"Failure. Failure. Failure!" The chant grew louder as they came from all directions, leaving me in a bubble of hate as other memories of my failures rushed into my mind.
You'll never be great. You'll never be worthy.
Kaito always trains and yet he isn't the strongest in the club.
How did Kaito even hook up with Brianne?
Or even Finnick? I heard they're fucking.
Ya, right. He's too weak. If you told me last year, I would have believed you.
I agree. He's a weak man. All his peers are going to pass by him.
In this household, we don't accept such things!
Your goal in this family is to bring us honor, Kaito.
No one is gonna love you if you can't love yourself!
Kaito? He'll never achieve using that blade Master ZenSu is saving for him.
Never. He's a failure. Have you seen a failure win?
Just watch. He'll lose everything. His role in the club, his girlfriend and boyfriend, everything. He already lost a position on the council. Just a matter of time.
Good. We don't support failures.
Failures are losers.
Failures never succeed.
Failures deserve to die.
Die. Die. DIE!
I had to shut them all out, but without my ability to cover my ears, I was forced to listen to them all. The belittling words were my greatest downfall, along with the expectations of the world around me and the suffocating feeling that wished to drown me towards my doom.
This was the hardest part to face, and the longer their words echoed around me, the more difficult it was to differentiate the lies from the truth. They always meshed together into one commanding force, and it took every bit of me to try not to crumble.
I had to remember that I could face anything. That only I could make myself fall into the endless pit of failure. I was in the driver’s seat of my life, and only I would be able to drive the car upward towards the marvelous sky or go rushing off a cliff to my doom.
My head lowered to the floor as I noticed the tears that left my face, and I acknowledged the pain I harbored in my heart. All the negative emotions poured out of me - their intent to make me finally face each one as it coursed through me like a chemical reaction that spread with no remorse.
All I could do was endure it. Deal with each emotion, whether from the past or my current present. It was unbearable and only made me cry harder. I wondered if it would ever end while I fought hard to continue to exist in this world of black and icy temperatures.
I grew more numb by the second, and at one point I wondered if it was all worth it: the early four AM mornings, the waterfall meditation sessions, the countless training activities. This was the moment I'd been waiting for, and here I was, trying to determine if it was all worth it.
"Is it truly worth it?"
The voice seemed to pierce through the surround sound. It silenced everything as a presence was suddenly known to this realm of darkness.
My head lifted to acknowledge the presence, but I was flabbergasted by the sight of this individual. They stood a few feet from me, their back facing me while they lifted their head up as if they were seeing something that I couldn't.
Regardless of our hollow surroundings, the bleak blackness that covered all around and the chilled atmosphere that invited our puffs of air to escape our nostrils and mouths, he stood there with a completely calm demeanor.
I took in his extremely long navy-blue hair that had hints of black and gold strands that twinkled like they were possessed with magic. A few strands were gathered at the back, held by a golden clip that had a specific symbol like an open book engraved in the golden surface.
His attire was traditional, reminding me of a Japanese shaman or warrior. It was blue silk cloth with golden patterns of koi fish. The fabric of the pants and outer coat was white with golden trimmings.
Strings of gold and blue wrapped around his waist, the beads at the end of those strings floating as they formed the bow at his back.
What caught my attention were the swords at his waist. One was black and almost blended with his surroundings except for the golden trimming of the sheath and handle of the weapon, while the other sword was white and held a powerful essence to it in this desolate world.
I blinked a few times before I realized he'd asked me a question, but I couldn't grasp what he'd said.
"What?" It was all I could ask as I stood there frozen in my spot.
"Is it truly worth it?" he repeated. "To let yourself be stuck in this cycle of uncertainty?"
"No." My response was swift because I knew in my heart that all of this second-guessing wasn't doing anything beneficial in my life.
I had goals - dreams - achievements I wished to fulfill throughout my life that still had so much road for me to walk upon, and yet I'd wasted so much time just worrying about everything else.
Semester Seven had been filled with anxieties, worries, and fears as I tried to logically decipher ABCD in my life. I wanted to put together all the pieces of my expectations into a simple path - one that I could follow and walk upon without anyone messing it up.
I had forgotten that life didn't run that way at all. I was literally setting myself up for failure. I was envisioning a world where everything would be achievable. A place where obstacles didn't exist, and I could achieve success at the tip of my fingertips within any aspect of my life.
The problem with that mindset was that it only would lead me down a path of disappointment. It would lead me down a road that was filled with expectations that were disrupted by reality. My feelings, hopes, and dreams would be shattered before I could get a damn shot at them.
This was the problem I'd dealt with these last few months, and in return, it landed me here. It resulted in me wasting all this time second-guessing my worth and losing opportunities to be around those I loved. All the opportunities I could have spent with friends, classmates, family, and my dear loved ones. I pushed them all aside by training consistently like my life depended on it. My world revolved around the idea of being the perfect individual in all departments.
Being the perfect son, boyfriend, kendo fighter, and Witchling student.
At the end of the day, I strived to achieve all of those and ended up lacking in every single area. It literally took me seeing Brianne lost in the grasp of the dark void and the dead bodies of the individuals I'd blindly killed in hopes of saving my lover for it to finally all click in.
I knew the problem the entire time, and yet I wished to put the blame on anything else.
The reason I failed was that I'd set myself up for failure. I was the orchestrator, the conductor, and the determining factor to my own demolition, and unless I accepted that, I'd never be able to obtain what I truly wanted.
"Have you figured it out?"
"Ya," I whispered and actually let my tears continue to run down my cheeks as I closed my eyes. "All of the time wasted on being perfect. On obtaining all these hopeful dreams and wishing to make memories after everything was said and done. I drove myself into a wall, again and again...all throughout this semester. I couldn't let my mind wander to something other than my dreams to succeed, and in the end, time went by and I lost everything around me. I never allowed myself to make mistakes. Never gave myself breaks to live in the moment. I stopped taking moments to just be around those who loved me, and I lost out on accepting help when it was offered right to my face."