I am Takashi Yuu.
At that moment, I was quietly sketching in the back of my rough notebook an outline of Meyui, the side character from the anime Denonation. She wasn't the heroine on paper, but anyone who paid attention knew she outshone the lead in every possible way.
Her quiet resolve. Her subtle strength. I guess... I saw a little of myself in her.
But then— splash.
Cold water poured over my head, soaking my hair, my uniform, and the notebook in front of me. The ink ran, lines smearing into nothing. My drawing drowned silently.
Laughter erupted behind me. Familiar voices, familiar mockery.
"Oops, my hand slipped," one of them sneered, already snickering. "Maybe now he'll finally snap. Wouldn't that be fun?"
They jeered, kicked the back of my chair, shoved me into my desk, like it was all some running joke only they found funny. The classroom was their stage, and I was the silent act they loved to abuse.
But I didn't move. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't fight back.
Not because I couldn't. But because I chose not to.
They thought I was weak. Powerless. That my silence was surrender. But I knew better.
I wasn't ignoring them out of fear I was waiting. Waiting for them to get bored. To move on. Because bullies don't like stillness. They feed on fear, on visible reactions. The moment the prey stops flinching, they lose interest.
And I didn't flinch. I never gave them that satisfaction.
My fists stayed clenched beneath the desk. My heartbeat roared in my ears, but my expression never cracked.
What they didn't see was the sharpness behind my eyes the blade I kept sheathed. The rage I buried. The strength I restrained.
One day, they'll realize. They'll learn the difference between a victim… and someone who simply hasn't struck yet.
After school, I walked home alone like always.
The streets were quiet, the sky overcast. My shoes were still damp from earlier, and the sting on my cheek hadn't faded. But the moment I stepped inside, the warmth of home wrapped around me like a blanket.
"Yuu, welcome back!" my mother called out, appearing from the kitchen with her usual bright smile. She was beautiful in a soft, gentle way long hair tied up, apron still on, worry always lingering behind her eyes.
The moment she saw my face, her expression changed.
"Yuu… what happened to your cheek?" she asked, reaching out gently, her fingers trembling just slightly. "Did you fall?"
I hesitated, just for a second.
"Yeah," I lied with a small shrug. "Slipped on the stairs."
She didn't believe me. I could see it in her eyes the way her lips parted slightly as if to speak, but then closed again. She wanted to press, but didn't.
My mother was overprotective. Kind. Too kind. And maybe she knew the truth… but chose to wait for the day I'd finally tell her myself.
Later that evening, we were packing.
A short family trip me, Mom, and Dad. Nothing fancy. Just some time away from the city, away from school, away from everything. For once, it felt like peace might actually be possible.
The road was calm. Rain tapped lightly against the windows. Music played low from the car stereo. My father drove with one hand, relaxed. My mother sat beside him, humming quietly, occasionally glancing back at me with that same warm smile.
It felt like a memory in the making.
But it didn't last.
A flash blinding and fast.
The screech of tires.
A horn. Metal. Impact.
I couldn't even register what had happened before
Darkness.
And then light.
When I opened my eyes, everything was tilted, broken. My head spun, but there was one thing I felt clearly: Warmth.
I was being held. Tightly. Desperately.
My mother's arms were around me, her body shielding mine.
She wasn't moving. She wasn't breathing.
I felt the sticky warmth of blood seeping into my clothes hers. Her scent, so familiar, now mixed with smoke and iron.
I looked up.
My father was slumped forward in the driver's seat, unmoving. Blood trickled from his head down his shirt, pooling into silence.
It didn't feel real. None of it did.
My lips moved, but no sound came.
And then everything went black.
The next time I opened my eyes, the world was white.
Blinding, sterile white.
The ceiling above me was unfamiliar, and everything smelled faintly of antiseptic and old metal. A monitor beeped steadily nearby, each sound pulling me further out of the fog in my head.
My body ached. My head throbbed.
And then the memories came back.
The flash. The scream. My mother's arms. The warmth of her blood.
