Asakura Miyuki was an obedient, well-behaved girl. Aside from her exceptional looks, everything about her was utterly ordinary, and she thought her life would continue peacefully like that forever.
An ordinary childhood, ordinary schooling, an ordinary job, and finally an ordinary marriage and children.
Asakura Miyuki was gentle by nature and knew she had no remarkable talents to boast of. She had no complaints about a future whose end she could see at a glance.
This was enough. An ordinary life, occasionally going shopping with friends, visiting Qingyue Temple to see the cherry blossoms during the holidays, and perhaps meeting someone by chance at the end of the term before falling in love.
A young girl's heart was always filled with poetry. Like every girl her age, Asakura Miyuki harbored innocent and romantic fantasies.
But she did not expect any great changes in life. Finding a boyfriend she liked, avoiding those annoying pimples on her skin, and becoming a little closer to her friends—such ridiculous yet lovely wishes were the truest reflection of Asakura Miyuki's heart.
She did not want great wealth or glory. Being ordinary was enough. Her mother had said the same: a simple, uneventful life was the easiest way to find happiness.
Yes, simple and ordinary was enough.
That was all she wished for.
Then her fantasies were cruelly torn apart.
Just to satisfy his ugly animalistic lust, that girl's life began sliding into an abyss, never to return.
Transferring schools. It was the only thing the girl could do. She just had to escape. If she got away, perhaps she could return to her ordinary daily life and treat everything before that as a nightmare.
Remembering the handgun in that man's hand, the girl did not dare tell her family the truth. Her father and mother were both kind and gentle people, and she was afraid of bullet holes appearing in their bodies. She was afraid they would be hurt.
Thus, even when transferring schools, the girl used another excuse.
Fortunately, her understanding parents saw that she must have something weighing on her mind. They merely assumed it was an ordinary conflict with her classmates and agreed to her request to transfer.
Asakura Miyuki was sincerely grateful for her parents' tolerance. At last, she transferred to Chiyou Academy. A sliver of sunlight entered the girl's gloomy heart, and she seemed to have finally crawled out of that swamp with great difficulty.
"Hey, have you heard? That new transfer student is hanging around with those shady outsiders from the streets." Naturally, the matter reached the class Asakura Miyuki was in.
"She acts so aloof here. Who knows what kind of attitude she has around those people?"
The speakers' voices were loud, and they showed no concern for the person involved, who was still in the classroom. It was pure, undisguised malice.
The darkness of humanity's deep-rooted depravity was chilling. Perhaps it was out of curiosity or amusement, or perhaps it was jealousy of the girl's beautiful appearance. Such a boring, laughable reason gave the girl, who was nearing the bottom of the abyss, one final kick.
Asakura Miyuki understood that Chiyou Academy was no longer a sanctuary where she could escape. It was another bottomless hell.
Every word, even every passing glance, made the girl feel her body recalling the humiliation and pain she had suffered back then.
Ah, she no longer intended to transfer schools.
Never had Asakura Miyuki understood so clearly that everywhere was hell.
And so, darkness completely swallowed the girl's heart.
December 6, after school.
The source of her nightmares came looking for her again.
After she habitually prayed in her heart without any hope, she was saved by a girl so beautiful that she seemed to shine. Asakura Miyuki was considered a rare beauty, but she paled in comparison to that girl.
It was a unique charm born from the fusion of astonishing beauty and the trait of [strength]. To Asakura Miyuki, who had already come to loathe men, that charm's allure was simply impossible to describe.
After she had completely sunk into a mire she could never climb out of, she encountered love.
To Asakura Miyuki, there was no doubt that this was love.
But this love was mixed with profound darkness and distortion.
"Ha... ha..." The girl buried her head in the hoodie Kiana had left behind and breathed deeply. As she inhaled the lingering scent, her face gradually flushed. "You attend Senba Academy too, don't you?"
Recalling the girl's moist, petal-like lips, her cold eyes as still as a frozen lake, the slender waist faintly revealed when she took off her hoodie, and the pale thighs between her stockings and skirt hem, Asakura Miyuki's eyes grew hazy, and the flush on her face deepened.
Without a doubt, that was "love."