📘 2007: A Girl with No Tomorrow
✦ Chapter 1: The Arrow That Didn’t Miss
> “People clapped when I hit the target.
No one asked if I ever missed on purpose.”
— Aki Hoshino
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The sky was gray when Aki Hoshino left home. She preferred it that way. Blue skies felt dishonest. Rain clouds were quiet, like her.
She walked to school without earphones — not because she liked the silence, but because it helped her listen. To footsteps behind her. To whispers about her. To the world that kept reminding her she didn’t belong.
By sixteen, Aki was already a decorated ghost.
National archery champion. Music prodigy. Straight A’s. Fluent in three languages. Perfect.
Too perfect.
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At school, perfection was a sin. Her name was written in golden letters on a plaque near the entrance, but not one student met her eyes when she passed. In the hallway, they parted like she was carrying a disease.
They thought she didn’t hear.
"What’s the point of being smart if you’re that creepy?"
"I bet she’s on meds."
"She’s probably planning something."
They were right. Just not in the way they imagined.
Aki sat alone in the last row. Her desk was untouched by others. No scribbles. No gum. No notes passed.
It was the cleanest desk in class. And the coldest.
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She kept a small notebook inside her blazer. Not for class notes.
Each page had a date.
A death.
A method.
A question.
> “Fall — too messy?”
“Bleach — not poetic.”
“Arrow to the chest — ironic?”
“Do bodies feel relief before the end?”
No one had ever found it. If they did, they’d think it was fiction. Aki didn’t talk much. So people filled in the blanks with fear.
In the music room, she played piano like she was exhaling something she wasn’t allowed to say. Minor keys. Broken chords. No lyrics. Just pain arranged into notes.
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Lunch was the rooftop. Not because she liked heights — but because it helped her think. About how many seconds it would take. About what people would say. About whether it would make the news.
She looked over the railing every day.
Not to jump.
Not yet.
Just to imagine.
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Her phone vibrated once. A message from her mother.
> “Win the next match. No excuses.”
No “good luck.” No warmth. Just another demand from the family that built her like a machine and called it love.
She locked her phone. Looked up. The clouds hadn’t moved. Neither had she.
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That afternoon in archery practice, her arrow split through the center of the bullseye. Clean. Effortless. Perfect.
Applause followed. Coaches beamed. Classmates stared with dead eyes.
She bowed politely.
Inside, she thought:
> “I don’t miss.
But I wish I did.
Just once.
Just to see what it feels like…
to be human.”
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End of Chapter 1
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