Useless, that's how I would've described myself.

It didn't matter how hard I tried, practiced, and worked, I was always average at everything I did. Even when I found what I was passionate about.

Seeing other people doing better than me at something without working as hard as I was was demoralizing, including Risa. I never understood why she followed me everywhere, yet it was nice having her around. She was the first person that showed me how unfair life could be despite her not trying to do so, but I didn't complain since she was my first and it didn't really matter.

That quickly changed as we grew up. She would beat me in everything we did together, including dancing and singing. I knew from the beginning that I was worse than her at it and that I would take much longer to reach her level, yet I didn't give up.

The opportunity to show my skills finally arrived. We were at a park and we were being made fun of for being poor, but I had a great idea to turn it around and use it to my advantage. It worked and I soon was singing in front of a dozen people at the park.

I received a decent amount of claps once I was done, but that faded away in the blink of an eye when the next guy started singing. Compared to his, my skills were those of an amateur. He was incredibly good and I had to accept he was way better than me.

However, Risa still had the chance to grasp the victory for us and I was sure she was going to do it. She was extremely shy and quiet, so the group we were battling against made her sing, thinking she was going to make a fool of herself; how they were wrong.

To everyone's surprise, except mine, her voice was that of an angel. The control and the pitch were almost perfect, even better than the previous guy's.

There was no scoring system or anything like that, yet it was obvious we had won when the crowd around us had tripled by the time Risa finished singing.

I was proud of her not only for giving us the victory but also for coming out of her comfort zone in such an abrupt way. I tried my hardest to stay happy for her as long as I could, but jealousy eventually consumed my pride for her.

People kept asking Risa to sing for them or even dance once they found out we could dance too. I slipped in to do both things with her at times and people did clap at me, but they never asked me to sing or dance like they asked Risa.

It was great seeing her lose her shyness, but I was blinded by the desire of being the best.

I stopped going with her to the park every day and stayed at home to practice. She always tried to stay with me, but I told her to go alone. Her skills were far beyond mine, I didn't want her to fall behind because of me. She also needed to learn how to be without me.

I barely went outside for months. Despite my skills getting a lot better, it still wasn't enough to even reach Risa's level. I was already pushing my body to its limits, but something changed one day. There was no particular reason for it, yet I felt overwhelmed.

I didn't care about the neighbors complaining about the noise and I ignored my sore throat to sing my heart out. I kept going until something was pulled in my throat and snapped.

Time froze as excruciating pain rose. My throat began to feel warm and itchy. I ran to the bathroom, where I instinctively placed my arm in front of my mouth to cough. Drops of blood appeared on it.

Even though I kept coughing blood, watching it drip down into the sink, I stopped feeling any pain. Instead, my peripheral vision darkened and everything became black and white as if there was static. My mind constantly drifted away as if I was about to fall asleep and it became harder and harder to breathe. I was sure I was dying.

A figure suddenly appeared in the mirror in front of me: it was Butcher. Although his hands rested on my shoulders, I couldn't feel anything. Even though his mouth opened and closed, I couldn't hear anything.

An eternity later, the pain slowly rose again and everything returned to normal. Butcher held me between his arms until I calmed down.

I couldn't talk at all for a week, let alone sing, which I had to pause for almost a month to make sure my throat recovered properly since it was practically impossible to find a doctor that treated unregistered people. Even then, we couldn't afford it.

Over that time, Risa and I bonded together again. We explained our emotions to each other and set our goals, one of them being to become idols.