I hate it when things are too quiet. I hate it even more when it's deathly still.
I love the sound of shower water as it pours down my head. It's super comforting, like water streaming off a raincoat.
My nude body was reflected in the mirror. It was almost perfectly symmetrical. I was blessed with a natural beauty, my features just pronounced enough to catch the eyes of all the boys. This was all objectively speaking, of course.
I liked the way my face looked, too. My eyes were a nice shape, my nose was straight, and my lips were plump. If someone said I looked like a handcrafted doll, well, you wouldn't hear this girl protesting! And it was all without make-up. I wouldn't be surprised if I was in the top ten most beautiful girls in all Japan.
Imagine if I actually thought that way, hah!
At the very least, I was cute, and my brother handsome. My parents had to be special to give birth to such a good-looking pair of children, but they tried to keep us away from anything to do with television or stardom. Made me think they must have stepped into those worlds in the past and had a bad time of it.
Don't laugh, but I'm actually quite perceptive and good at picking up on stuff like that! That's why I'm so good at playing the teacher's pet at school and in front of my parents. I soon learned that I could only be my true self around Senpai. I didn't need to bother reading the air. I could just pick on him all I wanted.
I started to take advantage of that comfort, and I feel really bad about it.
It was his fault, though.
Since the early days of elementary school, I used to watch anime in secret
on my phone. Because I wasn't allowed to watch TV, I'd always make stuff up and act it out myself, trying out all sorts of different voices. I remember the warm rush I felt when I realized I was getting better and better at those
voices.
I wanted to become a professional voice actress, but I held myself back,
knowing my mom would be against it. But then, he held out his hand to me. "Don't worry about what everyone else thinks. It's stupid to throw away
the one dream in your short life for the sake of others."
He showed me that the world was full of possibility.
I've liked him ever since then.
He was the first person I didn't need to be careful around. If he found me
annoying, then that was his punishment for not realizing how much I liked him. That was the pathetic excuse I told myself, anyway.
That reminds me. This time, he was being annoying.
He asked me to go shopping with him. I was so sure it was a date! But then he came out and said he wanted to invite the others!
I probably shouldn't have expected any better from him. I hated how stupidly excited his invitation made me, too. I was even showering this morning, when usually I left it till the evening!
I knew I had to be careful, just in case. I knew that Ozuma and Sumire- chan-sensei would both refuse Senpai's invitation. Ozuma, because he thought he was being clever, and Sumire-chan-sensei because she already had to look after her students during the week, and didn't want to put up with them on the weekend, too. They would refuse, but she wouldn't.
My strongest rival. The one who was in a fake relationship with Senpai. She was older than me. She was in his class. She wasn't just his friend's sister. She was closer to him than that.
She was in a far better position than me from the get-go! Call it women's intuition, but I knew she'd accept the invitation. I knew Mashiro-senpai liked Senpai, too.
Worse, she was super cute! I could shower for hours, spend ages working on my hair, and even put on the most expensive perfume in the world, and I still might not stand a chance against her.
I needed to be careful today.
As a new neighbor on our floor, I welcomed her. But things were different when it came to Senpai. Senpai was no longer gonna be the focus of my annoying nature. Today, I was saving it all for Mashiro-senpai.
"I'm not gonna let you steal him from me!"