"Nikki-chan~ I came here to give back the DVD you lent!" Said a female voice as she rushed into the classroom to find her friend slouched on her wooden desk. The girl was ecstatic after watching the movie that her best friend had lent, especially because it had fit her category and criteria of what her 'preferred' movie taste was like. They had both shared the same liking for crime and action movies with no hint of romance.
Her friend perked her head up from her desk, her face having lines that were embedded due to the 300-page notebook that rested in front of her. The girl's friend was exceedingly beautiful, the long black hair with lemon ends that she had dyed just a few days ago tied into a messy bun; the small pale face with big brown eyes covered by the glint of her thin golden-rimmed spectacles. She quietly observed Nikki's slim body draped with her school uniform — the usual white button-up shirt inside a black hoodie, loose red ribbon securing the collar of her neck, the navy skirt on top of the hem of the shirt and silky black stockings. She noticed her friend removed her indoor shoes and sat cross-legged.
"My gosh, it's you again."
She's a good person...yet she's also cruel. Haaah, I wish she could just open up to me.
"Of course it's me! Were you expecting me to take your DVD and never return it?"
The latter scrunched up her face before putting her notebook and the DVD into her red backpack, the zippers of each section decorated in keychains from random franchises and the front of each pocket scattered with enamel pins. For a quiet and reserved girl, she had always imagined her friend as the 'cool' lone wolf with cute features of her own. Her friend stood up from her seat and pushed the chair back to where it was supposed to be, then swiftly whisking her backpack to her shoulders.
"I don't get why you're always trying to hang out with me. What do you want?"
"A friend."
"And out of all candidates, me?"
"Yes!"
"I don't even know your name."
She puffed in annoyance. "It's Shizuka! Yoshioka Shizuka! Now, be my friend please, Aikawa Nikki-chan!"
Nikki swished her head with a blank face. "No."
"H-Huh? Why not?"
"First of all, did you just come to me because you pity my social status in school?" Nikki asked with her hands fiddling with a lollipop wrapper she pulled from her skirt pocket. "Or is it because I'm pretty?"
"B-Both!"
"You're weirdly honest and loud for someone with the name Shizuka." Nikki deadpanned.
"I-I get that a lot, but you just pained my kokoro." Shizuka pressed her hands to her chest to represent her pain. The latter rolled her eyes before slipping on her indoor shoes, making her way outside of the classroom and forcefully sliding the doors closed, her left index finger twirling the keys that locked the doors shut.
They both silently walked down the hallway, the blue accents of the building somewhat contrasting with the amber sky. Shizuka pursed her lips and stole small glances of her friend, the sociopath who everyone thought was just mental. She knew that there was more to Nikki than everyone else knew, she didn't care if she was just awkwardly narcissistic or overconfident of her athletic and academic abilities. In fact, that just made her features a lot more charming.
This was the first time she had tried so hard to make a friend.
Despite Shizuka being a social butterfly, having at least a bunch of friends greet her when she entered the classroom, or the campus itself, or even the teachers when she walked across each and every faculty room — she never seemed to realise that someone could thrive so well without having any friends.
"H-Hey, Nikki-chan?"
"What?"
"Have you ever felt...like, lonely?" Shizuka asked nervously, her head not leaving the ground as they removed their indoor shoes, Shizuka slipping on her black shiny loafers while Nikki tied the laces of her red sneakers.
Nikki furrowed her eyebrows, the same thin line on her lips not changing much about her expression. "Lonely? Am I meant to? Just because I don't have any friends?"
Like I thought—! Nikki-chan is suuuuper strong!
Silence then comforted them again as they strolled out of the campus, the brick floor covered in the drifting autumn leaves and the ruffling of the trees causing awkwardness between them. Nikki didn't mind silence. In fact, she thought it was just displaying some sort of company as their hearts beat regularly, the world and time not stopping— and that even silence can solve problems like trying to think of something to say.
Nikki knew how hard Shizuka tried in order for them to create some sort of bond.
Yet she couldn't find herself to put her thanks into words.
