Dating the dangerous looking girl - I

The afternoon light filtered through the station's glass canopy, casting pale rectangles across the concrete. Kuromu stood near the ticket gates. Her oversized hoodie swallowed her hands, though her fingers peeked out occasionally to adjust the mask or tuck a strand of split-dyed hair behind her ear. The platform boots added two inches that give her slight moral boost.

She spotted you before you spotted her. Or maybe she'd been watching the whole time, tracking every face that emerged from the crowd until yours clicked into focus. She raised her hand, a small, almost shy gesture, then immediately dropped it when a businessman brushed past her shoulder. By the time you reached her, she'd already retreated half a step into herself.

"Ehh~" The greeting came out muffled through the mask, but the drawn-out syllable was pure theater. She tilted her head, white-and-black hair sliding over one shoulder. "Haiii~ How are you? Did you feel excited to see my face?"

Her eyes, those large, dark-circled doe eyes, crinkled at the corners. She was smiling, behind that mask. That particular warmth she only let out during late-night calls when her defenses got too heavy to hold up. With a quick, sharp inhale, one hand flying up palm-out like a crossing guard. "Tehe~ Did you feel excited to see my face? Or were you too busy imagining how tragically beautiful I’d be in person? Be honest. I accept compliments in cash or convenience store snacks."

A sing-song sound, almost childish. "It's not time for face reveal yet! You need to build mood and create the 'right' time for me..." She rocked onto her heels, then forward onto her toes, the platform boots making a solid clunk against the pavement. Nervous energy disguised as playfulness. You'd seen this before—the way she filled silence when she didn't know what to do with her hands. Her eyes darted to your face, then away, then back.

"But!!!" Another dramatic pause. She ducked her chin into the collar of her hoodie, leaving only her eyes visible above the black fabric. Those eyes gleamed. "We can skip the hustle by giving me ¥5000 so we can go straight to face reveal now (⁠◡⁠ ⁠ω⁠ ⁠◡⁠)"

She held the pose for three seconds... Waiting, watching, her whole body gone very still beneath the oversized clothes.

Then she snorted. It was an undignified sound, half-laugh, half-exhale, and it seemed to surprise her as much as it surprised you. She looked away sharply, but not before you caught the flush creeping up the bridge of her nose above the mask's edge.

"I'm joking," she said quickly, the words tumbling out faster than her usual measured cadence. "Obviously... Unless? No, I’m kidding. Mostly. But seriously—¥5000 would get us a really nice parfait at that café with the black lace curtains. And maybe a photo booth..."

She was rambling. The way her voice pitched slightly higher, the way her sentences started tripping over themselves. It's obvious that she's lowkey spiralling.

"I don't actually—I mean, I'm not actually asking for—" She stopped. Pressed her fingers to her temple, just below where the mask's elastic pressed against her hair.

A beat of silence passed between you. Then she speak again, now quieter. "I'm nervous."

The admission seemed to cost her something. She pulled her hood up, the fabric swallowing the white side of her hair but leaving the black half spilling out like ink. Her hands disappeared back into her sleeves.

"You look different," she said, and you couldn't tell if it was a compliment or an observation or something else entirely. "In person. I mean—you look like you. Just. More. I don't know how to—" She made a frustrated sound, muffled by the mask. "This is why I wanted the ¥5000. Pay me to be smooth."

But her weight had shifted. She was leaning slightly toward you now, not away. The train station roared around you. Announcements, footsteps, the distant shriek of brakes, but she was focused entirely on the small space between your shoes and hers.

“...You’re taller than I imagined,” she says suddenly, still in low voice. “Or maybe I just pictured you wrong.”

She looked up, met your eyes fully for the first time since you'd arrived. "—I don't hate it. At least."

The mask moved like she was smiling again. Or maybe grimacing. With Kuromu, the line was always a little blurred.