I gasped, sitting up too quickly.
Pain exploded in my skull, and I collapsed back against the pillow with a sharp groan. A nurse rushed in, telling me to breathe, to stay calm but how could I?
I remembered it all now.
The accident wasn't a dream. It was real. They were gone.
The next days blurred into one another.
Hospital rooms. Doctors with too quiet voices. Paperwork. Social workers. Endless questions I barely heard.
And then the funeral.
It was overcast that day. The sky matched the weight in my chest. I stood alone beneath a black umbrella, too small for the rain, staring down at the two coffins resting side by side.
One for my mother. One for my father.
I didn't cry.
I didn't move.
People came and went. They offered condolences I couldn't hear. I remember thinking their words sounded like static distant, meaningless.
In the end, they lowered both caskets into the ground, and something inside me went with them.
I was placed in an orphanage soon after a state-run facility on the northern edge of the city. It was old, quiet, and always a little too cold, no matter the season. They gave me a room, a schedule, and a bed that creaked every time I moved.
The staff was kind enough. The other kids mostly left me alone.
Six years passed there. Six quiet, empty years.
I existed but I didn't live. Not really.
They said I was lucky to survive. But I never felt like it.
It was the final day of my high school life.
No parties. No celebration. Just the same old routine in a place that had never once felt like mine.
And as expected, they came for me again.
The third-floor bathroom. Cracked tiles. Rusted pipes. The stink of piss and bleach barely masked by the citrus-scented cleaner they only used before inspections. The stalls stood broken, the mirrors stained with graffiti from years past. It was their hunting ground.
Three of them.
Same bullies, different day.
They surrounded me, laughter echoing like a looped recording.
"You leaving today, Takashi?" one of them mocked. "About time. Guess you can go cry at your parents' graves in peace."
That was it.
The moment they mentioned my parents their smirks, the tone of amusement in their voices it snapped something inside me.
I stood up straight. Silent. Still. My head tilted slightly. My arms stayed at my sides. My eyes, once filled with quiet endurance, were now void of light.
He laughed, stepping in to push me, thinking I was freezing up like always.
"Oi, say something—!"
I moved.
With zero hesitation, my right palm swept up not to grab, not to pull just to redirect. My open hand smacked the side of his head, using the momentum of his own step forward.
In one smooth motion, I turned my waist and slammed his skull into the left wall. No finesse. No technique. Just raw, silent violence.
THUD.
His body bounced off the tiles, then crumpled to the floor like a puppet cut from strings.
It felt… inhuman.
I didn't even understand how I'd moved. Was it adrenaline? Rage?
I didn't know. I didn't care.
Another one panicked. "Y-you psycho!" he screamed, pulling out a box cutter from his pocket, the blade clicking out fast.
He came at me swinging wildly.
And then, like a broken dam, a memory surged through me.
A flashback.
Me, Sitting beside my father. Popcorn between us. Dim room. An old action film on screen.
A hallway. One man surrounded. A knife drawn. He doesn't panic. He watches. Waits. Then counters flawless and cold.
That scene burned into me. It became instinct.
I snapped back to reality.
The attacker lunged forward, blade aimed for my chest.
I focused on his shoulder his movement was too broad. He overcommitted.
I sidestepped slightly, timed it perfectly, and snatched his wrist mid-swing.
CRACK! A single twist his wrist folded the wrong way.
He screamed. The box cutter dropped with a dull clang.
I didn't stop.
I dragged him in by the arm and slammed his face into the sink edge. A sickening thump followed. He collapsed beside the first one.
Two down.
Then came the third.
He didn't charge recklessly.
He just smiled.
"You're finally awake, huh?" he said with a mocking tone. "Let's see what you've got."
His name was Kaito. He wasn't like the others.
An active MMA fighter, they said. Rumored to have ranked second at nationals. Kickboxing. Jiu-jitsu. Wrestling. He was a machine.
He adjusted his stance—textbook-perfect posture.
Then he moved.
Quick. Sharp. Precise.
