For Better, For Worse

Chapter 5 - A Childhood of Pain

Really awesome picture of all the mainish characters and their drawings!

Chapter 5 A Childhood of Pain

~eleven years old~

“No way, you’re ugly. Stay out of our sight.”

The group of boys give me nasty looks, then walk away laughing. Seita smirks at me and runs to catch up with them. Stupid Seita. Yesterday we played in the park for hours, why is he being mean today? I hear my name being called.

“Risa, wait for me. My ankle still hurts you know!” Tada-kun exclaims. I turn around and see him limping towards me. I’m about to make a joke when a ball hits my head. I fall to the ground in pain, clutching the right side of my head. I try not to cry but it hurts too much. “Risa! Are you okay?”

I look up at Tadao and cry even more. My sight becomes completely blurry and my nose starts to run.

“Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!” people chant. I wipe my eyes to find myself in the middle of a circle. Tadao is next to me, scowling at everyone. After what seems like forever, Fujikawa-sensei comes to rescue me. I’m taken to the infirmary and sensei looks at my head.

“Dear me, Risa. What kind of ball hit you? This will bruise quite heavily. Are you feeling all right? We may need to go to the hospital... I don’t know what those kids think they’re doing...”

The whole time I keep crying silently, sniffing every now and then. I stay in the infirmary until school ends and then mum comes to pick me up.

“Risa! Are you okay, darling? Come on, let’s go home. Tadao is having dinner with us tonight.”

My eyes opened suddenly. The bright light stunned me but I blinked a few times to get used to it. For some reason, I was outside. Oh yeah, I remembered going to the maple tree memorial garden to relax. It was still lunchtime. I checked my watch – it was almost time for lessons to start. I had English next. Boy was I going to ace that class.

“Risa!”

I looked around. It was Kojima Yuka, the girl who approached me the other day. “Hi, Kojima-san.”

“Please, call me Yuka! I was looking for you all lunchtime, who’d have thought you’d be here? Anyway, this Saturday me, Aiko and some others are going shopping. Can you come?”

I thought for a second. This Saturday there wouldn’t be a shoot because we’d done so well the night before. “Sure. Tell me the details.”

She punched a fist into the air and beamed. “Yay! Come on, I’ll tell you on the way to the classroom!”

~

Saturday arrived pretty quickly and I found myself struggling over what to wear. Ruffles shirt, or boat necked sweater? Pleated skirt or white denim shorts? Strappy heels or wedges? And most importantly, hair up or down?

I went to ask Hayato for advice when I heard those sounds again, and decided to just return to my room as if nothing had happened. There I got a spark of inspiration and decided on a blush pink knee length dress, which had both a ruffles shirt and a pleated skirt, lace trimmed socks and pink platform heels. I picked a love heart handbag in which I put my purse, phone and make-up bag.

Misato had told me that there was a chance that I would have to go to the studio later on and help them pick some photos for the magazine, and to take home my copy of the photo book. Apparently Naoki was going as well. I exhaled and left the flat at exactly eight-forty a.m.

Of course, we weren’t meeting that early, but I had arranged to meet a cousin for coffee. Her name was Mayu, and she was my dad’s younger brother’s only daughter. She was seventeen, and also happened to be a model. She was coming over from Meguro by train, and we were meeting at the train station at nine. That left me a good twenty minutes to amble across Shibuya to the train station.