The days that go as my will, there weren't many.

Myoui Mina is a simple girl. Too simple that people call her nerd or geek and anything related that hurts her same. Literally, the majority of the student body bullies her. She has been in Minatozaki Sana's target range since she first stepped on the school which was 2 years ago. Sana would slap her on the face at the corridor and would tell her, "That's to stop your face from looking even more pathetic than it already is." Mina would go inside a cubicle in the restroom completely dry and would go out of it shivering because Sana had thrown a bucket of water inside. Before Mina went out, Sana would shout "I smelled you earlier in class. Thank me for the free bath later," and fled from the mess she had caused. Mina thought that that was a more pathetic reason than her existence for she stays in the back, at the corner while Sana practically owns the front row. But that's how Sana is. Sana would punch her, kick her, throw paper balls to her way and would tear her notes into pieces. Sana is her nightmare and she always dreams of her almost every day in school. She constantly wishes that those really are just dreams but she's also constantly being reminded that those painful strikes are parts of her reality. Everytime, she could not do anything for herself. She would only cry hard as she caresses her face or as she looks at it in the mirror. She would stop and would think that everything's back to normal. But she was reminded that back to normal means people would only look at her with pity, as if she has some kind of virus that they couldn't stand even a meter from her. It was suffocating. She only gets to breathe when Sana's causing chaos to other students or when she's absent because she doesn't feel like going to school. (Which are both rare occurrences.)

Actually, many didn’t go the way I’d like.

Sana not going to school is a rare occurrence because though she is known as the school's head in charge, she is the school's gem at everything. She's good in academics (no. 1 out of 301) and is the team captain and top player of the school's women's volleyball team. Besides her nightmares of Sana, Mina has dreamed of those things that Sana has, too. But luck isn't something good to Mina. She is that no. 301 who's 300 places away from Sana in their entire year level. (She actually doesn't get why people call her geek. Maybe because of her massive collection of video games or yu-gi-oh cards, comic books and other anime stuff. Or it's just because of how she looks. Or they are just using that as an excuse to bully her.) She has been a bench player in the school's women's volleyball team (she's actually in Team B, the backup team that was never used) ever since she tried out for at least a floor defender position.

Feels like today might be one of them. It’s concerning me.

She's determined to make those things a part of the past, just pieces of Myoui Mina's history. Today, she wakes up and does her morning rituals with some alterations. She looks at the mirror after taking a bath and frowns. She moves her bangs on the sides and looks intently at the mirror again. Then, she smiles. She steps out of the bathroom and goes in front of a bigger mirror in her room. She sits in front of it, wears her eyeglasses and immediately removes them. She replaces the old thing with contact lenses, brown like her natural eye color. She smiles again. She has been appreciating the look of her teeth without the newly removed braces. There is only a shining silver tooth which isn't really something to be bothered about. She actually likes it. She gets the hair iron and starts touching her hair with it. She's making her hair look straighter, prettier. After she's done with it, she opens her phone and opens the YouTube app. She opens a saved video with "How to Look Pretty with Makeup" as the title. She gets her mom's make-up kit and starts following the video. After that, she looks at the mirror again. "Is this me?" She can't believe herself and YouTube. They're the best partners, in Maths and now, makeups. She stands and while putting the make-up kit back to her mom's pouch, her hands are shaking and murmurs, "I'll just return this to her cabinet in her room or if I get caught, I can just take the punishment later. You're doing well, Mina." She then searches for the perfect pair of clothes to wear, from the shopping bags she got yesterday. She chooses denim pants since she can't ruin her new image with shorts that will reveal the bruises from her legs, partially from Sana but mostly from her mom's beating before she left for a business trip. She matches it with something that perfectly reveals her collarbone - which is what she thinks is the best feature of her body. She puts on a pair of heels that she carefully chose, she was indecisive to get it but got it anyway. What's a complete transformation for a woman without heels? She thought of that. After getting all ready, she slings her new bag on her shoulder and walks swiftly to the bus stop. People are looking at her. She tries to think that it's not because she's a highschool student with that kind of outfit. Well, it's Friday, which by the school rules is the only day students can wear anything they want to wear, not the school uniform that shows off her miserable highschool life. She hops on the bus and gets stared at until she goes off to get in front of the school gate. She inhales heavily, taking in the new life she has been imagining before this. She exhales, trying to let go from all the insults, the strikes and the pains given to her by her past self. She steps on the school grounds with everyone looking at her. Thank God there were only few students at the time or else she might not handle the pressure. She walks with slight confidence to her classroom. She trips on a stone before she reaches the door. When she thinks everything is going smooth, it turns out not. Sana is the only person in the classroom. She's writing something on a notebook. Probably reading. The girl is sure at the top and ahead of everyone. There won't be classes today because it's only the announcement of semestral ranks and grades but she's still the first person to arrive in class. As for Mina, this is her first time being early. Thanks to whatever her mother is doing from nowhere today, she gets to do what she wants at home and gets to school at this time, no beating and curses that adds to the unending "Why did I have you as a child?" (Which she has probably heard a million times since her father died because of saving her from being hit by a truck when she was still an innocent four-year-old who happened to be stubborn and played on the side of the street.) Mina has a question now, too, which has been a question she has since Sana made her a young, dumb and lifeless highschool kid. "Why should the school system be like this? That the students should be arranged in random classes? I should have been a mile away from Sana." But Mina can't do anything but question for she goes inside and wow, Sana has not lifted her head to throw her notebook to her. That's a relief. As soon as she sits in her usual area, she dumps her head. The seats are almost all filled when their class adviser goes in with documents.

