Spy Classroom - Volume 7 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Glint 1

The tiniest things in people’s lives could send them into the pits of despair and torment the deepest parts of their hearts. Things like waking up in the morning and feeling the way the sunlight warmed their bed. Things like noticing the smell of fresh-baked bread on their way home from a shopping trip and setting off in search of a new bakery. Things like freaking out as the wind buffeted the windows on a rainy day and rubbing their shoulders to ward off the chill. Things like realizing that the ginkgo tree in front of the station had changed color and seeing a shower of yellow leaves flutter down on them. They were just normal, everyday occurrences, yet they filled her heart with a striking sense of grief.

Sharing these things brought joy. That was why people did it so much. Children bragged to their parents about being praised in school, women joined up with their coworkers in coffee shops to gripe about their bosses, the elderly visited parks to show off the sweaters their sons bought them, and men gathered in bars to shout at the bartender about their local politicians. There wasn’t any special meaning to it. Just being able to share their emotions brought happiness to the people involved.

And that was what the girl was so scared of.

Am I going to die without ever getting to share my emotions with anyone? she wondered.

Such was the despair that filled the thoughts of the six-year-old who would one day go by the alias Monika.

That was where her story began.

The girl was born into a family of artists, and she spent her childhood immersed in music, dance, theater, painting, and sculpture. Her father was a painter, her mother was a violinist, and all their friends who visited were artists as well.

Her parents’ philosophy was to expose their children to a variety of disciplines while they were young so they could find a field that really spoke to them, and they put it into practice in the way that only the affluent could. The girl’s brother and sister were a good bit older than her, and they’d tried out countless art forms as well.

Before she was old enough to really remember it, the whole family had moved to the United States of Mouzaia. They wanted to get as far away from the Great War as they could, and while the war was plunging the Western-Central nations into turmoil, things in the United States were as peaceful as could be. As a matter of fact, the increased demand for supplies like food and clothes meant that the United States were prospering. The girl saw her parents grimace when they heard news of the tragedies befalling the Western-Central region, but they had no desire to return.

Even after the war ended, her family decided to remain in Mouzaia.

“I’m giving the modernist style a shot,” her father said cheerfully one day as they were enjoying a dinner their housemaid had prepared for them. “This painting will be of a man and his wife kissing. There’s a restaurant in Mitario that’s going to display it.”

“I have a concert coming up,” her mother said with a gentle expression. “It’s themed around a classic play. You’ve heard of it, right? The one about the forbidden love of a man and a woman…”

The girl’s siblings joined in the small talk and discussed the art forms they were trying out. For them, bringing up their family’s respective pursuits of beauty was a surefire way to get the conversation flowing. And it went without saying that the girl’s parents had ushered her toward the art world, as well.

“Go on, dear, try painting like Dad.”

“Go on, dear, trying playing like Mom.”

The girl wasn’t particularly interested, but she did as she was told.

Whenever she picked up a new pursuit, she improved at a breakneck pace. Her specialty was mimicry. She knew that all she had to do was copy someone’s technique—her father’s, her mother’s, or their friend’s. No matter the field, be it piano, sculpture, oil painting, saxophone, or watercolors, she learned far faster than any other child could have dreamed of.

However, it was never enough to earn her family’s approval.

“This still life is excellent. Your brushstrokes are so delicate and precise.” Her father would always start out by praising her, but it was never long before disappointment clouded his face. “But your landscapes and portraits—well, there’s some work to be done. Even if you’re going for a realistic style, that doesn’t mean you can just paint the world exactly as it is. Picking and choosing what parts to leave out will change the impression the piece gives. I know they say that all art springs from imitation, but still…”

Her father, her mother, and the instructors they hired always ended their reviews in the same way.

“It’s technically proficient, but…it has no soul.”

Every time the girl heard those words, her heart shriveled a little bit more. However, she asked her question all the same. “How do you give it…‘soul’?”

Her father’s and mother’s answers were the same: ““With love.””

“Someday, you’ll understand. When you meet your soulmate, your world will fill up with color. Everything will be so beautiful for you; you’ll see.”

“That’s simply how men and women are. Say, are there any cute boys at school?”

“Oh, shut up,” the girl snapped under her breath. Her parents gave her a quizzical look, to which she brusquely replied, “It’s nothing,” and quietly turned away.

