Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

₊˚⊹ ♡  I want to make your life miserable. ˚ ୨୧⋆.˚

“President of the Council! Please, step forward.”

“I will do my best to make school life better for everyone, I—”

…

Better?

Better for who, exactly?

For the teachers? …For my mother ?

Haahh, I don’t care. I don’t give a damn about any of it.

All of this… all of it can burn and go to hell.

I don’t even remember the last time I stood before so many people—faces staring, eyes crawling up and down my body like I’m some exhibit. They wait on my words like they mean something, like I could alter their lives with a flicker of my voice or a shift in my posture.

And maybe I could.

It makes me feel important— like I’m the center of everything. It gives me power. And that power… it should make me feel alive.

But it doesn’t.

So why do I still feel this hollow ache gnawing on my insides? Why does the silence echo louder the more they stare at me? I’ve got all this attention, all these expectations stacked on my shoulders— and yet, I feel nothing . Not pride. Not joy. Not even fear.

Just emptiness .

A cold, distant wasteland inside me. A place no one can see.

An empty aquarium in the middle of a crowded room— everyone looking in, no one getting close. I’m on display, dissected by stares, my purpose defined by how well I perform.

A perfect doll carved into perfection, meant only to make her proud.

I swallow on nothing, then part my lips, hoping to find something— anything, really—worth saying. But nothing seems important enough to be said, nothing is important, nothing matters.

Then, through the blur of faces, I see her.

Rosy eyes locked onto mine, her mouth forms silent words.

“ You can do this! ” as a small, familiar smile curves her lips. A face I know too well to mistake the intent behind it. 

“ This term, I will be serving as your school representative and council president. Second year, class 4. I previously worked hard on the student council’s agenda… ”

I stare back down once again, and a genuine smile appears on my lips.

“ …I will do my best to make school life better for everyone. I look forward to working with you! ”

“ You did so well, I’m so proud of you! ” 

A soft and gentle voice filtered through the fog of my thoughts, just before two arms could wrap gently around me in a warm embrace. Hearing them makes something inside me relax, like a knot quietly loosening. My dozy state made out her figure striding towards me. There was something that felt undeniably strong in her every movement— careful, kind, gentle— as if she perceived me as a fragile being, a delicate porcelain doll that could easily break at the slightest touch.

It’s Yui, my dearest friend.

She towers slightly over me with her tall, graceful frame— nearly one meter eighty—and those soft, golden curls cascading around her shoulders. Her large, languid eyes are a shade of rosy pink, always highlighted by matching makeup that she applies with care. She clearly takes good care of herself, and I can tell not just by how she looks, but by the scent that clings to her when she leans in close—like fresh pancakes and strawberries. It's sweet, almost too sweet, but I don’t mind.

Besides, being seen with someone as pretty as Yui is good for my image, isn’t it? I imagine plenty of people would kill to be her friend…

I like Yui. She’s kind to me. And yet…

“ You’re always so natural when you speak, ” she says, eyes wide with admiration. “ Everyone hangs on your every word! Ahh, I wish I could be as perfect as you… ”

Ugh.

“ It’s not as complicated as you think, Yui, ” I reply, letting out a light laugh as I tilt my head slightly to the side. “ Once you're up there, you realize no one's really watching you… ”

I pause, then add with a quiet smirk, “ Honestly, I think you might’ve been the only one actually listening. ”

“ Eh?—No, no! That’s not true at all! ” Her eyes shine with conviction, as if she’s desperate to make me believe it. “ Everyone was watching you— they were in awe of you, I swear!! ”

I shifted faintly at her gentle touch, blinking a few times before managing to smile and meet her gaze. For a brief moment, I let myself look at her— really look at her. She stood out effortlessly among the blur of my classmates, none of whom I truly cared about. She was radiant, almost otherworldly in her beauty.

But there was something quietly painful in the way she looked at me.

Her eyes were full of… warmth, of love, of expectations I never asked for.

Full of something I could never understand.

Her affection was direct, unwavering, like being wrapped in a warm blanket. Not one that brought comfort, but one that slowly smothered. Gentle, yes… but suffocating.

I looked away.

