I, Tenjou Yuuya, am being bullied. But that's not a recent development; it's been that way for a long time... ever since kindergarten. No matter how much I asked them to stop, they'd only find it funnier and escalate things, and no matter how much I told the teacher about it, they wouldn't help.
On the contrary, they'd even end up saying that I was the one in the wrong.
It would have been fine if I was only mistreated by those guys at school and the teachers... but I had reached the point that I didn't even get any love from my family.
My parents thought I would be a cute kid right after birth. After all, I was their firstborn. However, they eventually gave up on those thoughts. My face only got uglier over time, regardless of what I did. I tried everything: eating small quantities of food, diets of all types, and exercising to lose weight. But nothing I did help... my weight continued increasing as if my body was ridiculing me. I thought it was some illness, but I could not test that theory as the desire to watch over me was gone entirely from my parents.
The reason: The birth of little twin siblings, Youta & Sora Tenjou. Unlike me, both were beautiful, and my parents showered them affectionately.
Their treatment of me completely changed then. The twins always ate fresh food, and I'd only get yesterday's leftovers. Leftovers were the best I got, and mostly, it was only scraps and things that had expired or soured.
I wasn't allowed to wash my clothes with the twins'. They said, "The twins' clothes would get dirty if I washed them together," so my clothes would go unwashed because it would "only waste the water bill." And I continually washed my clothes using the park drinking fountain.
Speaking of clothes, the twins could buy new ones, but I always wore only tattered clothes. My bags were ratty and tattered from elementary to senior high school, but the twins always had brand-new stuff.
The twins were only one year younger than me, but for those reasons, I had to do many things myself since I entered kindergarten. I envied them a lot.
I thought I didn't do anything to deserve this... or did I?
No matter how much I tried to appeal to them, my parents didn't give me the time of day, no attention, no love, nothing.
But one person was kind to me, my grandfather, who sadly passed away at 90. He always traveled around, returned with peculiar souvenirs, and rarely went home. But when he came back, Grandpa always loved me, the ugly duckling.
That was the only way I got much more affection than the twins. Grandpa was considered weird and freaky for flying around the world for so long and collecting only weird stuff, and my mother was prejudiced against him, forcing my father as well.
In elementary school, my grandpa's house was off-limits to anyone but me, so I always went out to play there. Even though my grandpa was angry at how I was treated and shocked by the people around me, my appearance, and how people talked about him being a freak for collecting "worthless trash," as they called it.
"Yuuya, look, it's alright– okay, kiddo! Even if it's hard, happiness will surely come if you smile. Someday, you can look back at those who have done terrible things to you...besides, you still have a long life ahead of you, so don't be impatient; move slowly and steadily in the right direction. It's okay, Yuuya, I know you can do it."
Those were Grandpa's last words. In his will, he gave me the house where he lived and all of his property. Of course, my parents tried to take it away despite what others said. They knew of the priceless treasure and large quantity of money he possessed, but my grandpa had made thorough arrangements, so they failed. As a result, my parents tried to kill me– but a friend of Grandpa, the one who read the will to us, stopped them. Because everyone disliked me and my grandpa, they brought out the police to escape jail time but blamed me, so I was abandoned and secluded.
Well, when you think about it, that result was obvious. So I left home and decided to live in my grandpa's house. Because of my age, I couldn't access all the money, but I got monthly money. Thanks to him and his decisions, I could pay the entrance fee and tuition without using the 'monthly money'; however, it was not enough to live by, as in school, everyone would destroy my clothes, hurt me, steal my stuff and money, and I was constantly forced to replace my things, and thus had to get side-jobs to replace everything and eat decently.
And now, if I didn't go quickly, I would be late for my part-time job, but I was stopped and forcibly taken to the back of the gym. To be clear about what was going to happen──
"Know your place, you shitty fat-ass!" yelled a voice I didn't want to hear.
"Gah!?"
–It was group bullying. I was beaten and kicked many times. I could barely breathe, and since I didn't have any money left, I skipped lunch today, so the only thing that came out of my mouth was stomach juices.
