A Secret Unraveled (Completed)

Chapter 0.03: School Time Pt. 2

I've been hanging out with my 'best friends' for four years now, or maybe they're just clinging themselves onto me like a parasite.

And by some miracle, we have been in the same class with Shuu since the first grade, and now we were in the fourth.

At this point, I've surpassed my brother, and my 'best friends' aren't as 'close' to me as they were back then.

We would talk during breaks and lunch, but it would always be about answers to homework or my brother, and everyday I would retort by asking, "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

The girls would reply with, "Because he's your brother and he might be creeped out that we're asking him a bunch of questions all the time!" What a bunch of cowards.

I would just sigh in defeat, it was the same back then too. Now, I was getting sick and tired of listening to them talk and ask about Shuu, but everyone already had their own cliques.

Even though I had no one else to turn to, I slowly stopped hanging around them.

I would often sit alone at my desk having epiphanies about life while staring outside. My so-called 'best friends' got angry that I stopped hanging out with them, and started bullying me both physically and verbally while the Big Five weren't around.

Sometimes, I would be a little productive and study, draw, listen to music or multitask. It would either be in the class, on the roof or anywhere quiet and shady outside; somewhere where I could be myself, but at the same time I didn't feel like myself.

Even though I was bullied, I hid my pain and hid it well with a perfect fake smile, especially for Shuu and Uncle Asano.

I didn't need to burden them anymore than I have by living with them.

I became the 'quiet kid', but I like to think of myself as an active observer.

No one else knew about her pain, Gakushuu started to worry because she wasn't talking to anyone anymore and she would always be by herself.

He decided to spy on her one day, but what he saw left him eyes wide and speechless.

He witnessed his own sister being bullied. He watched with horror, but was frozen like a statue.

When the bell rang, he heard what the girls had to say to her.

"Stay away from Asano, he's ours and you stole him away from us!"

"Yeah, so do us all a favor and drop dead already!"

Gakushuu was stunned. He ran back to class, pretended like nothing happened, but he was going to talk to Shiniko about it after school.

Everyone already left the classroom to go home, leaving Shiniko and Gakushuu behind.

"Shiniko, can I talk to you?" Shuu came up to my desk and asked.

"Yeah, what do you need?" I asked while packing my bag.

"I saw what happened to you at lunch, how long has this been going on?" he asked.

"What are you talking about Shuu?" I tried to play dumb and pretend like I didn't know what he was talking about.

"You know what I mean, I saw you getting bullied at lunch." he confronted me about what he saw.

The fact that he knew what was happening made me heart drop. I never saw him at lunch, so I assumed he was always inside studying.

I looked down to the ground, "...it started ever since I got here..." my voice started to break and I faced the other way.