“...Ahh, I really want to disappear.”
Mizuki let a sigh escape, a hollow sort of feeling lingering in her chest as she looked down into the depths of the lake in front. A face stared back at her, one with hollow pink eyes and unkempt hair. So, this was the current Mizuki, the Mizuki that threatened to erupt like magma nestled beneath Earth’s mantle.
Just how long had she spent in the Empty SEKAI, contemplating everything? The way those classmates talked about her, as though her identity were the funniest thing? The look Ena gave her, the kindness she had tried to pass unto her, that which she tried to reject, for accepting it would mean accepting the inevitable change that was to come?
A coward she was, always running away. Chest aflame with a plethora of complicated feelings – anger, despair, emptiness – she knelt down, staring back at her reflection.
It disgusted her, how unsightly she looked.
Gingerly, Mizuki reached her hand out towards the water’s surface, completely submerging it; the reflection in front of her dissipated with a ripple. It felt cold, a reminder that she was in fact still alive, still a human. A few seconds later, her hand caught on something soft and lightweight. Her hand resurfaced from the water’s depths, holding within it a red and white ribbon.
The reflection materialized once more; Mizuki frowned. Hesitant she was, holding the ribbon within her hands as though it were the most precious thing in the world. So light, yet it felt unbearably heavy in her hands as the day’s earlier events weighed upon her mind.
”Wait, Mizuki!”
Ena’s words played on repeat in Mizuki’s head, ‘wait’s and ‘please’s over and over again, damning her all the way to hell. Stupid, it was. Everything: those stupid boys who outed her, Ena’s stupid kindness, this stupid world, her stupid self. Hands shaking, she set the ribbon back upon the water’s surface, watching as it drifted further and further away, until it was out of sight.
“So stupid...” Mizuki humorlessly laughed. “I couldn’t possibly...”