by Finlay John of Wyedean School. This was one of two shortlisted stories in our schools’ competition, July 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was another day walking down the road for Mitsuki. The wind softly\nbrushed her hair as she walked home alone. She was independent and\nself-reliant. Her eyes invited friendships, but she never allowed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her house, a group of people were making themselves at home. They were people she\u2019d seen around the town: a short blonde woman was nestled on the sofa watching the television, a tall elderly man was drinking tea out of Mitsuki\u2019s favourite mug, and a plain looking young man around her own age was writing on his laptop. \u00a0She shooed them out of the house, only to turn around to find new people had come in. She chased these out, too, but more came, again and again. Eventually the blonde woman, the elderly man, and the young writer returned, and she gave up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She went to her room, changed into a comfortable\ndress, and lay on her bed silently crying. Eventually she sat and brushed the\namber tendrils of her long hair and forced herself to smile. Mitsuki had\naccepted the status quo<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she returned downstairs, the people acknowledged\nher properly, apologizing for the abrupt appearance they made. They introduced\nthemselves. The plain young man and the elderly man had seen their own\nloneliness reflected in Mitsuki. The blonde woman explained she was just a\npasser by and came in to see what was happening. She had thought it might be an\nopen party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mitsuki thanked them for explaining themselves, and\nthey became friends. She realised she needed friends now, and she branched out\nand went out into the world and made other friends. As soon as new friends came\nher old friends seemed to disappear from the world. She felt as though she\nbetrayed those old three. Mitsuki lay on her bed again, wondering what she had\ndone wrong. In anger, she threw her new friends out of the house, and then\nrealised she had no friends at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walking around her house she still felt the presence\nof her old friends, as if they were with her in a different way. When she woke the next day, they were all back.\nThis time she tried to pick new friends to introduce to her old ones, but as\nsoon as she made new friends, the old ones left again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confused and afraid, she wrote the word \u201cSingle\u201d\nacross her wardrobe. She felt the weight of a hand on her shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The elderly man\u2019s voice whispered softly in her ear, \u2018You\nfixed our mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somehow she\nknew what it meant, and knew that she would always be a single, but she would\nnever be alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[401],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5521","project","type-project","status-publish","hentry","category-sixth-form-stories"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/5521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/project"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}