"Good morning. I'd like to congratulate you for there are three students who made it to the top 10 of your year level this time." He starts and the students inside try to guess who the third one is since the first two are obvious.

"As always, Minatozaki Sana made it again in the first spot. Let's give her a round of applause." He says and the students praise Sana. Her record has never been broken.

"I guess she's still not here, per usual. I don't get why she manages to be on the ranks when she's also the late comer of the year..." The students laugh because he is talking about their favorite person in the school and it is accurate. "So, though she's not here yet, let's give warm praises for Kim Dahyun." Everybody claps; they are giving her happy claps.

Someone shouts, "What's her rank this time?"

"Fortunately, she's back on the second again," The teacher says and the students laugh again. Dahyun is known to be going back and forth from the second to the third spot.

All this time, Mina has her head down her desk. Her hands are sweating and she's rubbing her palms together.

"So, for the last one from this class. She's on the tenth of the ranking. I didn't expect to see her name but I'm glad she had finally worked hard for the last semester of her high school life. Let's give a big hand for Myoui Mina." The teacher says and the class goes loud and kind of wild. They can't believe what they just heard.

Sana stands from her seat, "How can her name be in that paper? That's ridiculous. How can the faculty be mistaken of this crucial ranking? She's not even here." She's in rage.

The students nod and are convinced that it was really a mistake.

"But the head checked this multiple times and I saw her test p-"

"Uhm, I'm here." Mina raises her head then her right arm.

Everyone looks at the back and becomes frozen. How can this beautiful lady be Mina?

Everyone doesn't include Sana. She walks to Mina's spot and holds her arms tightly. She makes Mina stand.

She looks in her eyes, "Oh, so you think you're better than me now? Just because you get top 10 and you think you're beautiful when you're just dressed up with clothes you probably got from shoplifting?" She challenges Mina who should be having tears in her eyes now but Mina is only clenching her fists. She's a different Mina as of today.

"Dream on, trash." Sana says and the sound of it along with the thunder of a slap she gave to Mina roars in the classroom.

Mina doesn't appear affected of it, though. She stands firmly.

"I am not saying I'm better than you now." Mina starts, the first words she gives Sana after all the longtime bullying she has experienced from her. "But I might say that next time. So protect your status, Sana." Mina walks to the door.

Everyone got the chills and though she won't admit it, Sana got it, too. But she is Sana and she can never accept defeat. She follows Mina to the door and kicks her back. Mina goes down and Sana strangles her from the back. Mina is facing the floor.

"You can never go close to me. You're just a piece of trash. Remember your place, Myoui." Sana pulls both Mina's arms and Mina screams but she manages to get out of Sana's hold. She slams Sana to the floor and says all the words she had kept for a long time.

"You're the second worst person I've known. You think you're above everybody when you're not. You gave me the worst experiences I had in this school. I don't want to do this but here's for every bad thing you've done to me." Mina slaps Sana. That's harder than what she received earlier. "I'm finally standing up." Mina stands and Sana holds her leg so she goes down again. They're now fighting down outside the door, with everybody looking at them. No one dares to stop them, even their teacher. That's until someone arrives.

"What's happening?" Dahyun sees the crowd in front of their classroom. Perks of being small, she manages to get pass the crowd and sees Sana getting someone in trouble.

"What are you doing?" Dahyun says to the crowd and to Sana.

Dahyun tries to pull Sana away from her prey but she won't just stop.

"Minatozaki, stop! Come on."

Sana punches the person beneath her.

"Sana, stop now!"

Dahyun puts so much force to finally pull Sana away from the chaos she was causing. She then moves to help the person Sana has damaged.

"Are you alright?" She gets the hair strands out of the girl's face.

"Mina?" She realizes that it's the girl.

"You're finally on time, Dahyun." Mina smiles and closes her eyes.

"." Dahyun doesn't normally curse, only at times like this, when she sees Mina like this.

She carries Mina and like Flash, hurries to the school clinic.

"She's just sleeping, right?" Dahyun says as soon as she puts Mina on a bed.

"Tell us what happened first." The nurse says and Dahyun tells her the knowledge she has of what happened.

"She probably fainted because of exhaustion and pain. We'll check on her. Go out for now." The nurse says and Dahyun obeys.

She doesn't want to leave Mina so instead of going to the chapel inside the school, she prays quietly in her seat.

After some time, the nurse goes out and tells her Mina got external bruises and they already tended to them. By the looks of it, internal bleeding is out of the line but she should be checked again in a hospital to be sure.

"She's still asleep?" Dahyun asks the nurse.

"She woke up. You can go in now," the nurse says and Dahyun replies "thank you" and bows.

Dahyun goes inside and approaches the bed Mina's in. She looks at the girl who has her eyes c