"𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠"
Y/N L/N has always been too nice for her own good. Of an empathetic nature, she naturally becomes attached to Oyuki Maeda, a te...
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You listen half-heartedly as Mira explains what phase two will be like. A migraine thumps hard against your temples every time you try to concentrate. The pain seems to flow through your veins faster than your blood.
Every one of your muscles is numb after spending hours staring at the ceiling and failing to sleep. Your eyelids weigh heavy, but your mind refuses to find rest. The surrounding sounds are just background noise that scratches your eardrums. Your heartbeat is too loud for you to focus on anything else.
You just manage to register that the next games will be against the face cards as you expected. In other words, this will be your first truly public appearance after weeks of working in the shadows.
Ume almost beams with joy at the thought of leaving what she calls "the rat hole". You would like to share this joy, this excitement about the upcoming game. But your stomach is contracted in a painful knot. You thought you got used to the constant pain crushing your heart with each breath, but it's like it found a new way to get to you. It stabs its way through your lungs like a dagger, rammed to the hilt, pounding the flesh again and again until it's turned to shreds.
"Are you okay?" Emiko's voice whispers in a sigh, giving you a worried look.
"I'm okay." You answer without any conviction. You don't glance at her so as not to encourage her to continue. You don't have the morale or the strength to start a conversation with Emiko.
"Stress?" she continues without understanding the message.
Realizing that you won't be able to get rid of her by ignoring her, you end up turning your attention to her. She gives you a nervous smile, showing a large fresh cut on her lip from which a trickle of blood escapes. You wince inwardly, pinching your arm to keep the memories from flooding you again.
"Not really. You, on the other hand, are."
She glances furtively at the Queen of Spades before wiping her mouth with her sleeve. You don't bother to point out to her that the traces of dry blood stand out especially on white.
"A bit, I admit..."
At the sight of the reddish traces on the fabric, you would say "a lot". Emiko is not very discreet about her emotions. They overflow from her like a fountain that she does not know how to dry up. She knows how to lie, but the truth always radiates from her if we pay attention to her.
On the contrary, you know how to contain them, to hide them. You learned to lie until it became a habit. But the violence of emotions is betrayed in your eyes. Feelings surge like tsunamis inside your mind whose eyes are the window.
Defining the emotions of others is not a great difficulty. Each human has common points in the ways of expressing what torments their mind. But you are not able to read yourself in the same way.
The years have not changed anything. You grew up to take care of others, by mirror effect, there are things in you that never grew up. Your body is no longer the one of a child, but your mind has not followed suit. Something that drags you around like a millstone, unable to act like an adult without being a child.
