Content Warning: Mentions of some heavy topics here about death, including suicide and terminal illness. Please take care of yourself!

Akari tells her story with a gloomy face and a low, somber voice.

“My parents were from Japan,” she begins, “but they immigrated to the US back in the 90s. I was born in Mount Snowwind; that city is where I was raised.

“My life was relatively normal for the first ten years. But then… my mother got cancer.”

Already… Akira trembles in shock. Already?! When she was just a small child?!

Emilija looks down solemnly. Chao sighs, preparing himself for what’s coming next.

Jie stares closely at Akari, her face unfazed.

“When I was twelve, we lost her,” she continues, “and my father was never the same. He did his best to take care of me, but his sister—my Aunt Aya—had to step in. And when I was thirteen…” Akari starts squeezing her wrist. Her eyes shed tears. “I found my father’s body. He had hung himself.”

She lost both her parents in one year?! Akira wants to say something. Goodness, how he wants to comfort her! But he cannot find the words. He just can’t.

“From there, Aunt Aya took me in fully. And I,” she pauses, “became lost. I closed myself off. In my mind, it was my fault my father died. I failed to overpower his despair, become a light in his life. Really, I,” her voice cracks, “had no idea how to handle my emotions! I was a late bloomer. While I was grieving my father, my body was forming into a formidable one. I was becoming so much bigger and stronger than any other girl I knew,” she utters that last sentence with a harrowing fear.

She takes a moment, breathing in and out. Suddenly, she feels someone touching her arm. A small, thin hand. She looks over at the man supporting her. Two pairs of watery eyes stare at each other, full of love and woe.

Akari gulps, and turns her face back to Jie. She continues, “My aunt and I lived in a sketchy part of Mount Snowwind. Just like this college, it was a haven for the battle-hungry. My peers… didn’t recognize me as a girl. They picked fight after fight with me. A-And before I knew it,” she finds herself outright holding Akira’s hand, “I fell into a cycle of violence. A bloodlust had awakened within me. In a school with a male-dominated fight scene, I stood on top. I was the strongest.”

Akira’s heart races. He embraces her touch, keeping his hand within hers. He wipes his eyes as she continues.

“Aren’t female bodies biologically weaker than male ones? If that’s the case, then what the hell even am I?” she barks with a sharp frustration. “For sure, not a schoolgirl. Not a desirable woman.” She shakes her head with a distraught grimace. “Ultimately, I started dressing in a masculine school uniform. I didn’t see myself as a man, but I felt most comfortable with my figure as obscured as possible. Of course, the uniform got blood stains all the time. But I didn’t care. I wanted more, even. It became normal for my aunt to witness me coming home all bruised and bloody. She would be outraged, but eventually, even she would grow numb to it. She resigned to my behavior, only praying that I would somehow change. I… really caused her immense suffering.”

Akira quivers, caressing Akari’s hand. Indeed, despite how large and powerful Akari is, and how gloomy she currently seems, he has absolutely no fear of her. Not at all.

It almost surprises him. One would think he’d try to steer clear of any person affiliated with violence.

But Akari is just different. Is it his attraction to her? His fondness for her personality? His initial trust in her, that which only grows as they interact more?

He couldn’t be scared of her. Because she would never mean to scare him. That’s what he believes.

“But,” Akari continues, “when I was seventeen, towards the end of my junior year, I got into a fight that would change everything. It was with another girl. I had never fought her before. She was… ruthless, more than anyone else.

“Our fight brought us to a high staircase.

“And she… kicked me down.”