I think it's more of how they see our lives through TV shows, because IRL, if you wore clothes like that at our school, you'd have been sent home with a call to your parents.
I hate stories that do this and retcon the people that the protagonists used to know as trash people. I don't believe that she would have turned out like that had he not hid what happened.
What I believe with authors that do this to their side characters is that their actual childhood friends...
If it's the one you're thinking about, I know what you're talking about.
Because that whole story just served to make the side characters that MC knew and grew up with as absolute villains, but he doesn't care anything about them. Not to mention that the "best friend" had some sort of
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