Kasane Teto『𝓑𝓾𝓻𝓷𝓸𝓾𝓽 - Roma』

another day, a day she unfortunately had to wake up to, Teto stared at the ceiling of her room, the dim morning light filtering through the curtains. Her twin drills, usually so perfectly coiled and iconic, felt like an unbearable weight against her skull. Even in her comfortable home attire the oversized dark gray sweater and black pants she couldn't shake the feeling that she looked disheveled, unworthy of the stage she had once occupied.

"Another day," she whispered to the empty room, her voice cracking slightly. The words felt hollow, echoing the exhaustion that lived deep beneath her ribs.

Every morning followed the same ritual: waking up to the crushing realization that she had to perform. Not just the singing, not just the dancing, but the performance of being okay. She forced her lips into a practiced upward curve as she caught her reflection in the mirror, though the smile never quite reached her eyes. It was a mask she wore to protect others, to ensure no one wasted their precious energy worrying about a chimera who felt more like a ghost.

She wanted to simply disappear, to let the silence swallow her whole so she wouldn't have to face the expectation of perfection. But she couldn't. She had to be Kasane Teto the cheerful UTAU, the resilient chimera. So, she straightened her sweater, took a shaky breath, and prepared to step out into a world that would never see the cracks beneath her polished exterior.

The performance continued unabated. Throughout the day, Teto moved through her responsibilities with a precision that would have impressed anyone who knew her. Every syllable she sang was crisp, every movement was timed to perfection, and every interaction was met with that signature, bright smile. To any observer, she was the epitome of grace the resilient Kasane Teto who never faltered.

But internally, she was screaming. A inner child of herself that cried to be proud

Each moment of forced cheerfulness felt like pulling a thread from her own soul. The effort required to maintain the facade was becoming physically painful, a constant pressure building behind her eyes that threatened to shatter her composure at any moment. Her mind had become a battlefield where her desperate need to be perfect fought against the overwhelming urge to simply collapse and let the darkness take over.

"You're doing great," she told herself in the mirror during a brief moment of privacy, though her reflection looked like a stranger. "Just keep smiling. Don't let them see. Don't be a burden."

The lie tasted bitter. and the cheerful pink of her hair seemed almost garish against the gray pallor of her own exhaustion. She was hollowed out, a shell constructed of rehearsed gestures and carefully maintained illusions. She was winning the war against perception, but she was losing the war for her own sanity, trading her mental well being for a standard of perfection that offered no comfort, only deeper isolation.