Chapter 8: My Cousin Lied to Me! There are no Goth Girls Here!
A month passed since I was put in the mental hospital. And in that month, insanity began to clutch at my mind.
"I'm so bored," I groaned, leaning back on my bed. There wasn't even a TV, because it might "trigger more suicidal tendencies." Seriously, shut the fuck up.
I waited for long hours, staring at the ceiling, thinking of all the videogames I could be playing.
All of this just because I jumped off a building? What a drag.
When lunchtime came, the door opening snapped me out of my reverie. I expected the nurse to come in with a tray of food, but instead, she said gently, "Come, Y/N, we figured it's just about time to let you eat at the cafeteria."
"The cafeteria?"
She smiled. "Yes. We decided that socializing with fellow patients may help with your treatment."
That's when I noticed how young the nurse was. If Vali was here instead of me, he might have made her fall for him. But since I'm not the Main Character, that isn't going to happen to me—not that I want to, mind you. I don't want to get somebody put into jail over some stupid anime trope.
"Okay, sure," I shrugged and stood up, walking toward the doorway.
The nurse led me across a corridor littered with rooms that presumably belonged to other patients. Other nurses led more patients around and about. I noticed that the other patients were either children or teenagers like me.
After two minutes of walking, we entered a cafeteria with many rows of tables and a gap between them that allowed you to walk through. Sure enough, all the kids sitting in the tables were in fact my age, give or take.
"Heleakala told me there are goth girls in mental hospitals," I thought, remembering what my cousin told me years ago. He's been in quite a few mental hospitals before. He is what some people may call a "delinquent." And yes, it was a joke.
Which begs the question, why the fuck aren't the genders separated here? What the fuck type of cliche was this? This was a disaster waiting to happen. What would they do if the Main Character was here?
I almost sighed. Why am I the only self-aware one?
"Here we are," the nurse said softly. "Go on, find a table to sit and someone will bring you a tray."
I sighed and began walking through the seam between the tables, scanning the faces of the kids I passed by. A lot of them had eyes that looked... dead. Even when they looked at me, their faces were blank. Others look unnaturally feral or confused about their surroundings. It made me a bit sad for them. I wonder what happened to make these kids so disturbed.
Eventually I stopped at an empty-looking table and plopped down, sighing for the umpteenth time.
Not even a moment later, a soft voice said from behind me, "Y/N? Is that... is that you?"
I turned and saw a girl with steel-blue hair staring at me with wide eyes, her orbs shining with an emotion I couldn't recognize. She looked about my age, I suppose.
She looked familiar, but I couldn't remember why.
"Uh, do I... know you?" I asked rather cautiously.
The girl pouted at not being recognized and said with a cute huff, "It's me! Vina!"
My eyes widened as a rush of memories flowed through me.
***
Elementary School
It was a cold winter day. Snow fell from the horizons above. The chilly gale swept through the courtyard like a ravenous wraith.
We were all doing what any normal kid would do when it's snowing: having snowball fights. This was during the time when I met Alice and introduced her to Vali. And also, this was the time when Alice began to be smitten with my twin brother. Personally, I didn't really care. I was one of those kids who thought girls weren't worth my time. I was too busy playing with Pokemon cards anyway.
So the three of us were throwing snowballs at each other. Alice and I were battering Vali with snowballs; me because I thought it was funny; and Alice because it was a way to indirectly show affection.
"Come on guys, stop targeting me!" Vali said with a laugh, but was quickly shut up by me throwing a snowball to his face.
"Nah," I snickered.
"Never!" Alice giggled and threw another snowball.
Vali eventually fell on his ass, groaning as he tried to extricate himself from the snow's embrace. Alice laughed at him and went over to help him up.
As she did this, I got distracted by a strange sight. A certain girl with teal hair was sitting alone in the snow, looking at the woods that stood adjacent from the school. Normally I would go along with my day without a care in the world, but for some reason I had a sudden urge to approach her.
She must have heard my footsteps, but she didn't react. "What?" she asked.
"I'm sorry, I'm just curious. Why are you sitting alone?" I wondered.
"Well, all of the other kids are kind of lame," she shrugged. "Like, what is this, some kind of TV show?"
"Oh, so someone else feels that way?" I smirked wryly. "Thought I was the only one."
"It's like we're living in some kind of... what do you call it? Anime?"
"It is cliché," I chuckled.
We began to talk some more and we realized we had more common interests than I thought. She played videogames, too, but she wasn't nearly as avid as I was. It made me want to turn her into a hardcore gamer.
Apparently, Vina didn't feel like she fit in. She was rather vague about it, but I could tell her circumstances were different than most. I wondered about her background.
We quickly became friends. I usually left Vali and Alice alone and went to hang out with Vina. She adapted to games super quickly to the point where I needed to go tryhard to make sure she couldn't catch up to me.
But as the months went by, I found that she was getting clingier, almost as if she wanted my attention and my attention only. But she was a great friend so I didn't really mind.
Then one day she showed how much of a badass she was.
This was during the time when Gabriel constantly harassed us. This day, however, he chose the wrong time.
Vina and I were in the courtyard after school, about to walk home, when Gabriel walked up to us, smirking.
"'Sup, loser. Did you get yourself a girlfriend?" he said, inspecting Vina. "She's kind of pretty. Why is she with you?"
Vina scoffed. "You are the worst bully ever."
Gabriel looked at her, dumbfounded. "What was that?"
"Aren't bullies supposed to be scary?" Vina asked. "You look really dumb."
Gabriel glared at her furiously. "Why you little—"
I laughed, interrupting him. "She's not wrong, you know."
"Shut up!" Gabriel snapped. In his anger, he threw a punch at me.
