Yandere? Menhera? Bring It On, If You're Confident That I'll love You For Who You Are - Chapter 48

The Day the Lovestruck Devil was Born

As a child, I was one who possessed nothing.

If I close my eyes, I can remember it as if it were only yesterday.

Those memories of living in a small apartment that seemed like it could collapse at any moment, as though a mere

gust of wind would be enough to bring it down to ruins.

I was told that my father had passed away before my memories could even take hold, and thus I was raised in what you would call a single-parent household.

Due to our poverty, I couldn’t keep up with the latest trends, and being naturally shy, I had virtually no friends, but the one person who supported me was my mother.

Despite not having a father and being busy with work, she accompanied me to my school entrance ceremony, represented the parents during school visits, and came to cheer for me at the sports festival every year, even though I could barely participate.

Truly, she was my rock and the most irreplaceable person to me.

That’s why, whenever I think back, my heart feels constricted.

The days I spent with my beloved mother have now become memories of a past that will never return…

Indeed… the nightmare came so suddenly.

It was supposed to be an ordinary day when I was in the lower grades of elementary school.

What I saw when I returned from school was a scene far different from what I was accustomed to. The walls of the room were torn, plates shattered, and a red liquid seemed to flow towards me as if drawn in.

I thought and wanted to believe it was a bad dream. Naturally.

Beyond the sliding door, my mother was gagged, and a strange man was assaulting her…

What was happening in front of me? Why had it come to this?

For a moment… just a moment, my tearful mother’s eyes met mine.

She looked as if she was begging me, her young child, for help…

However… I abandoned my mother and ran away from the house.

Fortunately, a neighbor in the same apartment sensed something was seriously wrong from my mother’s screams and the man’s shouts, and called for help, and my mother was rescued. At that time, I was truly shocked.

After all, that man was… the first time I laid eyes on the person who should have been called my real father…

Later I heard that the man I should call father had relationships with multiple women and was apparently not even married to my mother.

There was no way I could talk about it. The only daughter born from the rape of a mistress not even wed…

Following that incident, my mother, whose mental state had completely deteriorated, was admitted to a mental hospital for a long time, and I was left in an institution.

However, life there was like heaven to me. The warmth of the adults in the facility, and the children who had been abandoned for similar reasons, approached me proactively.

Now that I think about it, I had the choice to forget everything there and start a new life.

But still… my mind was filled with anger towards that man who had shattered my mother’s psyche.

I simply couldn’t forget.

Why don’t I have warm parents?

Why must I alone suffer like this?

Why… isn’t there any punishment for that man who put my mother through this!?

But no matter how much anger I harbored, I was still just a powerless little girl. I had neither the information to find the man I should call father, nor the strength or money.

Because I was… weak. That powerlessness dominated my heart.

So, I waited. In that small apartment, for my mother to come back.

The lease expired, and the landlord found me many times, each time I was returned to the facility.

But, if I stayed here, she might come back.

It was because I was weak that my mother was injured. Because I ran away at that time.

So, I promise, I’ll protect you next time. I won’t run away…!

Please, come back soon, Mom…!

“Hey, are you alright?”

That day, as I waited for my mother as usual amidst the snow-covered streets, a middle-aged man approached me.

“Ah, good, you’re safe. You see, I was told to bring you back. What are you doing out here?”

To his question, I answered without thinking much. I’m waiting for my mom, I said.

After hearing my response, the man made a pained face and then…

“Actually, your mom… she’s passed away. It’s been over a year now.”

Those words were more than enough to strip me of any will to live.

However, strangely enough, I didn’t feel despair.

All that was left was an overwhelming sense of loss.

Perhaps, somewhere in my heart, I knew.

“How awful. To put one’s own child through this… And the father gets away with it, huh? Well, what should we do now? Maybe it’s best to take you back to the facility.”

After questioning himself, the middle-aged man looked at me as if he had come up with an idea.

“Would you like to come to my place? I might be able to find your father.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. However, the man continued.

“I might not look it, but I’m quite wealthy. I can afford to take care of you. And…”

For a moment, the man’s mouth twisted.

“Maybe, I could find the man who put you through all this?”

Those words were like a ray of light piercing through the loss engulfing my heart.

A light of revenge.

“What’s your name? Would you mind telling me?”

Prompted by the man, I gave my name.

Amano Mio.

◆

Awakened by the blinding sun, I checked the time on my smartphone by my bedside.

It was 6:19 AM. It seems I woke up unusually early today.

“Even so, haha… that was a nostalgic dream.”

I can remember it as if it were only yesterday.

The day I was picked up by the Asagami Group’s bodyguard, I was raised almost like a hidden child.

That damp basement.

The only light was from an old, dim lamp, hardly enough to illuminate the entire room, and in this barely lit space, I was relentlessly drilled with knowledge of martial arts.

We were given only the bare minimum of water and food, and any backtalk was met with the whip, my sparring partners were muscular adult men.

Due to the difference in strength that could never be matched between men and women, I was injected with unknown substances like a lab rat and if I lost, my food for the day would be cut off.

Year after year… as if a curious scientist had picked up a peculiar animal and was secretly raising it.

“…How interesting.”

I got out of bed and walked through the cluttered room, unable to help but smile. Now that I think about it, is it fate that I dream of those days now that the Asagami Group, which once boasted such immense power, was destroyed in a single day by the hands of a single boy?

What comes to mind is that day, the day that changed my fate.

I was led away by a girl and arrived at a place that looked like an endless arena.

There were experimental guinea pigs chained like livestock.

“No, no, no!”

The boy who screamed as if he had seen a demon.

“Let me go home, I want to go home!”

The girl who cried until her tears ran dry.

And the moans, cries, and screams of dozens of other boys and girls of the same age echoed.

They were forced to fight. A battle between experimental guinea pigs chained like prisoners.

That day, the next day, and the day after that. Some lost, others continued to win.

Believing they could escape if they won. They had no choice but to keep winning.

At the cost of stepping on the lives of others…

Yes… it was literally a duel, a battle royale. A game where experimental guinea pigs had to kill each other in order to survive.

And that was the first time I saw “him”…

“Though at first, they wanted to use him as an example…”

Kurogane Minato… when she first told me his name, I knew immediately.

He was the son of the man who had thrown my fate into chaos.

That’s why… I wanted to make an example of him for my revenge.

A boy surrounded by friends, chasing dreams, and wholeheartedly in love.

The exact opposite of the demon-filled life I had led, I decided, and directed my irrational anger at him.

Of course, his son had no fault in this. Even though I knew it was ugly, I couldn’t suppress my jealousy.

However, my ambitions were shattered.

Ironically, by falling in “love” with him, the very person I had hated…