Night Walks - H.J. [SVT]

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| Test Score |

It's a Tuesday. The restaurant is closed for the rest of the week due to the family vacationing. So instead of walking to the eatery, I walk home. Well, more like take the bus. It's not as fun walking during the day.

The bus is filled with sweaty high schoolers waiting to get off at their respected stops. I obviously don't take often the bus home but this week it had to be done. I have no other choice.

Finally after an hour, I was dropped off at my neighborhood. Bus rides take forever, there are still a lot of people with that thing.

I enter the house that is overpowered with the scent of a fruit candle. Looks like my mother is home. The kitchen was the first place I went to. White cabinets, white marble counters, and white appliances, it hurt my eyes every time I look. The only contrast was the black refrigerator and hints of silver found throughout the kitchen. I open the cabinet and pull out the cup of ramen I stashed away to prevent my older brother from eating it. Taking the kettle from the stove and filling it with more water, I turn the heat to high to boil the liquid.

Sounds of the water hitting the kettle insides made me shake from my empty thoughts and fill the ramen cup with the hot water. I bring the cup with a pair of chopsticks to the table, setting them on the flat surface along with my backpack. I open up my bag and take out my notebooks and pencil so I can quickly finish my homework while I eat.

It's only three pages of fill in the blanks for math. My teachers normally provide us all the homework we need to do over the week on a Monday. Since I get no sleep, I do homework, its always complete before I go to school Wednesday. Every single one of them. Late work is rare for me.

My phone buzzes.

I open the link my teacher sent me. It looks like it was shared with my parents too. This is normal, it's probably a grade I have gotten back. Teachers email grade scores to prevent students from hiding their progress or missing assignments they have. I scroll through the scanned document of the test I took last Friday. My mind starts to spin as I see the amount of red markings that are written on each document. I sniffle, starting to cry from fear.

"Akari!"

My mother

I stand up with my body turned to her, looking down. I can't bare to look into those eyes.

"You got a 91% on your Science test?!" My mother still shouting at me. Her rage only makes me silent to prevent myself from only making matters worse.

"Didn't you study?! What the hell were you thinking?! This is not acceptable, Akari! Do you think you will get into medical school by failing?! No, because you would have killed someone if you failed!"

She walks towards my notes from the table and picks them up. "Do you even pay attention in class?! These looks like garbage." Then she starts throwing them at me, one by one. I would probably have a few paper cuts later. My mother then lifts my chin up so I can look at her. I know I'm crying, I can feel the hot tears running down.