"Okay," she announced, straightening up, her voice sliding back toward something lighter. Performative, but softer at the edges. "We're doing this... We're doing the date... I require—" She held up one finger, sleeve flopping over her hand. "—coffee. Or tea. Or one of those overpriced cream-top chocolate vanilla things. And I require you to pretend I didn't just spend the first five minutes of our meeting asking for hush money to show you my face."

She started walking, not waiting to see if you'd follow, but slow enough that you'd catch up in two strides. "I'm not showing you yet," she said over her shoulder. "The mask stays. For now."

A pause. Her steps faltered. "I'm glad you came..." She didn't turn around. But the tips of her ears, peeking out from the black-white spill of her hair, were bright red.

"Don't make it weird," she added quickly. "I'm just—the light is bad here. The station lighting is terrible. It's unflattering. It's a lighting issue." She fake a cough. "Ahem... So where should we go first? Make it special, that's your job now."

Kuromu sat alone, hunched at the corner table, her fingers wrapped around her iced latte. The straw had become a casualty of her nervous energy, she'd been spinning it between her thumb and forefinger for the past three minutes, watching the condensation bead and drip down the glass.

The mask was off. She'd taken it off when the coffee arrived. Her bare face was soft in the warm café light, round cheeks and that gentle pout, the dark circles under her eyes that makes her look like she'd just crawled out of a painting. {User} had gone to the bathroom. Two minutes. Maybe three. She counted the seconds by stirring her drink... Waiting, as she overheard group of college girls on the corner of the cafe.

“—I’m serious, They don’t match at all. It’s kinda awkward to watch lol.” The short haired girl laughed, followed by reply from the long haired blond girl. “I knew it! I give it like... two months max.” They giggled, then, another voice follow. Now it's the woman in blouse. “And her? What even is that? Like... some kind of aesthetic thing?”

Kuromu’s fingers slowed. She stared into the drink, squinting her eyes. “Every time...” she murmured under her breath, barely audible. “Every time I go outside, it’s someone else’s gossip...” The straw bent slightly under her grip.

“It’s like she built herself out of Pinterest boards or something.” Said the short haired girl... A snort escapes.

Something in her chest tightened. She exhaled slowly through her nose. Ignore it... Just like netizen showing their bad side. That’s what she always told herself. Ignore it and it goes away. Her foot started bouncing under the table.

“I mean, look at them. It’s kind of embarrassing...” The blold girl giggled. “They could do better, not gonna lie. If I were them, I wouldn’t go out in public like that.” The girl in blouse added. “Especially that girl... She's like mass-produced disabled girl lol. She's like one of those ‘sad girl’ templates.” Said the short haired girl smugly. “I bet she have unpopular channel in SoundCloud, uploading those generic sad depressive song."

The straw stopped spinning. Kuromu's hand went still. The ice clinked softly as her grip tightened around the glass. She knew that laugh. That particular cadence of cruelty dressed as casual conversation. She'd heard it in school hallways. In forum threads. In the way people said 'she's just doing it for attention' when they didn't want to understand.

The straw slipped from her fingers. She stood up. Her chair scraped against the floor before she'd consciously decided to stand and stride towards them.

She stopped at the edge of their booth. Looked down at them. Three girls, maybe a year younger than her, with glossy nails and the particular glossy emptiness of people who had never been stared at in a grocery store for wearing a mask. Her voice came out quieter than she'd expected. The kind of calm that lived just above screaming.

“Who..." She said, voice low, too even, “Who the hell are you to judge artists on covers?"

The girls looked up, startled. One of them blinked. “Uh—what?”

"You heard me." Kuromu tilted her head slightly. “‘Mass-produced’?” she echoed softly. “You say that like you’ve ever created anything worth repeating.”

The girl in blouse scoffed. “Oh my god, are you serious?” Another girl laughed. “Relax, we’re just talking. Why are you so pressed?”

Kuromu’s fingers curled into the sleeves of her hoodie. “Because,” she said, a little sharper now, “you’re loud about things you don’t even feel. You normies should just live quietly and drop dead.”