A blur appeared in the corner of my vision. Faster than thought, Gabriel's punch was completely blocked. I stared with wide eyes at Vina, who had a glare so frigid I shuddered from its intensity. I could only imagine what Gabriel, the one who was on the receiving end of the death stare, was feeling.
"Huh? W-Wha—" His dumbfounded response was interrupted by a rapid kick from Vina, sending him five-feet backward until he landed on his ass.
Vina walked toward Gabriel slowly, her demeanor steely calm. I could have sworn I saw a dark aura surrounding her.
"Don't. You. Ever. Try. To. Hurt. Y/N. Again." I couldn't see her eyes, but I could tell they grew in intensity.
"You..." Gabriel growled, shaking but still steadfast. "You're not going to fight me alone, right? Come on, I'll take you both on!"
"Nah, I'd win," Vina said coolly.
Gabriel shook with outrage and charged at Vina, who dodged his next punch without effort. Her side was now facing me, so I could see her face clearly. She was grinning frigidly.
"I won't fight with my hands, just to give you a small chance," she said, bringing her arms behind her back.
"I'm not going to let you mess with me like that!" he pounced at Vina once more, throwing another heavy punch.
Vina weaved out of the way easily and delivered a swift kick to Gabriel's sternum, knocking the wind out of him. She didn't stop there, though. With fluid grace, she delivered a flurry of explosive kicks at Gabriel, inciting cries of pain from him. Then she did some karate flip and kicked him the face, before crouching low to the ground and sweeping him off his legs. Before he could even reach the ground, she slid under him, pivoted towards him until she was right below him, then brought her legs up and secured him in a triangle hold by wrapping them around his neck.
"Jesus Christ," I said, really fucking impressed. "She did an entire combo on him!"
Gabriel writhed around and struggled, but Vina's hold was like iron. Eventually, he slapped the ground and croaked, "O-Okay, O-Okay, I-I give up!"
"Really?" Vina tightened her grip.
"I s-swear!"
Vina released him, pushed him back to the ground face-first, and got back to her feet.
Gabriel whimpered with fear as Vina stood before him. I saw a wet spot in his pants and almost burst out laughing.
"Try that again and," she brushed a strand of hair out of her face, "you know what'll happen next."
"I'm sorry!" Gabriel scurried off like a frightened rabbit.
I had a stupid grin on my face. "You should totally teach me how to fight. I want to go full Kung Fu too."
Vina's cold gaze turned into a cutesy smile and she ran to me, tackling me into a hug, confusing me.
"Sorry about that. I couldn't let anything hurt you, now could I?" she said with a giggle, her eyes displaying some strange luster that brought chills down my spine.
In hindsight... UH OH!
"That was awesome!" I, being an innocent child, did not know that anything was amiss.
Her eyes lit up. "I'm glad."
Then the principle stormed into the courtyard. "Vina! To my office, now!"
Vina and I looked at each other, winced, then turned back to the principle. "Uh oh," we said at once.
Fast forward months later, Vina got into more fights for my sake—though, I didn't let her fight all my battles. I'm not some pussy protagonist who needs heroines to protect me. Me outsmarting Gabriel was proof of that.
Sadly, she got expelled for aggressive behavior and had to switch schools. But she never told me her past or how she learned to fight.
I had a feeling I'd learn soon enough.
***
Present
In the present, Vina damn near toppled me over from her hug. "Y/N! I've missed you!"
"Whoa, whoa," I felt kind of awkward being hugged by her. "First of all, Vina, why are you here?"
"So you do remember me!" Vina's eyes sparkled.
"I do. But please answer my question."
"Ugh, they think I'm too violent, so I was sent here after I hospitalized most of my school. That Queen Bee was a bitch!"
"Wait, wait, what?"
"I was so mad when they separated me from you so I took it out on my old school," she smiled in a cutesy way. "It was fun. But now you're here with me!"
I facepalmed me. "What the hell..."
She began to lean against me, but I stiffly scooted away. Vina noticed my discomfort and said, "I'm sorry... I just really, really, really missed you." After every "really," she leaned in even closer to me in a sort of creepy way.
I shook my head. "It's fine, it's just been a very long time since we've seen each other."
"It has, hasn't it?"
"But I'm glad to see you again." She was giving me a sort of yandere vibe, but it didn't seem like it was enough for her to kill, so for now I'd tolerate it.
Though, I don't think I'd ever feel safe. I wasn't going to disregard it as normal. I wasn't stupid; the signs were all there.
Yeah, if she decides to go all School Days on me, it was going to be a problem.
Vina smiled. "And I'm glad to see you!" Her expression dimmed slightly. "More than you know."
I was going to regret tolerating it, huh? Figures.
The yandere is supposed to go for the Main Character, not me!
***
Another month passed and I'd been hanging out with Vina everytime we went to the cafeteria for lunch and when they gave us free time. There was this lounge with televisions that we frequented.
When I entered the lounge for the first time...
"THE ONE PIECE IS REAL!!!!!!"
One Piece was blasting from one of the TV screens. I just signed and shook my head.
Other than that, nothing interesting happened other than Vina and I catching up while reminiscing about old times. We had a good laugh when I told her how I accidentally jumped off the school roof.
I noticed Vina was getting even more clingy than before, which I knew would become a problem.
***
The day finally came.
I was staring at the ceiling as per usual, when a doctor came in and said, "I have good news, Y/N. You can be discharged now."
I almost fell off the bed from excitement. "FUCK YEAH!"
The doctor frowned at my profanity. "You seem fine now."
"There was nothing wrong with me in the first place!"
Hours later, I managed to say goodbye to Vina, who seemed sad to see me go. I wondered when she would be let out.
I had a feeling I'd see her again.
But when the doctor led me to the lobby where my parents and Vali were waiting, I only had one thought in my mind...
"FREEDOM! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
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That was the chapter of all time.