the idols race for love, are you ready? | book one | utapri

chapter thirty-three

"I don't matter compared to my friends." I murmured, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes as I say the one thing I've never dared to say out loud before.

I want my laptop.

"You matter more to me than anyone else in this world so don't say such a thing. Everyone cares so much about you and wouldn't want to see you hurting inside like this." The boy responded just as softly as he released me from his embrace and placed his hands on my shoulders, turning me around so that I was suddenly facing all of my friends at Saotome with Otoya and Reiji standing at the very front of the group. "These people, every last one of them is scared they'll lose you, the kindhearted and purely selfless person who believes in them no matter what. But if you continue on neglecting yourself, then, they'll vanish as you slowly wither away."

Almost instantly, my friends began to turn into ash as they were blown away by an imaginary gust of wind, my heart twisting in my chest and causing an excruciating amount of pain. "Please, I just don't want to be alone." I said, my voice cracking as the tall emerald eyed boy behind me wrapped his arms around my waist and gently pulled me to his chest.

"This world may be cruel ___, but you don't have to keep yourself so isolated. You can learn to love yourself like you love your friends. You're deserving of just as much love as they are if not more so." He said with a small laugh. "You're the most important person to all of us, if only you could see that for yourself then maybe the darkness in your heart would begin to vanish."

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut as tears truly threatened to begin slipping down my cheeks now, the schools' walls vanishing as the scenery around the handsome emerald eyed boy and myself turned into old ruins out in the jungle. Fireflies now fluttered about in the darkness of the night around us and illuminated the large trees and vines that wind throughout the scattered ruins. "I'm not deserving of love. My mother died because of me. How could someone like me possibly accept the love of my friends?" I asked as my voice slowly began to grow louder the angrier I became. "I don't deserve any of their kindness. They're precious to me and I want to see them succeed because I don't deserve to be happy but they do! Why must I accept their love when I'm too broken to so much as love myself?!"

The tears wouldn't stop now as I slowly collapsed down to my knees, the emerald eyed boy carefully cradling me to his chest as I struggled to control my breathing, the fireflies dancing around and creating a dreamy atmosphere around us. "No matter how broken someone may be, they're always worthy of love and redemption. You didn't kill your mother, you weren't at fault for that accident in the slightest bit ___. It was nothing but the work of a cruel fate that lead you to meeting the wonderful people you know now. Your story didn't have a picture-perfect beginning, but you can make it into the fairytale you deserve to live if you can learn to accept yourself for who you are."

"I'm nothing without my friends..." I whispered. "They're what's important to me. Otoya has been the center of my world since I went to the orphanage, he's all I've ever cared about because I never cared about myself. As long as Otoya could learn to smile, maybe there was hope for me to learn too. Maybe I could be happy if he was happy and yet, I'm not okay. Why is it no matter how hard I work to ensure my friend's happiness, I can never be happy?"

"No matter how much love you give to everyone else, if you never learn to accept yourself for who you are, then their love and your own happiness will never be acknowledged." The emerald eyed boy said softly. "One day, I hope I'll be able to bring you happiness just as all the others hope to bring you happiness as well. But, you need to stop thinking you're not deserving to be happy and to be loved. You don't need to hold onto such guilt over your mother when you weren't the cause for her death. She wouldn't want you to be living like this; putting everyone before even yourself simply because you feel like you don't matter. You matter to your mother, you matter to your friends, you matter to me so please, learn to love yourself a little more with every passing day or else you'll never be happy ___."