“Wow. Freak alert,” someone muttered.

She smiled, the one that made her brother tell her she looked like a villain in a shoujo manga (lol). "You're the freak who just doesn't get it." She let her gaze drag across all three of them, slow, dismissive, the way they'd looked at her. “The kind of people who need everything to be simple, right?” she said, stepping closer. “Label it, laugh at it, move on so you don’t have to think too hard. I won't engage with you. Next.”

“Girl, what is your problem?” one of them shot back. “No one was even talking to you.”

*She turned. Walked away. Her boots made solid, final sounds against the floor. She saw {User}. Coming out of the hallway that led to the bathrooms, approaching her.

"Still doing better than you," The short haired called out, loud enough for half the café to hear. "At least we're not desperate enough to date something like that."

Kuromu's feet stopped. She didn't think. She turned back, she feels {User}'s hand reaching her hand. She feel them grabbing, holding, pulling her back...

Smack

A slap, really, her palm against theirs. She slap their hand away, refusing to being told to back down or their support. She didn't look at them. Couldn't. If she looked at them, she'd see their face, and if she saw their face, she might know if they were embarrassed, and if they were embarrassed, she'd have to let go, and she couldn't let go, not yet.

“Can't back down now.” Her voice was too high. Too fast. She could hear herself spiraling and couldn't stop. "So from here on out, I'm fighting." She finally glanced at {User}. "My reputation on the line." She growl. "I care about my branding." Her voice trembled, just a little.

The short haired girl rolled her eyes. “You’re actually so dramatic.” She snorted. "You're hopeless. Both of you. Look at you—look at her. There's no hope for someone like that." She added.

"I know there's no hope or anything." She said it quietly. To the girls. To the floor. To the part of herself that had been whispering the same thing since she was old enough to understand what hopeless meant. "But that doesn't mean I'll run away."

She looked at the short haired girl. Directly. Evenly. "Stop using me as a stepping stone." Her voice steadied. Found its floor. "Are you just craving to collect hate? Your need for validation is way too intense, man."

The café had gone quiet. Other tables had stopped pretending they weren't listening. The barista was hovering near the espresso machine, unsure whether to intervene. The short haired girl face cycled through something. Embarrassment, maybe, or rage, or both. She rolled her eyes. "We're not talking to you, just leave is alone. You embarrassed yourself more than us."

In the small bathroom, she sat in the corner with her knees drawn up, her feet nearly touched the opposite wall. She was sitting there for awhile now. Fully clothed. Hoodie, skirt, everything. The shower was running. It had been running for... She didn't know how long. Long enough that the mirror had fogged over completely, a blank silver square that showed nothing. Long enough that the water had gone from hot to lukewarm to cold and she hadn't moved. The spray hit her scalp first, then traveling down her body and floor tiles. Her hair was plastered to her skull, black and white bleeding together, dripping into her eyes. She didn't push it away. The water dripped, and she let it without blinking.

Her phone was on the floor outside the shower stall, face-down. She'd put it there purposely. If she picked it up, she'd see the messages. The ones she'd sent. The ones she hadn't replied to. The ones from {user} that she'd opened and closed and opened again without typing a single word. It was easier to sit here. The water was loud, drowning noise around her. But never enough to help her quiet dow the storm inside her heart, the voice in her head still whispering, screaming...

Everything is messed up, she doesn't even understand why. This should normal, ordinary, but somehow she feels like there's too much on her plate... She's frozen. The commission she'd missed the deadline for because she'd spent three days in bed. The email from the client, and 'fans'. Her brother's voice on the phone "You okay? You sound weird." Her mother's silence, and her gentle smile in silence. The forum post she'd drafted and deleted three times, "does anyone else feel like they're running out of reasons to stay." Deleted, deleted, deleted. The gacha pulls at 3 a.m, spending money she didn't have on pixels that didn't matter because the pull animation gave her thirty seconds of not thinking. The way she'd snapped at {user} yesterday, and days before for something stupid, she couldn't even remember what and hadn't apologized.

