Aiko POV

Fumbling with my loose hair strains, which I have to cut by the way, because the split ends are starting to annoy me, I was waiting for Ayako behind the school gate.

The students kept streaming out of the school building in their cliques. Chattering about what their plans are for in the weekend.

I’ve already got my own plans for the weekend and that’s finishing eating Ayako’s birthday cake. Oh, and I’m going to sleep at her place too this weekend, but the cake is still my priority. But damn…we are both 16 now. Time flies by before you know it.

I couldn’t help but smile slightly at all the things we had done when we were kids. Playing hide and seek, pranking our parents, skipping school by pretending that we were sick and the most important thing, our make up belief games. We would always make a story where we live in this magical world.

I sighed. Sad that the fun innocent times that we had had gone away.

“Why the long face?”

I blinked my eyes open to see Ayako looking at me. My face flushed up slightly in embarrassment that she caught me like this.

Trying to hide my embarrassment I pushed her face away from me. “Get your face away from me. Also, what where you doing this whole time?” I said trying to be annoyed of the fact that she had kept me waiting.

“Aaawh don’t be mad. You’re going to ruin your pretty face.” She cooed while pinching both my cheeks.

I playfully slapped her hands away. “Don’t challenge me.”

She clicked her tongue while kicking a lone stone away. “I had cleaning duties* today, remember?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Yeah, I remember, but you know how impatient I can be, remember? Anyway-“ I took my schoolbag from the ground and started to walk in the direction towards Ayako’s house. “We should start moving, cause your parents are waiting for us.”

Ayako laughed and started to walk next to me. “You just want to eat the cake.” She said while giving me a smirk.

No shit I want to eat the cake. Cake is life, cake is love, cake is freaking happiness. I started to walk faster and faster until I started to run ignoring Ayako’s voice calling for me. I’m coming for you cake.

…

Looking around as we were walking on the road where cars and walkers meet, down the hill with Ayako walking in front of me. I looked at the girl who was way smaller than me with mid long straight white hair. I’ve known for a long time that Ayako has insecurities about her looks and no matter how many times I tell her that she looks beautiful she won’t believe me. But that’s logical when you think how she was treated by our classmates in the past. But she got the reason to why they treated her like that wrong. They weren’t disgusted by her or anything like that. They were scared by how captivated they were by her. Every time she walked down the hall ways the guys would literally break their necks just to get a glimpse of her. Confused by why they felt like that towards her they started to call her names just to make them feel better.

The girls were jealous by how Ayako looked, knowing they would never achieve the same results no matter how many times they would go to some expensive salons to change their looks. Realizing that made them blinded by rage and they started to harass Ayako not only mentally but mostly physically. Hoping that they could break down her spirit.

And they succeeded. Ayako to this day still hasn’t realized how she effects the people around her. She says that I’m beautiful, that the guys keep gawking at me and that I should start modeling only because of my height, however does she realize that she looks like a fucking princess!? She got such a white porcelain skin, with beautiful white hair and her eyes- her big bambi purple eyes. Every time you look in her eyes you just get captivated by the pain and mysteries that are swirling inside her eyes.

People fear her beauty they don’t know how to handle it. People fear the unknown and she is that unknown.

Well it sucks to be them, because they don’t realize what they are missing out. She is always cheerful no matter what even thought she can be stupid sometimes- no most of the time. She’s kind, trying to help anyone no matter how mean they are towards her, but mostly-

“Look what we’ve got here!” Ayako said excitedly to a group of stray cats coming trough the bushes. The cats all walked towards her and started to nuzzle against her to get her full attention.

Ayako crouched and started to pet them. “You guys are so cute. “She squealed in happiness.

Animals love her. They had always loved her for as long as I can remember. No matter where we went there will be always some animal who will just go to Ayako just to be with her.

There was a time where we went to the zoo as a school trip when we were ten years old. The animals in the zoo were all insanely excited. A lion jumped over the fence and cuddled against the stunned Ayako. Elephants would try to use their trunks to carry her away. It was so crazy that the zoo keepers had to kick Ayako out cause people started to get scared. From that day on there were no school trips to the zoo anymore.

The love that the animals feel towards Ayako is so different from the love that they feel towards other people.

But Ayako doesn’t care since she is such an animal loving person.

I smiled while shaking my head. I pulled Ayako away from the cat crowd seeing how they are starting to multiply. “C’mon Ayako, your house is literally standing right there.”

“But I wanted to play with them a little bit more.” She pouted.

“Well, you’ve got Kuro* at home waiting for you, so let’s get going now.”

“Hmpf!” She crossed her arms as she was pouting even more. Me being used to her behavior just dragged her across the asphalt until we were in front of her entrance. I put her down and ringed the door.

“Coming!” Miss Akimaya yelled.

Ayako doesn’t realize how much she is being loved by people and animals. I love her too. She’s like a little sister. We have this bond that no one can break, but even though I love her so much sometimes I…

Miss Akimaya opened the door and greeted us with a big smile. “Welcome home, you guys.”

“We’re home!” We both yelled.

despise her

A/N:

*Osouji jikan = お掃除時間 = cleaning time ( I would be writing a whole paragraph if I have to type the explanation for this word out, but I still want you guys to know about this so here’s a link where it is pretty much explained)

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/students-in-japan-clean-their-own-classrooms-and-school-toilets-and-the-reason-is-incredible-1227619-2018-05-06

*Kuro = 黒 = Black (Yeah Ayako’s cat’s name is literally ‘black’ because of his black fur, sui me.)

On a side note, There were more things that I wanted to clarify in this chapter, but that would maybe have been too much. I also am not sure if you guys like this side notes that I make, so please let me know if you want more of this authors notes.

I also wanted to let you guys know that I'm going to make the chapters longer from now on. I planned to stick with the amount of words that Tapas recommended, but it feels like my story isn’t really progressing much. I mean the ‘Birthday’ arc should have ended in three chapters instead were already at chapter 5! But whatever you guys like, so please let me know if I should keep the length as it is or if I should increase the length.