sadstucks featuring saki

The girls giggled, their smiles cruel. "I heard her dad does really weird things..."

Saki turned to Aiko, clearly upset by the jeers which were deliberately just loud enough for her to hear. "Those girls are such jerks!"

"Y... yeah, I guess..."

"Heyyy, Aiko!" One of the girls sauntered over to them, hands on her six-year-old hip. "Don't tell me you're hangin' out with this loser again? I thought WE were friends!"

"We are, Miyu, just that, uh..."

"Then ditch this loooser and let's have fun!"

"But..."

"What, aren't you cool enough for us?!" Miyu flipped her hair. Aiko looked from Saki, with her quivering lip, to the girl who commanded the playground.

She mumbled an apology - a barely-heard, "sorry, Saki," - and went to stand next to Miyu. The girl scoffed.

"You're kinda dumb for hanging out with this junk anyway, but I'm a nice girl, so I'll forget that eeever did happen!"

"I-I," Saki stammered, "I'm not junk!"

"Yeah you are. Isn't she, Aiko?" Miyu elbowed the other girl in the side. She looked away and mumbled something.

"Whaaat? I can't hear you! You'd BETTER talk louder!"

"... I said I guess so..."

"But, but Aiko--!"

"Naaah, you hear her! She thinks I'm right! You're a total loser, and your dad's a weiiirdo!"

"Shut up!" Saki stomped her foot, tears welling in her eyes. "Shut up shut up shut up! I hate you! I HATE YOU! I'm NEVER EVER gonna be your friend aga- agai- agaiiin!" Her voice hitched as she began to wail, and a teacher noticed the commotion and came over to break it up.

But the damage had already been done.

After her dad's help and guideance, Saki tried to call her best friend up that afternoon. Her mother gently informed her that Aiko didn't want to speak to her, and Saki threw the phone onto the floor.

"This is stupid! Dumb! Stupid dumb STUPID!"

"Honey," Sora said, wrapping her up in a hug, "it'll be okay."

Saki shoved him away. "No! This is all YOUR fault! Go away! I hate you, dad!"

School didn't get any better for Saki. Anyone else who called her a friend quickly renounced her when they learnt that the queen of the playground had made her a target, and she was alone. Rage built up inside her, and she started getting into fights. Her father found her a private martial arts tutor to try and teach her proper use of force and restraint, but it didn't work.

Saki grew into an angry, resentful child.

On her seventh birthday, her father brought her a computer. "Look, honey," he'd said, "there's all sorts of things you can do on this thing. I brought you lots of games!"

"I don't care about your stupid games!", Saki had said, but she'd gotten on the computer regardless. Once she figured out how it worked - which didn't take long, because if there was one thing Saki was, it was /smart/ - she figured out how to get past the parental controls and onto the internet.

That was the end of her. It didn't take long for her to find the worst parts of the internet, since the first thing she did, the very first thing, was look up methods of revenge. (Revenge was a good word. She'd learnt it when she was reading one of her books. Books wouldn't leave her, not like people did.) She learnt all sorts of twisted things.

And she learnt words to sing to the tune of her anger.

"Hey, you, f-fuck you, dad," Saki said over dessert that night. "You've made my life, um, shit since day one!"

"Saki - honey -" Sora was floored. (Did he let loose a bad word in his beautiful baby's presence?) "Where did you learn those words?"

"None of your, fucking," she hesitated on the word, as if testing it out, "beeswax!"

"Saki," Sora's voice grew stern. "You're not allowed to use those words."

"Fuck fuckity fuck /fuck/," Saki replied, sticking her tongue out.

"Go to your room! You are grounded, young lady!"

"Fine! I didn't want your stupid, shitty dessert anyway!" Saki blushed a little as she said the words, but it was angry colour on her face, marred by her dark scowl and puffed-up cheeks. She picked herself up and stormed off to her room, immediately logging onto her computer.

Sora would figure it out the next day and take that computer away from her, but by then, it was too late. Eventually he returned it to her, after she made one comment:

"... at least I had people to talk to on that thing."

He wasn't the best parent. He'd probably never be. But he knew his daughter was hurting, and he didn't want her to hurt.

By the time Saki was eight, she was an embittered young girl. No one even wanted her around their children; she was the poison in the well.

Sometimes, tourists would recognise her from publicity shots and try to make friends. Saki generally made a terrible impression on them, and all the tabloids talked about the idol Sora's troubled child. She hated herself almost as much as she hated him for making such a mess of everything - but she couldn't stop.

She just hated everything.