I Loaded Kaidan Game

Ishino Sayuri had a dream last night.

In it, she became a little girl with short hair.

She dreamed that her relationship with her classmates was poor, and she was often bullied.

Until one day, those classmates who usually bullied her locked her in the third stall of the bathroom after school.

She felt helpless and scared, but after school, there was no one left, nobody to let her out of the bathroom.

She began to cry, weeping continuously, until her heart ached, her breathing became difficult, and her world spun.

After that, Ishino Sayuri woke up.

This dream left Sayuri feeling terrified because she knew that the little girl in the dream was Hanako.

"Ostracized by her classmates and locked in the third stall of the girls' bathroom. Eventually, she died from a heart attack and became an Evil Spirit that haunts the bathroom."

This was one of the more popular origin stories of Hanako in the bathroom.

Despite the strange and frightening dream, Ishino Sayuri still went to school today.

Because the buzz-cut boy, Nagatomo Masao, whom she met yesterday, said he wanted to eat lunch with her.

When she arrived at the classroom in the morning, the atmosphere was a bit strange.

She took the initiative to greet Kawano and Matsushima, but the three of them seemed to have agreed in advance and didn't pay her much attention.

Especially Matsushima, who even gave her a cold look back.

Naturally, this was because of what happened last night.

Matsushima was furious because Nagatomo Masao had abandoned her to team up with Ishino Sayuri for the courage test.

Although a beautiful girl like Matsushima never lacked admirers, and she didn't care for Nagatomo Masao, she couldn't accept being left alone like she was last night.

It was a humiliation, when had Matsushima ever been treated with such disrespect?

Last night, Nagatomo Masao should have been attentively courting her and trailing behind her.

And all of this, of course, was the fault of that country bumpkin, Ishino Sayuri.

During the break.

Three beautiful girls, led by Kawano Sae, huddled together, whispering conspiratorially.

Matsushima: "Now, just seeing Ishino Sayuri's unsophisticated face gets me angry! She can't seriously think we want to hang out with her and be friends?"

Kawano and Matsushima, the beautiful female students, indeed, never truly saw Ishino Sayuri as a friend.

Some pretty girls with schemes are willing to be with plain-looking girls only to use their ordinariness and mediocrity to highlight their own Charm.

Kawano: "You don't need to be that angry, Matsushima."

Matsushima: "Of course I'm angry, Sae. If what happened last night had happened to you, your reaction would be even more exaggerated than mine!"

Kawano: "Eh... okay, okay. Anyway, there are plenty of country bumpkins like Ishino who want to suck up to us and be our friends."

On Ishino Sayuri's end.

Today, she didn't approach the three beautiful girls like a dusty little puppy.

Instead, she sat quietly at her own desk, staring blankly at the Japanese literature textbook for the next class. With Sayuri's frame of mind, it was clear to her that Kawano, Matsushima, and the others were distancing themselves because of last night's events.

Sayuri felt very aggrieved.

Why did they have to treat her this way?

Certainly, a girl like Matsushima would never like Nagatomo Masao.

But what use was there in feeling wronged?

The relationship between her and the three glamorous girls was never an equal one.

Ishino Sayuri was lost in thought.

Some boys from her class walked past her, and suddenly they snatched away both of her hearing aids.

"Hehe."

"Haha."

After the boys got what they wanted, they broke into loud laughter, while Sayuri just sat at her seat, stunned.

These boys had rather nasty personalities in the class, but Sayuri Ishino had hardly interacted with them before.

Perhaps it was because Ishino was always with the pretty girls, Kawano and Matsushima, that these boys had never taken the initiative to bother her.

Today's aberrant behavior, I had no idea why it happened.

"You're so slow to react, you've got such a dumb look on your face."

"Tsk tsk, how pitiful, glasses girl. Can't you hear me talk without these on?"

"You really don't belong here, you should be reading in a school for the disabled."

"..."

The boys made mocking comments, opening and closing their mouths. But Sayuri Ishino, deprived of her hearing aids, could only watch their lips move, unable to make out what they were saying.

Anyway, it couldn't have been anything nice, could it?

"Please give it back to me, I beg you."

Sayuri, having done nothing wrong, bowed her head and clutched the corner of her shirt, her voice as faint as a mosquito's.

"Huh? Speak up, deaf girl. The ears don't work, and now the mouth too, huh?"

The boy holding the hearing aid in front of her moved his lips, and then burst into loud laughter.

Sizzle... sizzle...

The sound of electricity.

Even though the slightly malfunctioning left hearing aid had already been taken away.

But as Sayuri Ishino watched the boy's lips move, she seemed to faintly hear the sound of electricity in her ears.

Her consciousness began to blur.

"You are a little different from other children."

Since she was little, Sayuri Ishino's parents always told her this.

And Sayuri knew that this "different" meant abnormal.

In this world, many people have visual impairments.

People with vision issues use glasses to correct them.

In this world, many people also have hearing impairments.

Few with hearing issues use hearing aids to correct them.

Unless it's like Sayuri Ishino, who could hardly hear anything without them.

People believe wearing glasses is normal, wearing hearing aids is not.

And the root cause of this idea is merely because there are lots of people who wear glasses, and very few who use hearing aids - that's all.

Because it's rare, different from the majority, it's considered special, "abnormal."

Even standing in a crowd, one could be conspicuous, out of place.

Sizzle... sizzle...

That sound of electricity seemed to start up again.

Sayuri suddenly felt utterly dejected and murmured softly, "I will always be unable to fit in."

Like a dull little mud puppy intruding into a group of shiny pet dogs.

"Hey! Deaf girl, give some reaction, would you. What are you muttering to yourself? You're so boring to pick on!" those nasty boys continued to taunt.

The rest of the class had already been drawn to the commotion of this break-time drama, all looking over with varying expressions. Some were indifferent, some sympathetic, and some just watching for entertainment.

No one came forward to stop it.

Under all those gazes, Sayuri Ishino felt her face growing hot, chest tight, heart aching.

Sizzle... sizzle...

Still the sound of electricity.

But this time, mixed within that electric sound was a somewhat familiar little girl's voice: "So pitiful...being bullied by them again, huh?"