Truth was, I'd been looking at Kuroo Tetsurou for a long time before I realized what all of my staring might have implied. He didn't notice me, of course, he was always with his friends, or with girls, he was a tall, popular high-schooler and I sat at the back at the class. I don't think I've ever had a lot of friends, and highschool was the same as the rest; I was alone. I didn't mind. Not too much. I understood that nobody wanted to talk to the antisocial girl at the back of the class. Someone else was like me, a friend of Kuroo, a cute guy who was always playing games on his console. But he had Kuroo, he had the volleyball team, people naturally got close to him because people naturally got close to Kuroo.

I was in sport class the first time I talked to Kuroo. We had basketball, or something else, I don't really remember, but I was asked to go fetch a stray ball that had landed towards the equipment storage room. There had been weird noises, that I had recognized as the unmistakable sounds of someone having sex, and I had looked inside. There, on the ground, a girl in his arms, sat Kuroo Tetsurou, balls-deep in her, face flushed and breath uneven. She was a girl I had seen around him recently, nothing new. He was known for not being serious about his relationships, so nothing about the situation had startled me. I only felt like my heart was ripping itself to smithereens.

She had gotten up and dressed quickly before leaving. I must have stood there, frozen, for a long time, because the teacher had to come get me for the end of the class. Kuroo didn't look at me, just getting dressed, I assumed pretty annoyed that his precious time had been interrupted. I didn't really care about who the girl was, I knew she was only one girl in a long list, I wasn't about to be jealous because else I'd have to hate half the female population of the school. When I came out of the gymnasium, he was waiting for me, looking half sheepish, half impatient. He dragged me out back and asked me to not tell any teacher that he'd been having sex in the storage room. I must have looked like I would still tell on him, because to that, he added

"I'll do anything you want."

And I was sold.

I thought about his offer for a good minute, but an idea stuck around the back of my head. He was offering to do anything I wanted. Had I been a good person, I might have said that no, it's okay, I won't tell, don't worry. But I wasn't, and in that case, I didn't want to be. I saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime chance, which it pretty much was, so I flipped all of my hesitations aside and told him

"Fuck me."

He had looked me up and down like I was a shirt he wasn't sure he liked enough to buy, but he still agreed to it. We met up after his volley practice, in the same storage he'd been fucking in earlier that very same day, and we did it. He was thoughtful enough to have brought a condom and lube, but wet as I was, we didn't really need any lubricant. I already thought he was gorgeous dressed, but naked, it was a whole other story. I don't think there'd ever be someone who'd turn me on so much just standing there in his birth suit.

There was no kissing, no preliminaries, no words exchanged. His fingers up inside me felt like fingers down my throat. It reminded me of my first time, a fling at a neighbor's party, something to flick off my virginity and be done with it. I had regretted it so much, but now that I was about to have sex with the guy who made me feel life the earth could swallow me whole, I was somehow glad I had. At least, maybe, I'd have a good memory of my one time with Kuroo. I wasn't counting on it too much. I knew I'd feel good, that I'd maybe come, but I also knew I'd wallow in self-pity and hatred afterwards.

That was exactly how it went down. I was face down on a mattress because I didn't want him to see my face, and he barely touched me, I just felt his hands brush against me when he positioned his dick but that was about it. For the rest of the time we fucked, he just grabbed my shirt and pulled on it to help himself inside of me. And I hated how good it felt, because I knew he was just doing it to cover his ass, he was surely disgusted with me and how I was using him. I didn't want to see his face either. I didn't want to see the contempt in his eyes when he'd look down at me and realize I was having the time of my life. Not making any noise had been the hardest, and my left wrist still had the marks of my teeth a week later, as a reminder that it had happened, it hadn't been a twisted dream.

I don't know if he ever came, but when he finished, or at least pretended to, we both got dressed without as much as a nod towards one another. We left the school, went opposite directions, and never talked again after that. As I had predicted, I spent the next month banging my head against a wall at my baseness. I had never been a slim girl, always teetering on the edge between thin and a somewhat normal weight. I barely had any breasts, and when I was in middle school, the only thing showing that I was a girl was the skirt uniform I wore. During that month, any weight that I might have had dropped down. I forgot to eat, or I wasn't hungry. The first week after I had fucked with Kuroo, everything I ate, I vomited right after. Even the smell of food disgusted me.

And yet, highschool ended in the blink of an eye. At the diploma ceremony, our eyes had met only for a brief moment, because we had been in the same class and a girl wanted to have one last photo of the whole group of us, myself more or less included, considering that I probably wasn't going to appear on it with the angle the photo had been taken. I didn't care. Highschool was just like the rest; kinda boring, kinda slow, and I didn't know if I was glad that it was over. In three years, the only moment I had felt anything was my heart breaking, and having sex with the object of my affection, which had been pretty much unwillingly on his part. Meeting his eyes brought that memory back and I felt worse than ever about it.

So when he came to me and asked for my number, I was completely dumbfounded. He said something that sounded like a poor excuse as to why he wanted it, but I didn't care, I gave my number to him faster than I had ever done anything else in my life. I didn't know what he'd do with it. Did he want revenge? Or was it just to play around with me? Again, I didn't care. He could have sold me and I'd feel it would be justified, with what I had done to him.

