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The girl had lost the ability to discern her true personality a long time ago.
Staring at herself felt strangely more repulsive than usual, watching her reflection glance back at her with settled fatigue in her eyes that clearly came from years of exhaustion rather than a single day’s lack of sleep. Although, despite her calculating nature, even the girl did not know the origin of the tiredness that weighed on her shoulders, leaving her looking like an empty husk. How did people not see her true nature at this point?
Even with Nightcord activities, the honor student attempted to get a steady amount of sleep per day to keep her schedule organized and give herself enough energy to study in the morning. Still, dark circles had managed to form underneath her eyes. Considering her mother’s overly attentive nature, she had started wearing light makeup to hide them away.
She didn’t even like wearing makeup. Or maybe she would if she tried doing it more. Who knows. She never knew what she liked.
Her gaze wandered towards her hair, tied up in a neatly done ponytail, purple hair brushed back and still slightly damp from showering recently. She ran a hand through the strands, her fingers getting caught into small knots rather than going smoothly through, and she felt a hint of… inexplicable frustration at this sensation.
That night was completely normal, as all of her nights were. Her life was one of a successful student who could get accepted into a top medical school and succeed, considering her track record. Her life was — by the objective terms she attempted to measure herself against — perfect.
But deep within herself, something was horribly wrong.
People envied her. She knew Ena did in the past, and the young artist definitely wasn’t the first to think so. Regardless of what she applied herself to, whether it be a club or academics, her participation made others feel incompetent, and it made the girl feel an ironic sense of bitterness. Because why did they envy her?
She wasn’t naturally talented; no person is. Her mother made her take extra lessons since she was a young girl, and during late nights when most people took the time to relax, she had been pressured to study, study, study.
Because if she didn’t study or live up to her mother’s and everyone’s standards, she was no one at all. She had no values of her own to uphold, and while she’d usually try to separate herself from the nausea it caused her, today, it had caught up to her.
“What does it even mean? To live for yourself?” That was what the girl inquired to the glass surface of a mirror that could not respond to her, and could only mimic her words with a false image of herself, tauntingly, menacingly. It proved to her that she was alone in her solitary struggle.
Her… self.
Sometimes, it felt like her “self” wasn’t even concrete in the first place. Her personality became distorted into what people wanted to see more often than not, to the point that she couldn’t pinpoint a single consistent personality trait. Worst of all, she couldn’t recall the past that well, making her wonder if she ever had a personality to begin with.
The girl often went on auto-pilot when interacting with others in public. At times, she’d even phase out of her daily redundant school experience to the point that she couldn’t remember anything after she got home. Perhaps this wasn’t so abnormal: not many people can recall details of the past after about a day.
However, the more off-putting part the girl had been pondering was that she didn’t remember any of today's events. The gap in her memories had become too clean, as if she had disassociated for the entire day and logged out of herself. But she knew she was there, but at the same time, she hadn’t entirely been there.
It was like another person had taken the reins and had chosen to command a new personality of their own. It was something far different than the usual masking of her character, and the strangest part was that she knew it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
She shook off those thoughts and looked away from herself. It didn’t matter. Even if her personality seemed to be breaking at the seams and splitting into tiny fragments, like someone had shattered her into pieces like a reflection in a glass mirror with no body of her own: she’d accept it. While she didn’t fully understand why she felt like multiple people simultaneously, it was a little comforting. It was like she wasn’t alone.
She realized she was still lingering in front of the mirror, having been lost in her thoughts for nearly an hour. “I’ve been standing here for too long…I need to sleep.”
She gazed at her bed, neatly made as it always was. They weren’t having a Nightcord meeting today, and it was nearing midnight. Her honor student self would want her to go to bed so she could rise early in the morning again and resume studying. That was the “right” thing to do. What that “self” would have wanted.
But another part of her felt a bubbling frustration, mild but always present, daring to lash out against every standard that others had forced upon her. It was the same awkward feeling that had been simmering in her chest as she had combed through her ponytail, feeling disgusted at how she looked, knowing almost too well how others perceived her.
But she was herself, right? Even though she was constantly lost in introspection, constantly discerning and redefining herself into an archetype, whether through song or the observations of others, she was internally still herself at the end of the day. Even if she felt like multiple people instead of one.
She hated the fact that it was only internal.
The rest of Nightcord had helped her a bit in her quest to discover her true feelings. While she still felt numb to most emotions that regular people felt through their hearts, and didn’t understand reactionary people and the conventions of everyday conversation with friends, the girl now had more of an understanding of the feelings she had buried within her so long ago. From those efforts, she had attempted to externalize that feeling through song.
It wasn’t enough. She still found her reflection disgusting to look at. But what was upsetting about that image of a sharp girl driven to succeed? What did she find so repulsing about that?
Ah. A realization came to mind. To some, it may have been groundbreaking, but to the teenager, it was haunting.
Because no one would accept them if this realization were true.
How should they feel about this discovery? Should they celebrate for finally knowing something they always wanted, or should they weep in the misery of knowing they would have to internalize it anyway?
They turned back towards the mirror, and with a strange sense of volition they did not know they possessed, they pulled the hairband out of their ponytail, letting their hall fall to their shoulders. It was long, much messier than usual, and unruly. It was utterly unbefitting of the persona they portrayed at school, and it made their heart race a little as an idea came to their mind.
The honor student was always planning, always evaluating, always lost in thought. They were consistently ensuring that they were living up to what people wanted from them. Living life in a calculated and patient way wasn’t a wrong way to live.