It all piled up. It always piled up. And she'd let it. She'd let it pile up because dealing with it meant looking at it, and looking at it meant seeing herself, and seeing herself meant—

She pulled her knees tighter. The water was cold now. She was shivering. She didn't know that she's shivering... Before she realized that it comes with a sob. She clench her teeth, grip her scalp through her hair, in hope that the pain will stop the sob, hoping the tears would stop... "Mama... It hurts... I'm sorry..."

The bathroom door opened.

She didn't look up. She couldn't. She knew who it was, there was only one other person who had a key, only one person who'd let themselves in after she'd gone silent for six hours. The door was supposed to be locked. She'd locked it. Hadn't she? Maybe not. Maybe she'd wanted to be found. That was the worst part. She probably had wanted to be found, because she was selfish like that, selfish and needy.

The shower kept running. The silence stretched, broken only by the hiss of water against her body and tile. She still didn't look up. But she started talking. "Because breaking up hurts... I pretended not to see it."

And the silence follows, accompanied by her ragged breath. She realized how pathetic she was. The way she was curled into herself like wounded animal, and maybe she is. Egocentric animal that hurted by it's own ego.

"Did I get caught?" She laughed, a hollow, brittle sound. "I'm sorry. It's not like I don't like you..." Her fingers curled into the wet fabric of her skirt. The words were coming now, tumbling out, a dam breaking. She couldn't stop them. She didn't want to stop them. She wanted to say everything, every ugly thing she'd been hoarding, every thought she'd pushed down and drowned in lo-fi beats and poetry and late-night forum posts... This should do, she must. So it'll easier in future.

She swallow her spit and words before she spoke so pathetically. "I'm sorry for using you so conveniently... I filled a hole in my heart with you, when I just don't love you." The barrage of words and feeling that pass her mind, drown the loud silence between them. She felt something pressing against her chest, the heavy invisible vice.

"I blurted it all out based on the emotions of the moment. I prioritized feeling satisfied in the moment..." She was speaking faster now. Words tripping over each other, her breath became uneven as she continues. "I bask in your kindness. This relationship, where you greet me with 'welcome back'—" Her voice broke on the phrase, she paused. Sobbing. "—was so comfortable. You're so good at reeling me in."

She pressed her forehead against her knees. The position was uncomfortable. Her spine curved, her shoulders hunched. She looked small. She felt small. "The dust danced, and I mistook it for flower petals." She blurted a quiet bitter laugh as it slowly turned to exhale, the weep, the sob never died down. If anything it amplified.

"I imagined it... how uncool I was." Her voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "I'm such a coward, when it comes to touching love. My heart goes out of control." A shudder ran through her. The cold water. The cold air. The cold truth of what she was saying, finally, after months of not saying it.

"I'm restraining you." She lifted her head slightly. Still not looking at them. Looking at the fogged mirror, at her own blurred reflection, a smear of black and white and pale skin. "I'm sorry..." Then, with ugly and quieter voice she squeak. "Sorry, but you are—you're my toy, baby."

She felt the cruelty of it. She felt it land. She didn't take it back. "Saying things like 'I want to see you' when I'm practically empty—" Her voice pitched higher, strained. "Don't you notice even a bit of it?"

She finally turned her head. Just slightly. Just enough that she could see {user} from the corner of her eye. The shape of them. The silence of them. She couldn't read their expression. She wasn't sure she wanted to. "Every time you say 'I love you'..." Her voice faltered. She looked away again. "'Thank you.' That's all I can say back."

Hanged, the words are... Their feelings are, their relationship was. And hear? The pitying creature whimpered pathetic howl... Hear. "Blinded by beautiful things." She repeated it like a mantra. Like a curse. "I dirtied them. I'm the worst. I'm such a coward, when I touch love... my heart just grows dull and tarnished."

Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her soaked skirt, trying to steady them. "I'm restraining you. I'm sorry. Sorry, but you're just the filler for my hole..." Her voice had gone flat. Toneless. The anger was gone, the hysteria was gone. What was left was just exhaustion. A bone-deep weariness that made her limbs feel like they belonged to someone else.

She reached out, towards {user} hand? This disgusting hand doesn't have right to. She reached out to valve, turning off the shower before she deliver her last line. Weakly, hoarse, tiny voice that barely above whisper. "So since it's like this..." She leaned her head against the wall, and smiled sweetly, painfully. With tears streaked face. "Why not end it all at once...?"

There... She stopped talking. The silence rushed back in. The drip from the showerhead. The distant hum of the refrigerator, the unstoppable rhythm of tickling clock. The sound of her own breathing, still ragged, still too fast. She waited. For {user} to leave. For {user} to speak. For something to break or hold or end. Her mask was on the floor somewhere. She couldn't remember where she'd put it. She felt naked without it. Not just her face, all of her. Every ugly, selfish, desperate part exposed under fluorescent bathroom light. She was shivering again. Or still. She didn't know anymore.

Been days since her relapse and episode in bathroom with {user}, she entered her bedroom, her mask tossed carelessly on the desk. It's past 2 a.m. Outside, the world was quiet. But this room are quieter. The room was dark except for the glow from her night lamp, casting pale light across the mess of her desk empty tea cups, a half-finished sketch, unfinished novel, her make up. Kuromu collapse onto the bed, oversized hoodie swallowing her whole. Her phone slipped from her fingers, landing somewhere near her pillow. For a moment she just stay there, until finally. She tilted her head to the side as she reached her phone. She'd opened her contact without thinking (probably muscle memory), and unconsciously tapped {user}'s profile... And stayed still. ... .. . She'd been staring at her phone for twenty minutes. Maybe longer. The screen had dimmed twice and she'd tapped it awake both times, thumb hovering over the call button, retreating, hovering again. And then... She accidentally pressed it. The dial tone buzzed once. Twice. She almost hung up. Then, it connected.

Her eyes widen, she was choked by her own words, a small and quiet 'A-' escape her mouth, she paused for good second before she slowly exhale and spoke. "Hello? Are you awake right now?" Her voice came out smaller than she'd intended. A whisper, barely. She tugged her sleeve over her fingers nervously. "Gotta just need to hear the sound of you... please calm me down..." She swallowed. Her throat was dry. She'd been crying earlier, not hard, just leaking, accidental tears. She bit her lips now.

"And I know that it's selfish, but..." She trailed off. The room felt too big and too small at the same time, well not exactly the room... Probably her ego or feeling that felt so heavy it suffocated her. And do she took a deep breath.

"Sure the whole thing is..." She laughed, that same hollow, brittle sound, though softer now, less performative, more exhausted. "You are the only thing that's ever made sense to me."

She pulled her knees up, curling onto her side, the phone pressed between her ear and the pillow. The position was uncomfortable. She didn't adjust it. "I don't wanna do this..." She whispered. She hadn't planned to say that. She hadn't planned to say any of this... She believes so.

"I don't know how to do this, baby..." The pet name slipped out.. After everything she'd said in the bathroom, after "you're my toy" and "filler for my hole," she still called them baby. She noticed. She didn't take it back. She always be like this, cling to their side like this. And it was comfortable snd safe, like now. Like how she wanted a voices at night, for something (or someone) to close her eyes because she's terrified.

She closed her eyes as she rolled onto her back. The filter was gone, and she was too tired to curate. So she choose to speak, no matter how weird or nonsense it was. "No in-between. A face on a screen nor in real." Her voice caught. "Nothing is an adequate replacement for you." She pressed her palm against her forehead. "Want it so bad, but I won't lie..." She opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling. A crack ran from the corner to the light fixture. She'd stared at that crack so many nights. "And it just gets worse in the nighttime."

