World 386

More To It

Throughout most romance novels, you almost always see the weak protagonist with a best friend. The best friend doesn't get to do much of anything. She just exists as a support for the protagonist. Sometimes, the situation turns around and the best friend separates from the protagonist out of jealousy or spite. Other times, the best friend will leave for whatever reason. However, Hotaru felt she was more than all of that.

Hotaru was someone who understood who she was perfectly. In the world of the visual novel or romance novel, she was just the best friend. She would only exist to support Yurin through troubling times or she would exist as a romantic rival if the time came. She would be a static background character who existed as a foil for Yurin Akizuki. But there was more to her than that.

For one, Hotaru actually came from a mixed background. Her father was Icelandic while her mother was Japanese. Her full name was Hotaru Emirsdottir and she's getting a bit sick of everyone asking her how to spell her last name. She has no other siblings but it's not from a lack of trying. Her parents are simply too busy but they do wish to have another child. Hotaru would appreciate the sibling as well. If anything, it would make the household a lot less lonely. Still, despite the annoyance over having to spell her last name, Hotaru was proud of her Icelandic background and could speak a few Icelandic phrases. One day when she graduated from high school and got enough funding from her future career, she wishes to travel to Iceland and discover more about the native country of her father.

Another thing Hotaru opposed was the title of Yurin's best friend. It isn't because she hates Yurin, that wasn't the case at all. She utterly adores the timid and fragile girl and was willing to do anything to keep her safe from all kinds of harm. She'd be there if Yurin ever needed a listening ear or any kind of advice from the view of a best friend. On the other hand, Hotaru felt she needed Yurin as much as Yurin needed her. If Yurin wasn't around, Hotaru would have done so much stupid stuff in her life and would have made so many mistakes. Yurin was Hotaru's voice of reason when she needed it just as Hotaru was Yurin's rock when she needed it. The two were close, almost like sisters, and Hotaru wouldn't have it any other way.

As for if she would be a romantic rival for Yurin, such a thing was completely out of the question. For one, Yurin was too much in love with Ridou to even consider another possibility. Hotaru honestly found that kind of admirable. She knew who she wanted and was faithful to him. Hotaru wished Yurin all the best. Lord knows the girl deserved some happiness. Her only wish for Ridou Masahiro is that Yurin makes her the maid of honor when they eventually get married.

No, the man Hotaru desired was Shingen Yoshiharu. Desired, yes, but she was almost certain she could never have him. For one, Shingen had his heart set on Yurin and Hotaru refused to hurt anyone. It was one of her greatest weaknesses, she was too much of a pacifist. If ever there was a conflict, Hotaru would try to difuse the situation peacefully unless she was brought to a rage breaking point. Still, she was almost certain Shingen wouldn't see her romantically. After all, she was only the best friend. She was never meant to have focus be on her. Still, she felt there was more to her than just a best friend. Whether Shingen would realize that was up to him but for now, she would be content with just his friendship. She would put aside her feelings for him, purely for his sake and comfort Yurin to the best of her abilities. Did she wish she was the object of Shingen's affection? Yes, almost every day, but this wasn't the fate she was granted. Perhaps in another life, she might win his heart but for now, it wasn't the case.

However, she wasn't just static to a support for Yurin and her unrequited love for Shingen. She had more hobbies, a job even and a complex personality. Her hobbies included sewing, shiny hunting, designing and even reading. Sewing was a hobby she picked up on when she was little. She would sew old hand me down clothes and transform them into new outfits. Sometimes they would be fashion disasters but she wore them with pride. Other times, they would be transformed into toys that Yurin could have or small patches that Shingen could attach to his jacket. She felt happy whenever she sewed up something new and creative. It took her mind off of the loneliness and pain.

Her other hobby, shiny hunting, came from playing Pokemon Emerald one time and discovering a cute light green Marill found on route 117. She was very lucky to have caught it and got a rush of excitement, even adding it onto her team. He even had Huge Power so it was more competitively viable for her. Ever since then, she wanted more Shiny Pokemon. It was one of the main reasons why she spent so many hours on Pokemon games. She wanted to find more shiny Pokemon and spent hours and hours roaming the grass. She found a shiny Sentret in Soul Silver, a shiny Banette in Platinum, a shiny Wurmple in Emerald that became a shiny Beautifly, a shiny Basculin in Pokemon Black and her latest shiny was a shiny Smeargle she found in Soul Silver. When she got older, she learned how computers work and started up a Let's Play/Shiny Hunter channel under the username CandySlayerPhantom. As weird as her username was, she was proud of it. It was her second name almost and referred to herself as Phantom online. She found much more shinies with the encouragement of her steady fanbase and even played through a few games with their support and kind donations. She wasn't the best gamer around but she certainly wasn't the worst either.

