COTE | | Bound | | [Suzune x Kiyotaka]

Chapter 24 || Suzune's Past

SUZUNE's POV

"Kiyotaka, please don't interrupt me or I won't be able to continue."

"I promise I won't."

"I was born into a rather wealthy family; both of my parents having graduated from Japan's top schools - my father establishing a law firm that became rather famous and my mother becoming a distinguished surgeon. Understandably, my parents were rarely home. I had my elder brother: Manabu, who, for the most part, was always there for me and helped me study. I also had my caretaker who was perhaps only there for the money she received.

No doubt about it, my parents did come home, although not regularly, they still spent family time with my brother and I. As a child, I always looked forward to seeing them... until I didn't.

Believe me, I was ever so grateful to be living - to have parents who both worked endlessly to provide for my brother and me, to be able to get whatever I generally wanted (not that I asked for much), to be able to go about life without needing to worry about the financial state of my home or if there was enough food in the house to feed us. It was what most children dreamed of, yet, the disappointing part resided with the relationship I endured with my parents; it was almost like a dying flame.

"80/100? Was that all you could get? 100/100 was all there was to get and you can't manage that? Your brother achieved it with ease at your age."

For the young me, those words were almost like a boost of encouragement, a motivation of sorts. Yet, because of my age, I was naive to see the cruelty behind them. I began to believe that I just needed to study to get acknowledgment from my parents. To receive a heartfelt, loving smile from them.

Unfortunately, neither came.

There was one day that I vividly remember, the instance that I had realized that the words weren't simply words of encouragement but instead, words of disappointment. I was nine years old. As usual, I was studying for a test I had the following day late at night around midnight. I headed downstairs to get a drink, as silent as possible to not wake up my brother. I was about to enter the kitchen but I stopped myself as I heard my parents speaking in hushed voices. I was excited. Naive little me was excited to see my parents. However, I stopped. I stayed behind the wall to listen to what they were saying because what child doesn't like to eavesdrop?

"That girl will never be as good as Manabu, it's dreadfully disappointing. To think that I birthed that nuisance."

"Indeed it is, she's regrettably staining the family name."

That was when I stopped listening and made my way back upstairs, tiptoeing to not alert my parents that I was there. Truth be told, I cried. If I had stayed, would I have heard thinks that would cut deep into my heart? Nine-year-old me soaked the pillow with her agony. The memory itself stung my heart. The sudden realization that my parents were full of disappointment for my existence, the disappointment that I was even born was what made me cry.

I wasn't good enough.

Perhaps that was the moment that I thought friends were unnecessary and would only lessen my studying, the constant gossip overtaking my mind and interfering with the exorbitant amount of studying I was doing. I persevered through the tears that night, I persevered through the tiredness, and stayed up til the morning studying to attempt to achieve a perfect score on my exam, just like my brother.

I wanted to be good enough.

I wanted acknowledgment from my parents.

I wanted to receive family love.