"N-Nikki-san!"
"Hm?"
"W-What do you like?"
Nikki, turned her head to the girl's direction, slightly caught off-guard with her question. For what reason would she even ask that?
"Spaghetti."
"S-Spaghetti, you say?" Shizuka swore she saw a little hint of embarrassment come from the cherry pink tints of Nikki's cheek — surprised that even someone like her could show some sort of emotion. She found herself smiling too much, turning her head the other direction sheepishly gripping the handle of her brown briefcase. "Then, I'm gonna try to make you some spaghetti! This is to boost our girl powaaaa!"
Nikki cringed, yet a small smile slightly curled on her lips.
"Ah! Nikki-chan, did you just smile?"
"In your dreams, ugly."
"Ouch!"
🥀
"Nikki-chan! I heard you came first for your psychology festival event! Congrats~!"
Nikki slouched on her cushion on the floor, her legs crossed as she rested her head on her coffee table. Living alone was one thing, but after getting a scholarship and making it to one of her suited universities brought light to her new life. In front of her on her coffee table was her laptop, a girl on the other side of the screen with curly brown hair beside her boyfriend.
"You guys, how can you make such a risky decision?" Nikki scowled as she took a sip of her can of beer. She was clearly drunk, yet she felt the need to stay put. "Dropping out of uni just to start a family? You haven't even gotten married yet."
"Don't worry! Jun-kun already has a profitable business!"
"For toilet paper when he focused on Psych-fest."
"Hush! Anyway, shouldn't you be at the age to get a boyfriend right now? I've been dating Jun-kun for three years now — but you haven't even considered it," her friend said from the other side. In unison, her boyfriend nodded in worry.
Nikki's mouth twitched in irritation before slamming the can down, her face deep red. "A boyfriend? Girls don't need one to survive in society."
"Ahaha, look, Nikki-chan is totally jealous."
"I'm not!"
Her black to yellow locks covered her face as she blew to get them out of the way, then standing up from the cushion to find some water in order to sober up. Calling them was one of her many regrets, especially when she was in the middle of drinking some alcohol. Opening her fridge, she silently winced to find no more bottled water left inside — only more cans of beer, energy drinks and stored kimchi appeared inside before she groaned.
Running back to her laptop out of breath, she held the lid of her laptop. "Guys, I ran out of bottled water and I'm probably gonna forget once it's morning — wait for me okay?"
"H-Huh? This late? You're still drunk—"
"I'll walk instead of taking my car."
"Okay..."
Quickly slipping on her tight jeans and grabbing her wallet, not realising that she had worn the same jumper as she locked her apartment door closed. The air felt minty as the heavy winds of winter carried her to take shelter along the roads with roofs on its side. Her face was still red, yet her hands were shivering, her pants not enough to protect her from the gushes of wind.
"Convenience store...where is it again?" she muttered to herself before seeing the bright building with the brand logo on its brim. Smiling in relief, she pulled her sleeve to her hands before pressing the traffic light indicator, making sure not to touch it using her bare hands due to the bacteria.
Her eyes widened as she felt something clasp on her mouth — something or someone. Her right leg automatically lifted up before swinging to her back, the hard sensation of someone's body being hit as she clasped their collar using her left hand — her nail digging into the skin of their neck. She slightly grunted as she fell to the ground, observing the shadowing figure wearing dark clothing laugh.
"Hah, that's all you can do? I can't even imagine you being such good friends with Shizuka — you don't deserve such an angel as her. You don't deserve the Psych-Fest award either, it could've gone to me."
Someone who knows me? Why are they degrading me when I clearly just kicked them?
"What are you doing?" She asked in a ruff voice, the traffic light beeping green before flashing back to red. The wind had gotten a lot colder, she felt her legs shiver — her wallet on the ground. "Is this meant to be some sort of prank?"
"What? You don't even know your opponent's face. This just proves how cocky you are to win against your classmates, am I right?"
"You mean you're someone who competed in the Psych-Fest and became a sore-loser?"
