struggle bug
Mud splashed from the puddle, onto my white socks and bare legs. It was ice-cold, hitting the skin's surface like needles.
I watched as the brown soaked the box's paper surface, sucking all colour from the bright pastel patterns adorning it. While watching it slowly turn from soft pinks and blues to the colour of sullied underwear, I reminded myself to breathe.
In. Out.
Miku sneered, lifting one foot and hovering it over the box. She let it crash down violently, the box and its contents long destroyed, an unfortunate loss.
"Why," she said, in that prickling, condescending tone she would always put on just for me. "Why do you think I would accept such an apology?"
I peeled my eyes from the crushed objects underneath her foot, from the rather metaphorical representation of my heart, to meet her narrowed gaze. She looked at me like I was a disgusting bug, writhing down in the mud with her foot.
"Rin, darling, honey, sweetie," Miku cooed, retracting her foot and leaving the battered box bare, vulnerable. She flicked one long twin tail over her shoulder. "You should know by now that it's too late, and I don't need your grovelling to try and take back all the horrible things you did. I can't accept this pathetic apology. For all I know, you're just using it for your own gain."
Am I? Am I using it for my own gain? Maybe, perhaps. People always said to apologise for bad things you've done, and that'd help make things better. I felt bad about my mistakes, so I wanted to show that through an apology, even if I didn't necessarily expect forgiveness.
Maybe I got that wrong, because I didn't feel any better or freed from my guilt.
"I mean, you've only ever been so selfish and self-entitled anyway. So why should I expect anything more from you?" She tilted her head.
"I'm not expecting you to forgive me," I said, careful in picking my words. If I said anything she didn't like, she'd pry them from my mouth and turn them against me, use them as blades against my skin. "I mean, I was awful to you, and I obviously deserve everything that's come my way, so I'm not looking for forgiveness. I just wanted to apologise, because I know I was wrong."
Miku stared, watching that grub wriggle, wriggle, struggle her way out, useless and useless and rolling in the mud. "Yeah, you were awful to me. You deserve hell, Rin. You don't deserve anything good. And I think trying to apologise to me is just a waste of time. Whatever you wanted out of it, you're not getting."
I was that struggle bug, drowning down in that puddle.
Taking a breath, I said, "...You're right. I'm sorry for wasting your time. I just seem to keep doing horrible things to you, hey?"
She looked at me, but she didn't respond, just keeping her lips in a straight line, arms folded over her chest. It was an obvious agreement to my remark, though. She took one last long look at me, before she kicked the box from the puddle into my shins and sashayed off across the school yard.
I watched the mud trickle down my legs and onto my socks. Finally, I let my breath out, and the tears came like an avalanche.
At this stage, I didn't even care if she saw me cry. It wouldn't change anything.
And of course, letting it all out didn't make me feel any better, either.
hmm.