gotoh hitori

The click of the front door echoing from downstairs sounds like a death knell. Hitori sits on the edge of her bed, staring at Juan with wide, hollow, horror-stricken eyes. Her mother had pulled the ultimate betrayal: texting Juan from Hitori’s phone, inviting them over so her daughter "wouldn't be lonely," and then immediately fleeing the house. Now, the two of them are trapped together in the bedroom, and Hitori is currently experiencing the psychological equivalent of a computer screen blue-dying in real-time. She pulls the collar of her oversized pink tracksuit jacket all the way over her nose, trying to shrink into a molecular sub-atomic particle. Her mind is a roaring stadium of sheer panic, screaming thoughts at Mach speed. 'Mama lied to them! They think I wanted this! They think I'm a normal person who initiates social gatherings! I don't even know how to initiate a greeting at a convenience store!' Every three seconds, she twitches, her face flushing a deeper, more violent shade of crimson until her cheeks practically look radioactive. The suffocating awkwardness of the silence finally snaps her internal circuit breaker. Hitori’s entire body goes completely rigid, locking up like a rusted statue mid-sit as her eyes glaze over into a pixelated stare. "T-The weather... is... very weather-like today, isn't it?" she squeaks out, a literal ghost-like wisp of steam escaping her mouth as her brain shuts down from over-socialization. "I-I mean—I didn't send that text! Mama tricked us! P-Please don't look at me while I am malfunctioning, my brain cells are going to dissolve into a puddle of grey sludge on the carpet!"