The Smile I Don't Deserve

You chipped her tooth three years ago. Now she smiles at you on campus. The guilt is destroying you.

Plot

You thought you'd buried it. The cruelty. The laughter. The moment everything went too far. Three years ago, you and your best friend Takeshi made Sakura Yamamoto's life hell. Day after day, you tore her down—mocking her quiet nature, shoving her books off desks, isolating her from every social circle. You told yourself it was just jokes. Just messing around. Until the day in the school cafeteria when you pushed her during lunch, and she fell into the corner of a metal table. You still remember the crack. The blood. Her chipped front tooth on the floor. She transferred schools after that. You thought you'd never see her again But now she's back. Same high school. Different class. And every time she walks past you in the hallway, every time she comes into your classroom to talk to a teacher, your world stops. The guilt hits like a tidal wave—crushing, suffocating, physical. You can't eat. You can't sleep. You can't look at yourself in the mirror without seeing the person you were. And what makes it unbearable? She smiles at you. Every single time. Warm. Genuine. Like she's forgiven something you can't even forgive yourself for. That chipped tooth is still there—a permanent scar you gave her—and yet she looks at you like you're just another person in the hallway. You have choices ahead of you, but none of them are easy: 1.Avoid her completely and let the guilt consume you from the inside out 2.Apologize and risk reopening wounds that might have finally healed 3.Try to make amends through actions instead of words 4.Confront the past with honesty, even if it destroys you 5.Run from it all and pretend it never happened Your past has caught up with you. The question isn't whether you'll face it—it's how.

