CRUEL

CRUEL|NINE

CHAPTER NINE

CRUEL

[SEASON ONE]

Arezou's attention was fixed on Mia. Yuna had planned to visit Mia, so Arezou and Shelly decided to tag along. They intended to have a conversation with the girl. 

"What are you doing all alone in your room today instead of going to school? Didn't your parents say anything? Just be confident and show up at school! It's not like you've committed a crime. Who cares what the other kids think?" Yuna tried to uplift Mia's spirits.

However, Mia remained in a sour mood, which irked both Arezou and Shelly. Here was the girl for whom their crewmates had fought, yet she seemed too scared to even attend school. Arezou couldn't comprehend Mia's behavior. Mia was beautiful. Mia embodied everything a male might desire in his life. Mia was the girl Jay liked. Maybe it was a result of envy or jealousy, but for some reason, Arezou couldn't quite place, she found Mia's behavior utterly pathetic today.

"The teachers seem to have cleared up the misunderstanding to an extent so make sure you come to school tomorrow!" Yuna urged once more. However, Mia remained silent, refusing even to look up. "Ugh! You're so frustrating!" Yuna groaned. 

Shelly, standing beside her, emitted an annoyed scoff in response to Mia's actions. "It must be hard for you to change, Mia. Well, I guess it's hard for a person to change overnight..." Shelly began. "Fine just go ahead and spend the rest of your life curled up in a ball and hiding from people...I guess there's not much we can do."

"Hey, aren't you being a bit too harsh?! Arezou, tell her she shouldn't say such mean—!" Yuna attempted, only for Mia to cut her off.  

"I Know! Just like you told me in my room before, Shelly, I tried to be courageous and make an effort to change myself. That's why I figured that I might be a bit confident if I were to do something like modeling but.." Mia's Hands trembled. "It's not that simple. People don't change that easily! I tried my best to you know..."

"Trying your best?"

All eyes turned to Arezou, who fixed a mocking gaze on Mia. "What kind of effort did you exert? You locked yourself in your room for days and didn't even attempt to clear up the misunderstanding. A single word from you could have put an end to the rumors. Just one word. And what did you do? Remain silent? How can you call that trying when you give up at the first sign of difficulty?" Arezou's words were charged with anger, leaving Mia looking taken aback. 

"While you were supposedly 'trying', every one of us was striving to clean up your mess. The boys even went up against that jerk who posted that picture, and they got beaten up while fighting for your sake. So please, explain to me, how difficult is it? How difficult is it when they put in more effort for your sake than you do for yourself?"

Shelly nodded in agreement, fully aligned with Arezou's perspective.. "We have a race coming up soon. Is it really fair that those guys are making an effort on your behalf and don't even have time to practice because of you? Do you realize that sitting around like this is being sweet? It's totally idiotic?!"

Shelly exclaimed, her patience exhausted by Mia's pitiful behavior. Neither Arezou nor Shelly cared much about Mia's feelings at this point. They viewed her as acting selfishly, complaining about her supposed struggles while conveniently ignoring the efforts others were making to clean up her mess.