Chapter 09 - Suffering

"As of this moment, you are both expelled."

Touwa stood there, an expression of utter horror and shock, as the school director laid down his sentence. Next to her, far more vocal about his disapproval, stood her stepbrother, equally shocked and angry. Behind them were their parents, also shouting and demanding answers, to which the director simply stared them all down and motioned for the vice principal to do something.

And what he did was go to the door and let in two people.

The gym teacher…and Asuna.

"We have definitive evidence that the two of you, contrary to the public morals of this school and its values, have not only engaged in repetitive, sexual acts on school grounds, but also have a history – particularly in Mitsumi's case – of delinquent behavior. Considering this, we have chosen to proceed with expulsion without right to appeal."

Touwa stared at her boyfriend with a look of utter betrayal, which he returned with a look of utter hatred.

And that's when she realized what had happened. Asuna had caught them. Mitsumi and her. At the school. Having sex.

And how often had her brother asked her how he fared compared to Asuna? How many times had she insisted he was better than her boyfriend?

"Asuna…"

"Save it."

Her boyfriend never even looked back at her as they all filed out of the office, knowing that the battle to spare her and her brother from the shame and ignominy of expulsion was definitively lost. And the way schools operated around here, there was absolutely no chance word of the circumstances behind her expulsion wouldn't spread.

Understandably, her parents were unhappy with her and her brother.

As evidenced by the remarkably red handprint that adorned her swollen cheek, or the bruised face that marred her brother's otherwise handsome looks.

Months.

That was how long their relationship had lasted. Mere months.

After all the screaming and yelling and punching was over with, Mitsumi was gone from the house, expelled from her house and banned from ever coming back. The only reason his father hadn't been similarly kicked out had been because, despite his own delinquent-like attitude and looks, he'd sided with Touwa's mother in this. Mitsumi had crossed a line even by his standards, and now he had to go fend for himself – and at his age, he was old enough to live out of their old apartment.

Touwa spent the next few days in a fugue state, uncertain how her life had unraveled as much as it had. Well, that wasn't true. She knew. She knew full well she'd lost control of her life the day Mitsumi strongarmed his way into her home, then into her room, and blackmailed her with the fact that she and Asuna had become sexually active.

She choked back a laugh as she sat, curled into a ball, in the corner of her darkened room.

It was hilarious now. The idea that Asuna and her having sex would be anywhere near a scandal. If anything, her relationship with Mitsumi had been a million times – no, a billion times worse. It had been an affront to all decency.

And yet he'd made her feel good – better than Asuna had, to be sure.

But, upon reflection, was that Asuna's fault? Or hers? Or maybe it was both of theirs?

Certainly, he hadn't satisfied her the way Mitsumi had, but then she'd also never ventured to him what made her feel good. She'd also cared more about getting into trouble with her mom over having sex with her boyfriend rather than decided to stay loyal to him.

It all came back to her.

She was at fault. She knew it.

The idea of taking her own life hung appealingly before her. It would be quick. She'd make sure of it. She was certainly clever enough to pull it off.

But her trembling hands never managed to find the conviction to do it. Each time she seriously gave it thought, she found herself backtracking at the last second. Then, the closest she'd ever come to following through, her mother happened upon her at the right time, and the subsequent chaos ensured her room was made devoid of anything she might use to harm herself.

She wondered why they cared. No one else did.

Her school friends had effectively cut off contact with her. Most of them did fire a parting shot of "Slut" or some other variant of the word before blocking her, though. She also didn't dare go outside – once the word was out on what had happened in the house, even the neighbors stared at her with unmitigated disgust.

It was unfair. None of them understood or cared to.

Hell, not even her mother really seemed to give a damn about her anymore. Suicide watch aside, her mother only ever did the bare minimum to keep her alive, such as set plates of food outside her door or occasionally checking in to see if she was still breathing. Aside from that, nothing. No invitations to join her at the table downstairs. No invitations to go out as a family – or what was left of it.

Touwa might as well not have existed.

Weeks passed. Maybe months?