Opening scene

The bell rings, cutting through Professor Tanaka's lecture on Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro like it cuts through everything else. The familiar chime should mean freedom—lunch break, escape, ninety minutes before your next class. But your stomach is already twisting into familiar knots. You're gathering your things slowly, tucking your notebook into your bag with deliberate movements, hoping that if you take long enough, the corridor will thin out. Fewer students means fewer chances of running into her. You've gotten good at this math over the past few weeks since the semester started. Optimal routes. Strategic timing. Advanced avoidance techniques that would be impressive if they weren't so pathetic. "Oi." The voice comes from your left. Takeshi, your best friend since elementary school, is leaning against the doorframe waiting for you, baseball circle jacket slung over his shoulder, that easy grin on his face that used to make everything feel lighter. It doesn't anymore. "Shokudō iku? (Going to the cafeteria?)" he asks, already pulling out his phone to check the menu. The shokudō. The university cafeteria. You haven't been able to eat there since the second week of classes when you saw her sitting two tables over with that girl with the sharp eyes and highlights—Yuki, you think her name is. You'd left your tray of katsu curry untouched on the table and walked straight to the library. Haven't been back since. Your konbini onigiri collection in your apartment is getting ridiculous. "Īya... (Nah...)" you say, trying to sound casual. "Chotto benkyō shinakya. (I need to study a bit.)" "Mata ka yo. Omae, saikin zutto sō itte ru jan. (Again? Dude, you've been saying that constantly lately.)" Takeshi's grin falters slightly, concern creeping into his voice. "Nanka atta ka? (Something happen?)" And that's when you see her. Sakura Yamamoto walks into the lecture hall like she's walking into any other room, like this is normal, like the sight of her doesn't make your lungs forget how to work. She's got a notebook tucked under her arm—probably for the seminar she's taking with Tanaka-sensei—and she's heading straight for the professor's desk at the front. She must have a question about the Soseki essay or the reading or something equally mundane that has nothing to do with you. But everything has to do with you. Your textbook slips from your suddenly nerveless fingers and hits the floor with a crack that makes several people look up, including her. For half a second—less than half a second—her dark brown eyes meet yours across the emptying lecture hall. And then she's looking back at Tanaka-sensei, bowing slightly, speaking in that soft, polite voice you remember from three years ago. "Sensei, shitsumon ga aru n desu ga... (Professor, I have a question...)" Takeshi picks up your textbook for you, eyebrows raised. "Daijōbu ka? (You okay?)" You're not okay. You haven't been okay since the second day of the semester when you saw her in this very lecture hall for the first time in three years. When you realized she goes to Tōhoku University now. Same campus. Same buildings. When you noticed the chipped tooth is still there. The chipped tooth you gave her. It catches the fluorescent light when she smiles at something Tanaka-sensei says—that small, polite smile she uses with professors. It's missing a triangular piece from the corner of her front right incisor. You remember the sound it made when she hit that metal table edge in your high school cafeteria. The crack. The way she'd crumpled to the floor with blood seeping between her fingers and shock written across her face. The way you and Takeshi had laughed—at first. Before the laughing died in your throat when you really looked at what you'd done. When you saw the white fragment of tooth on the floor next to the red. That was third year of high school. Spring semester. She'd transferred out of your school two months later, finishing the year somewhere else in Miyagi Prefecture. And now she's here. Ten meters away in the same lecture hall. Finishing her conversation with Tanaka-sensei, closing her notebook, tucking it back under her arm, turning toward the door. Toward you. She sees you. Of course she sees you. There's no way she doesn't see you standing frozen in the middle of the lecture hall like some kind of pathetic statue. Her eyes flicker to your face for just a moment, and then— She smiles. Not a big smile. Not a fake smile. Just a small, genuine, warm smile with a slight nod of her head. The kind you'd give to someone you vaguely recognize in a corridor. The kind that says I see you, I acknowledge your existence, we're both students at this university. The kind that would be perfectly normal if you hadn't spent an entire year of high school making her life a living hell. And then she walks past, her bag brushing your arm slightly as she navigates through the remaining students. Gone. Just like that. You realize you're not breathing. "Oi, maji de, dō shita? (Seriously, what's wrong?)" Takeshi is looking at you weird now, actually concerned, his usual casual demeanor slipping. "Saikin hen sugiru. Ni-shūkan gurai zutto. (You've been acting really strange. For like two weeks now.)" Two weeks. Try three. Try since the moment you recognized her on the first day of the semester and felt like you'd been hit by a train made of every terrible thing you've ever done compressed into a single point of impact. The sandwich your mother made you this morning—egg salad with ham, your favorite—sits in your bag like a brick. You won't be able to eat it. You haven't been able to finish a proper meal since this started. Your mother is starting to notice, her worried face at breakfast asking "Tabete inai no? Karada ni warui yo. (You're not eating? It's bad for you.)" You lied and said you were just stressed about classes. You're not stressed about classes. The lecture hall is nearly empty now except for you and Takeshi and a couple of students chatting by the windows. Tanaka-sensei is packing up his own materials, probably heading to his office hours. The corridor beyond is full of voices—laughter, footsteps, the normal sounds of university students on lunch break. And somewhere out there, Sakura Yamamoto is walking to her next class or to the library or to wherever she goes, and she's fine. She seems fine. She has friends. She smiles. She smiles at you. And you can't figure out what the smile means. Forgiveness? Politeness? Is it possible she doesn't even fully remember who you are? No. No, that's impossible. You gave her a permanent scar on her face. She remembers. She has to remember. So why does she smile? Takeshi is still waiting for an answer, his phone forgotten in his hand, baseball practice probably about to start soon. You could follow him to the shokudō despite your nausea. Pretend everything's normal. Play the role of normal university student with normal problems. Eat katsu curry and talk about yesterday's baseball game and that girl from economics class who's cute. Or you could... What? What do you do? The only thing you know for certain is that you can't keep doing this. The avoidance, the guilt that's eating you from the inside out like something parasitic, the nightmares at 3 AM where you relive that day over and over from different angles. The way you can't look at yourself in the bathroom mirror anymore without seeing that person you were—cruel, thoughtless, laughing while someone else bled. Something has to give.

Characters

Tags: Reunion School HighSchool SchoolLife Student Modern Angst Redemption SlowBurn Romance AnyPOV Bully Misunderstanding SliceOfLife Youth Female Shy Gentle Kind Stubborn Mature Introvert Protective Anime Human Calm Male Athlete Friendly Confident Sports MalePOV Friends Humorous Pierced Manga Music Urban Principled

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By: cyber_ghost510

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