Are you happy now?
She just asked that nonchalantly.
I was taken aback for a moment. I need time to process what she had just said. Now that I had taken a close look at her, she was in an attire that was less home friendly and more the type you would go on a date and end up at a love hotel. I was speechless. What could I even do?
I just remained quiet.
"I bet you are."
...
"You know, she kept calling you over and over and over and over till she collapsed. And yet, you didn't bother to check up on her even once. Not only her. So did Miku and ..."
She wanted to say something, but cut it short. She swallowed her words, and just looked away.
At that very moment, she didn't want to breathe the same air as I did. She wanted to stay away from me as much as she could.
I was a powerless creature right from the get-go. I got used to always having the odds against me that I didn't care who chose to hurt me and betray me because at the end of the day I trusted no one. I believed no individual. I was on my own.
Though Sakura wasn't like me, she could understand what it meant to get the short end of the stick, time and time again. So she never cared about it that much. That was how we both had resided in this world. But that wasn't the same for Miku and Yukiko Harumi. They were always placed on a pedestal and worshipped like princesses and loved like gravure idols. For them to end up in such a state was miserable.
That was the magnitude of the situation they were in. And who was to take the blame for this?
That's easy said than done.
"What is it that you want me to do? Feel sorry for you? Fall on my feet like the protagonist of an adult video who discovered that his lover/ wife was forcefully taken away from him because of his incompetence and must now feel miserable and repent for a mistake he possibly couldn't have even imagined would have occurred? What is it that you want from me? An apology? Or to throw upon my agony over the man that had put you all in this state. Well, that begs the question...who's the criminal here. The student council president or me? I'm not being selfish here and putting myself first. I'm just stating the fact. Tell me, what do you want?"
"It's always like this...what should I do?... Tell me...It's always like this! Can't you take the initiative for once?! Should I tell you everything? Why can't you just figure it out on your own? You always do it, right?!"
She turned around and stormed towards me and slapped me hard in the face.
"Do you think I enjoy being a whore? Do you think I like to switch up sleeping with any man every other night? Do you think I'm happy to conceive a baby of a man who wouldn't even care for me and would even desert me? Do you think I'd be happy to live such a life?... Even...Even..."
Holding onto her emotions, she had been suffering for a while now. She needed someone to hear her out. It was simple as that. Even I could make that out. No person would like such a life. Especially Sakura, considering the life she had been through, she just wanted some peace in her life.
She wanted to say something. She wanted to cry out. Maybe, if it were someone else, they would have embraced her, and patted her by gently rubbing her back, and would have acknowledged her hard work. But that someone wasn't me. Even then, she came close to me, and just hugged me for a moment.
"Even I have dreams I want to bring to reality!"
I thought I knew her. I was under the assumption that I did. I just thought she was a girl like me who didn't care much about day-to-day life and lived every day as it was, without contemplating much about the future. But I was wrong. She had aspirations. She had dreams. Something I lacked.
I wanted the ground to collapse and swallow me. I was disgusted with myself. To think I could contemplate what the other person was and what were their needs, I had overestimated my ability. What a shame!
She pushed me away all of a sudden. I lost my footing and fell down.
"Oi...What was that for?"
"Sorry, I got carried away. For a moment, I remembered the boy I liked. He was my first crush. He looked like you, and even smelt like you. Even though I never knew what he tasted like, I really liked him. But there's one thing that differs you from him, and that you can never replace about him. Unlike you, who's just a lifeless soul always lying around like a pebble, viewing the world with just a monochronic view, he was full of spirit, and a crybaby."
"That...surely...Oi, where are you going?"
"Where? Haven't I explained? I have a client every day. I don't have a break-even for a single day. Sorry, I gotta go."
And just like that, she just left me and went away for her late-night rendevous.
I just sat there, on the wooden floor. I don't even know what kind of face I had right now. I didn't want to know.
"Well, that was a heated exchange, though she completely annihilated you without any mercy. I wonder if my poor son is heartbroken now."
"What is it that you need, mother?"
"I have an assignment for you."
"The last time I got an assignment, I was close to being locked up in jail."
"Well, that was due to your negligence and your lack of self-awareness that it resulted like that."
"I'm presuming that father is unaware of this, as ever."
"I told you right, you're my ----------"