She never really fit in with her family. Her parents had thrown themselves into artistic endeavors even as their hometown burned in the war, their dinners together were filled with discussions of beauty day in and day out, and her siblings followed in their parents’ footsteps like it was the most natural thing in the world.

On top of all that, she felt a strange sense of discord whenever they started preaching about love.

She held her tongue to keep the peace when they were all together, and she spent as much time as she could on her own. That left her with more time than she knew what to do with and nothing to fill the hours except playing catch with herself against her bedroom wall.

Time flowed on, and the girl turned twelve without ever figuring out the cause of all her woe.

At twelve years old, the girl returned to the Din Republic.

By attending a regular school, she learned about the Great War’s horrors—about how repugnant Galgad’s invasion had been, and about the unique brand of terror that came with watching another nation’s army stroll down Main Street like they owned the place. Little by little, she came to understand just how many people had suffered in the atrocity that was the Great War.

However, the fact that she’d avoided experiencing it firsthand created a rift between her and her schoolmates. In the minds of children, running away when your country was in trouble was a grave crime. And the jealousy she earned for her outstanding grades and athleticism didn’t help matters, either.

After school, she cooped herself up in the studio her father had rented. She was tired of art, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Her father’s apprentices often frequented the studio and paid her father a usage fee for the space. Turnover there was frequent.

One spring day, a few months after she turned thirteen, she spotted a strange man. Between his well-defined features and his attractive blond hair, he looked like he was probably popular with the ladies. By all accounts, he was very agreeable. Whenever he talked with people, he made sure to give them a merry smile and some witty banter. However, there was always a faint coldness lurking in his eyes, almost like he could see right through them. She would guess he was somewhere in his midtwenties.

…Where’d he come from?

The man gave off a floral aroma. The girl recognized that smell, and she decided to think of him as the lavender man.

It all seemed a little odd to her, and as she was staring at him, he called over to her and gave her a carefree grin. Any sense of caution she had went right out the window. It was just the two of them in the studio, and before she knew it, she was spilling her guts to him about the discord she felt with her parents.

The lavender man wasted no time in rejecting her parents’ values. “Look, all that stuff about romance between men and women being the be-all and end-all is a load of bull. Your old man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

The girl found herself taken back. “Are you sure it’s okay for you to say that? Isn’t he your teacher?”

“That doesn’t make what he’s saying any less stupid,” the lavender man replied, his smile just as easygoing as before. “History proves that there’s more to life than just men and women falling in love with each other. Plenty of the best artists ever were rumored to have been homosexual.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

“In fact, some cultures see homosexuals as their most esteemed members.”

The young man seemed oddly fixated on the point.

A question crossed the girl’s mind. “And now?”

“Hmm?”

“If people used to be fine with it, what about now?”

On hearing the question, the man’s expression immediately twisted in sorrow. He quickly covered his face with his hand, and by the time he lowered it, his happy-go-lucky smile had returned. “Now it’s a mental illness,” he said, “and a crime. It’s a crime to sleep with someone of the same sex.”

“…That seems extreme. Why?”

“’Cause everyone’s too wrapped up in taking care of themselves.” The man shrugged. “When people have their hands full just getting through the day, they don’t have room in their heads to think about what’ll make other people happy. They’ve got their own problems to deal with. It’s not just here in this country, either. The whole region’s still shot up from the war. Plus, the Western-Central nations are still milking their colonies dry.”

The man’s tone was light, and he began strolling through the studio. Over in one corner, there was an oil painting on a massive size 100 canvas. He himself had brought it in, and it was clear how fervently it had been painted. There was black all across the canvas, swallowing up a number of screaming children.

“It’s fear,” said the lavender man. “As long it keeps running rampant, nobody’s gonna spare a second thought for minorities. War orphans, families of people in jail, people with physical deformities, sexual assault victims, homosexuals, children suffering from poverty, children being abused, the mentally ill… Nobody cares about them.”

He stared intently at his painting.

“Nobody can save them.”

His murmur echoed with sadness.

For whatever reason, those words tore into the girl’s heart. The young man’s voice was simply that grim. She was struck by an urge to cry, but she knew that to give in to it would be to admit that what he was saying was true, so instead she let the pain wash over her in silence.

As she stood there, the man went on. “By the way, there’s a guy named Crood who paints here, right?”

