On the next morning, Rina woke up early, way earlier than usual, and prepared herself to go out.

Since she quit her job, she usually spent her whole day at home on her phone or PC reading novels. Some of them were smut. Most of the time she read those novels because she just wanted to fantasize about the romance in them, she had never experienced before. But there were also times when she just wanted to relieve herself while reading the spicier scenes of those novels. There were special occasions, however, where just reading was not enough for her. At those times she would watch videos to support it.

After she finished preparing herself, she left her room and made her way to the front door. Before she could reach it, however, she heard shouting from the living room.

“Dammit, how often do I have to repeat myself? DO SOMETHING ABOUT HER!”

“Why should I be the only one? I'm not the only parent, you also should do something! You're supposed to be the father!”

The origin of those shouts was Rina's parents.

“YOU KNOW THAT I AM F*ING WORKING AND THAT EDUCATING THEM IS YOUR F*ING JOB! DO YOU WANT TO EMBARRASS US FURTHER?”

“B-But I did! L-look at Nina! She grew into a respectable woman! *sob*”

Sobbing could be heard from the woman, Rina's mother.

“*murmur* They are supposed to be twins, how could they be so different? *sob*”

“DAMMIT! CAN'T EVEN HAVE A BREAK FROM MY DAY OFF!... I'm going out!”

After an enraged shout from the male voice, Rina's father, Rina could hear loud steps closing into the door of the living room.

*BAM*

A tall blond man could be seen stepping out of the room. He wore a black suit with many rings and accessories around his fingers and neck, seemingly already dressed up for going out. From his slightly open jacket and the shirt underneath you could see signs of a well-built chest of a man who had lots of muscles.

When he saw Rina standing close to the front door his face twisted in rage and stormed in large steps towards her while raising his right hand into the air and forming it into a fist. As soon as Rina saw what her father intended to do, she shut her eyes close and wanted to raise her arms to protect her head but stopped and tanked her father's punch with her face.

*Thud*

After getting hit she fell on her butt.

Luckily she did not protect her head with her arms which would have definitely triggered her father to become more aggressive. In the past, he had conditioned her not to defend herself when she got abused.

While fighting through the pain on her face she slowly opened her eyes to see that her father had stretched out his right hand to her.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Wondering what her father was doing Rina looked up, only to instantly avert her face and look down again. As a teenager, she had always had trouble looking at other people's faces, and that had not changed until now. For some reason, this also included her parents, especially her father. As far as she could remember, he had always had a grim, angry look on his face when she saw him. Rina was afraid of him.

The only exception was her twin sister Nina. As children, they had a quite good relationship with each other. Unfortunately, the relationship deteriorated over time to the point that Nina would openly insult and treat Rina like garbage. Luckily (?) if other people except for their parents were present, Nina would simply ignore her.

“Keys.”

Rina's thoughts were interrupted by her father's grunt. Before she could understand what he wanted, her body had already reacted. Again, because her father had conditioned her to do everything he ordered. So her hand instantly went to her pocket, grabbed her keys, and placed them in her father's outstretched hand.

“Leave!”

Again Rina's thoughts were interrupted. Her father had dropped another bomb before she could realise what her, or rather her father's, previous action had meant. That is why Rina unconsciously looked up and met his eyes. This time however she did not evert her eyes because her mind was too occupied with other thoughts, for example, what the heck was happening right now.

Even though she rarely looked into other people's eyes, she could perfectly perceive how they look at her. Generally, there are two types.

The first type had their eyes shaped like a quarter moon but rotated by 90° degree so that the reflecting and thus visible part of the moon is on the top. Rina concluded, that those people were mocking her appearance, personality, everything about her, her entire existence.

The second type was rather hard to describe. If she could summarize their appearance with one word, it would be 'cold'. Each time Rina felt those eyes on her she instinctively shuddered and wanted to distance herself from those people. If those glares could kill, she would have already died countless times. The pair of eyes that were currently looking at her belonged to this category.

While Rina could more or less ignore the first type of eyes on her because mostly only strangers looked at her like this, the people that were included in the second type concerned her more. They included relatives, former friends and colleagues, and her parents, unfortunately.

*Beeeep!*

Again, for the third time, Rina's thoughts were interrupted. This time, however, it was not her father but the horn of a car. Because of her father's order to leave, Rina was already mindlessly wandering around and was now standing in the middle of a street disturbing the traffic. Embarrassed Rina gave a quick bow to the drivers and left the street.

Unfortunately for her, her actions ended without any consequences.

After a while, she felt her stomach grumbling and remembered she had not eaten anything for two days, so she made her way to the next convenience store.

There she grabbed a sandwich, three lunch boxes to-go, and four bags of potato crisps. She sighed in despair when she noticed that she could not grab a carry bag but had to ask for one from the clerk at the cash register. Rina inwardly hoped that the clerk would offer her a bag during the payment process but her hope was crushed as the clerk did not say anything.

After the payment, Rina mustered all her courage and muttered quietly: “C-c-c-can I h-h-h-h-have a b-b-b-b-bag?”

The clerk visibly confused tilted her head: “Excuse me, did you say anything?”

Rina paled but tried it again nevertheless: “C-c-can I h-h-have a b-b-b-b-bag?”

“Can you repeat yourself a bit louder please?”

By now all of the courage went out of the window, so Rina could only mutter in an even fainter voice than before: “C-can I h-h....”

Even then she failed to finish her sentence and only looked down.

Now the clearly annoyed clerk got louder and started shouting.

“I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU AT ALL!!”

Rina flinched at the outburst and could only stare at her feet while standing still. Only after a few seconds she grabbed the sandwich and two lunch boxes and left the store, leaving everything else she already paid for and an astonished-looking clerk behind.

Afterwards she roamed around for a while and only paused when her stomach grumbled again. She then decided to go to the nearby park to eat.

In the park, she searched for a free bench. When she found one, she sat down, opened the sandwich bag, and began to eat. After chewing for a while Rina noticed something weird in her mouth and spat the contents into her hand. In her hand, she could see the remains of the sandwich with red colour mixed in it, even though the sandwich should not have anything in it with that colour. There were also two yellow-white things that look like teeth. Only then Rina felt two gaps between teeth in her mouth and instinctively touched her face, precisely the nose area. The damage dealt was apparently more than only two lost teeth.

'It doesn't hurt at all.'