I hate myself.
Because, well, it's obvious, right?
I'm ugly, and I don't have a single redeeming quality.
I'm no good at sports, and my grades aren't anything to brag about either.
My family isn't exactly destitute, but our finances are a little below average.
I'd have to have one seriously twisted fetish to like myself at this point.
Especially my appearance.
I hate it more than anything in this world.
Pale skin.
A scrawny, skeletal frame.
Whenever I look in the mirror, the reflection staring back is a gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed corpse of a girl.
Open my mouth and you'll find crooked, uneven teeth.
Among them, the canines are the only ones that make a show of standing out.
Thanks to that zombie-like appearance and the slightly longer canines, the nickname stuck — "vampire."
From elementary school on, the boys would pick on me, and by middle school the bullying turned genuinely hostile.
It started with minor harassment and snowballed from there.
Snide whispers, loud enough for me to hear.
Individually, I could've endured them. But piled one on top of another, they'd crush anyone.
In my case, all that pressure curdled into rage.
Why was I stuck like this while those perfectly normal-looking people got to be… them?
I resented the gap we were born into, and I resented the ones who weaponized it to torment me.
Those dark emotions settled inside me like sediment, layer upon layer.
So when that incident happened, it was practically inevitable.
The group that had been bullying me — I'm sure from their perspective it never even counted as bullying.
They did it because it was fun.
That's all. A lighthearted game to them.
They had no idea how much damage they were dealing.
And they had no idea what would happen when it all came back around — not until they learned it the hard way.
The trigger was, I think, something as trivial as usual. Something like a mop being flung in my face during cleanup duty. I'm pretty sure that was it.
Everything I had bottled up burst open in that instant.
They called me a vampire, so I gave them what they wanted — I bit.
I don't remember much of what came after.
The boy I bit ended up in the hospital and showed up to school the next day with his shoulder bandaged up.
Apparently another inch and he could've severed an artery and died.
Luckily, the spot I'd bitten happened to be somewhere unremarkable, and it wasn't a serious injury.
I was called in by the teacher individually.
The teacher's attitude at the time was like handling a lit fuse — and they didn't even bother to hide their disgust.
Even so, no punishment was handed down.
I think the school just didn't want word getting out about a bullying victim snapping and lashing back. That kind of scandal was the last thing they needed.
The boy I bit didn't make much of a fuss either.
Or rather — I have no idea what happened to him after that.
By this point I'd already received my acceptance to Heishin High School and had all the credits I needed to graduate, so I stopped going to school entirely.
Technically that's probably not okay, but the school never said a word to me about it.
And I skipped the graduation ceremony too, just like that.
A fresh start in high school. That's what I told myself.
But reality isn't that kind.
The personality I'd built up over all those years doesn't just reset because the scenery changes.
Same self-loathing, same cringing nature.
My looks weren't going to change either.
"Hard work can make an ugly person beautiful" — that's only true in fiction.
Or unless you already had decent raw material to work with.
In my case, no amount of effort was going to change anything.
Short of cosmetic surgery, that is.
While the girls around me grew up and blossomed, I remained the same zombie I'd always been.
I knew the nickname they used behind my back — "Real Horror Girl," shortened to "Rihoko."
It wasn't quite as vicious as middle school, so I tried not to let it get to me, but something still simmered deep in my chest.
The person who got under my skin the most was
She was like me in that she barely spoke to anyone around her.
And yet she got the exact opposite evaluation from everyone compared to me.
The difference was appearance.
A few of the girls didn't like that, and they'd spit venomous words laced with jealousy.
Every time I saw that, it felt like someone was shoving a mirror in my face.
Am I ugly too, just like those cruel ones?
The answer was painfully obvious.
I wasn't just ugly on the outside — I was ugly on the inside too.
But what was I supposed to do about that?
What would have made it different? If I'd had a pretty face, would my life have turned out any other way?
Saying that was basically the same as saying my whole life was a mistake from the moment I was born.
It wasn't that my insides were ugly because my outsides were ugly.
It was that my outsides created the environment that made my insides ugly.
Anyone who says "looks don't matter" is nothing but a hypocrite.
That was the conclusion I'd reached.
I wanted to be reborn.
With a normal appearance this time.
I didn't need to be beautiful.
I just wanted to look… ordinary.
I never imagined that kind of escapism would actually come true.
I have low blood pressure, and mornings are rough for me.
I usually can't stay awake through first period.
That day was no different — my tired body gave out and I slumped over my desk.
The sound of Okazaki-sensei reading classical Japanese prose was like a lullaby.
Okazaki-sensei wasn't like my middle school homeroom teacher — he was a kind man who actually looked my way too.
Listening to his voice, I let my consciousness slip away.
When I next opened my eyes, I was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.
Not my classroom.
Not the nurse's office either.
I'd fainted from low blood pressure a few times and been brought to the nurse's office before, but this ceiling was different from that one too.
I tried to sit up and look around to figure out where I was, but I couldn't.
My body wouldn't do what I told it to.
There was no strength in me at all.
In the midst of this confusion, something drifted into my field of vision.
Hands.
Tiny, tiny hands.
They looked like those of a baby.
I panicked.