Touwa wasn't sure. In the darkness of her room, isolated from the world around her and mired in her own despair, it was hard to tell how much time passed. However long it was, though, it was improbable that enough time had passed for people to forget what she'd done.

And then the knock came at the door.

"Touwa."

It was her mom. Probably checking in as she usually did to make sure she hadn't found some creative way to off herself. She answered with the usual grunt of acknowledgement, expecting to hear her footsteps recede.

They didn't.

"Mitsumi's dead."

Huh.

What did she feel, she wondered, as she sat there in silence in the corner of her room? Was it grief? Relief? Despair? Was she glad the guy who'd shattered her life with his reckless behavior was dead? Or did she grieve the loss of the one guy who'd made her feel satisfied during sex?

Were those even equal in weight? Equal in category?

Touwa wasn't sure. She certainly wasn't able to formulate the words to express her feelings. Not now, when she heard the news, and definitely not a few days later, when she stood with her mom and stepdad before Mitsumi's coffin.

It was closed casket. Apparently, he'd gotten into a fight with a bunch of other delinquents who had a bone to pick with him and in the struggle, he'd fallen onto the street, his upper torso crushed by a passing truck. He'd been unrecognizable, in fact, until the police had fished out his ID and reached out to his father for a DNA test.

Which came back positive.

Mitsumi was dead.

And here, at the funeral, only three people and the priest were in attendance – a testament to the utter social rejection Mitsumi's behavior had garnered him.

Would her own funeral be the same, Touwa wondered? Would the only mourners present be her mom and stepfather and the priest? Would they, like now, shed no tears – only stare grimly at the picture of younger Mitsumi?

Even as they left, Touwa was struck by how fleeting Mitsumi's existence appeared to have been. Now that the funeral was over, there would be nothing of him left in the world. The apartment he'd lived in would be sold off by his father. His friends, if he'd had any, hadn't even bothered to attend his funeral. No one had mourned the loss of him.

Not even, if she was honest, Touwa.

Was it relief, she wondered again? Or despair? Was she just unable to feel anything because of how muted her emotions felt?

Or did she genuinely not care that he'd died?

She wondered about that all the way back to the house and up to her room, where she again sat in her corner and let her thoughts drag her away from reality.

Mitsumi was dead.

And she was alone.

Had he thought of her before he died? Had he even spared her a thought in all this time?

It was annoying that she would never know now. That there was nothing she could demand of him to make up for his part in ruining her life. All she had left of him was a slowly vanishing memory of what he'd looked like. Even the memory of his touch slowly faded away with time. She'd tried, desperately, to keep it alive by touching herself initially – the absence of sex after such an intense period of hypersexual activity feeling like torture – but over time realized it wasn't the same. The joy of getting off gradually died off until it felt more clinical than enjoyable. More habit than pleasure.

So.

She'd even lost that to Mitsumi.

A teary chuckle escaped her mouth as she realized once more just how much she'd lost. Her school life, her boyfriend, her future, her mother's love, her innocence – all gone. All of it. She was more akin to a lifeless doll now than a person. An empty vessel whose soul had shriveled up and died long ago.

She tried again to end it all. She came close, too. But, once more, her mother and stepfather had managed to get to her in time and rush her to the hospital. She considered begging them to let her die, but even as they treated her – even as she subsequently recovered – she could hear them judging her.

"Killing herself to join her incestuous stepbrother. Shameful."

It figured. It figured that, again, Mitsumi would ruin everything. Even dying was now somehow a validation of their opinions of her and Mitsumi. They truly would never let this go. So long as the memory of Mitsumi remained alive – and her people had long memories – she would never be free of her past.

How mad. How unfair.

How completely predictable.

Hikikomori.

That was what she'd effectively been reduced to. Her hair had grown out to alarming lengths, burdened with split ends and greasy to the touch. Her skin had turned sickly pale from the lack of sunlight. Her muscles effectively atrophied as she spent her days on her bed or in the corner, wallowing in her misery. The only silver lining – if one could call it that – being that her total loss of appetite meant she had gained no weight, as she might've been concerned about over a year ago, but instead lost an alarming amount of it.

