The Antagonist
Sakiyurai Hanami could be described as a girl with many dislikes. She admitted this quality often led to her losing her cool, which wasn't a trait she fancied as advantageous in life, but she also reasoned that any rational individual would see that her reasons were purely justified. And Hanami would never work under or with anyone without the good sense to see that.
One such dislike: group projects. Or rather, she disliked group projects with people who didn't carry their own weight. Her life had always consisted of getting stuff done by herself, with as little outside help as possible—and if that manifested as gigantic bags under her eyes that she needed to cover with concealer and a growing addiction to coffee, then so be it. She toughed it out—and if she could, why couldn't everybody else? Which brought her to the point of annoyance at hand: the group members who never carried their own weight.
Tossing her fine, black hair aside, Hanami pasted on a falsely sweet smile and rapped her knuckles on the desk of the young man seated across from her. He barely noticed the first time (dislike #2: being ignored), and she had to clear her throat and bang her knuckles on the desk twice more before he disengaged from his conversation with the other girl in her group.
"What the fuck. That took you frickin' long enough, Saito," she said, rolling her eyes.
"What do you want?" Saito barely looked at her, and when he did, it was with a mixture of disdain cast down the slope of his nose.
Dislike #3: being looked down upon. At seventeen years old, Hanami stood at four-eleven with a full and curvy figure that only accented her portly stature. She had no objections with the way she looked, aside from the height advantage it gave others—which was why she usually wore thick-soled shoes or platforms. Still, no shoe would ever be able to visually length her torso, and not being looked down upon was relatively difficult to avoid when everyone was taller than her.
"We should begin brainstorming for this project," she said.
Saito checked a post on his phone, chuckled and snapped a picture, then, between taps of his finger, he told her, "Yeah…you can do that. I'll do whatever."
Hanami tittered and said, saccharine, "Um, no. Now get the fuck off your phone and help me with this." Then, for dramatic effect, she snapped her body around to look like she had lost interest and gave Saito an over-the-shoulder eye-dagger-shrug combo. It was a deadly (if she did say so herself) match, and she could see Saito succumbing to its powers. "Now, let's brainstorm." She twirled her pen in one hand, loving the way it snapped into place over and over again. "Fundraisers."
"Car wash."
"Bake sale."
"Yeah, like any of us knows how to fucking cook. What the actual fuck, Tsukumi?" Hanami rolled her eyes. "Wake up and try to come up with a good id—"
"Will you just shut up?" a deadpan voice said, bulldozing through Hanami's high-pitched soprano like a hammer slammed against a mirror.
Hanami's little mouth gaped open for a moment, then her black-eyed gaze slid to the side, squinted at the girl who had spoken: Hagiware Nami (dislike #4). She closed her mouth and made it frown, so the other girl knew she had spoken out of line.
Nami's expression remained an icy tundra as she continued. "All you do is cuss and rant about everything, when you actually don't contribute at all! I mean, all you are is an opinionated little bitch who's convinced herself that everybody cares what she thinks, when really—surprise!—nobody gives a shit! I think it's time for you to wake up and smell the bitter coffee, because nobody cares about your opinions, and nobody care's about you."
The class had gone silent as all twenty-nine people turned to Hanami's group. Hanami's chin and bottom lip tensed as she told herself, Nobody else thinks that. Nami's being a bitch, she's gonna get in trouble. I can't believe she said that! She anticipated someone calling Nami out for being mean, and primed her lips to melt into a simpering smile, when from the corner of the classroom, a nasty drawl said, "Well, finally someone said something." And just like that, Saito clapped Nami on the back, and the classroom burst into a disorganized jumble of dayummm's and shots fired's and, worst of all, finally, Sakiyurai's got a taste of her own medicine.
At first, it was as though time had stopped. And Hanami didn't realize that she'd started crying until she saw the first hint of emotion on Nami's face: pulled-together brows as her eyes fell on Hanami's tears. Then, she felt her mind spiraling out of the tight reins she usually held and waves of humiliation bubbling up inside. Mostly, it was the realization that everyone agreed with Nami. Finally, Hanami felt the tears streaming down her face. Her chin trembled with the effort it took to keep her face from crumpling up like a piece of paper. The class had gone almost silent again, but Hanami knew it was more curiosity at her reaction, not actual sympathy. Her anger and humiliation welled up hot within her. Before the sobs could come, as she new they would, Hanami shot up from her seat and stormed out of the classroom.
As the door slammed shut behind her, the owner of the drawl that had started it all began to laugh.
Hanami ran to the lunchroom as soon as the bell rang and collapsed into a chair at her usual table. She was the first person in her friend group who had arrived, but soon, her best friends began to slide into their usual seats. Her face felt stiff from keeping it in the same neutral position until lunch, and enclosed in the protective circle of her friends, she allowed herself to express some of her distress.