"And got their rank one stolen by you!" A male voice shouted. She winced at his volume by pressing her hands to her ears, her eyes still furrowed in disgust. "Don't give me that look, after all that you've done to me, now I have lost that bet without anything left!"
A bet?
"Whatever bet you made thinking that you could come first is moronic," she said. "Instead of spending your time finding someone to blame — you could've used it to study a lot harder and create a better presentation. That voice — I know who you are. Jun. No one else would know that I had gone to the convenience store, attack me when I'm drunk -- and say something about Shizuka like that."
Before she could react, she felt a blow from her stomach — she grunted in pain before getting knocked back down to the ground. Still, she managed to mutter. "Before you diss me about being friends with her for five years, try thinking about how to appeal to her. It's the other way around, Jun, you don't deserve her."
"Shut up!"
"Gahhk!"
She pressed her hand to her chest before seeing red.
That wasn't a punch? Did he just — stab me?
In front of her was a blade, a knife that she had gotten for Shizuka when she finally loaned her own apartment a few streets far from her's. She could have recognised it anywhere, from the cute pink handle surrounded by sunflowers and the slight curve of the handle symbolising a pair of rabbit ears. The warmth of her blood enveloped her jumper as her ears took in the crazy laughter of her best friend's partner.
"Not so strong now, huh?" He smiled, eyes glinting sarcasm as she returned the grin — only for it to be lopsided.
"Huh? Strong? You already made a big mistake."
"Haah? What mistake!?"
"The timing," she said in between breaths. Nikki saw her vision weakening before continuing to speak. "You left the same time as I did. You knew which convenience store I would have gone to. The blade that you're carrying has your hand print. Just now — I scratched you with my nails."
He widened his eyes, then looked around with his other hand feeling his neck. Indeed, there was a little sign of pain from the cut.
"Y-You bitch!"
"Yeah, I'm a damn bitch — and you just got owned."
"N-Nikki-chan!?" Came a female voice as Nikki slightly tilted her head to their direction. It was Shizuka, her eyes as wide as tennis balls, her hand on her phone weakening her grip as she dropped it. "W-Whoever you are, stop that! Damnit, where's Jun-kun when I told him to come over!?"
"T-There," Nikki pointed, her arm as heavy as getting a vaccination. she assumed that the blade didn't stab her heart otherwise she would have died almost instantly, yet it was so close that she felt every second biting her existence to death. "Your boyfriend is the murderer."
Jun winced, his eyes losing his sanity as he screamed. Turning around, he bolted down the road, leaving the two girls in agony. Shizuka quickly picked up her phone again, struggling to type the three numbers before feeling a bloody hand stop her progress. "N-Nikki-chan, if I don't call the ambulance then you won't—"
"It's too late, ugly," she muttered quietly in the dead of the night. Her grip on her friend's arm weakening. Shizuka quickly grabbed Nikki's arm and left on her's. She felt her lips tremble as her friend's pulse was almost unreadable. "But hear what I have to say, will you?"
"B-But—"
"It hurts," Nikki interrupted. "I wanna die so badly. It feels numb, but the pain in my chest hurts so fucking bad. You know, I could have run away, even if I was this drunk, I could have. You wanna know why I didn't? He was talking about you. He idolised you as this sort of being from the heavens — but that's not you. He was pressing all his expectations on you by degrading me."
"Why did you do that!? Why did it have to be because of me!?" Shizuka shouted, tears falling down her eyes like crystals shattering.
Nikki smiled for the final time.
"Because I love you."
Her eyes closed before Shizuka panicked even further. She felt her best friend's face, pale and cold — the face when she was drunk no longer there. She found herself mumbling as she called the ambulance anyway. Shizuka noticed the first snow sprinkle down on them like the pity of God, the traffic lights still flashing red as she heard the sounds of a person through her smartphone. It shouldn't have ended like this. She slapped her hands on her mouth as the chambers of her eyes let go of the tears.
"Nikki-chan, it's not love if you left me."