The first time he sent me a text was in June of my first year of college. I was studying traditional arts, and I was bored, not that it changed much from the rest of my life. The text was simple, just a "Hey, wanna meet up?" and my heart burst when I saw who had sent it. It burst in joy at the idea that he wanted to see me, and it burst in half at the idea that this was it, his revenge had been planned, he was going to execute it. But I was a stupid nineteen years old who was still in love with the same guy she had been for almost four years, so I said yes immediately.

We met up at a bar not too far from my university, because of course I had told him I studied there, and he had insisted to go drink at that bar. We each drank a beer, ate some side-dishes, and all the while I avoided his stare because I just knew he wasn't here to be polite. I was finished, this was my last night on earth, but I didn't mind dying after seeing such a gorgeous man. Even if he was the one to kill me.

But he did none of that. Instead, we went to my apartment, since he wanted to see it. We hadn't talked about that one time in the storage room, and I was very glad that he hadn't. At my apartment, he looked around, settled down in the couch, and we drank some more. I don't remember how, but I remember the feeling of the cold floor against my cheek, his dick pounding inside of me, his body draped over me, and he was hot, he was burning like he had a fever, but I was too drunk and in love to care. I woke up in the afternoon to missed classes and a headache, and a note on my table telling me we'd be seeing eachother again.

The next time, I was the one to go to his flat, and we met up like that sometimes twice a week, sometimes once in a month. But I waited. I'd spend my days lying in my bed, barely even showering, and sometimes when I fell asleep, it was because I didn't eat enough and was anemic. I lost weight again. I didn't really care, there wasn't really a difference to me. I had stopped going to the university. I would have rather spent my days lying on my bed, doing absolutely nothing, than have to go out and see all of those people stare at me. After a while, even watching the television or being on my computer had become overwhelming, because of the noise, and the people. I felt like they stared and judged, even on the other side of the screen, where I knew they couldn't see me.

Then, one time, we didn't see eachother for three months. The first week, I was as okay as I usually was. But by the end of the first month, when I still didn't have any news from him, I started to worry. Was he okay? Or did he just not want to talk to me anymore? That must have been it. Or had it all just been a hallucination, a dream? Reality didn't feel like reality anymore. I ate three biscuits, and threw up two. And that was how I went through the two other months. I didn't look at myself in the mirror, not that had ever done that a lot, but once I had caught my own eyes in the reflection, and I looked like a sack of bones. Was this how I had always looked? Suddenly, I felt sorry toward Kuroo for forcing himself to have sex with a skeleton. He must have been pretty masochistic to do that. But, I thought, if I was that thin, I might as well not change anything. Changing was tiring, it demanded efforts my body and mind couldn't muster. I had taken a shower, and it felt like half of my hair had fallen down the drain. When I tried to wash it, there were full strands stuck around my fingers like flimsy spiderwebs.

This had been my first shower in God knew how long. I was getting my groceries delivered to my door for a while now so I never went out. I hadn't changed my sheets in months. This was the worst I'd ever been, and this was precisely the moment Kuroo had sent me a text, telling me he'd be coming in two weeks, that he'd been away for some volley-related reason. So, what did I do? I started eating three times a day, very small quantities that seemed gigantic to me, and I threw up almost everything, but I still managed to keep part of it down in my stomach. I slept on regular schedules, shaved, applied cream to my face and conditioner to my hair, and after almost two weeks, I looked almost human.

And I decided to go out for the first time in what felt like forever. I needed new clothes, possibly new sheets. Before going out, I had opened all of the windows to allow air to go through, and it felt painfully good to have fresh air go in my lungs. I went down the stairs, and just that little action made my muscle scream from the atrophy I had forced my body into. Walking took me a bit of work for it to feel normal again, and I felt like the smallest gust of wind could snap me in two, but I felt good going out. I bought a thing or two, a few t-shirts and a pair of jeans, and even bought myself a wooden statue of a small, black cat curled up sleeping. The paint job was cheap and it looked like it could break any moment, and I felt stupid about it, but I felt like that cat, not really good looking, all curled up, and fragile.

Without realizing it, I ended up walking all the way to Kuroo's apartment, which was a few miles from mine. I wandered around the area for a bit, because I had never looked at anything else than him when I was here. I walked up to his apartment, and was surprised to see light coming out of the windows of the east apartment on the third floor. Was he already home? I didn't really think it through, and I waited for someone to come out of it so I could come in. The woman who let me it must have been at least sixty, and she looked at me like she had seen a ghost. I didn't care, I went straight to the elevator, and waited patiently for it to arrive. Three months without him, what were a few more seconds? I tried to convince myself that it really wasn't anything, but I felt giddy and anxious, waiting for the elevator to bring me up to him.

