Another Like Me - Part I (CoTE x OC) ✔

SS.2 - The Man Behind The Mask (Kikyo Kushida)

Have you ever been addicted to the so called feeling of 'popularity' and 'fame'?

There's no point in lying. Everyone loves being loved. I was no different.

I was never the top of my class at academics, nor was I the most athletic girl in my grade. There were several others who were much better than me in those aspects.

However, second or third place did not make me happy.

I WANTED FIRST PLACE.

But I wasn't good enough. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to become the best in any particular field. I used to study and pull all-nighters, and try to become as athletic as possible. But I couldn't reach the levels of my other classmates.

That's when I realized that this world is cruel. It's unfair. There are so many people who are good at so many different activities, be it intellectual or physical, and yet here I was, wallowing in despair, because I was never given an opportunity to shine anywhere.

That's when I decided, that I would do what no one else could do. I would become the kindest person in school, the one person who everyone could approach, the only person who you'd instantly turn to whenever you needed any assistance.

It was hard. It was terribly hard. I remember returning home from school and rushing straight to the restroom, and vomiting. It was so hard to keep up my fake persona. There was too much stress, so much, to a point where I believed that my hair was starting to fall off.

But it was necessary. It was necessary to lead a perfect life. A life where I'm in first place.

The last year of middle school. An incident where boys got into violent fistfights, girls were verbally abusing each other, pushing and pulling out everyone's hair. The teachers and the staff couldn't do anything about it. And the cause of the incident was me.

A blotch in my record.

A past that I must hide at all costs from everyone in this school. I will continue to be the kindest girl in the entire school, and I'll bask in all the attention that I receive.

But it all changed when I received a recording of my own voice, berating my other classmates, from an unknown number on my phone.

From that day on, my entire life is being controlled by someone that I do not even know. An anonymous person who makes me do his/her work. A person that I have come to detest and loathe with all of my heart.

I have tried tracing back the number to its source, but I hit a dead-end. This person knows that I cannot go to the school and ask anyone for help, as my entire persona and my past will be revealed if I do.

I'm being used, and I absolutely hate it.

However, there is no way this person can know my past. After all, I have not exposed it to anyone. That Horikita bitch has a chance of knowing my past, and that is why I must expel her from this school at all costs. Unless she has gone and blabbered about my past to this unknown person, they would have no way to know about my past, about 'my incident'.

Because of my carelessness, my own words are being used against me. They're being used to threaten my very existence, the very essence of Kikyo Kushida.

I will not simple stop at finding out who these people are.

Horikita Suzune.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
And the man behind the mask.

I will find you, and I will expel you from this school.

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