* (♛) Gluttony ▬▬▬

The boy said he was fine. He said he didn’t need my pity. But as I watched him walk away into the distance, his tiny body slouching in sadness, I felt useless. A small boy this age could strongly put up with this grief and still be able to smile. Yet I… I couldn’t even lift the corners of my mouth without tears streaming from my eyes. I had forgotten how to smile.

But I needn’t to ask much more in life. My misfortunes simply keep cropping up, one after another. Lies and betrayal circle me, enticing me with its wickedness; tempting me to its lair. I would never lie to get what I want. If something happened, then it happened. The future came into the present, which slipped into the past.

But as I lay on my blanket, I thought about something. School. The one place I hated the most. But what if I came back? Will the past leave me if I had someone to support me? Will education teach me to spot lies?  I knew I was asking for more than I needed, but I needed just one pillar in my life. One pillar that would hold up my heart for the world to see. That night I decided, I was coming to school.

I still remember one school that was near the apple farm. It was quite a small school. No uniform was needed. No textbooks were needed; only paper. And the tuition fees were so just enough for me to scrape my money in. It wasn’t a school where education was top notch; according to rumours, it was full of delinquents and troublemakers.

As I carefully counted my money and slipped it securely into my pocket, something struck me. Food. Using the amount of money I had left would mean I would have to starve for at least a few days. I looked in my box to find a few loaves of bread and a couple of apples. It would be enough. If I ate a just a bit a day, I could leave enough until I found more money on the streets.

The next day was going to be my first school day. That was, if my enrolment form was accepted on the spot along with my tuition money. Luckily, it was. The nice teacher at the front desk led me to my class. When I asked her if my ‘rags’ were okay to wear to class, she had a tiny crease between her eyebrows as she answer my question. ‘To be honest, you won’t survive a single day if you wore that to class.’

I really didn’t want to seem like I was asking too much but I couldn’t help it. To hear that I would simply be teased again brought back memories of my painful past. I knew the kind teacher felt pity because she took off her own beautifully weaved cardigan and insisted that I keep it. As I carefully held the cardigan in my arms, I promised myself, to never get more than I needed ever again.

Before I stepped into my new classroom, I checked myself in the reflection of a nearby window. The cardigan suited me. The simple colour of it brought attention away from my scars, and the intricate design seemed to radiate beauty.

‘Are you ready?’ the teacher asked as she opened the door. ‘Come in!’ I stepped in anxiously, closing my eyes. I wanted to shield myself from everyone. I felt at least 20 pairs of eyes look at me. ‘Don’t be afraid. Open your eyes.’

Slowly, I lifted my head and adjusted my eyes and heart to the new environment. ‘This is Mami Sasazaki,’ the teacher told the silent class. ‘Now be nice to her.’ There were no delinquents and troublemakers as the rumours stated. There wasn’t anyone that pointed and laughed at me. Rather than that, it was a whole class full of happy students. Some were smiling at me, and some were waving shyly from behind their books. Everyone was normal.

The teacher pointed me to my seat, as she handed me a book from the stack on her table. It was a seat right at the back corner, near the window. Next to me was a girl. She had long black hair, pale skin, big eyes and looked perfect in every way. As I sat down, I felt my jaw drop a little as she smiled sweetly.

Into the lesson, I lost track of the passage people were reading. The words were too long and I simply couldn’t understand much at all. I nervously tapped the girl beside me on the shoulder. She gracefully turned around, smiling. ‘Where are we up to?’ I whispered.

Silently, she stretched out her arm and pointed to a paragraph far away from where I thought it was. I barely held in a gasp as I saw it. A huge scar was lined up her arm. She noticed that I was staring and angrily snatched her arm back. I suppressed all my desire to question the mark, but as I tried to concentrate on the passage, I could feel her laser beam glare on the side of my head.

Everyone had to go outside for break-time. As I uselessly followed everyone out, someone pulled me back and started to drag me in the opposite direction. I struggled aimlessly, but I couldn’t get loose. A door banged open and before I knew it, I was in front of the mirror of the ladies’ bathroom. And clutching my new cardigan was the pretty girl.

‘My name is Rina Suzuki,’ she spat, letting go of my clothes. ‘Don’t spread a single word about what you saw. Don’t look at it ever again. Don’t even think about it.’ I nodded. I didn’t know what to say to her. ‘What do you want?’ she growled, her beautiful, sweet face contorted into a grotesque expression of pure anger. ‘What do you want so you won’t tell anyone?’

I opened my mouth; no sound came out. What did I want? Fame? Fortune? But my promise was still lingering at the back of my mind; the promise that I would never get more than I would ever need. ‘Nothing,’ I whispered to her. ‘Nothing at all.’

Rina stared at me. ‘You breathe a single world about this,’ she whispered back, pulling up her sleeve. ‘And this will happen.’ I looked at her blankly. What will happen? My question seemed to be written across my face. Rina pulled me by my hair into the nearest toilet cubicle and kicked open the lid of the toilet.

‘This will happen of course, dear,’ she repeated. With a graceful movement, her hand reached the back of my skull and with all her might; she pushed my head into the toilet bowl. Pain. It was all I felt. Rina’s footsteps echoed in the bathroom as she walked out. I slowly lifted my head up. Everything around me was hazy. The water in the toilet was dyed a crimson red. Blood dripped down from my forehead. The last thing I remembered was a single drop of my filthy blood, staining the beautiful cardigan I never deserved to wear.