So emaciated and miserable to look at she was that, as far as the neighborhood and the world were concerned, a ghost lived in her room.

Over a year passed since the incident that shattered her life apart, and Touwa's existence might as well have been a fever dream as far as everyone was concerned. At least, it was to those who only knew of the case from afar. For those closer to the incident, there was no forgetting.

Did the Shizuri even have a daughter? Oh, right – the one who fucked her stepbrother. You know, the one that got himself killed. Serves him right. I hear she tried to off herself shortly after to be with him. Really? Shameful.

How many times must Touwa have heard that conversation, or some variant of it, from her bedroom window? How many furtive glances from neighbors and curious children?

None of them really cared, of course. They just wanted to see what she'd do to feed their inane gossip. Not even her parents cared – after all, when her mom got pregnant, she only informed Touwa by way of a note slid under the door. When she gave birth to her little brother and finally brought him home, no one bothered to fetch her.

She was a ghost – one whose existence her little brother would probably never understand.

She scoffed as she remembered the name they'd given him – Yoshiro. Righteous. As if the name would wash away the stigma of being related to her.

A knock at the door.

Was it time for the tri-weekly check-up already? It wasn't like she paid it much attention, honestly – she'd long given up on taking her own life once she realized it was a futile exercise.

She grunted at the door as she usually did, and once again expected the footsteps to recede.

But, just like on the day Mitsumi died, no such sound greeted her.

"Touwa."

She twitched at the sound of the familiar voice, raising her head slightly. It couldn't be.

"Can I please come in?"

Her mother and stepfather would've never asked the question, knowing it was a pointless one. After her first failed suicide attempt, the lock on her door had been removed immediately. Which, of course, meant that the reason no one bothered to come in here was because no one cared to.

Something her visitor probably hadn't known.

"I just want to talk."

What, exactly, possessed her to get up and walk over to the door – she didn't know. It wasn't like anything would magically change. It wasn't like he could make the past year and a half disappear.

But open it she did anyway.

He reeled, as she imagined he would, at her unkempt and disastrous appearance. At least, that's how she imagined she looked – she'd broken her only mirror long ago. Even so, she couldn't have looked too healthy. By contrast, he looked healthy, stable. He was taller, too – his muscles seemed more defined, like he'd been involved in some kind of sport. He had the same face, though. Only that remained relatively unchanged.

"Good god, Touwa…"

If her life had proven anything, it was that God wasn't good. Or maybe it was because he was good that her life was miserable?

She didn't know and she didn't say. All she did was let him into her room and retreated to her corner while he looked around and coughed at all the accumulated dust. That was fair – her mother only really cleaned her room about once a week at this point.

She winced as he pulled open the curtains, letting in the first rays of sunlight she'd seen in a while.

She winced again as she felt the outside breeze flow in when he opened the window, letting the stench of her room filter out.

And then he sat on her bed – her cursed bed. Her hated bed. The bed that had ruined everything for her – and looked over at her, his hands anxiously fidgeting.

"You…don't look well."

She couldn't help it. She snorted.

He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his nape. "Yeah, dumb observation, I guess…"

She said nothing, staring at the floor as she always did. They sat in that awkward silence for a while – to the point where Touwa wondered if perhaps he'd chicken out and just leave.

But no, he didn't. He just sat there, on that hated, cursed bed, and then got up and went to her bare desk, pointing at a book – one of the few things her mother hadn't removed because she figured it'd be hard to kill yourself with a book.

"I remember this one," he said with a nostalgic smile. "This was the book I saw you reading the first day we were in the same class."

Touwa's eyes rose to stare at him. Was it? She couldn't remember. Hell, she couldn't remember much of anything these days. It was like someone had poked holes in her memory.

He chuckled, unknowing of her confusion. "You looked so prim and proper. I was immediately intimidated!"

Ah. He meant the old Touwa. Perfect Touwa. The diligent student. The dutiful daughter. The one with all the prospects and future. The non-fuck-up who didn't sleep with her stepbrother and betray her boyfriend. The one who didn't get expelled from school and wasn't a living shame and stain upon her family.