Her most useful hobby was her being able to design things. She was a competent interior designer and wouldn't rest until a house was just perfect. It was one of the reasons why she was a fan of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer; she would spend lots of hours on the game designing each cute animal's house until she deemed it completely perfect. It was something she also did to take her mind off of the loneliness. It made her feel appreciated to get comments from the animals on how perfect their new house was after spending all of that time making it just right. Though she knew she could have put the least amount of effort in and they would praise her just as much as long as their favorite items were included, it was nice to hear praise for her hard work. Honestly, she would redesign her room once a month if she felt the layout was getting a bit too stale and old. It confused her parents and Yurin whenever she would have a sleepover but she felt happy redesigning her room and home. Honestly, she was considering getting a career in interior design due to how much she loved it.

The final hobby she had was reading. Once she found a good book, she would absorb herself in the world it had to offer. She would even pretend that she was inside that world sometimes. Dreams of the world danced around in her mind as she slept, or rather if she slept. She would draw the characters and share her drawings with Yurin if they were reading the same series of novels. She wasn't as big on romance novels as Yurin was but if the plot was interesting enough, she would read it at least once before finding another book to read. One would assume with how much she read, her grades would plummet but she kept average enough grades so that way no one would judge her.

The main reason why her grades weren't higher than an C average was mostly because of her job. She worked for a maid café and was one of the main maids working there. Her boss was a bit of a slave driver and would sometimes expect too much of Hotaru but she would toughen herself up and get to work. She did the best she could do at her job to make as much money as she could for the hours she worked. She would sometimes take unimportant days off from school and cram for tests due to how determined she was to get more money at her job. While she has a cash settlement her parents mail her every month to pay for important things like food, bills and the monthly house loan, she wanted some spare cash to buy things she wanted like more sewing materials, games, the latest book or just to add on to her college fund or her car fund.

As for Hotaru's personality, she would be considered strong by Yurin. She keeps on a brave face during school and doesn't really let any teasing or bullying get to her. She was someone who could laugh off a bad day at school and was even someone who tried her best to be as reliable as possible for her friends. Internally, she was feeling lonely. She knew she wasn't alone, no human being ever is alone, but the loneliness of seeing her parents leave for month long trips always got to her at some point. She would call up Yurin for sleepovers often or just to talk to her to distract herself from the loneliness she feels at her house. She was also pretty selfless, almost to a fault. She was willing to put anything aside for the sake of Yurin. If Yurin ever needed someone to comfort her, she would drop everything and go to her. She knew this will bite her in the ass and has even been warned not to do that too often by her boss. But Yurin was her top priority and she wanted to show Yurin that she wasn't alone just like Yurin showed Hotaru she wasn't alone. She also refused to let her romantic feelings for Shingen get in the way of his quest for Yurin's heart. She wouldn't break his heart by forcing him to be with her and she would just be by his side as a friend if he wanted it. The selflessness of herself was arguably her worst trait as she never got what she wanted in the real world due to her feeling someone else deserved it.

However, she still loved herself a lot. Despite her negative traits, she still loves who she is as a person. She wasn't arrogant about herself nor was she narcissistic. She just recognizes her flaws, hobbies and personality and loves all of it. It's one of the main reasons why she refuses to become a romantic rival for Yurin. She loves herself too much to stoop to such a low point. The loneliness never really got too bad for her either because she knew she had enough good qualities that she could get more casual friends if she wanted them. While she is selfless to an extreme, her boss, her fanbase and her friends are there to remind her that her own self has worth as well. She may not have the heart of the one she loved now but who's to say in the future that her love being unrequited would still be the case? She has a clear goal in mind in the future and she was going to go achieve that goal. Of course, those who are looking skin deep in this tangled up romance story would assume these things weren't the case and that Hotaru was just another best friend character. But Hotaru would always know that she had more to her than just that title.

Drip, drop. Drip, drop. Drip, drop.

Akeno was breathing heavily as she glanced around at her surroundings. There were so many fragile dolls that were now in pieces. The cloth ones were dismembered with the cotton strewn about everywhere, the plastic ones had caved in a little and was starting to wear down and the houses that once owned these dolls were broken into planks. But the ones that were the most unrecognizable were the porcelain dolls; the ones made out of clay and only existed to be displayed. No one really played with the porcelain dolls otherwise they would break. She glanced down at the now damaged baseball bat clenched tightly inside her left hand. Akeno needed this feeling, the rush of doing something horrible like breaking things.

Her need really began when her mother and father began to fight. At the time, Akeno really didn’t know that her father wasn’t really her father. He was just another puppet for her mother to have; arm candy that existed only to be displayed for the world to see.