That familiar ache returned, dull and hollow, blooming in my chest like a bruise. A reminder of the emptiness I carry, knowing that I will never be as full as she is. 

And yet, it was in that precise moment, while my empty gaze wandered without purpose, that something caught my eye. Something that had never drawn my attention before.

Or rather… someone .

Yui’s voice, honey-sweet and filled with praise, continued to flow beside me, but her words no longer reached me, falling on deaf ears. My eyes had narrowed, focused beyond her shoulders, fixated on the shape behind her.

A boy.

Alone, motionless, and staring straight at me. His eyes locked onto mine as if he’d been waiting for this exact moment. There was something about him— something raw and inexplicable—that stirred discomfort deep in my chest. He clutched a worn-out stuffed bear to his chest with the desperation of someone clinging to his only reason to exist.

I didn’t like the way he made me feel. It was like something primal inside me had been stirred, as though a long-dormant instinct for survival had suddenly awoken.

Those violet eyes, framed by heavy dark circles, seemed far too large for his thin, ghost-like face. He looked ill—deathly ill, like a walking corpse dressed in a school uniform. And yet, he stood. How, I couldn’t fathom.

I lifted my chin slightly, not breaking eye contact. For a moment, we simply looked at each other, until his lips curled into a cheeky smirk.

Creepy...

It wasn’t a smile of politeness. It wasn’t even one of mockery. It was something else entirely. Something deeper. As if he knew me. As if he was looking right through me .

Why? 

I had never seen him before in my life. And yet, his gaze pierced through me, through everything. As though he could read me like an open book.

…No. No, that’s not possible.

No one has ever seen behind this mask. No one has ever dared to.

The mask I’ve spent my entire life perfecting— crafted with careful precision to protect me from the world. A mask created to hide the disgusting and nauseating nature of the one who was wearing it. A mask that smiles when needed, that flutters its lashes with cold grace, that frowns when propriety demands, that sheds tears when sadness is expected. A puppet’s performance, polished to perfection.

A doll. Obedient and flawless as it should be.

But in that instant, I felt as if he had seen past all of it— seen me . The thing that writhes behind the porcelain. The part I was never supposed to show.

But he smiled, as if he knew it all.

Yui tilted her head slightly to the side, a question lingering in her eyes as she leaned her upper body toward me, trying to catch my attention once more. 

My heart skipped a beat, and I blinked several times in rapid succession, as if trying to anchor myself back to the ground. And just like that—he was gone. Quiet and alone, just as he had been all along. Vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, so quickly it made me wonder if he had ever been real at all. Perhaps just a mirage spun delusions.

“ Oh? Are you alright? You suddenly turned pale… like you’d seen a ghost. ” Yui’s voice wrapped around my scattered thoughts like warm syrup, pulling me back down on earth.

“ A ghost, you say…? ” I repeated her words softly, carefully, as I let my gaze drift back into the void into some unfixed point that seemed to tremble at the edges of reality.

Everything had become so painfully clear. My eyes, once veiled in delicate lies, were finally seeing the world for what it truly was. Or perhaps, for what it had always been.

Bitterness. Loneliness. Emptiness.

It was all part of it. I had swallowed every sour, rotten piece of it just to finally taste… this.

This sweetness.

It poured from my chest like syrup, wavering and making me burst into a thousand pieces, softening the raw flesh beneath my ribs. 

So this is what they all meant. 

This is what I’ve spent a lifetime chasing. How could I have missed it? Had he been watching me all along? Had I truly been so blind?

How could someone who never spoke to me… understand me more deeply than anyone else ever had? More than…

“ Ah—no, it’s okay, Yui! I’ve never felt better, I promise! ”

A smile bloomed on my lips, wide and unfamiliar, like something alive had finally slipped through the cracks of my mask. Genuine. Real. Something I didn’t think I was ever capable of.

Will he be the one to rip this mask from my face? 

Or will I be the one to carve that wicked little smile off his?

Ah… this sweet, sugary poison, leaking out of my heart. 

Please, kill me, if you must. But never stop making me feel this way.

Chapter Text

Ever since I was a child, I knew I couldn’t disappoint my mother.