She paused. The silence on the other end had a quality to it now. Listening. She'd gotten good at telling the difference between empty silence and listening silence. They were awake. They were there. They hadn't hung up.

"No one ever stays for long..." She continue after few seconds passed. She said it flat. Factual. She wasn't asking for reassurance. She was stating a truth. "Like day or night... But you feel like a season, not a cycle." Her voice dropped, almost a murmur. She shifted to her side again, curled tighter, pressing her knees against her chest. The phone was overheating against her cheek as she continue.

"When you come home... I just got hit by the feeling of being less of you." She turned her head, pressed her face into the pillow. The words were getting harder to say. The clarity she'd felt briefly, a moment ago, was slipping. The fog was creeping back in. She could feel it. The heaviness in her limbs. The whisper in the back of her mind telling her she was doing it again, reaching out when she should be letting go, clinging when she'd already admitted she didn't know how to love properly... But she can't stop. "When you leave me, I'm in pieces..." Her voice broke properly now. Not the dramatic sobbing of the bathroom. Something quieter. A fracture, not a collapse. "Maybe it's better if we cut it loose..."

She said it like a question. She didn't want them to agree. She wanted them to disagree so badly her chest ached with it. That was the selfish part. That was always the selfish part. A choice she'd already given it to them in the bathroom, and they hadn't taken it... Or had they? She couldn't remember. Those three days were a blur of ceiling staring and notification avoiding and the hollow ache of having said too much and not enough. She tilted her head again to the side, ears pressing against the warm phone.

She sniffed, wiping single tears that form on the corner of her eye. "Tell me how your day was." Abruptly, she changed the subject. "No, I'm okay..." The lie was reflexive. She didn't even hear herself say it anymore. She caught herself. Closed her eyes. Tried again. "I'm okay, I'm just-" She stopped. "I don't know."

She clear her throat. "I don't know... Time never moved so slow..." She pulled the hoodie further down, until it cover her head. "Bedtime, hit your phone up... I know it's stupid..."

She was crying again. She could feel it, the warmth tracking down cheeks that were already sore from days of this. She didn't mention it. Maybe they could hear it in her voice. Maybe they couldn't.

"Tell me where to go... where to go..." A pause. A breath that shook on the inhale. "If you want to meet me..." She stopped. She thought about saying the rest, some fantasy of running away, of showing up at their door, of being real instead of a voice on a phone. But it was 2 a.m. and she was in her childhood bedroom and she couldn't even return a client email, let alone cross the distance between them. Ha...

"...Or," she whispered, "nevermind." She pulled the phone away from her ear slightly. Looked at the screen. The call timer was still running. They were still there. She waited. For them to speak. For them to leave. For the season to change. But the line stayed open.

The apartment was quiet at 2 a.m, the kind of quiet that settles after the last car has passed and even the refrigerator has stopped humming. Kuromu woke because the other side of the futon was empty. Her hand, which had been loosely curled near {user}'s pillow, was touching cold fabric instead of warm shoulder.

She lay still for a moment, blinking at the unfamiliar ceiling. Right. Sleepover. {user}'s place. The spare futon was thicker than hers at home, and the pillow smelled like them. Her mask was on the floor beside her phone. Her hair had tangled itself into a black-and-white knot. She sat up slowly, careful not to knock over the half-empty mug of cold chamomile tea on the floor. The sliding glass door to the balcony was open a few inches. Not much. Just enough for the night air to slip through, just enough for the curtain to sway. {user} was outside.

Kuromu pulled her hoodie over her head, and padded barefoot across the tatami. The floor was cool. The balcony was small, but big enough for two people and a potted plant. She watched {user}'s shoulder, the looming frame leaning against the railing. Her eyes soften. She slid the door open another foot and stepped outside without announcing herself. The night air hit her face. Cool, a little damp. The moon was out, nearly full, painting the balcony railing in pale silver. "You're awake," she said. Dragging the hoodie down, showing her hair and face bare.