“My husband is actually a physical therapist. Yes, Kouta is a very stable husband to be around indeed. Oh, and our little Akeno is passing all of her classes and getting along just well with her classmates. Hopefully, she’ll become a fine young lady~”

Her mother would say such honeyed words to the public around her. Her friends weren’t truly aware of just how meaningless they really were to her. In reality, her mother was selfish. Akeno wouldn’t come to learn about the depths of her selfishness until she turned 16 and the truth came out. Or at least, Akeno had solid proof to show how awful her mother was. Even when she was younger, Akeno felt as though her mother wasn’t exactly the nicest person.

While she didn’t beat her or emotionally scar her, Akeno was still denied all of the pleasures that life had to offer her. She wasn’t really allowed to eat any sort of junk food. After all, “only the best foods can be consumed by my little girl and what better food than Mommy’s cooking?” While Akeno was sad at the time because of her friends getting to eat yummy chocolates or delicious sweets, she now considers herself lucky that her mother didn’t just inject the nutrients in her body.

Akeno also wasn’t allowed to be friends with certain people like boys. She was never really given a straight answer but was told simply that “boys will only be cruel to girls like you.” As such, Akeno grew to be afraid of boys since she was six up until she was ten. She was denied electronics, video games and any sort of virtual fun. “You can have fun doing other things like reading and writing~” While Akeno did read a lot, it wasn’t really that fun and Akeno wanted to just once be able to play a video game with her friends, but of course her mother refused that for her as well.

While all of those things confused her back then, it was crystal clear to her now that the only reason why Akeno was denied those things was to make a good impression for the neighbors. Her mother can show her off as a beautiful doll of a daughter; untouched by any sort of evils in the world and practically perfect in almost every single way. Akeno didn’t want that kind of life. She just wanted to have friends and have some fun in her life for once.

Her father had picked up on the signs though. He knew that Akeno wasn’t exactly happy with the way her mother was treating her so he took Akeno to a small room that she would sing with other people when she was ten years old. When she got there, Akeno was a little apprehensive. There were quite a few adults that she hadn’t seen before and that made Akeno very nervous but there were other kids her age that were really kind to her. There were even a few boys that treated her really well. As such, Akeno was happy to be in a little safe heaven where she could be herself. She could be a happy go lucky girl with a bright smile that enjoyed singing her heart out to other people. She was free to snack on pizza that the other parents brought on important days like birthdays and celebrating a giant victory like winning a championship or performing in important areas. Her father was still a little apprehensive to show her the rest of the world but at the time, Akeno didn’t care. She was just happy to have something that she could call her own; she was following her own beliefs and not her mother’s.

Of course, in order to maintain that happy place, when Akeno was at school or at home, she had to bring back straight A’s on her report card. Otherwise, her mother might get suspicious, dig into what Akeno is doing other than her studies and find out that “father and daughter bonding” time was spent on doing something that guaranteed no secure future and was just a fruitless hobby at best. So Akeno had to work day and night on homework or read if there was no homework, keep on top of her classes and go on to college where she can get a job, find a nice man, marry him, bear perfect little children and live a happy little life doing the exact same shit to her children.

If Akeno was being honest with herself, the idea of doing that sickened her. She wanted to go perform on the stage. She wanted the crowd to cheer her name as she and some of her other friends from the choir practice would join her in a band. She was unquestionably the lead vocalist while another girl would take the second lead vocalist. One of the boys would take on guitar and piano while the other boy would take on drums. They never quite figured out a name for themselves but they knew they were going to be something the second they graduated high school. Akeno was completely excited for the idea. She would explore the world and discover all the things her mother never allowed her to do. Or she would have if someone didn’t record her performing with her choir friends and post it on the internet.

When her mother found out, she was livid. She yelled at Akeno and her father, saying how foolish they were for doing something so completely idiotic behind her back. Akeno just shut her eyes. She was all too used to hearing her mother and father fight when the night passed on. She had nothing to say. She knew she had messed up and her father was getting increasingly angrier at his wife. Work was piling up more and more and her mother was demanding more from him to ensure her financial future. Then, the news hit. In a moment of rage, her mother confessed that her father wasn’t actually her father. Akeno almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The dam broke further when her mother confessed that she was cheating on her father with the real man that fathered her. Akeno was trying to comprehend the situation when she felt her air get cut off and her head getting hit with something hard. An unfamiliar man came in to save Akeno but by that time, she blacked out.