She placed me high on that pedestal, a doll for display, always polishing my surface to a gleam.

She would parade me around like a prized confection: the perfect daughter who studied harder than everyone else, the shining student who never once slipped from the top of the class.

I was always composed, always beautiful, always smiling— because even when exhausted, I couldn’t let it slip out of my mask.

That’s all I could do, right? Bat my eyelashes innocently, be pretty and present myself at my best.

Never rude, always aloof.

That’s what it meant to be loved.

To be seen. 

Smile and wave. Keep your distance. Float above them like a sugar-coated saint, unreachable.

Wear your prettiest dress so other girls would ache with envy, curl your hair so boys would call you a dream, speak wisely so adults could marvel at your poise and whisper that you were far too mature for your age.

With a single glance, I could get anything I wanted.

Because I was the perfect girl.
Because I had to be.

And yet… why does he look at me like that?

His eyes, those lifeless, glassy things, strip me bare.

I can feel them peeling back my skin, inch by inch, digging into the soft, quivering meat beneath, splitting me open like a fruit gone overripe.

A thing to be examined. Dissected.
Gutted.

Why do they seem so empty, and yet so full of something I can’t name?

That’s exactly why I can’t stop watching you, Kanato.

That’s why my heart, once empty and lifeless, began to beat in this sickly-sweet rhythm. That’s why I can finally taste this thing they call love— like sugar melting on the tongue, just before it scalds.

It wasn’t hard to learn everything about you.
Your habits. Your routes.
Where you go after school.
Where you live. 

You look so precious when you clutch that little stuffed thing to your chest, like it’s the only thing tethering you to this world. So precious when you eat sweets with that glazed look in your eyes, or when anger twists your face into something ugly, raw; something real. 

I need to see that face again. And again. And again.

You’re so alone, aren’t you?

I see the way your gaze drifts, hollow and seeking, hoping someone might truly see you.

But don’t worry, I do! I see you! 

And it makes me feel filthy.

A perfect girl shouldn’t do this.
A perfect girl doesn’t stalk.
She doesn’t fantasize about being unraveled, exposed, shivering and red beneath the surface, waiting to be understood. 

If Mother ever found out what I’ve become, what I crave, I don’t know what she’d do. But I know she’d never look at me the same.

Because I’m rotten. Rotten, right to the core— overripe, bursting.

I can’t stop imagining him looking at me the way he did that day, peeling back the mask, slicing through my perfection to reach the mess underneath.

Isn’t that what you want, Kanato? Someone to really see you?

I’m too far gone to turn back.

And yet, I’m so afraid.

I walk the same path I always do, trailing behind you by just a few meters— always careful, always silent.

The thought of actually being caught by you, confronted … it petrifies me. I think I’d shatter on the spot.

But today… you’ve changed your route. For the first time in weeks, something’s different.

It throws me off— but I won’t stop.

I can’t stop.

You move like a ghost in a dream. Every step you take is so fluid, so cruelly elegant, as if you float just above the dirt the rest of us crawl on. The moon clings to your skin like a lover, and that faint smile you always wear... it cuts me open.

It’s not joy, it’s detachment. Like the world is ash beneath your feet, and you're the only one untouched by the burn.

Kanato.

Light of my life.
Fire of my loins. 

My sin. My soul.
The one who ruined me with a single glance.

You were love at first sight.
At last sight.
At ever and ever sight.

I watch you, and I know— I know with the same certainty with which I know my bones will one day rot in a coffin— that I love you more than I’ve loved anything real or imagined.

I love you with a sickness that eats away at my spine.

I love you with a hunger that makes me ache.

I am filth.
I am a vile, festering girl.
But I love you.

I’m detestable— brutal, spoiled, foul—but mon Dieu, je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime...

But then—
You vanish.

One blink, and the world swallows you whole. Gone. Just like that.

Panic blooms in my throat like a scream that won’t come out. My eyes dart around, frantic, my breath sharp and ragged as I realize—

I don’t know where I am.

Trees loom like monsters, their limbs twisting above me, heavy with shadow. The forest is thick and damp, and I’ve never been somewhere like this. Not once.

You think my mother would have allowed it?

