Reader's P.O.V.

My whole day was ruined the moment I woke. I had come from the bathroom, finishing rubbing the sleep from my eyes when I bumped into my cousin Yuuma and his best friend Kaito Shion. Scum loves to befriend scum, so I've realized.

"Put a little more effort into your appearance. No one will take you seriously." Kaito snickered at me. I rolled my eyes and pushed past, heading to my room. Kaito whistled incredulously and Yuuma muttered under his breath.

"People are gonna think you're depressed, buddy."

They both laughed and bn eaded towards the front door. I couldn't breathe normally until I heard the front door shut. Biting my tongue, swallowing the words, biting back the urge to spit venom at anyone who dares keep pushing their boundaries with me irritates the crap out of me. I grabbed my school belongings and begrudgingly dragged myself to the front door. In the kitchen, my aunt was peeling apples when she saw me with a gleam in her eyes.

"Oh honey, why didn't you go walk with the boys?" she asked, eyes wide in wonder. Yuuma and Kaito had thankfully made like Houdini and disappeared. Sticking like gum on their shoes was Hell and I wasn't gonna be the brunt of their jabs any further today. I also couldn't say jack about anything going on. My aunt was so blissfully unaware, like an idiot? Or perhaps she refused to see what was going on? No, she's a sweetheart, but is tough enough to have Hell break loose. She wouldn't take any of this crap if only I could tell her. I just didn't have the guts to tell my aunt so I faked my smile as I always did.

"Nah, the boys can talk about boy things. I like to have the time for myself and listen to music to school."

It was something I'd preferred to do anyway. My aunt smiled sweetly and handed me my lunchbox. It was kind of her to still do this for me at 15 years old. I smiled back and took it by the handle.

"Oh, which reminds me! I've made breakfast, you want a vegan croissant sandwich? I know I'm going a bit crazy with all these vegan and vegetarian recipes, but your uncle Al has been working on himself and I think these cleaner foods are making our skin clearer, so I've been trying out new recipes and I think this one came out rather well."

I laughed gently and nodded to my aunt, "No, I'm not too hungry this morning, but thank you. I've gotta go, see you later Aunt Ann!"

She called out a goodbye to me as I dashed out the door. I felt so bad leaving, but the crushing pressure would have made me cry so I knew I had to leave before the dams could burst. Heading off to school often was like an existential dread and I would always expect the worst. But at least walk there was peaceful in a way. Walking past people really made you see others and get a glimpse into their lives. Isn't it interesting to come up with scenarios for every individual person? To be honest, the walk wasn't lonely. Earbuds and my favorite music gave me the courage to march on.

Before I hit the school grounds, the churning in my stomach made my throat tighten. It wasn't that long ago when the old school halls would be swarming with chatter about me. Call me paranoid now, but those feelings don't escape or magically disappear. The logical me would remind myself that they've moved on to better topics, but the fear still ate at me. I remembered when stupid rumors began to litter the halls all thanks to Kagamine. No, I wasn't making sacrifices in the woods. Even if I was, you think I'd get caught? No, I didn't piss myself during gym class. Some bitch turned the broken water fountain on as I was passing by and it just so happened to catch me in the worst way possible.

Such stupid rumors. If this was what it was like at eleven, what good were my chances at 15? I need to stop with the rhetorical questions. They're useless, but I feel they might get my point across.

I made it to my first class, chemistry and opened my book bag, pulling out my chemistry textbook and binder. 

Next, I heard the familiar tap of heels on linoleum. Ms. Kasane walled into class. Despite heels no longer being mandatory for teachers, Ms. Kasane seemed to enjoy being in heels unless we were in doing lab experiments. The rules of the laboratory were strict and so was she; close-toed shoes always. She walked in and smiled at me.

"Good morning, [_____]. My, you're early today. How's your morning been?" she asked as she put down her purse and her cup of coffee.

My heart sank when I opened my notebook and I couldn't find my chemistry homework. After all the crap with Len in gym class and I never finished that stupid paper.

"Miss Kasane?" I called out meekly. She perked her head up and looked at me. I slowly got up from my seat and fiddled with a bracelet on my wrist. Once I was standing in front of her desk, I slowly looked at her and grimaced, "I'm so sorry. I didn't do my homework over the weekend—well, I had started it and now I can't find it. I will gladly redo it or have another assignment to make up for it." I stuttered. Miss Kasane held her hand up in a way to stop me from tripping over my words.

"It's okay. I'm not going to count this against you. You've done your work exceptionally well, you've been attentive, you have nothing to prove for one missed assignment. Don't ever feel bad for a slip-up. Don't allow anyone to make you feel bad for it either."

