Are You the Victim?
The thorn stuck deep inside me just won’t come out.
My heart hurts. My chest aches so badly I can hardly stand it.
Just remembering what happened yesterday makes my heart race and my breathing turn shallow.
It was my mistake.
If it had been with someone else, maybe it could have been forgiven. But with Yuuki, it was a mistake I should never have made.
“Why should I have to invite someone who confessed to me as part of a punishment game? What a waste of my time.”
When did he find out?
Had he known all along, or did he only find out recently?
After we started dating and I truly fell for Yuuki, I couldn’t stop regretting that punishment-game confession.
“When I opened up about my past and tried to trust you, I bet to you it was all just a show, wasn’t it? You must have enjoyed laughing at me inside. Impressive, really. I should learn to have a mentality like yours.”
When Yuuki began opening his heart to me and sharing his past, I wonder what expression I was making.
It wasn’t as though I was laughing.
I was just anxious. Even though he tried so hard to trust me, I had betrayed him from the very start.
I was terrified of what would happen if Yuuki ever learned about this awful thing I’d done.
After hearing about his past, it became even harder to tell him. I grew scared, I ran from it, and I tried to cover it up with a happy relationship. Because I didn’t want to see anything, I hid my anxiety and sealed it away, desperately trying not to be found out.
Even though it was selfish, I caught myself thinking that if only Yuuki hadn’t told me about his past, things might have been different. But Yuuki could never have imagined that my confession had been a lie, and like he said, this relationship was probably always destined to collapse one day.
But even so, I fell in love with Yuuki.
I really fell for him.
Before I realized it, I had come to love Yuuki’s smile.
On our dates, he always put thought into plans for my sake. He tried his hardest to make sure I had fun, and I saw all of that up close.
He worried about me during my period, stayed with me somewhere I could rest and talk, brought me warm drinks, and I felt his kindness and loved him for it.
Ever since I moved up from middle school to high school and dyed my hair blonde, people tended to look at me lightly. That was why I fell even harder for Yuuki, who saw not just my body or appearance but me as a person.
Memories spill over like a waterfall, and at the end, yesterday’s words resurface and my chest aches again.
“Someone who confesses as part of a punishment game doesn’t care about the other person. They don’t hesitate to hurt people. So don’t say something like, ‘Dating you changed my heart.’ There’s no way anyone could change in such a short time. And if you did, then you don’t even have a will of your own. You’d be nothing more than seaweed, drifting aimlessly. Doing things just because a friend said so, or because someone told you to, or because everyone else is. Then just drift far away somewhere I won’t have to see you.”
Ever since I was a child, I had no self, always following others. Truly like seaweed, drifting with no will of my own, a person who was nothing.
Wanting to change that, I dyed my hair blonde, learned makeup, tried to have something of my own. But aside from my appearance, nothing had changed at all.
Because in the end, I still went along with everyone else and confessed to Yuuki as a punishment game.
So…
“Let’s break up. The days I spent with you were the worst.”
Even being told that, I have no right to complain.
Even the days we spent together, even those smiling times, because of my stupid false confession they became the worst memories for Yuuki.
So, I can’t complain about being dumped.
I can’t complain.
I can’t complain.
It just means he was someone far too good for me.
I tell myself that over and over, but every time I remember, my heart starts hurting again.
It feels like I’ll never be able to escape from this loop.