Why don't you try and leave me?

Prologue

The days of Karuizawa Kei after high school were shockingly monotonous. Having failed to graduate at class A had decimated any assurance of an exciting future which was widely promised by the school, for those manage to accomplish such a feat.

Being an orphan, her life had never been easy. In fact it was one of the prime reasons why she had been so rigorously bullied. She had no one. Her parents had died in a car accident when she was at the unripe age of 8. Since then, she had been residing with her grandmother who had been the only adult willing to take responsibility for her. That was until her only guardian left in this desolate world right after she graduated middle school.

When that happened, Kei had finally snapped. She had had enough of life stealing precious things from her.

She decided to join the Advanced Nursery High School on a whim seeing that she didn’t care much if she graduated in the first place. Let alone in class A or class D. The only thing she had desired from the bottom of her heart was to not to relive the terror of bullying that followed her wherever she went. To be freed from the shackles of self-hatred she possessed for herself after years of persistent bullying.

The best course of action of course was to get attached to a strong host. For a needy parasite like Kei, a man with a high social standing is must to hold on to. And Hirata had been perfect. In every way. Except he didn’t take sides. Most certainly not her side. Not even when she had desperately begged him to.

Her mask of confidence was on the verge of being shattered into a million little pieces when she met him. Her saviour had came in form of a gloomy boy who looked to be unbelievably boring on the outside yet ruthlessly cruel enough to manipulate others to his whim. His true self hidden beneath the smooth shell of being “normal”.

If someone had told her that she would end up gambling everything on the guy who had made an absolute mess of himself on the self-instruction at the very first day, she would have been worried that person had some undiagnosed brain damage.

It would have been utterly nonsensical. He was the opposite of the kind of man she had hoped to attach herself to.

But as fate would have its way, it brought them close to each other.

As time progressed, she could recognise how unnatural Kiyotaka was. How he sometimes spoke as if he didn't know things that even elementary kids know. About the little joys of school life. The intricacies of small talk. Expectations of the so-called polite society of Japan.

She might have really believed him if he had confessed he was brought up in a institution far up above the moutains.

Above all what convinced her of that was the merciless look in his molten brown eyes which held no humanity in them. No heart of its own. Like a perfectly trained robot which unflinchingly performed the given tasks.

His vicious gaze which had looked down at her from a considerable height, on that day, on some hidden corner of the deck, could never be erased from the depths of her memory.

It was just that gaze that had told her that this man was unlike she had ever encountered in her life. His presence terrified her and oddly enough comforted her at the same time. A paradox which had resided in her mind in the years after. No matter how much she wanted to view him on a bad light, her heart wouldn't allow her.

His thinking process was definitely not something that could be learnt at a mere school. That much Kei could conclude as she ran one errand after the other for him, amazed by the mind that could even conjure up such things. All for his promise of protection.

Kei had no choice but to believe his word for it even though she knew deep within that he would abandon her in a heartbeat. That gaze wouldn’t let her forget. It wasn’t human.

But along the way something had transformed within herself. Somehow she had started to care about him more than his word of protecting her, which had been her only reason for associating with him.

Her lifeline since the Zodiac exam was snapped in an instant. Even in the face of the bullying she received at Ryueen’s hands, she refused to relent and sell him out. The same bullying that terrified her very soul for years and years.

But she stayed true to herself and overcome it all for a boy who had been manipulating her from the start.

In a miraculous flash of luck, he revealed himself to save her at the last minute, capturing her from the depths of a gruesome hell that Ryueen had crafted for her.

Her heart fluttered despite everything and she fell. When she fell, she fell hard.

She initially tried to hide her feelings, knowing they would not hold success in the face of man like him.

One thing led to another and he confessed to her in the most unexpected fashion. She accepted it in a heartbeat.

They dated for almost two years. Two years of absolute bliss. Two years of growing feelings. Two years of learning the art of being intimate. Two years of life tying them together in ways one could least expect.

They had smiled together, held hands together, eaten together, slept at the same bed together. It was indeed surreal. Kei had experienced one incredible memory after another in a short span of two years and possibly found the love of her life.

They had trust, loyalty and above all love ingrained in the foundations of their relationship.

Or so she thought.

Till everything vanished into ashes.

Exactly two months before they were about to graduate as Class A.

The pillars of the castle they built together tumbled like they had no foundation in the first place. The future she had envisioned so ardently was splashed with dark black, staining it in the darkness that had secretly followed her all this time.

Turns out love is nothing but an illusion of a youthful heart in a teenager's life.