🥀
Mira fluttered her eyes before finding herself in the Ramshackle dorm. Her vision was still slightly blurry, she wasn't bothered to give enough effort to wake up — but she did anyway. Feeling some sort of weight beside wherever she was lying down, her head slowly turned as if she were a robot. Ignoring her headache, she moved her arm to rub her eyes.
Ears.
The same ears that she had touched a few days ago. The same ears that she was going to touch a few years ago.
She knew.
"Ru...ggie?" Mira called before lifting her body up from her own bed, inside the fourth room of her dorm. Why the fourth? She didn't know, but she had always liked the lighting when the tree leaves covered the rays of the sun by the window. The Savanaclaw member groaned in exhaustion before popping his head from the side of the bed, clearly indicating that he barely slept. Her eyes traced his eyebags and to the small yet wide bowl of water, her head feeling compressed by something damp.
"You idiot, you caught a fever y'know?"
"It happens," she answered, her voice still strained but ended with a slight childish tone as if it weren't a big deal before rising from her bed. Her shoulder was then pushed down, causing her to lean back on her mattress before giving Ruggie a little scowl.
"Oh Hell no, you're still sick — stay in bed like a good child," he teased with his wide grin before taking off the white cloth on her head and placing it back into the wide bowl filled with water. Her amber eyes scrunched up to show her displeasure before she rolled to her side, her hands clasped to her pillow.
"Yes, muuum~"
They stayed silent as she heard the drips of water, his hands twisting the cloth and slapping it back on her head. She squirmed as she gave him a little lecture on how mothers should never harm their children. He returned the lecture by saying people should always take care of their bodies as top priority — ending their little debate with her defeat.
"That reminds me, what happened earlier? Wasn't I eating dinner after proposing to you?"
"Proposing my ass, you collapsed on the ground once we finished eating and I totally thought it was because of my food!"
"But it's not," she curled her lips and closed her eyes. "I mean, your food has always been tasty and clean."
"Huh? You've only tried it once."
"Who knows? Maybe I've tried it before," Mira whispered just loud enough for him to hear it. He furrowed his eyebrows before standing up from the little chair that was placed beside her bed. She opened her eyes and looked back at him, tilting her head slightly to ask why he was leaving. "Where are you going? Are you leaving?"
"Of course I am," he said as if it were a 'matter-of-fact', pulling his blazer on and taking a plastic bag filled with medicine — weird liquids that he received from Sam's shop that she knew were trustworthy and placed it on the table where the bowl of water was. "School is gonna start in an hour, and I still need to get Leona-san to wake up otherwise he'll be late. I'll try to get Jade-kun to take notes for your classes, so don't you dare step out of your room without a proper reason."
What a mother.
"Yeesss mum!" She saluted before seeing him leave her room. Yawning and grabbing a hair tie from her drawer of the table, she secured it as a small pigtail due to her short hair before grabbing her charged phone. Almost dropping it, she realised something that she should have realised earlier.
Why am I in my pyjamas!?
Waving her arms around to fling her blanket out of her way, she slid her feet into her warm aquamarine slippers and dashed down the hallway to the first floor, finding the familiar female acquaintance of her's who was eating breakfast with Grim. Yuu looked up from her dish, the leftovers of the food that Mira herself had planned to eat alone the other day. It seemed that before it had even been ten minutes, she had broken her promise with her 'mother'.
"Amir-san? What seems to be the problem? Did your friend forget something in your room?"
"W-Who changed my clothes!?"
"...I did, of course."
Mira slouched back down to the ground, heavily sighing in relief as she pressed her hand to her chest to feel her heart beating erratically. Who knew what would have happened if he took care of her because of his guilt? What if he knew that she was a girl? Glad that Yuu had become such a reliable dorm member of the ramshackle, she made her way back to her room.
"I-I see," she mumbled to Yuu. "Have fun at school today."
Yuu watched as Mira disappeared back behind the door before choking on her food. "T-That was close— I'm not used to lying that much."
"Well you did promise to give me a can of tuna as long as I keep my mouth shut," Grim commented as he bit his fangs into his food. Yuu sighed before resting her head on her palm, her tie still untied as she stared out the big window of the lounge. "If it weren't for her fever, she would have busted you in a second, though."