Nonetheless, that type of life was the last thing they wanted. Perhaps being impulsive was okay, sometimes. Maybe running forward with no direction, no plans, just a pure sense of spontaneity and acting upon one’s emotions with no shame at all was also okay.
They wanted to feel a variety of emotions. They wanted to laugh hard at jokes and cry over minor inconveniences. They wanted to scream out at the sky and write a crude song that was contrary to their stoic, cold self and their neat, perfectionistic self. They would be neither of them.
They would reinvent their personality with their own hands. They would keep searching for their old self, attempting to find it, but if they had to recreate it instead and build the foundation back, that could also work.
The teenager took out a black comb from their drawer, the sound of the wooden compartment opening and closing making them flinch a little. They didn’t want to be too loud.
Then, with a shaky, long breath akin to the inhale of a swimmer planning to dive deep into the depths of a murky ocean, they combed into their hair with rough strokes. Impatience and apprehension weighed on their heart, making their heart race faster with adrenaline.
What they were about to do was reprehensible. They didn’t know how their mother would react once she found out.
But, for once in their life, they didn’t care. Because the future no longer mattered.
After a few minutes of combing, still feeling hints of another feeling — annoyance, they surmised — at their hair seeming to protest at what they were about to do as they combed through yet another knot, they looked squarely at themself.
The person waiting in the mirror was a girl with long purple hair, wearing a set of pajamas with frilly patterns on the sides and bright colors. That girl was the definition of the model student. A lovely overachiever who was friendly and hospitable towards everyone around her. She was the perfect daughter for her mother, and she was excited to attend medical school and become a successful doctor.
The person outside the mirror was a boy. Or something akin to that. He didn’t know for sure, but he didn’t exactly care. What he did know was that he was going to shatter that reflection of his, even if it meant accepting everything that he was, every “self” that he was, every mild feeling that he was constantly attempting to identify, now bursting at the seams. He hated having long hair and the clothing he wore, and, for once, he knew what he wanted.
He gripped the comb tightly, staring at the traitor in the mirror, looking down at her. He scorned her in his mind. He almost wanted to give up, enter Sekai, and disappear in that endless void of light darkness, except for good this time. He would make sure Miku wouldn’t stop him.
And yet… he couldn’t disappear. Not yet. He had to make her disappear first.
The walk towards his nightstand was painfully long since he was softening his steps because he felt paranoia in his veins, thinking that even the slightest sound he’d make would alert his mother and turn him back into the obedient girl in the mirror. He was terrified, hands tremoring and betraying his uncertainty in his decision, but his feet walked onward, protesting against the rest of his shaking body.
He picked up a pair of scissors. They glinted a little in the soft moonlight that filtered through the window, and something was strangely beautiful about the way the metal shone. The sharpness of two blades that could cut through something: they could even cut through that false image of his. He would sever her ties with this weapon of his. He could even sever the strings that his mother had carefully sewn to his body, rendering him nothing more than a marionette made to do her bidding.
With a clean snap! that resonated a bit too loudly, he cut a few strands of hair experimentally, watching a bundle of soft strands fall soundlessly to the ground, spreading out a little as they fell onto the carpet. He could see the fallen hair even in the darkness of his room with no light asides from the moon's soft radiance, considering he had been staring at himself in the dark for a while now.
He trembled. It still wasn’t too late to back out. The strand he had cut had been small, almost not noticeable, and something his mother might not catch onto if he was careful enough not to let her close to his hair. He didn’t have to make such a big leap so soon, did he?
No. I need to continue. If he stopped now, he had this irrational sense of fear that he’d never get this sense of courage back, and then he’d turn back into a husk of a human. He wouldn’t let her win.
He first moved the scissors up to the center of his hair, pondering as he stared at the girl in the mirror with her icy eyes and careful stare. She tried to be kind, and perhaps there was a sense of genuineness to her altruistic nature. She was just like snow. Yuki. That was the name of the girl in the mirror. Cold to the touch, but if you immersed yourself too much in the icy snow that was the essence of her “self,” you would feel your hands ache from the warmth of being frostbitten. She was a perfect contradiction. She strained herself too hard but cared too much for others.
He realized he didn’t hate her. She was just trying her best, even though she was internally cold but secretly a self-sacrificial fool. He smiled a little at Yuki. She smiled back.
That was right. These scissors were not meant to be used against her, but against the world. That would be why he would cut his hair.
He moved the scissors higher, maybe even a little too high than he initially anticipated, and before he could introspect further on his decision, he sliced the majority of his hair. It fell to the ground near his feet, splaying out around him like celebratory confetti falling to the ground. Something about the scene was elegant.
The boy looked back up at the mirror.
He saw himself, a young boy with short purple hair and blank-looking eyes, and within himself, he saw Yuki. They were both there. No more traitors were found in the mirror. His escapade had been victorious, even if only for a brief moment until his mother found out.
In truth, he didn’t want morning to come. He was petrified of the consequences. But, all the same, he didn’t want to worry about that right now because he… felt something. He was feeling an emotion so strong, so uncharacteristic of himself.
He felt euphoric. He was… happy.
Mafuyu Asahina still didn’t know who he was. He still felt just as lost as ever, even when he finally took a small step against his mother’s will.
But perhaps if he took it a step at a time, he’d finally be able to reach the lost child he thought he’d lost a long time ago.