending to date Gaisen in order to seek protection from what I feared. Of course he wasn't aware of it because of his own goodwill. He had his reasons, I exploited them for my own benefit.

But I won't deny the matter of fact that Gaisen was a really nice person. I did feel bad for using him but I had to do whatever I could to spend the last three years of my school in peace.

The way my days used to go by in middle school was a memory that I wasn't really fond of recalling. There was no particular reason for me to get bullied but then again, bullies don't really care for a reason.

But I didn't regret anything. After all, God has been really cruel with me. Everything that happened in the past has destroyed my personality.

But at the end of the day, I'll keep living with this burden since I can't change the past or anyone from my past.

I can only control my actions and give direction to my life. Doesn't matter if it's in the right direction or not. Since I stopped caring about it a long time ago.

It just didn't hurt anymore.

But under all these facade, only that one person was able to see through my mask. I didn't know how he did it, or rather it was difficult for me to believe it.

But in the remaining years of this accursed place called high school, I never imagined that he would become such an important person in my life.

My life might have turned out differently if it wasn't for him approaching me on that particular day.