*Keiko’s POV*
It didn’t even take ten seconds.
The truth came out faster than I expected — that the popular boy who asked me out did it on a dare from his friends. Some stupid bet made during lunch break to see if he could get the “boring, emotionless nerd” to say yes.
I wasn’t surprised.
Maybe that was the saddest part.
I wasn’t the kind of girl people expected reactions from and I wasn’t the one who cried or yelled or got angry.
I should’ve thrown my drink in his face like in those romance dramas. But instead, I just shrugged.
“It’s okay,” I said. “If you want to do the ten-seconds breakup thing now, I don’t mind.”
But for whatever reason, he didn’t.
From that day, he started walking me home. Waiting for me after school, even when his friends laughed behind his back.
Inviting me to weird places I’d never been, like the batting cages or to watch fireworks by the river.
And I didn’t do anything to impress him. I wasn’t good at conversation. I didn’t dress up. I didn’t pretend to be cute or interesting.
I was just… there.
And maybe for the first time in my life, that felt okay.
I expected him to get bored of me within days.
After all, what kind of fun could you have with a girl who barely spoke and only cared about books?
But he didn’t leave.
I didn’t know what to make of it. And honestly, it scared me.
Because for the first time, I started to enjoy being with someone. I started to look forward to seeing him. I started to imagine a life outside of my parents’ suffocating expectations, a life where maybe someone actually liked me.
And that was dangerous.
Because wanting something means you can lose it.
It was around that time my parents noticed I wasn’t coming straight home from school.
That I sometimes arrived smelling like fireworks smoke or greasy yakisoba from festival stalls.
They scolded me, of course. Demanded to know what I was doing and with who. Threatened to take away my books, my few comforts, if I didn’t obey.
And for the first time, I lied to them.
It was exhilarating, in a strange, small way.
Like stealing a cookie before dinner and not getting caught.
A tiny taste of rebellion.
But I knew it couldn’t last.
---
His birthday came. And with it, a storm inside my chest I didn’t know how to name.
I told myself it would be our last date.
That I’d thank him for everything and break it off before either of us got too attached.
Because that’s what smart people do, right?
Cut the string before it can snap.
But that evening… things happened differently.
I didn’t plan for it.
I didn’t even know how any of it worked.
But somehow, we ended up at his place.
And the things he said…
The way he looked at me, like I was the only person in the world who existed for him…
It broke every wall I spent years building.
I was terrified.
Not of him — but of myself.
Of how badly I wanted to be loved.
Of how desperately I wanted to believe in him, even knowing better.
Afterward, lying on that small bed, I remember staring at the ceiling, feeling raw and exposed.
And when he asked, awkwardly, “Do you regret it?” — I told him no.
Because in that moment, I didn’t.
And then we broke up.
I don’t even remember the conversation, just the numbness. I think we both knew it was coming.
But what I didn’t expect was what came next.
The nausea.
The dizziness.
The growing suspicion in my mother’s eyes.
I didn’t even realize what was happening to my own body until my mother’s hands gripped my shoulders, shaking me hard.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
I’ll never forget that moment. How cold the room felt. How my ears rang so loud I could barely hear her.
I was seventeen...
I hadn’t even finished school...
I was the daughter who was supposed to be perfect...
The quiet, obedient girl who never caused trouble....
My father was a storm, raging through the house. My mother wept in the kitchen.
And I disappeared into myself.
I dropped out from school. Stopped going outside. Stopped answering texts.
The world shrank down to the four walls of my room and the tiny life growing inside me.
I didn’t expect anything from Ryusei. I figured he was long gone, probably forgot my name.
But then our families collided like a train wreck.
Yelling.
Accusations.
Demands.
I watched it all like a ghost. Detached.
I don’t blame Ryusei for how he was then.
He was just as young and lost as I was.
Maybe I thought, back then, that being with him would give me more freedom. That in loving him, I was breaking away from my parents’ control.
But I realize now…
For him, it was the opposite.
I was his cage.
A reminder of responsibility, of mistakes, of things he wasn’t ready to face.
And so we hurt each other.
Over and over.
But here’s the strange part — no matter how bad it got, he always came back. Like some stray dog I kept kicking away but secretly left food for.
And I hated him for it.
And loved him for it.
---
Now, sitting alone in this quiet room after my father’s funeral, with the scent of incense clinging to my hair, I think about that boy.
The idiot who once dared to ask out the quiet, invisible girl with her nose buried in a bird encyclopedia because his friend thought it would be funny.
The same fool who, after everything — the mistakes, the betrayals, the silence — still stands beside me.
And I realize, one thing I’ll carry to my grave is the regret of breaking my parents’ hearts. Of shattering the trust they placed so carefully in me.
I never found the courage to properly apologize to my father, and now that chance has slipped away forever.
No matter how hard I tried to be a good daughter, no matter how desperately I wanted to make them proud, in the end, I became the very burden they never deserved to carry.
I wish I could go back to being that awkward seventeen-year-old, sitting alone in the cafeteria, reading about migratory patterns and rare species of kingfishers.
I wish I could tell her it’s okay to want things. It’s okay to be afraid. That love isn’t some flawless, gentle thing. It’s messy. It’s selfish. It’s terrifying. And sometimes, it breaks you before it holds you.
I close my eyes.
And I let myself cry.
Not for anyone.
But for the girl I used to be.