The Diary of Modern Cinderella

Chapter 3

It's been a few months since that day, with me becoming a high schooler this year. I'm so happy that I've passed Minagawa Academy entrance exam despite the turbulence that happened to me. Well, Minagawa Academy is my first choice since the school is closer to home. On top of that, sis is also in the same school as I am. So, that will make things easier for both of us.

My life changes drastically ever since the day Ms. Riko beat both of us. She's always accusing us of becoming the messenger for the Lord of the Dead. Because of that accusation, she keeps on abusing us. She hopes that doing so will loosen up our connection with the fictional character. She also feels that abusing us will prevent us from attempting to hurt her. She feels that we have the power to hurt her thanks to the Lord of Dead who lends his power to both of us. That's only her defense for getting rid of us away from her life.

Both sis and I seem baffled by her behavior. We don't care much about her accusation. But what we worry the most is her unpredictable abusive behavior. Back then, she would only abuse us occasionally. But now, she begins to abuse us a lot more than usual. It looks to me that the threatening feeling towards us grows stronger day by day. And we have no idea what and how we did that makes her sees us as a huge potential threat.

She will always threaten us not to tell anyone about the abuse every time she abuses us. She seems so fearful whenever she looks at us. But it's her insecurity that makes her wanting to abuse us on a daily basis. She even goes that far by accusing people around us as the messenger for the Lord of the Dead in disguise. Both sis and I have no choice but to follow her demand. We don't know what she will do to us if we don't do what she says.

Her behavior becomes irrational day by day too. She will never feel safe whenever she's at home. The feeling grows even stronger whenever we're around. It's easy for us to know how insecure she feels whenever we hear her talking to herself in an irritated voice. Her voice is loud enough for us to hear every single thing she says about us. We have no idea who she's talking to. We're pretty sure that no one is around her at that time.

We know that she's not talking to her phone because her phone is still with me. We try to decode what she's saying. But we have no idea what she's talking about. She's talking in a language that we don't understand. My body is trembling in fear whenever I sense that she's nearby. So, I end up locking the door because I don't want her to barge into my room and starts to abuse me for no reason. I do the same even if I'm in sis's room.

I head to sis's room as soon as Ms. Riko is no longer around. "Does Ms. Riko know any foreign language?" I ask sis once I'm inside her room. She sighs when I ask her that. "I don't know. Maybe she learned it while she was still working. But she never told me anything about learning a foreign language. Even if she didn't tell me, I've never seen her buying any textbook in a foreign language in our old house," sis replies.

Since I'm carrying Ms. Riko's phone with me, I then begin to take a look at her phone. It's hard for me to scroll through her phone because of the shattered screen. Maybe I can find any language app on her phone. After searching through her phone, I don't see anything that resembles a language app. I also take a look at the app history. Maybe she has deleted the language app once she's fluent enough to speak that language. Again, the result is the same. She doesn't have any apps that resemble a language app.

"Did you find any?" Sis asks me. I shake my head. "I don't see anything that resembles a language app in her phone, even in the deleted apps. In fact, the deleted apps are the common apps that are available on every phone." Sis pauses for a while, trying to think of a possible way for Ms. Riko to learn a new language. "I hate to say this," she says, "But maybe she doesn't learn any new language at all. She must be making it up. It's all in her head."