“Huh?”

“Here’s a prophecy for you—tomorrow, he’s going to be arrested,” he said as nonchalantly as if he were talking about the weather.

The next day, the police arrested the man in question, just like the lavender man said they would. He was taken in for committing a sex crime—namely, sleeping with another man. It had been consensual, but that didn’t matter in the eyes of the law.

Crood Colas had been a student of the girl’s father, and because of how much time he’d spent in the studio, the incident became something of a local scandal. The girl sometimes saw women chatting about it by the roadside. “Oh, that’s so scary,” they would say, and “I wonder if he went after my husband, too?”

All his pieces in the studio were immediately discarded.

The girl had known him relatively well. He was an earnest young man who’d devoted himself to his painting and often shared his sweets with her.

The way she stared at the empty spot where his paintings once hung caused her father a great deal of worry. “He didn’t put any nasty ideas into your head, did he? Are you all right?”

“…I’m fine.”

“Oh, good. That’s a load off your old man’s back. Make sure you fall in love with a nice boy, you hear? Speaking of which, has anyone caught your eye?”

The girl said nothing.

Eventually, her father took a hint, let out a sigh, and took a look at the canvas sitting before Monika. As always, he sounded so wistful. “Your music and art are all function and no form,” he said. “It’s technically precise, but it never pops.”

That day, though, he took things a step further.

“Perhaps your true calling lies in some other field.”

“Sure looks that way,” the girl replied without missing a beat. “I can see there’s no place for me here.”

The lavender man never returned to the studio, but there were a number of things he’d told the girl when he left.

“Crood was helping an Imperial spy, you know. He would slip ammo in with his art and send it around the world. They found out he was gay and used it to blackmail him into doing whatever they said. In the end, though, they tossed him aside, and tomorrow, he’s going to be arrested.”

The deeds he was describing were so far removed from the girl’s life that she had no idea what to make of it.

“I just wanted to stop by to go through his stuff before the cops come and mess it all up,” the lavender man continued, then sauntered over to Crood’s canvas and deftly disassembled it, taking great care not to damage the painting. Inside the wooden frame, there was a sheet of parchment sealed in a tube.

The girl sensed that the man belonged to some underworld group or intelligence organization or something, but the very notion seemed utterly foreign to her.

All of a sudden, the man turned to her.

“Say, want to come over to my side of the world?”

When she looked at him in surprise, he handed her something resembling a business card.

“Here’s a prophecy for you—when you do, you’ll have that fateful meeting you’ve been waiting for,” he declared. “The Din Republic’s intelligence agency is called the Foreign Intelligence Office. If you’re interested, head to the spy academy at that address. They’re looking for talented kids like you right now.”

The girl couldn’t make heads or tails of it. However, she could feel her heart stirring. That card was her ticket, one that would take her far away from that studio and her family. She didn’t trust the lavender man, not completely, but she took the card without a moment’s hesitation.

The man smiled in delight. “Magnificent.”

Later down the road, the girl would hear that exact same word from another person’s mouth, but by then she would have forgotten the details of her conversation with the lavender man.

With that, the girl discarded her name and identity and all but ran away from home to join the spy academy.

After taking on the name Monika, she distinguished herself in no time at all. She’d been good at observation and imitation since she was a child, and while those talents failed to blossom during her time as an artist, applying mental calculations to anything she saw and flawlessly replicating techniques were useful skills for a spy to have. She was top of her class in marksmanship, and she left the other students in the dust when it came to book learning, too. In just two months after her enrollment, she was already earning the best grades in her academy. People stared at her in jealousy, but her raw talent shut them all up.

Better yet, nobody was preaching inane theories about love.

She felt comfortable there, and she spent her days feeling fulfilled. The more she poured herself into her training, the better she got. She came to believe that being a spy was her calling.

She’d never been happier—right up until she experienced the taste of pure, unmitigated failure.

“Wait, for real? This is what passes for top students? Sheesh, what a shocker. You kids are weak as hell!”

The day the various academies’ top students were pulled together for a joint training exercise, her pride got shattered into a million pieces.

Technically, it was actually an Inferno recruitment exam, but none of the participants knew that was happening. All Monika understood was the fact that she was no prodigy. It had taken only a single woman to defeat all twenty top students, her included. Monika couldn’t even comprehend what the woman had done to them, just that the other students were lying face down on the ground. The woman, whose hair and skin were so white they looked like they’d been bleached, had obliterated them.