When it dinged on the third floor, I could feel my heart in my throat, and my legs were shaking from exhaustion, but I still walked to his door like nothing was wrong. I hesitated to knock for what felt like the longest minute ever, wondering if I was really doing the right thing, coming here uninvited. Thankfully, I had taken my phone, so I sat against the opposite wall and sent him "Are you home? I'm at yours soon" and waited for a response, but none came. Instead, I saw a notification telling me he had read it, and I waited again, a few more torturous minutes that made me seem like a stalker, waiting right beside his door. Still, I decided to come up, and was about to knock when I noticed it seemed like the door was open. Kuroo wasn't crazy, he'd never leave his door open like that. I slowly pulled the handle, and the door opened right up. I entered hesitantly, nervously caressing the small statue of the black cat between my fingers. I called out his name, very softly, but no response came, which wasn't so surprising with the volume of my voice.

I was about to remove my shoes, when my ears picked up on a noise. It sounded like shuffling, and my heart jumped at the idea of seeing him again. I got down on all four, and leaned beyond the wall to see if he was in his living room when my ears picked up another noise, a familiar, low voice, sounding hushed and pressing, and suddenly I was very aware of the fact that there were clothes scattered everywhere around the couch. I stopped breathing right there, when a girl's head popped up from the couch, facing towards me. She hadn't noticed me, but judging by her face and how she was jumping up and down, it wasn't hard to guess what she was doing.

With who she was doing it was pretty much a no-brainer.

Moans started to reach me, and I felt my hands tighten into a fist, before there was a small cracking sound, and dull pain in my right hand. When I looked down, I couldn't help but notice the small head of a wooden black cat rolling down, the poor paint job already chipped. I opened my right hand, and there was the body of the cat, pieces of wood swimming in a red liquid that pooled in my hand and dripped on the floor. It took me a second to realize that it was blood, my blood, and a gasp woke me up from my stupor.

When I looked up, I saw the girl look straight at me, a frightened expression on her face. She had stopped her movements and she looked at me as if I was something unsightly, which I knew I was, obviously shocked from seeing a girl look at her have sex on a guy's couch. But not any guy. I wished he would have been just any guy, but he wasn't, and the girl's face told me I had to get going. I got up, and almost tripped, before dashing for the door, my shoulder painfully colliding with the wall. I heard her curse all the while, and I was about to close the door and make a run for it when she said

"Shit, there was a ghost looking at me! Or a corpse, I don't know, but that wasn't human!"

So I ran, fastest as I could, rushing down the stairs and falling on the last step. I hurt my elbows on the way down and my right hand was now pulsing painfully, but I didn't care.

I don't remember how I got home, if I took the train, the bus, or if I just ran, but when I got there, I closed the door and leaned against it before turning around when I heard thunder and rain clashing against something. It was raining inside my apartment, the big drops already forming puddles in front of my windows. I tried to turn the lights on, but with the thunder there was a power outage, and as I sat on my ruined couch, rain pouring down on me, lightening blinding me, my whole right arm pulsing, I just burst out laughing. This situation was just ridiculous. What kind of stupid little shit left her windows open when the weather was clearly bad? What kind of fucked-up girl would go to the apartment of the guy who wasn't even her boyfriend and come in uninvited? What kind of piece of trash would just sit on her couch, drenched in ice-cold water, her hand pouring out blood, and laugh about it?

As a sat there, the laughter died on my lips, and instead an immense pain took my chest and left me breathless on the floor, tears streaming down my face, and instead of laughing, I found myself screaming in agony.

Why? Why was I the thin girl, the bullied girl, the one who sat at the back of the class and never said anything to anyone? Why did it have to be me, who had discovered the boy she loved fucking someone else, and had blackmailed him into having sex? Why did I always have to be the one suffering?

I knew why. It was simple, really. It was because I was unworthy. I was ugly. I was disgusting. My body was deformed and my mind was twisted, so of course this fell on me. It was only natural. I was the one who thought I had something with the boy I had liked for years. I was the one stupid enough to think he might have actually wanted me at some point. Who would want someone, no, something like me? No one, that was who.

There were some loud knocking and some shouts from the landlord at some point, but I didn't care. My chest felt constricted and breathing was difficult, but I still managed to get on my feet. I closed all of the windows, took my apartment keys, and went out and closed it. I made sure to leave the keys on the lock, and headed towards the staircase. I went up, up, and up, until I reached the roof.

I closed the door silently behind me, the storm howling all around me. There were white, blinding flashes of lightening. It looked like a typhoon was coming. I walked closer to the edge, and dragged my body over the small fence, my feet only inches away from the edge of the building. That was funny, I had always thought that if I committed suicide, I would do it painlessly, but now that I was about to throw myself down seven stories high, I didn't think about the pain at all. I felt strangely calm. When I looked at the pavement down below, my chest felt full and I could breathe freely. I took a huge gasp of breath, appreciating the crisp air cooling me down, because I felt like there was a fever coming up.

I breathed tranquilly, leaning against the fence for a few more moments, when I decided that it was about time I did the right thing. I stood up straighter than I ever had in the last five years, and smiled to myself because I was feeling so good about myself, because I could feel my existence didn't matter in the middle of nature and the storm and the rain and the crackling sounds of thunder

And I jumped.