Makeup to Soothe the Heart, a Desire for Belonging with Nowhere to Go

After saying goodbye to Yoshikage Kira, Kikyo Kushida walked alone through the cruise ship's long corridors.

The lights along the way were soft, illuminating the occasional classmates passing by. Familiar and unfamiliar faces alternated before her. Everyone looked relaxed, either quietly chatting about the gains and losses of the exam or planning their future group arrangements. Only Kushida wore the same gentle smile as always, calmly responding to every greeting as she passed, while an unspoken heaviness and confusion churned in her heart.

The scenes from the café that afternoon replayed in her mind, again and again.

With only a few words, Yoshikage Kira had torn apart the façade she had painstakingly built over the years. Others saw a perfect girl who was smooth with people, skilled at socializing, and always in control. But based solely on her unusual fixation on Suzune Horikita and the class placement that didn't match her abilities, Kira had precisely deduced the dark history she had buried deepest—the one from middle school.

The feeling of being seen through completely, laid bare before someone, had left her chilled to the bone.

What troubled her even more was having her confession cut off at the last moment. Just as she had finally suppressed all her inferiority, timidity, and shame, and prepared to stake everything by laying out her secret and bargaining chip, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji's hidden surveillance had ruthlessly cut short all her plans.

The emotions she had bottled up for so long—her desire to vent, to ask for help, to break free of her chains—were now trapped tight in her chest. They went nowhere, leaving her breathless.

She had maintained her perfect persona all the way back to the dormitory. The others hadn't returned yet; they had probably gone somewhere to have fun. The moment the door closed, all her gentle smiles and composed grace crumbled away.

Kushida leaned against the cold door and slowly slid to the floor. Her long eyelashes drooped, hiding all the panic and dismay in her eyes. The empty dormitory was the only place where she could take off her mask, but it was also the cage that had trapped her through countless nights.

People always assumed she was naturally good at dealing with others, naturally loved a lively atmosphere, and naturally belonged at the center of a crowd.

But only Kushida knew the truth: she had never enjoyed the noise. She had only longed to belong.

It had been that way since middle school. She was terrified of being isolated, terrified of being ostracized, terrified of becoming the one person in a crowd who didn't belong. To find a place of her own, to have a group of companions she could feel safe around, she forced herself to become everyone's confidante, accepting their negative emotions and collecting their most closely guarded secrets.

She thought that if she were gentle enough, accepting enough, considerate enough, and became the "good friend" others needed, she could secure a place where she belonged. She could live forever among warm-hearted people and never have to feel the chill of loneliness again.

But in the end, she was neither a gifted powerhouse nor a saint capable of absorbing an endless tide of negative emotions.

She took in, day after day, the repression, suspicion, and darkness that ordinary people could hardly bear. She had no one to confide in, no one who understood, no one who knew that behind her smile as she kept everything together, she had long been on the verge of collapse beneath the weight of countless people's negative emotions.

Her collapse, her loss of control, the class-wide breakdown in middle school that had caused such a sensation—none of it had come from pure malice. It was simply a girl desperately searching for a place to belong, lost and overwhelmed under endless pressure.

After coming to Advanced Nurturing High School, she had reinvented herself, won people over, and maintained perfect relationships. At heart, it had all been an attempt to save herself. She wanted to cut off that dark past completely and use her new relationships to reclaim the peace and sense of belonging that should have been hers.

But Suzune Horikita's existence was like a thorn lodged deep in her heart, constantly reminding her of the shameful past.

Most people's malice came from jealousy, from a selfish resentment of anyone else finding happiness. But Kushida had never harbored baseless malice. She had only wanted too badly to be accepted, too badly to find a safe place to belong. She had taken the wrong path, shouldered the wrong burdens, and ultimately fallen into the abyss.

Her thoughts twisted into a tangled mess. There were still several hours before her secret meeting at eight that evening. Reason told her she should organize her arguments, weigh her bargaining chips, and consider every possible outcome of the negotiation. But when she lifted a hand to her chest, all she felt was emptiness.

There was no need to polish her arguments. The rights and wrongs of the past had already been decided, and no amount of embellishment could hide how miserable she had once been. There was no need to anticipate every turn of the negotiation. She was at an absolute disadvantage; her only bargaining chips were her VIP status and information about the exam, and her only demands were to keep her secret safe and hold on to the life she had now.

All that deliberate preparation seemed pale and pointless.

She rose and walked to the vanity, gazing quietly at the bright, gentle face of the girl in the mirror. This was the appearance she had carefully maintained through countless days and nights. It was the Kikyo Kushida everyone trusted and liked—the new self she had become, free of her dark past.

Her fingertips passed over the neatly arranged cosmetics and skincare products. Almost without thinking, she picked up a tube of soft, muted rose lipstick.

It wasn't to please Kira, to feign weakness, or to deliberately win his favor.

It was simply a ritual of her own.

If the road ahead was a gamble on her future, and if she had to face her most shameful past and seek a chance to save herself, then she didn't want to appear haggard and disheveled.

She would take a moment to make herself look nice.

With a light touch, she applied the lipstick. Its soft color made her complexion look fairer and more radiant, slightly easing the gloom and fatigue in her eyes. The girl in the mirror still looked gentle, but now there was a trace of determination in her, as if she were ready to stake everything.

She didn't need everyone's forgiveness. She only wanted one chance to make peace with the past, and a safe place to belong that was truly her own.

The sky darkened. Twilight spread across the sea, enveloping the entire cruise ship.

Kushida sat quietly before the mirror, gathering all her scattered thoughts as she waited for the secret rendezvous on the deck that night—for a gamble over her secret, her future, and her chance at redemption.