That woman was “Flamefanner” Heide.

Monika hadn’t known her name at the time, but she’d learned it from Klaus later on.

Facing off against one of the top spies in the world had left Monika’s self-worth in tatters. She hadn’t been able to do anything but stand there, petrified.

“You can head on back now. Yeah, you, with the blue hair. I heard about you, you know. Getting invited to this exercise after just two months at your academy? You’ve got promise, kiddo. That’s something to be proud of. But with your current skills, you’re a total no-go.”

Right at the end, Heide singled out Monika and left her with a harsh warning.

“Remember this: In our world, people without fire in their hearts are nothing more than garbage.”

There were some heights that no amount of effort would allow her to reach. In Monika’s eyes, that had just been made painfully clear.

What does that even mean, having fire in your heart? I swear, it’s like everyone just goes and stands on their own little soapbox.

It reminded her of those things her parents used to tell her—how her art had no soul.

…I guess life’s just a bitch.

Starting the next day, Monika began half-assing her training. She couldn’t work up any enthusiasm. Apparently, she was lacking something fundamental, just like with her art. How was she supposed to take anything seriously, now that she knew that? Instead, she began cutting classes and spending her days taking the path of least resistance. She didn’t even give her best on her exams.

Her academy instructors scolded her constantly, of course, but they weren’t able to expel her. She made sure to keep her grades passing, and despite her lack of motivation, she still had talent in spades.

Eventually, they gave Monika a code name: Glint.

Normally, the word was associated with light, like a cold and glistening knife. But a glint only lasts a moment, and long ago, the word also referred to a blade too dull to cut anything. Even Monika herself thought the name was fitting, considering the way she’d been accused of not having any fire in her heart.

The only reason she didn’t drop out was because she had nowhere else to go. Either that, or perhaps she had some lingering attachments to the place. Either way, she figured she could take things slow and spend another four or five lazy years there.

It wasn’t until she was sixteen that things changed.

Out of the blue, her principal called her in one day. She figured she was in for another tongue-lashing, so she went in with a scowl, but instead, she got handed an envelope.

“I don’t quite follow it, myself,” the principal explained with a puzzled look on his face, “but there’s a new team called Lamplight, and they requested you specifically.”

Inside, there was an invitation from Klaus.

Monika would be lying if she said that getting recruited onto Lamplight, a new spy team that specialized in Impossible Missions, didn’t excite her. There was no doubt in her mind that the group would be composed of hardened veterans. Surely, one of them must have seen her talent.

However, all she found waiting for her was a group of washouts.

“Teach is out and about right now, so let’s go load up his room with as many traps as we can!”

“Hell yeah! That’ll give him hell, for sure!”

After drawing up their cockamamie plan, Lily and Sybilla charged straight into Klaus’s room.

““AHHHHHH! A bunch of wires caught us as soon as we went in!””

It took them less than ten seconds to bungle it.

That turned out to be a recurring sight, one she got to witness just about every day.

I swear, this place is like a zoo, Monika thought in exasperation.

It was shortly after Lamplight’s founding, and she was over in Heat Haze Palace’s main hall. She was fed up with all of them—with Thea, whose emotional state had crumbled at their repeated failures; with Annette, who spent all her time whipping up bizarre inventions; and with Erna, who kept running straight toward misfortune over and over again. Monika took the training itself seriously, but emotionally, her heart was just as frozen over as it had been back at her academy.

Well, at least I can always run away if things start looking dicey, she shrewdly decided. After all, Klaus can just handle everything on his own. And if there’s ever a mission he can’t complete, then it’s not like I could make a difference in the first place.

There was one time where she put everything she had into an attack on Klaus, but it ended in a crushing defeat. That brought back memories of the joint training exercise, and she started getting sloppy again.

Running away would have been a reasonable option. As long as she didn’t start abusing her spy skills afterward, she was pretty sure that Klaus would look the other way. The fact that he avoided sharing any confidential information with them until just before the mission started was his way of saying that they were free to leave at any time.

After looking at Lily and Sybilla, who’d returned to the main hall battered from head to toe, Monika shot a glance over at Sara, who was anxiously twiddling her fingers beside them. Out of all the team’s members, she was the most cowardly by far. Monika always expected her to burst into tears at any moment.

