Hikiko

序論 ~Introduction~

A girl is sitting in the second stall in the high school toilet, covering her ears with the palms. The three girls outside are hitting their hands against the toilet door, screaming and giggling, asking her to come out for they will not hurt her.

She knows better. They will hurt her. Maybe more than they had before.

Leave me alone, the girl thought as she swayed her tiny body back and forth, her shoulders long raven black hair messed up.

One of the girls outside grabbed a bucket and filled it with water. She said ‘Since you’re not coming out by yourself, baka, we will help you.’

Her friend helped her climb up. The girl flipped the bucket over and the water splattered across the girl in the toilet, making her suddenly tremble from the cold touch of the liquid that got her soaking wet.

No. She is not coming out, no matter what they did.

She kept swaying back and forth, preventing her every scream, whimper or cry. They will go away.

And as expected, the girls grew tired. The leader huffed and asked her two friends that they follow her out.

‘She’s so stupid. She’ll die in there. You’ll die in there, Hiko.’ She giggled and left the toilet with her two friends, their ugly giggles echoing the place.

To put it simply, the girl in the stall is me. My name is Shiroyama Hikiko. I was born in Tokyo, eighteen years ago. My name is ironic. Just like Hikiko-san from the legend, I myself am bullied. I am bullied for a whole year now. On this day, it has been a whole year of this terror…Or this complete horror. There has not been a single day for the last 365 days that Aoi, Ami and Yuna have not done me some kind of harm.

At the beginning, I was the invisible smart girl from the front row that always raised her hand when one of the teachers asked a question. I was good at chemistry and better at languages. People asked me for help at English or Japanese. However, I was always invisible and that was the way I preferred it.

I am not pretty either, at least not like Aoi or Yuna or Ami. My hair is short, barely falls down on my shoulders, I have a small rather round face and almond-shaped brown eyes, small lips, small nose and milky skin, which is the only thing I like about myself. I am short and have a few bounds extra which I have been battling to lose for two years now.

My thighs are too big and my feet too small. My stomach is not flat and my breasts are the size of lemons.

Yes. That is me. The despised Shiroyama Hikiko, the endangered species of my Tokyo mixed high school.

Aoi is the class bully, along with her two friends. Everyone knows that. I suspect some teachers even are aware of this but no one does anything because her father is rich and very influential. Had it not been for his money, she would have failed a year or two. She is not very…bright. Unless it came to torturing people. That was when she suddenly became imaginative and beyond every control.

The same was with Yuna and Ami, although these two were smarter. Both good at math, gorgeous and sly. Aoi was beautiful too. These three were the most desirable girls in the entire school.

I never paid any attention to them though. I needed to stay invisible. I watched them bully some girls and felt sorry for them…The girls, I mean. Sometimes, I even wanted to help but I would always stop. It was not good that I got involved. That would only bring me into trouble.

And, really, for about two years I was great at ignoring them. Aoi asked me to do her English homework and out of fear I would anger her, I helped her. Other than that, we never made any contact.