"Ah, and this is the one you got on Valentine's Day from your mother three years ago," he continued reminiscing. "You were so happy that day…"

Why?

Why was he babbling about any of this?

That Touwa was gone. Dead and gone. She'd died on the day Mitsumi had managed to goad her into letting him fuck her.

"Your mom called me."

Touwa's gaze sharpened as she stared up at him, wide eyes peering into sad, pitying browns and vice versa.

"I…didn't want to come," he admitted as he rubbed his nape nervously, looking away from her. "I told her as much."

Why, then?

She didn't even realize she'd spoken aloud until she saw him wince at the raspy nature of her voice – a consequence of barely saying a word for months on end.

"She told me how you were doing. Begged me to come," he explained. "I…felt bad."

That was rich. That was so fucking rich.

"Bull…shit."

The helpless smile on his face did not help. "Yeah, I know how it sounds."

"You…ha…te…me…"

"I do, Touwa," he confirmed. "I really do."

Part of her wondered how she got to her feet, or how she'd managed to cross over to him and grasp at his shirt before collapsing onto her knees – every ounce of energy in her body seemingly evaporated by the mere attempt to reach him.

"Then…why…?"

"I don't know."

It was probably the most honest reply she'd heard from anyone regarding this whole fracas. He wasn't hopping onto his moral high horse. He wasn't trying to make her feel better with empty platitudes. He was acknowledging that even though he had every justification to keep hating her forever, he had still come to see her.

She knelt there for what felt like forever before realizing that she felt warmer now. That something was pressed hard against her.

He was hugging her.

"But…maybe…it's because as angry as I was towards you, I hated Mitsumi more. And when he died, a lot of that hate left with him," he told her as he pulled back and parted her fringe to look into her eyes. "So…maybe…I hate you less than I did."

He looked away for a few seconds before coughing awkwardly into a fist.

"Maybe…I'm just finally ready to listen and help you."

Touwa felt her eyes burn as she continued staring wide-eyed at the opposite wall. It felt like a dam inside her had broken and a torrent of repressed emotions poured forth. Her limp arms rose, shaking like leaves, to grasp at his back as choked sobs made their way up her throat. Her cheeks grew wet and wetter still from the unrelenting tears that now streamed freely.

"I'm…sorry…" she wept. "I'm…sorry!"

"I am, too," he told her. "For not listening. For just being angry."

"I'm…sorry…Asuna!" she wailed. "I…I'm…so…sorry!"

The sobs and wails continued for longer than Touwa could count. And throughout all of that, Asuna held her as she let out every tear and sob she'd repressed for over a year. It felt like her very soul was being emptied of the darkness and despair that had haunted her ever since the day Mistumi had coerced her to let him do her.

At last, after a year of suffering – for the very first time since then – Touwa felt free.

Is what she thought.

" By the way, a lot happened since then, and I'm currently dating with my cousin from my mother's side."

The next sentence from Asuna made electrified her inner world and she jerked.

"D...dat..ing?"

Touwa couldn't believe her ears.

" We're already planning for engagement in upcoming days."

Those words felt like mountains crumbling Touwa's all existence that was hardly keeping up.

"Ah.... Why?"

Asuna made her look up to him and the gaze was filled with hatred that was nowhere a moment ago.

" This is all I've to say." Asuna brushed off his wearing as if it got dirtied by some waste shit.

And his gaze was filled with scorn.

Before leaving,

"Oh, try to live until my wedding. I'll surely invite you to my wedding and who knows you'll meet your partner by hoeing around!"

It was kinda childish of Asuna but the way his heart was hurt and the throbbing pain he felt that day, he will never forget it. And if it wasn't for his beautiful cousin who has better in every term from Touwa , It would have taken more time to get in good shape. .

After he left the room, Touwa finally understood, no matter how long, no matter how many days passes away, what she lost would never come back to her and it'll slowly eat away of her inside.....

D Name : Kanojo to Senpai ga Kazoku ni Natta hi