A weight was lifted off my chest and she smiled conspiratorially, "Have you eaten this morning? I have some braided bread in my purse and a jar of jam in my desk. Would you like some?" she asked me.

I smiled at her, grateful for her kindness.

I'd sometimes hated this class when Kaito Shion came in. He had fallen behind twice already and he had to take this class yet again apparently. Since he's the same age as Yuuma, you would expect partners in crime to at least keep up with one another. But they're both stupid in other ways and apparently academia is not Shion's strong suit.

The class went on and I was thankful that despite seeing Kaito and Yuuma leave at the same time, Kaito didn't make it to class. He was always skipping out to go to the mall or the public park.

I could say Kagamine had ruined my life with his existence, but if we're being honest, I'd have to say Shion had a running start. Yuuma and I used to be really close cousins as kids, like, if you didn't know better, you'd think we were siblings. That was all before the accident, unfortunately. Shion moved in across the street from my aunt and uncle's house and since the boys were the same age, they began hanging out. Yuuma stopped hanging out with me, stopped talking to me, and on the occasions he would, he'd say hurtful shit.

Truthfully, perhaps I was disillusioned into making myself think that Yuuma was being mean as his way of looking out for me, but it wasn't until Yuuma wouldn't help me when it became clear.

I had been adamant on hanging out with the boys one summer when I accidentally tripped and lightly pushed Kaito to catch myself. He turned around, told me to, "Leave!" and pusher me down a small ditch on the side of the road. I fell into the muddy ditch below and looked up at Yuuma. He was looking at me with such disdain. I held my arms out for help and he turned his back on me, walking off with Kaito. That's when I knew he was no longer my older brother. We were like siblings and he just burned it to a crisp.

I walked to my algebra class without incident and entered just after three other students had. Two guys and a girl. I'd recognized them from the previous year, but I hardly paid attention to names. The girl with muted cyan hair waved at me gently before taking her seat while the boys carried a heated conversation about sneakers. The girl was always rather nice and said hello in the halls. I waved back and I pulled out my binder. Hopefully we wouldn't get our quiz scores just yet; quadratic equations were not our strong suit this last chapter. The bell rang and the rest of my classmates shuffled through the door, chatting on about whatever. Our teacher's voice carried through the halls as she laughed at something. Mx. Sakane walked in with a huge stack of papers and closed the door behind her. My heart dropped. Those papers had to be our graded tests.

"Not so good morning, everyone. Half of you look like a bus hit you. I get it, mornings suck, but what also sucked were a great amount of these quizes." she slammed the stack on her desk and shook her head, "I would just hand 'em back and close this chapter, but we are going to speed run through it again and retake this quiz by next Friday."

The class groaned and even I was ready to throw in my two cents, however, Mx. Sakane settled the class.

"We will be going through this quiz and writing down notes along the way. You will have to study this for the next two weeks before re-testing—this will be your religious text for the next quiz."

She handed them back to us and went on with class. It was uneventful save for this other kid who fell asleep and Mx. Kasane tied his laces together as he napped. The bell rang afterwards and I was one of many who witnessed the kid stand up, shrug his backpack over his shoulder, and take one big step before the resistance of tied laces sent him eating dirt from the floor.

Ah, high school.

My next class: English. I usually hated this class as I had to deal with Kagamine's antics. He's throw little wads of paper at me and poke me with the eraser-end of his pencil. Today, however, was a quiet kind of day. Len didn't so much as look in my direction. Such a wonderful feeling to finally be left alone. So much better than having to deal with his stupiditiy.

Our teacher, Mr. Kamui, called for our attention and announced we would we reading an ancient play this week. The play is about a girl who avenges her mother's death by overthrowing her mother's killer—her own aunt—who is now the new queen.

"We will be reading two scenes each day and with each day, I will randomly assign one of you a character. Some characters have insignificant parts, others have rather hearty lines so I expect you to keep up with which character you'll be playing. Now, sure you can read it monotonously, but I will give extra points to participation if you add some drama to the lines." Mr. Kamui added.

He began to pick students at random and assigned them to their new characters. It wasn't until he called my name for a main character that I nearly droned out. My heart beat faster and my hands shook. I tried to place them under my thighs to stop the shaking, but my shoulders persisted with the convulsions. Mr. Kamui moved onto the next student—Len Kagamine and he was assigned the love interest who would eventually die. I pursed my lips and silently cursed the universe for its shortcomings and odd fates.

Public speaking and my arch nemesis? I suppose there's nothing more to do than play the hand you're dealt.