Outsider Syndrome | ✓

Chapter 4 - "Unbearably Similar Igarashi"

"'Who cares?'" I echoed, already knowing the hurt in my tone was apparent as day. Clenching my teeth, I stamped a foot forward. "All you and everyone else in school do is ridicule my height! Every single day without fail you all call me a beanstalk, titan, giraffe or even Big Foot—as if I don't have feelings! And ever since I was little—"

"Do you think you're special or something?"

Once again, I was stunned into silence. Like a hit to my diaphragm, I couldn't muster any oxygen nor formulate words for a while. Igarashi's knuckles were white from clenching his fists,. Still, his anger was suffocating. It carried traces of hurt I wasn't expecting.

"A guy like me is just barely five foot three! Not only all the guys, but plenty of girls are taller than me. Midget, ant, pipsqueak, dwarf. . . If you've been ridiculed your whole life for being tall, try to think about how I feel, moron!"

His eyelids tapered, in almost a challenge. Truthfully, it was difficult to muster a response. It wasn't as if I was trying to ignore that fact. Igarashi was mocked by our classmates as much as I was. Since he constantly kept his cool even in the face of them, I'd somehow assured myself I was the odd case out.

"I—I didn't really," I sputtered, guiltily casting my gaze.

Releasing a heavy breath, he folded his arms behind his head. "Well," he shouted, loud enough for me to hear, "unlike a certain moron, I don't let it get to me as much."

He called me a moron twice. . .

Nudging aside the aggravation swelling up inside me, I pinned my focus to his figure in the distance.

"Hurry up, Kisaragi. Do you really want to be late for the concert?"

My mouth downturned in a heavy frown. Unable to muster the energy to argue, I followed, keeping my pace lazy enough to walk behind him.

He'd given me a reality check; knocked me back down to earth from whatever cloud I was lofting on before. Igarashi was short—way tinier than the average. Similar to how I stood at a height way above your average girl.

I'd always thought I was alone, but Igarashi must've felt pathetic every day, too. Even in this situation—if walking with a shorter boy made me self-conscious, why wouldn't he feel awkward about accompanying a girl way taller than him?

Despite that, this entire time, I'd somehow convinced myself I was the only one in the world with a height complex. Even if it was to someone like Igarashi, I'd behaved like such an arrogant child. I wasn't the only outcast who existed. And Igarashi, the biggest jerk I'd ever met, was one of them.

After coming to terms with that, the evening shaped up to be a lot more. . . enjoyable.

Possibly due to our environment and the influence of Mortal Mania, as soon as that initial awkwardness from our height difference evaporated, the two of us had managed to bond. Whether that be through speculating fan theories, discussing our favourite songs and podcasts. Somehow I'd even managed to learn Igarashi's favourite shows and mangas aligned perfectly with my own.

He was similar—unbearably so. We were so alike that the concert I was assured would be the worst experience of my life turned out to be the best. We were such a hopeless fangirl and fanboy to every little thing, and I loved being able to squeal and have him understand my euphoria on a personal level.

Even as we left the venue, ears still ringing from the intense rock concert, the two of us rambled away with huge grins on our faces.

"I still can't believe how near they all were." Heaving a breathless sigh, I draped my palms against my cheeks. "Even Kano was so, so close. This entire concert was a dream come true."