"Nami was such a bitch in class today," she said. Her voice sounded a little guttural, as she had held her words in her throat, too afraid of getting shot down again to talk. Now that no one was scared of messing with her, she could only imagine the hell to come.
"What happened?" Emi asked. She tucked into her food immediately after saying this, looking for all the world like she was more interested in her lunch than the reason for Hanami's red eyes.
"She called me an 'opinionated little bitch,'" Hanami said, rolling her eyes. "And the class agreed!" She looked around the table for expressions mirroring the shock she'd originally felt, but found only reluctant agreement in her friend's eyes. "What the actual fuck! You guys think so too!"
Emi shrugged, the only one brave enough to follow up Hanami's deduction. "You are pretty opinionated. About everything. To the point of being obsolete."
There was something very blunt and clinical about the way she put it. To Hanami, this was like receiving a diagnosis of illness from her lawyer mother, and then having it followed up by an actual doctor. It was the initial prick of a nail being hammered in, and it hurt like getting thrown out of heaven and punted to hell.
She could hear the angel's laughing.
She could feel her chin begin to tremble again, but she knew she couldn't cry in front of Emi. So Hanami blinked a few times rapidly, as though she didn't understand, then said, "Why, I'm such an angel. How could you think that?"
And just like that, her table erupted into a symphony of sarcastic comments and side conversations.
On the inside, though, Hanami died just a little bit more.
There was something about playing one of Chopin's preludes on the violin that always soothed Hanami, but today wasn't a day she wanted to be soothed. She pulled her bow to and fro across the strings, rosin flying in the air from the speed at which she spun out the Beethoven sonata. In some part of her mind, she imagined what she must have looked like from the entrance to the concert hall: a small figure sitting at center stage, brandishing her bow with ferocity that nearly snapped its hairs in two. At the very end, she missed a chord and threw caution and technique to the air, finishing the angry piece with three discordant notes that sounded like the wail of a dying cat.
"Whoa," someone laughed. Hanami looked up from her strings, tears in her eyes but not yet falling, and glared at the Rikkai student who'd snuck up on her. Kirihara Akaya jumped with both legs and powerful muscles onto the stage and walked over to her violin stand at the center of the stage. He arched an eyebrow and remarked, "I'm pretty sure that's not part of any Mozart concerto. Correct me if I'm wrong; my sister is the violin virtuoso of my family."
"What d'you want, Akaya?" Hanami grumbled, blinking quickly to get rid of the tears in her eyes. "I'm practicing."
Akaya scoffed. "Yeah, practicing how to empty a concert hall in case of a fire."
"Shut up, shithead."
"Make me, fuck face."
Hanami turned away. "I'm serious," she deadpanned. "I'm not in the mood today."
"Great, 'cause I'm never in the mood."
There was a hollow drip as one of Hanami's tears dropped onto her violin. If it had been anyone else, they wouldn't have noticed, but Akaya was observant despite all of his youth and insensitivity, so he heard that drop and he stopped. "Hey…what's wrong?"
Dislike #6: tear ducts. Hanami wished with all her heart that she wouldn't cry, but it was no use. Already, the surface of her violin had become a smattering of teardrops and her nose was becoming red and runny. And of course, her chin was trembling like fucking gelatin. All she could think was that the last thing she needed was to scare Akaya off.
Because his weekly piano lessons happened to coincide with the times Hanami practiced alone and Akaya's teacher was always late to these lessons, Akaya always ended up keeping Hanami company for fifteen to twenty minutes before his lesson actually started. He was the only company she had while she practiced for her monthly performances with the chamber orchestra, and despite the misleading nature of their nicknames, Hanami had grown quite dependent on his company.
Sniffling, she asked, "Am I an opinionated bitch?"
Akaya was silent. Then, he moved forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Yes." Hanami sucked in a trembling breath. "But that's one of the things I like about you."
And just like that, the tension in Hanami's chest released and she let out her breath. Leaning into Akaya's side, she wiped her eyes on the cloth on his hipbone then looked up at him with a genuine smile. "Thank you," she said, her voice echoing like a prophecy in the large concert hall.
Akaya blinked back at her. "For what? I was just telling the truth."
A/N: This is probably the least thought out fanfic I have every written. Basically, it's about a girl I really dislike, and honestly, she's a great person except for the flaw I emphasized in this ficlet. But that trait just really, really, really caused me to hate her.
…Naturally, as a writer, I began to wonder what would happen when—if—she found love.
Then I made a scenario and wrote a fic about it.
Three cheers for the creative process. This just goes to show that even people you have can be sources of inspiration.