“You might wanna make a break for it,” Monika suggested.

“Huh…?”

“You’re not cut out to be a spy. Why go putting yourself in peril when you could spend your life somewhere peaceful and quiet instead?”

She felt bad for the timid girl. If she wanted to flee, Monika was prepared to give her some pointers on how to do it.

Sara pulled her cap down low and squeezed herself tight. “I know that, you know… A-and to tell you the truth, I can’t count how many times I’ve thought about running away.”

“Then just—”

“B-but lately, I’ve been feeling a bit braver…”

Sara shot a tentative glance out from beneath her hat’s brim.

“What?” Monika said, not understanding what Sara meant.

“It’s Miss Lily.” A faint smile played at Sara’s lips. “When I think about how someone as scatterbrained as her is doing her best, it makes me want to be more optimistic. Miss Lily isn’t suited for spy work at all, but she’s giving it her all anyway.”

Monika shook her head at the vast difference between their two opinions. In Monika’s eyes, Lily was nothing but a reckless klutz. Over in her peripheral vision, she could see Lily putting together her next scheme undeterred. Erna, Thea, and Grete had all gathered around her.

Sara let go of her hat and smiled. “When I look at her, it makes me feel like I can be brave, too.”

“Oh yeah?” Monika replied with disinterest.

“O-of course, I know I’m a much bigger washout than her, but still!” Sara hurriedly backpedaled, but Monika ignored her.

“There’s no way.”

“Huh?”

“She’s an airhead, that’s all. At the rate things are going, she’s gonna get herself killed.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she was shocked at how blunt she was being. However, those were her true thoughts. During the time they’d spent living together, Monika had gotten a pretty good handle on each team member’s capabilities. Even if you put all seven of the other girls together, they couldn’t compare to Monika on her own. Their skills were far inferior to hers.

“On some level, you probably realize it. No matter how hard we work, we’ll never be like Klaus. The best we can hope for is becoming half decent, and that’ll make us just useful enough until we’re thrown away.”

Monika wasn’t so simple-minded that watching Lily would make her feel brave. Her heart was still as cold as ice.

“At the end of the day, that’s all there is to it.”

Sara stared at her, completely at a loss for words.

Monika was pretty sure that people were going to die on the Impossible Mission.

In the end, the only reason she stuck around for the mission was because of how poorly she would have slept at night after leaving. Running away while someone as green as Sara stayed behind would have wounded her pride, and abandoning the mission would mean the death of someone she’d spent a month living with. She didn’t want that bad taste in her mouth.

That didn’t make for a particularly strong motivator, either. She wanted to leave, but with the amount of deep shit that would leave Lamplight in, she knew it wasn’t an option.

As far as retrieving the Abyss Doll bioweapon went, she couldn’t have cared less. At that point, the only thing driving Monika was how unpleasant it would be if people she knew died.

Their goal was for everyone to make it back alive, but when they faced off against their foe in the Galgad Empire laboratory, they were reminded of just how tall an order that was going to be.

“Torchlight” Guido, aka Blue Fly, was a combat specialist whose skills surpassed even Klaus’s. Back on Inferno, he’d been their strongest fighter. The girls found him waiting for them at the pharmaceutical research lab, and he completely mopped the floor with them. At no point was he actually giving it his all, and he swung his sword around casually with a look of utmost composure on his face. That was all it took for him to deflect their bullets, and he knocked out Monika’s teammates one after another with the flat of his blade.

She felt utterly outmatched, more so than she had even against “Flamefanner” Heide and “Bonfire” Klaus.

Even after tag-teaming him with Sybilla, they couldn’t so much as scratch him. Guido wasn’t the kind of foe one could best with a few tricks and a clever strategy. They were just built out of fundamentally different stuff. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t envision a future where they beat him.

They were done for. She was sure of it. They did have the outlandish “eighth girl” tactic they’d prepared in advance, but Monika had little faith it would work on him. Without some way to divert his attention, there was no way for them to even put it into motion.

That was what left her so astounded as she lay face down on the ground.

“Now, I’m gonna get seriouser than serious. You’ll finally get to see what happens when Lily, Din’s slumbering wunderkind, finally wakes up.”