Yuu pouted. "Shush, Grim. We're leaving since you love school so much that you'd even run away from theory classes." Pulling him out to the entrance, she only thought about whether her dorm member would be fine all by herself.
In all honesty, Mira was not fine.
She fiddled her fingers as she wondered if Jade would actually write notes down for her for each and every class, especially because today had to be that one day where every single period was a different subject. Mira also thought about how much had changed ever since she had been 'isekai'-ed into the world of Disney Villains, from her past of not being afraid of any consequences or pain to now worrying about the simplest things that could have been avoided if she had just become a bit more careful.
Her hands brushed against her pale blanket where she found her friend sleeping on, then looking at the bowl of water with medicine. Mira curled her lips before hugging her blanket close to her.
It had been a while since someone had cared for her, and she felt quite giddy.
Just for now. Let me be honest just for now.
🌻
Amir-kun is actually a girl.
He knew.
He recalled dropping her body down on the bed of her dorm, mentally complimenting the hard work she had done for cleaning the dorm despite the exterior looking as if it were about to collapse. From rushing to the mystery shop to get some fever medicine and running back to prepare a wet cloth, it didn't take him long to realise that he had to change her clothes in order to rub all the sweat off.
That was, until he noticed the binder around her chest.
He didn't want to think about it, his face was too red to even — he quickly closed his eyes despite his mind speeding with thoughts and finished off with taking care of the sick person in front of him. If only there was such thing as magic uses to delete his memory, he would try to master it completely. Trying not to worry about it, he shook his head aggressively as if he was waving his tail, finding the mirror of Savanaclaw.
Walking into his dorm, he felt his ears twitch in conceptualisation as he searched to find his dorm leader. Hearing the greetings of his dormmates who bowed slightly due to his status as the vice dorm leader, he was too busy thinking to even realise that they were there — in which he returned their greetings with little mutters of thought.
"Ruggie-senpai is a bit weird this morning, isn't he?"
"I thought I was the only one who thought that was the case."
As Ruggie opened the door to Leona's room, he sighed as he saw the familiar figure snoozing on the bed. Walking over to pull the covers from him, Ruggie placed his arms to his hips in demand.
"Leona-san, wake up or we'll both be late!"
"Grrr..."
"Don't growl at me first thing in the morning, please, what will you do if you have to repeat another year? It wouldn't be a nice feeling to see a senpai become your classmate," he warned as he pulled his dorm leader up from the bed. Leona yawned, his fangs showing through his mouth, before his emerald eyes opened. Ruggie quickly grabbed a hairbrush from a table mirror in the side, then quickly sliding the brush down to Leona's hair in a rushed manner.
"Now, now! Brush your teeth—!"
"Haaah, you don't need to keep telling me..."
"Don't yawn and also — don't forget to change!"
"So loud..."
Ruggie found himself dragging his senior to class that morning. Perhaps it was because he took care of Mira, but he felt himself a little disorganised than he had thought he was. Aside from the fact that he had found out that his friend of the same grade was a female, he wondered how he would be able to talk to her as from now on.
—And she did propose to me as a joke yesterday evening, too.
He felt like messing his hair in a craze, yet if it weren't for dragging Leona to his classroom, he would've done it on the spot. As he dismissed Leona from the third-year's floor, he made his way down to find Jade to tell him to take notes for the sick classmate. "Jade-kun? Do you mind taking notes for Amir-kun?"
"Oya, I certainly don't mind, but is he absent?" The teal-haired male towered over Ruggie with his extraordinary height. Ruggie felt sweat trickle down his face as he tried pushing the feeling of overwhelmness down the pits of his mind. He answered Jade's question with a quick nod. "I see. That will be no problem then."
"Shishishi, thanks for your help."
With that, he made his way to his own classroom in hopes of focusing with his work instead of the sick girl who spent hours rolling on her bed.
🌻
AIGHT daily updates goin fwinne
here's a little cursed sneak peek iM sORrY---