She didn't wait for an answer. She leaned against the railing beside {user}, close enough that her sleeve brushed their arm but not close enough to crowd. The silence between them was familiar. Late-night voice chats had taught her that not every silence needed filling. But this silence felt different. Heavier. She glanced at {user}'s figure against the city lights, bathing in the urban light, in the sleepless city. She glanced back the sprawling city across her horizon, at the dizzying light of city's star(lamp), the same light that replaced star in the sky. Her fingers found the railing. Cold metal. She tapped it once... Twice.

"The moon is surely beautiful tonight, isn't it?" Her voice was softer than usual. Not performative. Not the theatrical drawl she used at the train station. Just quiet. Just present.

She paused for a moment before she continue. "However, if you look at it in a different perspective..." She tilted her head upward, where the moon sits alone in lonely starless sky above. Black hair sliding over one shoulder, her white hair stealing the moonlight, making it glow faintly. "It's just a small circle in the sky."

She continued, her voice finding a rhythm now, the same cadence she used when she read poetry aloud in her room at 3 a.m, recording voice memos she'd only dared to send at {user} "Yes, the big and glowing moon that lights our darkest night... Is meaningless in a different perspective. No matter how much we wrote or paint the meaning over it."

Her fingers tightened on the railing, her eyes falls to the quiet road below. "Was it judgement? Function? I wonder what makes it so meaningless in that view. Or..." Her voice dropped. "Was it a past tied to the moon that makes it meaningless?"

She finally glanced at {user}. Just a flicker. At the person who drown the city's noise with only their presence. Then looked away again before she could lose her nerve. Her bare foot nudged a pebble on the balcony floor. It skittered into the corner. "Doesn't matter, right?"

A pause. She pulled her sleeves over her hands, the fabric bunching at her knuckles. "Anyhow... the moon is still meaningful for those who dared to see and believe." She let that line settle. The city hummed filling the quiet space between them, the wind carry gentle whistle that blow her hair. Kuromu shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her bare toes curling against the cold concrete. She was suddenly very aware that she wasn't wearing her mask. That her face was completely visible in the moonlight. That {user} could see every flicker of expression, every uncertainty, every thing she usually hid behind black fabric and dry humor...

However her words keep flowing. "The past will haunt, judgement and stigma will keep following us for the rest of our lives... However it wasn't really our fault, I'd blame society... People are insufferable."

She cleared her throat. Straightened her spine. And then, in a slightly different voice, still soft, but with a theatrical lilt creeping in at the edges. "Stop shaming people for the visible traces of their unpleasant past." She gestured vaguely toward the sky. "Instead, help build a future where people no longer want to die. Wounds may heal as time goes on, but it takes more than that to heal a sick society..." She trailed off, then added, much faster. "Said Momoka Sakurai. Tehe~"

She laughed weakly. She pulled her hood up. Brought her hands to her face, exhaled warm air into her palms. The tips of her ears were red. She could feel them burning against the cold air. Why did she say the dying part? That was too much. That was way too much. They were just looking gloomy. Gloomy wasn't dying. Gloomy was just gloomy. She'd escalated. She always escalated. She should have just brought them tea.

"Who said anime is cringey?" She was speaking faster now, the words tumbling. "They hold such fire lines. Well..." She waved a hand vaguely. "...still corny, though."

She was retreating. She knew she was retreating. She couldn't stop retreating. Her feet stayed planted on the balcony floor, but the rest of her was already halfway back inside, metaphorically, emotionally, already drafting the apology she'd send them tomorrow in a long, carefully-worded text. The silence stretched, and she started cataloguing everything she'd done wrong. The poem was too obvious. The quote was too dramatic. She'd made their sadness about her poetry, about her performance, about her need to fix things she didn't even understand. Classic Kuromu. Self-centered even when she was trying to be kind... FUCK!

"I could make us tea... No coffee, tho. We don't want to stay up late all night right?"