"I want to transfer to another school," you told Aina's parents on the drive home.

Her mom was not having it. "God, Aina, why? Haruki High is the best school we can afford to send you to. If you can graduate from there, you can go to any college you want!"

"I'm being bullied." They would never believe you if you told them the truth of what was going on. Maybe if you had been honest with them from the start... But hindsight was twenty/twenty.

"You're a big girl, Aina. You inherited your thick skin from me and your stubbornness from your father. Can't you handle it?"

"Mom, one day a girl gave me a lollipop with a razor blade in it as a joke."

"Oh my god, Aina! Why didn't you tell us about this sooner?!"

Aina, Aina, Aina! You weren't Aina, weren't even their real daughter. If you were, you would be in pieces in a body bag right now. No, instead you were alive but stuck in this hell.

Getting nothing but silence from you in return, Aina's mom turned to Aina's dad, who was driving the car without saying a word. No matter what she thought, he would have the final say, as he did on all family matters. "Ryusei?"

He looked over his shoulder, took in your dour disposition at a glance, before turning back around. "College entrance exams are coming up in a few weeks... Do you think you can tough it out until then?"

"I honestly don't know." In that time, would you be dead or kidnapped? If you somehow escaped these fates and made it through to the college entrance exams, would Aina's dad let you leave Haruki High? Or was he just dangling a carrot in front of you only to take it away in the end?

"Try, my daughter. If you do well on your college entrance exams, we'll talk about this again."

...

As soon as you got home, you ran up to your room, threw yourself face-down on the bed, and screamed into a pillow in frustration.

College entrance exams?! College entrance exams were what stood between you and escape? This was karma for all the time you spent slacking on your studies to befriend all four girls... You wished now you had paid more attention to academics.

It's fine. I can do this. I just need to distance myself from my psychotic "friends" and spend the rest of the school year studying. It won't be easy, but I can do it!

You sat up in bed and found yourself eye-to-eye with the orange cat plushie Hinata had given you a while back. It sat so innocently on the shelf by the foot of your bed, but you couldn't shake the feeling there was something creepy about it.

It couldn't be... You thought, slowly getting up from your bed and picking up the stuffie, staring into its beady black eyes so hard you could see your reflection in them. Hinata would never... You trusted her.

You retrieved the scissors from your desk drawer and started carefully cutting around the seams of the stuffed animal. Then you turned it inside-out, pulled out all the fuzzy cotton stuffing. What you found in the head shocked and horrified you.

There was a small bluetooth camera tucked away in the head of the plushie. Its lens was poking out of one of the eye holes.

Someone, probably Hinata, had been watching you when you thought you were all alone. You blushed and then blanched at the thought. All those nights you'd spent in confession. Was the footage simply live, or did hard recordings exist somewhere?

It doesn't matter now. You told yourself, dropping the mini camera on the floor and stomping it into scrap electronics.

You had just finished stuffing the remains of the plush and camera in the trash bin by your desk when there was a knock on your door.

"Aina, your little friend Minoru is here to see you." Aina's mom said before letting the flaxen-hair girl into your bedroom and closing the door behind her.

There's no time like the present, you thought. You needed to untangle yourself from these girls' lives as soon as possible.

Minoru was holding a large, deep glass pan filled with something that looked white and creamy. She set the dish down on your desk before walking over to you and cradling your face in her hands.

"My poor baby... I heard what happened. To see your first boyfriend like that... It must have been traumatizing." She cooed as if she hadn't been the one who traumatized you just so she could take care of you afterwards.

You took a big step back, out of her reach, and nodded towards the dish sitting on your desk, more menacing than it had any right to be.

"What do you have there?" You kept your voice as flat as possible. Even anger was passion, and you didn't want to give her anything. Everything could be used against you with Minoru.

She blinked in confusion before frowning at your act of physically distancing yourself from her. She answered brightly, though. "Doria! I made it myself."

You snorted. She essentially gave you the Japanese version of a casserole.

"What did you put in it?"

"Oh, well, it's seafood and rice covered with-"

"No, I mean drugs, Minoru. What drugs did you put in my fucking food?"

The room was quiet following your blunt question. She hated when others raised their voices to her, almost as much as she hated profanity. "I don't know what you're talking about," she deadpanned with an aloof expression.

"Oh, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"You've been talking to Oshiro again, haven't you? I told you not to listen to her. She's a liar." Minoru replied with a huff, taking a seat at the foot of your bed and crossing her arms. I'm not leaving, her stance said. Then she paused, eyes scanning the shelves in front of her, before asking, "What happened to the cat plush Hinata gave you?"

Did she know about the camera? Had she been watching as well, or had Hinata been keeping her up-to-date on what you did behind closed doors? You didn't want to know. "I got rid of it," you said. Not technically a lie. "I'm too old for stuffed animals. Now can you get out?"

"Aina, how can you say that? I'm your friend. I need to be here to take care of you in your hour of need." You invented my hour of need!

"Not anymore."

She stiffened. "What are you saying?"

"I don't need you anymore." Those were the magic words.

"You don't want to burn this bridge, Aina," she warned. When she was mad, it was always Aina. Otherwise it was baby or sweetness. You would take Aina over baby any day of the week.

Oh, but I do. You said nothing, just kept glaring her down. A tense silence hung over you as she waited for... For... For something. Probably an apology. Like hell that would happen. You could imagine it, though. I'm sorry, Mommy. Baby's just mad because you killed her boyfriend.

"Fine," she said at last, standing up and brushing off the back of her dress like she just sat down somewhere dirty. "I can tell when I'm not wanted."

Once she was gone, you let out a sigh of relief. One down, three to go.