One-shot story – Alone                                  

Looking out of the window on the bus with a depressed look on her face. Mihama Nana heaved a loud sigh as another day had started. She really hated to go to school as she was always alone. No one would make friends with her because of her “strict” personality. No one ever tried to understand her well and neither do they even care or bothered to make an effort in trying to learn anything about her. To add on, they judge her by her outer characters and personality, which to them was the strict and nasty and horrible Nana.

The thing that she ever looked forward were the holidays. No one ever knew that she was suffering depression and to make her depression worse, her classmates didn’t care about her and she had no friends. Who said that she didn’t make an effort to blend in? She tried to talk to her classmates and tried to bond with them, but as humans, people who are bonded within themselves can never ever welcome another person in. No matter what she tries or do.

Days continued and it was the seventh week of school, somehow during that period, she had lost her smile and grew more and more upset. Again, she began to mask her true feelings and gave a fake appearance. Then again, it wasn’t really necessary since no one gave a damn about her and she was treated invisible.

She had depression during her O level exams period and often she would hurt herself by cutting. Then, she went for treatments and counselling. Since then, her world had collapsed. Luckily, she managed to recover before the counsellor had to give her medicine to control her emotions. She thought that there was hope, there was light, she never gave up in living and thought someone out there would accept her for who she really is. However, hopes crashed down like a speed of a roller coaster.

During her tertiary days where she had her seven weeks of school, she was left out and no one would even bother to understand her. No one would even want to ask her, “What’s wrong?” when she was obviously looking upset. No one cared.

She was left out in the groupings of project works and hurt herself. She started to have irrational thoughts about herself and was on the verge of going crazy. She went to school as usual, entered the classroom as usual but when others started to come in, no one came to sit with her. Again, all alone.

She bottled her true feelings, bottling and bottling it up. It continued.

During her meeting with her group mates to discuss about the project, tears began to form at her eyes and began to tear down to her cheeks. Everyone in the group were shocked and had taken aback of the situation. She began to tremble, tremble badly. Her lips were quivering and soon she burst her emotions into screams and cries. She ran to the toilet with one of the female group member following her.

Of course the girl was panicking to see Nana outburst in the toilet and tried to comfort her. “Mihama-san, are you okay?” she asked. However, Nana kept crying and pushed her away. It was too much for her. With too much of bottled feelings, she couldn’t control her negative emotions and thus, burst into cries. “Should I leave you alone?” the girl asked. Nana didn’t reply her but only to hug herself tight, not seeing anyone. Soon, the girl left Nana alone and went back to the group, thinking that Nana would calm down if she was alone.

It had been two hours and Nana was not back from the washroom. Everyone began to worry and discussed on who would checked on her. “Hana, would you mind checking on Nana?” the girl who went after Nana asked.

“Eh~ Why not you go instead, Mia-chan. You went after her just now, so you should checked on her,” Hana pushed.

Without a choice, Mia went to the washroom but only to find no one was in the toilet. Thus, she went back to the group and told the rest that there was no one in the washroom and said that she had no idea where Nana had went. Hence, they decided to wait for a little while more for Nana to return.

Another two hours had passed but Nana had still yet to return. Mia then went back to the toilet to see if Nana was still there. However, there wasn’t anyone in the washroom. Feeling very unsettled, they decided to split up and look for her. After an hour around the campus, they finally found her and to everyone’s horror, she was dead.

She committed suicide by hanging herself to the bridge and jumped down, resulting her feet to be dangling in mid-air.

It might be a rash action but have she had decided to end her life since the start of depression. Even she had recovered, she wasn’t really recovering but faked it as she didn’t want to waste any more time in visiting the counsellor. If she was accepted for who she was – a gloomy person but can be very fun and friendly, she wouldn’t have died. If only her classmates had tried to know her better, talk to her and wanting to know her more. She would have gotten out of depression and become more cheerful and friendly. If only Mia had stayed with her and hear her out, she would have felt better and avoided the thought of ending her life and done it. If only there was someone who could understand her and think about her. If only she had accepted into a group, accepted for who she was and loved her, she wouldn’t have died.

Perhaps it’s a small thing, being accepted and being loved. However, to others like Nana, it isn’t a small thing. All she wanted was to be loved and accepted for who she is, rather to mask her true self and acted like a different person. To others, being popular is a natural thing, but to her, it wasn’t. If only things were better…