Let her little jewel sully her skin with dirt and dead leaves? Let her scrape her knees or ruin the lace trim of her carefully selected, pristine little outfits?

No. Never.

And yet—

Something slams into the earth.

A tremor, like the world itself is shuddering. It throws me to the ground with a force I can’t understand. The air leaves my lungs in a sharp gasp as my knees hit mud.

Filthy... 

My uniform is soaked and ruined. I stare down at the stains blooming across the fabric like wounds.

Ough—

My hands are shaking. My whole body is quivering. My skin prickles with cold, with shame, with dread.

Mother. If she saw me like this... If she saw what I’ve become—what I chose to become.

But worse than the filth, worse than the fall, worse than the shame...

What the hell was that?

Chapter Text

I’m so lonely. 

You don’t really grasp what it means to be truly alone in this world until you find yourself like this. Knees scraped raw, flesh kissed open by gravel and roots, skin soaked in the cold rot of mud, body trembling somewhere you've never been before. 

Just blackness. Just silence. 

Just you.

There’s a strange clarity that comes in moments like this, when fear should be everything, but instead it becomes nothing.

Most people would run. 

That’s what they’d do, right? 

Scramble to their feet, scream for help, claw their way through the bushes in a blind panic, in hopes of finding a way out, or a light that could bright up the path ahead of them. 

Anything to get out. Anything to survive.

But me?

I’ve already spent my whole life screaming.

I wanted someone to see the agony blooming like rot beneath my ribs. 

I’ve begged, I’ve cried, I’ve bled my voice raw asking for someone— anyone— to save me. To reach into this pit and pull me out before the darkness could eat through my soul.. 

...But nobody came.

Because it’s easier to look away, right? 

Why would anyone stoop down from their golden pedestals just to sully their fingers on something so ruined, so utterly unworthy? Why look into the pit when you can bask in your own light?

No one helps you if it costs them their peace. That’s just the way things are.

So I remain still.

I tremble, yes, but no tears fall. 

No sobs, no pleading, it'd be useless– just this hollow, aching stillness. I lie in the dirt, waiting for something to happen. 

Maybe it’s a man. A predator. The kind that waits for lost girls to fall into his snare, deep in the belly of some forgotten forest. 

Or maybe it’s something worse— some beast that doesn’t need a reason to devour me, hungry enough to rip muscle from marrow and feast on trembling flesh?

No… no, it’s none of that.

It’s him.

My savior! 

“ Full moon nights are my favorite, you know? ”

A shadow looms above me. Towering. Indifferent. He holds something to his chest, eyes unfocused, lost somewhere far beyond me— as if I'm not even there to him.

The moonlight drapes across his face like a mother’s kiss, like it knows him, like it chose him. He bathes in it effortlessly. And he lets her, like he was born beneath her glow, meant to carry her silver weight on his spine like a sacred burden.

And I— pathetic, dirty, trembling like a stray dog— hang on his every word like my lungs are strung to his breath. Like each one is a blade carving love letters into my skin. Like I was born to hurt for him. 

Because I know who he is.

When I finally understand, when the realization hits, my stomach clenches so violently I could vomit. My insides twist and writhe with something like awe, something like terror. 

He’s right there. Inches away. If I reached out, I could touch him.. 

...But I won’t. I can't do that. 

I’d ruin him, surely. I’d stain him, poison him with the rot under my fingernails.

“ It’s pretty. ” Kanato murmurs, almost to himself. A smile flickers on his lips, innocent as a child, until his empty eyes meet mine. 

“ When I see something pretty,” he says softly, “ I get this urge to destroy it. I want to rip it to pieces, step all over it… and eventually erase its very existence from this world. ”

Before even a single word could escape my lips, before a coherent thought could be born in the rotting folds of my mind, I feel a hand clutch my face, fingers digging into the soft meat of my cheeks, and his violet eyes pierce through mine. A deep ocean of decay, the kind where light dies and only drowning remains.

“ Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? That a parasite like you’s been leeching onto me these past weeks? Huh? You think I’m that stupid? Your stench is noticeable from miles away. ”

“ Ha—Hahh... N-No, of course not— ”

“ SHUT UP! STOP LYING TO ME! ”

The scream cracks through my eardrums, jagged and raw like broken glass dragged across bone. It echoes inside my skull, slicing into the cartilage of my thoughts. My heart contracts with such force that I feel it strain against my ribs, desperate to tear itself out of its cage.

“ Why? You’re planning on feeding me those lies, only to laugh at how they hurt me, aren’t you? Stop smiling like that. That disgusting smile. Stop it! ”

His words punch through my chest cavity, tearing through sinew and lung, and I bleed from within. And yet— I really can’t stop smiling. The corners of my lips twitch with sick devotion. 

I watch his face twist into something real, something foul and raw, and it hurts.

It hurts so good.

I feel his fury reverberate in my bones, and it makes my spine arch with ecstasy. My cheeks flush scarlet. My flesh shivers not with fear, but with a deeper, crueler delight.

“ Beg for my forgiveness! I want to see you grovel at my feet like a worm! Do it, do it now! ” His pupils dilate as the command explodes from him. A smile, sweet and dripping venom, stretches across his lips as he yanks me down again, throwing me on my back, looming above me like a beast ready to feast. 

“ Teddy’s curious, too, you know. Curious to see your pathetic little face twisted in pathetic despair. So... come on! ”

His voice— it’s sugar poured down my throat, thick and suffocating. My heart drowns in syrup. 

Filthy, sacred thoughts coil in my head like serpents of sin. I feel my guts churn with the nausea of forbidden craving. 

It’s wrong, it’s hideous, but I can't help but crave for more. 

“Aah... Kanato, I...” I try to speak, to give him anything other than silence in this pitiful state. I’ve never been so helpless. Tongue-tied before someone like this? It's unthinkable. 

“ I... I’m so sorry, Kanato, I— ” I narrow my gaze, trying to rise from the ground, vertebra by vertebra, but—

A blinding pain erupts in my gut like a burst appendix, and I realize soon after that he kicked me, his small foot sinking deep into my stomach like a blade through meat.

I’ve never felt pain like this before... 

I double over, bile burning up my throat, threatening to spill. Though I can’t let him see me like that. I’d only look more repulsive, more disgusting. 

Yes— it hurts. Gods, it hurts... but...

Why do want it again?

“ P-Please, forgive me, Kanato... I didn’t have the courage to talk to you, to come closer. So I... I just... resorted to... ”

“ The student council president? Someone so perfect, so composed— you couldn’t approach me? So you thought stalking was the better option? ”

...

I bite my tongue, swallow hard. I don’t deny him. I just look away, soaked in shame, as if that alone would cleanse me.

“ Aa~ What a nice face… It’s truly wonderful. I wonder why your fear-filled expression turns me on this much. Fufufu… ”

His words are terrifying, so much so that they distract me, and by the time I notice his weight on top of me, it's already too late.

He straddles me, settling on my stomach, and he just... looks at me. He looks at me like no one ever has.

And there it is!

That gaze. The one I've longed for more than anything else in this world.

He looks at me as though I were something vile, a criminal finally caught in the act, a filthy little creature laid bare and about to be split open and studied from the inside out.

You’re looking at me. You're really seeing me. You see the grotesque, festering mess beneath the mask— this repulsive heap of flesh I call a body— and yet your soft, delicate hands still wind around my neck. 

Are you really willing to stain that flawless, porcelain skin of yours with my blood, if I were to die in your hands? 

Death. It’s always been something terrifying, even though I’ve never had anything to live for. 

But if I were to die by your hands, my dear Kanato, then maybe— just maybe— everything I’ve endured until now would finally mean something. 

So let it be, then. 

Kill me. 

Let that bitter sweetness coat my tongue as I choke on the taste of your pleasure. End me, if it brings you joy. 

But, by destroying me like this, does that mean you find me pretty?

The thought that Kanato might find someone like me pretty, that he might want to destroy me, just as he said...

Haaahhh...

Please, then. Do it! 

Destroy me. 

Leave nothing behind. Nothing at all. 

Let yours be the last eyes to witness this body when it finally ceases to be.

After all, I'm just hopelessly devoted to you.