Even when faced with an impossibly strong foe, that girl wasn’t backing down an inch.

She had no special skills. No talent. If she and Monika went head-to-head, Monika could have beaten her dozens of times in a row without breaking a sweat. All she had was an abnormal physiology and the boldest spirit around.

“I’m code name Flower Garden—and it’s time to bloom out of control.”

Yet the sight got burned into Monika’s heart all the same—the sight of “Flower Garden” Lily putting all of life’s radiant splendor on full display.

Once the mission was finished, the girls headed back to Din ahead of Klaus. Then they got on board the predesignated truck and made their way home hidden among its cargo. They knew that they might have pursuers coming for them, so none of them said a word while they were on the road. As they approached the border, they all held their breaths.

It wasn’t until they crossed back into Din that the fact that they’d completed the mission really sank in. All eight of them had made it back alive, and they’d successfully retrieved Abyss Doll. Everything they’d set out to do, they’d achieved with flying colors.

The girls let out a cheer from the cramped truck bed. They smiled with joy, exchanged high fives all around, jostled each other’s shoulders, and finally struck triumphant poses.

“Your favorite unbeatable spy hottie is coming home, Din!”

Unsurprisingly, the biggest merrymaker of the bunch was Lily. After fist-bumping Sybilla, high-fiving Grete, squeezing Erna’s cheeks, and tousling Sara’s cap, she came over to Monika. “Great work back there, Monika! That was classic, the way you and Sybilla went in and gave Guido what for!”

The compliment brought Monika no joy. It was plain as day that their MVP back at the Endy Laboratory had been Lily, with Erna as a clear runner-up. “You were pretty impressive yourself,” she replied.

“Hmm?”

“Weren’t you scared, making those bold bluffs against someone like him? There was nothing stopping him from just killing you.”

As a matter of fact, Guido would likely have started offing them one by one if Lily hadn’t stood up when she did.

After staring back blankly for a moment, Lily’s expression softened. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared at all, but honestly, I was pretty calm.”

“…How?”

“’Cause Teach believed in us, remember? He was all like, ‘You each have boundless potential just waiting to be unlocked.’” Lily smiled like it was no big deal. “It made me feel like maybe it was all right for me to believe in myself.”

Monika bit down on her lip a bit. “Even though you’re an academy washout?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll have you know: I was born to be a spy.”

The words rang utterly alien to Monika. How could Lily say them so brazenly when she was so much weaker than Monika?

The question hung heavy in her mind, only to be interrupted when Lily abruptly wrapped her in an embrace. “And hey! Don’t forget—that means you’re a magnificent prodigy, too, Monika!”

“………”

It was possible Lily was riding the post-mission high, as she was being downright exuberant. Her hair grazed the tip of Monika’s nose as it gently splayed out, and Monika could feel the softness of her figure and the warmth of her body through their clothes.

“………Get off.” Monika shoved her hard.

“Huh?”

“You’re being a pest. I’m gonna take a nap. I think I’m coming down with something.”

Lily stared at her, dumbfounded, and as Monika moved over to the corner of the truck bed and sandwiched herself between some of the cargo, she could hear Lily murmur. “I—I guess that’s Monika for you. Always as cool as a cucumber.”

Monika pulled her spy uniform’s hood over her head and covered her mouth with her hands.

Something weird was happening to her body.

Her mouth was dry. Her heart was racing. Her temperature was elevated. Her body felt hot, and she couldn’t stop sweating. She closed her eyes. Lily’s voice from a moment ago echoed through her head. She covered her ears with her hands, but the voice kept on going. She bit down on her lip, but not even the pain was enough to make the feeling go away. Her fingertips trembled.

What’s…happening to me?

All she could do was sit there in bewilderment.

…This feels like shit.

There was a change taking place inside her. It was messing her up, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Her parents’ quotes played back in her mind like a curse. She despised that ideology of theirs, and she thought she’d discarded it, but now it was eating her alive.

She could tell, on an instinctive level, that that emotion would destroy her someday.

She knew she had to conceal it, and she did everything she possibly could to keep it hidden. She wasn’t going to be able to share it with anyone in the world, but that was just something she was going to have to put up with.

I’ll never be able to share this with anyone. When I die, these emotions will die with me.

There was despair in that conclusion, but the girl quietly began accepting it.