April. The first day of school.
Today, Advanced Nurturing High School welcomed a new beginning. The incoming first-year students would make their way to the campus in their own ways, stepping into the fully closed-off school life that awaited them for the next three years.
The shadows of middle school.
The black history of middle school.
The personas built in middle school.
All of it would be wiped clean at this moment, allowing these boys and girls to obtain a completely brand-new start.
Whether it was a past of being bullied, or a true nature they didn't want others to see—so long as the environment changed, everything could start over.
That was what Kushida Kikyo had believed.
—Until she saw that diary.
It said that this school was a zhongzhuan.
It said that it had kidnapped the past, present, and future of all its readers.
It said that it was going to spoil things.
It said that this school had more than one two-faced person.
To be honest, even up to this point, Kushida Kikyo's emotions hadn't fluctuated at all.
Anyone could talk big. Using vague, ambiguous wording to deceive others was the easiest thing in the world.
Just like so-called horoscope readings—by throwing out some wishy-washy lines that seemed to apply to anyone, readers would naturally match themselves to it and easily fall into the illusion of "Ah, they really understand me."
Two-faced people? Hah. No matter who it was, everyone had a surface and an inside—true thoughts they didn't want others to know, a real face they didn't want others to see. If the definition of "two-faced" were loosened even slightly, Kushida Kikyo dared say that everyone could be called a so-called "two-faced person."
She knew far too many people's true colors behind the scenes.
So she dismissed it with contempt.
Until the next passage appeared.
"A defective product burdened with intense inferiority, craving supreme superiority, pressing malicious thoughts deep into their heart—suffering, tormenting, struggling."
She wavered.
The hand gripping the diary pages unconsciously tightened, her gaze locking firmly onto the words "inferiority" and "superiority."
It was talking about her.
Without the slightest doubt, the moment she read those lines, Kushida Kikyo understood—this person wasn't lying.
They clearly knew her true nature, and had even seen through to the most fundamental core beneath it.
That's right—inferiority and superiority.
Her natural looks had once led her to believe she was talented. Abilities that were above average across the board had allowed her, in her younger years, to surpass everyone around her.
But as she grew older, as advancement and selection filtered people layer by layer, the truly "gifted" appeared before her—and effortlessly crushed the pride she once held.
That was when inferiority took root.
Kushida Kikyo was the type whose emotions would be violently shaken whenever she lost to someone around her.
But if you compared everything, one by one, against everyone else—no matter who you were, you'd probably lose eventually.
She wanted something she wouldn't lose to anyone in.
She wanted respect and admiration from others.
But studying wouldn't do.
Sports wouldn't do.
She couldn't win.
There would always be people born with talent, people who could easily shatter her efforts and leave her far behind.
So she chose "trust."
As long as she could gain more trust than anyone else, she could obtain a sense of superiority through it.
This alone was the "talent" she was confident she possessed—something she wouldn't lose to anyone in.
…That was Kushida Kikyo's true nature.
Everything built on top of it—her surface-level friendliness, the malice beneath—was nothing more than self-expression derived from that core.
She had been born for it.
"..."
But trust had its limits. Bearing everyone's trust also came at a price.
The crushing pressure stacked layer upon layer on her shoulders, leaving her unable to breathe. In the end, she had no choice but to vent her true feelings without restraint through anonymous message boards—tree holes where no one knew who she was.
And then, her real face was exposed.
Under the accusations of everyone in her class, Kushida Kikyo chose to strike back.
When faced with others' malice, there was no reason not to return it, was there?
She just had to expose them. Using the trust others placed in her, she would reveal the true faces they hid deep in their hearts—just like hers had been revealed.
Then they would attack one another of their own accord.
And then her middle school life would end.
…That wasn't what she wanted.
"I want to start over…" The memories she had been dragged into came to an abrupt halt. Kushida Kikyo took a deep breath, ignored the cold voice in her ears announcing the completion of the reading, and forcefully closed the diary. "I have to start over."
High school was the best time to rebuild one's life—the turning point where all of the past could be erased.
So even if the diary's recorder had issued a kidnapping declaration, even if the recorder had practically pointed straight at her essence—
She still had to start over.
And so, burdened with heavy thoughts, Kushida Kikyo welcomed the new day.
She changed into the uniform that had arrived together with the admission notice, and boarded the bus route outlined in the school's informational materials.
Aside from a handful of passersby, nearly every seat was occupied by teenagers wearing the same uniform as her.
"'It was me who chose zhongzhuan'…" Almost the moment she boarded the bus, the words she had read in the diary yesterday surfaced unbidden in Kushida Kikyo's mind.
The diary's recorder was also a new student enrolling in Advanced Nurturing High School today.
Which meant that on this very bus, there might be someone who knew her true nature—someone who possessed the potential to destroy her next three years of high school life.
Who could it be?
That troublesome-looking blond man?
That utterly unremarkable girl sitting in the back?
That expressionless brown-haired background guy?
Or perhaps—
She lightly raised her hand and grasped the strap, forcibly suppressing her expression, doing her utmost to restrain her emotions.
This was something she had done countless times before—something she should have long grown accustomed to.
And yet, even so, she couldn't stop herself from letting out a deep sigh in her heart.
"Ah… this is really the worst."
Behind the mask, her expression twisted, her already poor mood sinking even further.
The reason was simple.
She saw someone she absolutely didn't want to see.
A woman who had attended the same middle school as her.
Horikita Suzune.
Even if the other party wasn't in the same class as her, and perhaps didn't know her past—didn't know about the incident she had caused in middle school—
She wasn't going to gamble on that possibility.
Her—and the diary's recorder.
Those two were the greatest obstacles to her peaceful high school life.