I wore innocence like a second skin, a deceptive mask that hid a mind capable of cruelness. As I believed in balance. In cause and effect. In the unwavering principle that those who inflicted pain deserved to feel its sting in return. My philosophy was simple: hurt me first, and I would become your karma. I wasn't cruel without reason; I was just... efficient. I ensured that the scales of justice, as I perceived them, were always tipped back into balance. I thought I was beyond redemption, beyond feeling anything but the dull ache of guilt. I thought my heart, once broken, was destined to remain a cold, unfeeling stone. Then he came along. Loud, chaotic, infuriatingly charming. Everything I wasn't. Everything I despised. I saw him as the villain, the antithesis of my carefully ordered world. He was the kind of person I had always avoided, always dismissed.