A jab to my cheek split my lip. A hook to my ribs I staggered. Low kick right to my thigh. Pain flared up my leg. I couldn't block it.
And then—
BOOM!
His spinning side kick landed directly into my chest.
My body flew backward and smashed through two wooden stall walls, shattering them into splinters.
I hit the ground behind the sinks, coughing blood, lungs screaming for air.
Everything hurt.
But I didn't look away. I didn't crawl.
I watched.
His footwork. His breathing. His rhythm.
Every jab had a small shoulder tell. Every kick had a millisecond drop in his right knee. He was fast but predictable.
And I learned.
I picked up a broken plank from the stall wreckage. Sharp on one side, rough on the other.
Kaito saw it and laughed.
"That's your weapon? A stick? You really think—"
I didn't let him finish.
He stepped forward to throw a low kick again.
This time—I moved first.
I slipped past the kick, ducked under his jab, and swept behind him.
The plank smashed into the back of his thigh, knocking him off balance.
I drove my knee into his spine and forced him forward. Then elbowed him in the back of the neck.
He dropped.
He rolled and tried to counter.
But I already knew his rhythm.
I snatched his leg and brought the sharp edge of the plank down on his fingers.
CRACK.
His hand curled in pain. He shouted, throwing a wild elbow I dodged, circled, and slammed my foot into his shin.
SNAP.
The sickening crunch echoed.
He dropped completely, writhing in agony on the floor.
Three bodies lay broken around me.
My shirt was torn. My lip bled. My breath was uneven.
But my eyes were calm.
No one saw it. No teacher walked in. No camera caught it.
Only them.
And that was enough.
That was the end of my high school life.
No diploma speech. No class photo. Just silence… …and the monster I never meant to wake.
That was the moment I woke up.
Not panicked. Not gasping. Just… quiet.
The ceiling fan spun lazily above me, its blades casting faint, rotating shadows across the walls. The soft hum buzzed in my ears. Light from the TV screen flickered in the darkness still playing some late-night rerun I didn't remember putting on.
I was on the floor, slumped against the side of my bed, drenched in sweat. My hands were trembling, but my eyes calm.
It wasn't the first time I had that nightmare. And I knew it wouldn't be the last.
Some nights, the past doesn't knock. It kicks down the door.
But that dream… no. It wasn't just a memory.
It was a warning.
That was the moment I woke up.
No panic. No gasping for breath. Just… silence.
I sat against the side of my bed, back pressed to the frame, legs sprawled across the cold wooden floor of my room. My shirt clung to me, drenched in sweat. My fingers twitched, still curled slightly as if I were holding something that no longer existed.
The TV screen in front of me flickered. A paused game menu. The same quiet lo-fi tune looping, barely audible beneath the whirring of the ceiling fan above. Its blades spun in slow circles, casting shifting shadows over the room, like ghosts trapped in motion.
My eyes were locked on the screen but I wasn't really seeing it.
That nightmare again.
Not a dream. Not fiction. A memory.
The final day of high school. The bathroom. Their voices. The blood. The pain.
I could still feel the impact in my bones. Still hear the sound of Kaito's leg snapping. Still see their faces when they realized I wasn't the one who should've been afraid.
That moment didn't haunt me because I lost control.
It haunted me because… I didn't.
I stayed calm. I thought clearly. I fought back flawlessly. Not like someone flailing in fear, but like something buried inside me had waited for that moment. Something that had watched. Learned. And decided to stop pretending.
The worst part?
I didn't regret it.
I blinked, finally breaking eye contact with the screen. The digital glow cast a pale blue over my skin, making my face in the window reflection look even more hollow.
Six years had passed since the accident.
Since the day my world shattered and the boy I was died alongside my parents on a rain slick highway.
Since then, I'd lived quietly. I let the world beat me down, thinking if I stayed small enough, it would forget I existed.
But that was all in the past now.
The pain. The silence. The boy who held back
Gone.
"The day I stopped running wasn't the day I found peace—it was the day I remembered what I could become."