Chapter 270: A Friend from the Past |
So I finally realised that Shiraishi was never the target to begin with. And after my conversation with Lilith last night, I also wondered how she went wrong in identifying the target. She has never been wrong before.
What if she was right about a third-party interference?
It doesn't seem impossible, but then again, we had no clues on who the perpetrator might be. Or even if it was a human in the first place was something to ponder about.
I was sitting quietly, staring at the whiteboard, as our teacher was going on about the function of the sodium-potassium pump in our brain. It was quite an interesting topic, so I was taking down whatever she was writing on the board so that I could refer to it at home.
Though, between the small phases of writing it from the board, I was zoning out, wondering about my predicament at that moment.
If I said it changed a lot, then it would be an understatement.
For the past one month or so, I've been trying to understand Shiraishi and tolerating her shit even though she wasn't the actual target. I ended up wasting almost two months after her and as a result, what did I get?
Nothing.
I was back to square zero.
Even there was one question that was lingering on my mind ever since the day I realised that Moriko was the same girl whom I knew back in middle school.
Adachi Moriko.
Though changed a lot from how she was back in middle school, that's why I couldn't recognise her. Her personality, as well as physical appearance, was nothing like what it was then. It was like both of the Adachi were completely different people.
She used to have long black hair and a very timidly outgoing personality. She had friends, but she wasn't a person with a prominent presence, so her existence didn't matter to her group.
It was basically that she was popular, but they did not perceive her as a likeable person. Everyone used to crack jokes on her and push her around according to their will, and she used to bear with them for some reason.
Though she changed a lot after she met me.
I still don't understand why she acted like she didn't know me?
She was a meek girl with not many friends, and her personality wasn't as firm as it was at that moment. Due to her lack of voice, her friends used to push her around and she never protested against them for treating her like that.
After all, they were her friends and friends did that kind of stuff.
But her naïve mind couldn't comprehend the fact that her friends were simply using her while concealing their motives under the veil of companionship.
From what I interpreted of her situation, it wasn't complete because she was naïve. A part of her was starting to hold on to the idea that those girls were her only friends, so if they left her then she would be stranded.
She was a close friend of mine.
I used to share a lot of things with her at that time and she was aware of the situation at my home. I used to be quite depressed at that time and used to frequently zone out.
I haven't changed much since middle school. I had few friends at that time too, but I wasn't that close to them that I would share what was going on in my life. I had a relatively low profile back then.
Adachi started talking to me just because her friend had a crush on me and she pushed Adachi forward instead of her. That's how our friendship started, and Adachi was a pleasant person to be around.
She was the only person in front of whom I opened up a bit. She was always there to listen whenever I had to say something and never pushed me away. Maybe that's why I grew so close to her back then.
But everything changed on that one specific day.
I remember it was the first day after spring break. The day she finally confessed her true feelings towards me. Till that point I had never thought of the possibility being real, but at the end of the day, everything ended.
I remember how she used to say, "I hope we'll never lose what we have between us."
Yet, that day I could see in her eyes. The emotions she was fighting back only to appear unfazed by those things in front of me. She was well aware of the fact that it was a turning point in our friendship and everything was coming to an end.
We lost everything we had between us.
Even though I never pushed her away from my side, I noticed straying farther away from me with each passing day. Our conversation got shorter, and we stopped seeing each other in school, as she would avoid me.
I lost a close friend and more than that; I ended up hurting a person with pure intentions towards me.
My only mistake was that I didn't even try to hold on to her.
I could never get attached to anyone, no matter how close I might get with that person. There will always remain an invisible wall that no one can enter, no matter how hard they try.
I wondered at times why I was like that?
Nothing major happened that day and I was walking towards my apartment. As I was closing in, I noticed that the door to my apartment was left open slightly. It caught my attention as I paced up.
It was weird that Lilith left the door open like that.
I opened the door and walked in. The voice of Lilith talking with someone could be heard coming from my room. Assuming from their tone, the temperament of that conversation wasn't going well, but that wasn't what concerned me.
Considering no one knows about Lilith except me, who was she talking with?