After she blacked out, Akeno got the news that she was hit pretty hard and suffered some trauma and it was uncertain if she was ever going to talk let alone sing again. When Akeno tried to speak, all that came out was incomprehensible noises. It was a nightmare. It was a horrible, horrible nightmare that Akeno needed to wake up from. Her father was her father and her mother and him were going to get divorced and Akeno would live happily with her father and succeed in her dream to form a band with her choir friends. It was only when Akeno sat in court to watch her father get sentenced to ten years in prison for almost killing her.

Throughout the trial, Akeno never held anything against her father. She was struggling with the news as well. How could someone lie about who her parents were for 16 years? Apparently, her mother figured out a way how to do it and showed no remorse for playing with her father like he was her second favorite doll. Two years later, her mother married the man who birthed Akeno (Akeno still refuses to call the man who birthed her “father”. She knew damn well who her father was.) and forbid Akeno from any contact with her father. She withdrew her from public school to homeschool her. Well, her mother called it “homeschooling” but it was reinforcing Akeno of the belief that she was just a doll and needed to be absolutely perfect to make a good impression for her mother and the man who birthed her.

For four years, Akeno had fury building up inside of her. The rage that coursed through her body couldn’t easily be satiated and she only started to mutilate and destroy dolls a month ago, to try and calm down. So far, it was working. In a twisted way, it was almost self-harm. Akeno was seen as the perfect little doll that her mother could show off to see how perfect the family was. By breaking the dolls, Akeno was breaking the perfect illusion and allowing the real girl with unending rage, stolen passion, agonized screaming and fragile mindset to break free. She hated everything that her mother did to her. She hated being locked away from the real world, she hated not experiencing bad things and good things for herself to form conclusions for herself, she hated having the one thing that made Akeno herself stolen and she hated that she was never allowed to see her father again lest she somehow trigger him into a rage.

Drip, drop. Drip, drop. Drip, drop.

Tears were rolling down Akeno’s cheeks now as the memories rushed back inside. She growled angrily and looked at one of the many full body mirrors. It showed her for who she was; a husk of a girl that was deprived of any form of being due to the selfish wishes of her mother. She scowled at her own reflection.

“I-I h-ha-ate y-yo-you…”

Akeno winced at her own words, not because of what she said but because of the stutters that got out in order for her to say it. She was teaching herself how to talk again but she still couldn’t really say words without a stutter. She hated that she didn’t have the strength to even speak correctly yet. She wanted her voice back. She wanted her friends back. She wanted her father back. She wanted her life back! A primal scream escaped the broken girl as she started to hit the ground with the baseball bat. She was taking out her rage on an invisible target that could never feel even a single iota of pain she felt. After a few more hits, the only sound that remained after the clutter of the baseball bat hitting the ground were the tears that hit the floor with it.

Akeno didn’t have much hope for the future at all, or at least, she didn’t have hope for a future that wasn’t predetermined and approved by her mother. Any dorm mates she found either babied her because of her accursed naivete to the world around her, ignored her because of said naivete or just kept neutral ground with her. She didn’t want any of it and she hated that her mother denied her the chance to ever truly be normal. That was all she wanted; to be normal. She wanted to have dreams, she wanted to do bad things once in a while, she wanted to make lasting friends like the ones she had in choir, she wanted to fall in love with a man she cared about, she wanted to do a job that seemed like fun for her; all of these things were things she felt she could never achieve and all that was left was the bitter taste of what could have been.
Akeno’s thoughts were cut off when she heard a small jingle come from her cell phone. She checked her phone only to realize it was the alert for her to go. It was nearing four in the morning and Akeno quickly got out her plastic garbage bag and gathered the broken dolls inside it, tying the bag to keep it nice and steady. Akeno then looked at the area on the hard wood floor that she had beaten. To her relief, nothing was damaged. She took a glance back at the choir room of St. Gabriel’s with small tears in her eyes before sneaking out of the window and closing it. She then threw the trash bag into a nearby dumpster and took a deep breath to calm herself down.

No one wanted to deal with the real Akeno, not at this early in the morning. So, when she got back to the dorm, she put on her normal and happy go lucky mask. Noa was still asleep and Akeno felt relief knowing that Noa still didn’t catch on to her destructive habits. Still, maybe one day someone would discover the real Akeno. Maybe someone would try to reach out to her and give her some sense of an identity for her to grasp on to. That day was not today, nor would it be tomorrow though. As far as Akeno was concerned, she felt the idea was just a simple pipe dream. It would never happen at the moment. With that last bleak thought, Akeno closed her eyes to take a small nap. Tomorrow, she would remain innocent to the world. Tomorrow, she would still go to school and get good grades. Tomorrow, she would still be babied or ignored. Tomorrow, she would still not be allowed to see her father. Tomorrow, she would still be made of porcelain rather than flesh and blood.