Shina ran to the bathroom, gasping for breath, her hand still clutching her nauseous stomach.
Once she arrived, she immediately went to the sink, trying to calm herself down.
The nausea that had been haunting her mind since earlier that morning had finally started to subside, but that didn't mean the pain was completely gone. Her body might have felt a little better, but her heart? Her heart was shattered to pieces.
Tears began to well up in her eyes. Gradually, her trembling body fell to her knees on the cold bathroom floor.
She took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears, but to no avail. A single tear finally fell, followed by an unstoppable stream. She hugged herself, holding her stomach, the source of her fear.
"Why... why did this have to happen to me?" she whispered, almost inaudibly.
Shina cried in silence, sobbing softly so no one could hear. She didn't want anyone to know. She didn't want Yamashita, Rinka, or anyone at school to know what she was going through.
This was not something she could tell anyone. This secret was too big, too horrifying to share.
Earlier that morning, before going to school...
Shina woke up with a strange feeling in her stomach. The nausea came quickly, hitting her mercilessly as soon as she tried to get up from her bed. She ran to the bathroom, trying to calm herself down. At first, she thought it was just a normal stomachache or maybe she had eaten something wrong.
But as she looked in the mirror, staring at her pale face, a much more terrifying thought began to invade her mind.
"Could it be...?" she whispered to herself, fear enveloping her. That thought kept spinning in her head: pregnancy.
Impossible... right? But the reality hit her harder than she wanted to admit. She and Kazuma—they had often been intimate without protection. At first, she had asked Kazuma to use protection, but the man had ignored her.
She had also told him not to release it inside, but Kazuma, intoxicated by passion and pleasure, had done so anyway, and now? Now she was trapped in fear.
She quickly got dressed and rushed out of the house. Before going to school, she stopped by the nearest pharmacy. Every step towards that place felt heavy, as if her legs were refusing to go any further. At the pharmacy, with trembling hands, she bought a pregnancy test and immediately headed to the public restroom to check.
After waiting what felt like a lifetime, the result appeared. Two lines. Positive.
Shina stood still. Her body went weak. The device fell from her hands to the floor, the sound echoing in the small room. Her world had just collapsed. She sat on the ground, her eyes vacant, her mind numb.
"This can't be..." she murmured, trying to convince herself that this was just a nightmare. But the device didn't lie.
She was pregnant. At such a young age, still in high school. How could she go on living with this reality?
With a confused mind, Shina still made her way to school, trying to go through the day as usual, even as the burden on her chest grew heavier. It was as if the whole world around her had turned darker.
Back to the present...
Shina's tears flowed even more as this reality struck her again in the bathroom. She was still sitting on the floor, hugging herself, feeling as if the entire world was crushing her. Her future? Destroyed. Her hopes and dreams? Vanished in an instant.
"What am I going to do?" she cried softly. She thought about abortion, imagining putting an end to all this before it was too late.
She looked at her stomach, which, though not yet visible, was already nurturing a new life within. Guilt swept over her like a wave, hitting harder every time she thought about terminating this pregnancy.
With a trembling hand, she tried to punch her stomach, trying to stop all this. But as the distance between her fist and her belly was only a few centimeters, she stopped.
Her cries grew louder. She couldn't do it. After all, this baby was not to blame. This child was a part of her, a part of Kazuma.
"Why does it have to be like this?!" Shina cried softly, her heart shattered to pieces.
She didn't want to kill this child, but she also didn't know how to live with the reality that she was pregnant at such a young age. She thought about Kazuma—the man she knew might not take responsibility. Kazuma had always seen her as a tool for his pleasure, and had never truly shown a caring side.
"If I tell him... will he accept it? Or will he run away?" she asked herself, but she knew the answer.
Kazuma was most likely going to avoid it, or even worse, deny everything.
Shina cried harder, her body trembling violently. In the cold corner of the bathroom, she felt more alone than ever before. There was no one who could help.
No one to talk to. Everyone around her was too far away, too busy with their normal lives, while she was trapped in this little hell.
"Yamashita..." Shina whispered, thinking of her loyal and loving boyfriend. She felt guilty.
Yamashita was a good man, someone who truly loved her, but she had just shattered everything.
Their relationship was now just an illusion, because behind it all, there was a secret that could never be revealed.
Shina bowed her head in silence, her muffled sobs the only sound. Her future was bleak, and she didn't know what to do.