After a while, maybe because he got tired of beating me, Takeshi Araki from my class, the main offender of this bullying, grabbed my hair and lifted my face as I was coughing violently.
Araki was the so-called delinquent guy with the body of a mature adult, a long face, a permanently angry-looking face, neck-length set-back blonde hair and dark blue eyes, a silver earring, skinny but with some muscle. He also wore a uniform– a black shirt, blue jacket, beige cargo pants, and black sneakers. He is a member of a delinquent group called [Red Ogre], which was active around this high school.
But I let out a painful cry-scream at how he handled me.
"Oi, fat-ass. Aren't you forgetting your place? You're my sandbag, and I'll beat my sandbag whenever I want. That's your role... so why are you going home suddenly?"
A sharp knee kicked me directly in the face. Blood was streaming from my nose, and my face was in agony.
"Hey, Araki, maybe you shouldn't be so hard on his face? If you hurt him there, everyone can see it, you know?"
"It's fine. No one's going to look at this kind of trash."
"Kya-Hahaha! Seriously, this is fun!"
Some flashy-looking girls took pictures of me with their smartphones. Araki seemed to come up with something as he watched, and a wicked grin spread across his face.
"Oh right, if you're going to take pictures, why don't you do it when he's butt-naked?"
"Oh! How nice! In that case, let's get more people over here."
"Great, just message everyone you know."
"Ugh!? S-s-t-o..."
"Shut your fucking mouth, you piece of shit!"
Once again, a kick landed right in my face. My consciousness grew hazy, and I felt like I could pass out at any moment, but I had no idea what might happen if I did that. However, I was still helpless to change anything, and the people Araki and the others called had already gathered around.
"Hey hey, you said if I came here, there'd be something fun..."
"I never thought I'd see the face of this garbage here."
A cold voice was soon heard, breaking many whispers and murmurs of the humiliation Araki was giving me; slowly, I looked to see my little brother and sister, their 'perfect' and 'beautiful' faces—young-looking, maybe around 17, heart-shape with light ivory flawless skin tone, beautiful ash blonde hair in a controlled, messy and short hair for my brother, with my sister being similar but with long hair that reacher her waist tied into two ponytails, body wise they were average in height with a slim body, with my sister being well-develop, tiny waist, above average breast size, long slender legs that connect with a firm rear back, one that many kept on being talked about, unlike my little brother, she just gave me ice-neutral face with some level of disgust and pity.
They usually wouldn't have any business in the back of this school building. Still, Araki or the 'popular club' might have called them over since they were the only ones they talked to, given their 'prince and princess' status in school, only the 'nobles' or just good-looking people are a part, that and delinquent.
"Ah? Youta, do you know him?"
"Yeah, well. I hate to admit it, but he's my big brother... that's what it should be."
"Big brother!? SERIOUSLY!?" Araki looked at me and laughed. "He looks nothing like you!"
"Well, you know, it's only a relationship on paper, so I don't care about him at all."
"I see, I see... Well, that's fine. Let's have fun today."
By then, nearly the whole school had gathered around– including some staff members, and Araki started stripping me naked. I resisted desperately and told him to stop, but after he beat me again, I was completely silenced and was finally stripped of all my clothes.
Araki laughed triumphantly.
"Oi oi, don't try to hide it!"
"What a disgusting body!?"
Words of contempt and condescension poured in from my surroundings. With regret and embarrassment, I desperately gritted my teeth and endured. Pretty soon, camera shutters echoed all around, and Araki spoke up.
"Thank you for gathering here today! Well then, time for the closing act!"
He looked at me and made a demented smile.
"Take this, you fat-ass! Hi-ya!" A decisive blow knocked me out of my jaw.
By the time I woke up, no one was around, and the moon was already floating in the sky. When I checked my belongings, they had stolen my wallet, my textbook was torn up and thrown away, and muddy water had been poured onto my clothes.
I wept bitterly on the spot, so overcome with self-pity that it was painful.
'Grandpa. What should I do...?'
This... was my daily life.