Rated: M
| Writing done by Rainbowfartz. |
Sakurako sits at the edge of the curb, the same curb she beat Helena up at every single day. While Akihiko, the newspaper writer, was nice enough to not include her name, she was given up already.
She never meant to kill her. Despite the fact Helena killed herself Sakurako feels like she did it. She feels like a murderer, a bad person. Kotoko isn’t even her friend (now that she thinks of it, her crony) anymore.
She didn’t do it for the purpose of killing her. Despite the fact that bitch deserved it sometimes. Helena left a wound in every bystander’s skin. And in her bully, she burned and burned and left her guilty and numb.
But what Sakurako did to Helena every day stays with her.
It scars her.
Sakurako was walking to school again. She expected Helena to be there again, and laughed quietly to herself. She knew exactly what she was going to do again.
Except, when she reached the front door, the brunette wasn’t meekly hiding. Hell, she didn’t even show up. But a bright red colour grabs her attention. And an awful stench fills her nostrils. Kotoko walks towards Sakurako and wrinkles her nose. “Ew. What is that?”
Kotoko looks over to the bright red colour and she connects the stench to it. “Somebody died there. On the west wing wall…” Kotoko steps towards the wing, and horrified at such a thing Sakurako steps quicker.
It’s a human girl, most likely around their age, with chocolate brown hair and arms and legs bent at awkward angles. Sakurako has to breathe through her mouth to avoid throwing up.
Kotoko’s eyes fill with tears as she takes a stick and flips the body towards her.
The shining red eyes are obvious. They’re wide open and glossed over. Her skull is oddly shaped, like it smashed into the ground from the roof. There are gashes everywhere. And her face is contorted into a sick smile, like the person enjoyed what they were doing. The face was in the middle of a laugh, and bandage wraps lay around its cut arms.
It’s Helena.
Kotoko screams and cries and slowly sinks to her knees. Sakurako wrenches her to the front by her stomach and waits as Kotoko vomits in a corner on her knees with bone crushing screams and cries for help. She thinks she can save the girl who jumped off the roof.
But she’s long gone.
Kotoko walks silently to the school. She holds a candle in one hand and the other hand is to her throat. She joins the mass of students, all wearing anti-bullying shirts and holding candles in a similar fashion.
Akihiko, Kotoko’s own brother is there too, along with her father. Her brother shakes his head doubtfully with his brother. They could have stopped this.
Kotoko sets the candle down, and is followed by many students. And as every brown candle is set down, Sakurako appears, her eyes searching.
Sakurako sets down a candle.
She whispers to the candle as she sets it down.
“I’m so, so, so sorry.”
Kotoko remembers the day Helena’s father found out. He banged his head against the wall and cried. “No, no, no, no, no, no…” His whisper-cries echo. “Why…
The father turns around and says softly in broken English, “Why…who did this…to my…” He can’t finish. He sobs and cries into the wall.
Kotoko couldn’t do anything. She felt tears streaming down her own face. Didn’t Helena think her dad didn’t love her? She leaves.
She can’t watch. She can’t be a bystander. But she won’t intervene.
Sakurako has become a nicer person.
She bought an anti-bullying shirt and a bracelet. She walks past Helena’s house every day on the way home (which is empty since her dad left for Germany a while ago) and tries to reassure herself that she isn’t a bully anymore.
She tries to forget she even was one.
Kotoko and Sakurako give each other pained glances. She hates this. She wants Kotoko to know she is peaceful now.
Sakurako started seeing Helena again. But not in dreams. In real life. Helena would walk up to the board. She would sit on the curb. She’d walk around town. Sakurako started seeing stars.
She became starry-eyed-Sakurako.
Sakurako remembered when she walked past Helena’s house for the last time. She saw Helena’s father sadly towing suitcases outside the house and paying the last of his money to the taxi. His eyes were redder than they already were as he left, muttering something about how he had dreams about his grandchildren being Americans.
Sakurako looked at the old, rundown house and wondered how much it hurt being alone in this place.
Helena probably had haunting thoughts.
Sakurako saw Helena walking down the street again and walking in the door.
She walked to Kotoko’s house and knocked on the door. Akihiko opened it angrily. “What do you want? I’m not seeing you anymore.”
“I want to talk to your sister.”
“When you do, you’d better get out of my house, asshole.”
Sakurako walks past her ex and sees Kotoko. She glares at the black haired girl.
“I want…” Sakurako starts. “…to say I’m sorry.” Kotoko laughs without humor. “Saki, you killed Helena. She died because of you abusing her! You think one sorry can change everything?”
Sakurako retreats.
“Well, Saki. She had dreams, like you or me. She probably wanted to do something when she grew up! She just wanted to fit in! And you fucking didn’t help that!” Sakurako was surprised at the meek girl swearing. “Just get out of my house. I fucking hate you and I bet Helena did too!”
“Why do you care? If you cared about her so much then why didn’t you save her!?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then shut your mouth and LEAVE ME ALONE.”
Helena’s presence.
It scarred Sakurako.
Sakurako collapsed at school one day, wringing her hands. She wasn’t moving her hands, though, and blubbering gibberish.
Kotoko gave her the same un-sympathetic look Helena was given by Sakurako. The teacher dragged her out and put her in the nurse’s office.
The black haired girl was tested and told to go home, where her limbs started shaking and her body racked with sobs.
This happened often, until she fell down the stairs wringing her limbs while she landed on her back. Her parents called the hospital, and she was tested.
The doctors said she had a mental problem and there was something wrong with her nervous system. She had to move away to a facility on the other side of the country.
Far away from where she found the rotting dead girl on the West Wing.
Sakurako moved away.
Kotoko was glad this was all over and confined herself to her room.
Akihiko kept writing newspapers, but secret journal entries on what he think happened to Helena.
The chairman became a man of truth and believed students, always.
The school became an anti-bullying school and launched a charity.
And it started with one girl. One girl who thought she was alone and unloved and jumped off the school. One girl who thought no one would miss her. One girl who thought nothing would change. That girl changed things, for the worse and better.
The next time you feel like that girl did, read this story and think about all the people you’ve touched.
Your touch would turn into scars.