[Kurokawa] Mother

After a long warm bath to mentally prepare, I am now making my way through Mother's room. Seriously speaking, this is the one thing I dislike the most. Normally, I would not do such a thing as touching this space of hers, but today is not the same as usual. There is something that I desperately need to accomplish fast.

Inside Mother's room, the putrid smell of garbage, alcohol, and cigarettes permeates the air no less than the smell of corpses during the plague. It has become so disgusting because every piece of filth here has been left alone and untouched for at least a few weeks. One smell is already bad enough to make one vomit, let alone a mixture of three different kinds of horrid smells in the same place. If I did not know any better, I would have thought this room was some kind of garbage dump.

Not one spot is clean under my feet. There are always cigarette buds or spilled drinks and food on the floor. In fact, walking through everything without touching them can be called an achievement on its own. Whenever I try to move, I will have to shuffle the garbage around before finding a stable place to put my feet. In a way, I was swimming through a pool of filth. It is hard to believe anyone could live in such a condition.

But no matter how disgusted I am, there are times that I need to face reality head-on.

Mother's room is the only place in this house with a mirror. And a full-body mirror at that. Everything else has been either covered by me or broken and thrown out. There was no need to look at my reflection all the time. I am not my Mother. Once a year for a haircut may already be too much.

But now, I need to see how different I am from the other girls. For what is yet to come, there needs to be a plan. That plan depends heavily on...him and how he looks at me. At this point, I have no doubt that C knows what is happening to me. Moreover, after so many trials, he should understand how I got all of them. However, even when C remembers all the defects on my body, I should still hide or make them as less visible as possible. Knowing about it is one thing, and him acknowledging it is another. The last thing that I want to hear from him is a pity.

Nothing Mother did to me would ever hurt me as much.

As I make my way toward the mirror, both of my ears can hear the loud and thumping sounds of my heart. I can feel myself getting hotter in the chest, but strangely, my fingers are freezing. Except for the area in front of my chest, nothing is warm as it should be. Even my legs are refusing to move as if they are bound by shackles made of lead. If I had the chance, I would never get close to this accursed room.

"Sigh..."

Even when I tried to prepare beforehand, I could still not do this without feeling anything.

"That mirror really is my bane..."

It has always been placed over there, by Mother's bed. The distance between me and that favorite thing of Mother's is just a few steps far. But at this point, that seems further than a thousand miles. The longer I stay in this room, the more nervous I am. From the bottom of my heart, I know If I want to make it quick, I should try to calm down and get it over with. However, things are always easier said than done.

C...please give me strength...

If you accept a killer like Rachel, will you also do that to me?

Looking at my reflection in the full-body mirror, I can confirm my feelings again. It is the same as before.

I hate this body.

I really do.

There really is no doubt about that.

My eyes can see very clearly the reflection in that mirror. Unlike Rachel and Laura, who have unblemished white skin that they can be proud of showing to him, mine has imperfections and bruises everywhere. Some scars were made by cigarettes, some by bottles smashed into my flesh, some by scratches, and some I do not recall how I got them. They must have been there since I was a child and grew up with me. As for the bruises, they formed from punches and slaps. All over my skin, patches of purple and blue are never a rare scene. Usually, new ones will form before old ones can heal. And why I have so many scars is I never got to be checked in the hospital.

Mother had to hide her masterpiece, of course.

I know I have a good figure. My breasts are firm and voluptuous, and my lower body is what people would describe as thicc. The system must have created it that way so that I can appeal to the audience much better. What is there to like if I had scars and an ugly figure at once? Such a game would not sell in a million years.

Sadly, all those little good things would be made trivial by the horrendous scar I have to hide with my hair. The...thing is as big as my hand! It is discolored, disfigured, and disliked! While the rest of my face is a pinkish white, that thing is covered with the color of burnt flesh. Whenever I tried to smile or laugh, the veins underneath the scar would twitch like a blood-sucking parasite. Some heal and fade after a long time, but this one does not. In fact, it has only gotten more morbid throughout the years.

C never talked about what I hid behind my hair. I think he respected my privacy. And for that, I am grateful. But the fact that he knew about this hideous thing that completely destroyed the top half of my face makes me want to rip my face off. The only way to make it unknown was to grow my bang so long that it covered everything.

Be it created by the system or not, the hatred I harbor for my existence is undoubtedly vast beyond anyone's understanding. In fact, the realization that this world is fake and fabricated has made it even worse for me to feel anything uplifting about myself. I thought that with the knowledge of everything being a bunch of codes and drawings, I would have a better view of myself.

Just like what happened in C's world, I made another mistake.

"I keep on making the wrong guess..."

Because I do not feel better after that at all.

Everything that happened until this moment, the objects thrown at me, the words people have used to scar my soul, was all just for a show. What I had to endure did not bring me any kind of fulfillment or lessons so that I could make myself a better person. No. All those things I have in my memories were put in there, so I could become a meaningful character of one disgusting world.

A heroine.

The reason for my suffering was probably the lack of depth in my character. This world needed me to feel all of what I did.

To build up the character's specialization, Rachel was neglected for a long time while having an unrequited love. Despite her upright nature, Laura was almost raped to death by a bunch of bullies. Using that kind of logic, a normal Kurokawa would not be enough for the theme of this game. For the game to be famous, its heroine needed to be unique in a way or two. The character called Kurokawa had to be put down, stomped on, and humiliated to create what I assume to be traits.

Until now, every girl has had circumstances that create triggers for them to graduate as a yandere. The author probably thought a yandere had to be born out of despair and distress. They are probably correct.

In short, my misery was created to give others a sense of amusement. They can laugh at it out of cringe, or they can cry because of it out of sympathy, but I was put on display. Do I take pride in that? Not at all. I have no need to have my life controlled and ridiculed like that.

Yesterday, when I was trying to change something, I did not have the time to think about myself. The result of that was the freedom that Rachel received. And judging by her attitude after her kiss, I guess she got something invaluable that changed her completely. What I did was right. And it came from my own volition, not because of the system controlling me.

It turned out that being able to do something out of my own free will was a kind of overwhelming joy I was never allowed to have. I felt...free. But now, when I am all alone with no voices other than my own, the truth hits me harder than Mother did. C is not here. I will not be able to hear his warm, caring, and sometimes hilarious thoughts anymore.

The only person that may understand my feelings is C. We are souls sharing the same fate. C and I are bound by the harsh reality this world has created to match our personalities. He has suffered so much that I could see myself in him.

Unlike me, who has a physical scar, C's mental scars are uncountable.

Only C will understand me.

If so, do I really need Mother?