There are lives that end quietly.
No witnesses. No meaning. No justice waiting on the other side—just a moment where the world decides you were never necessary to begin with.
This is not the story of my first life.
It is the story of why I was allowed a second.
I did not die as a hero, nor as a martyr, nor as someone whose absence shook the world. I died unnoticed—discarded between footsteps and traffic noise, in a place no one lingered long enough to care.
And yet, something saw me.
Something decided that what I had endured was not the end I deserved.
⟡
They tell you that school is where life begins.
That these years are meant to shine—bright corridors, careless laughter, memories softened by time and nostalgia. They speak of youth as if it is a universal kindness, as if survival is guaranteed so long as you keep your head down and do what you're told.
That has never been true.
For some of us, school is not a beginning.
It is a narrowing.
Every morning, the building looms like a concrete throat, waiting to swallow whoever steps inside. Lockers slam like warnings. Footsteps echo too loudly. Eyes linger longer than they should. You learn quickly which paths are safe, which glances invite pain, how to compress yourself into something smaller—quieter—so the world might forget you exist.
It never does.
That morning, the sky was pale and indifferent. A washed-out blue, thin clouds drifting without purpose. Birds sang beyond the school fence, ignorant of schedules, grades, and the invisible hierarchies that decide who matters and who doesn't.
It should have felt peaceful.
Instead, it felt like standing on the edge of something inevitable.
⟡
The alley behind the school smelled of damp concrete and rusted metal. Narrow. Hidden. A place teachers never looked and cameras never reached.
I barely registered the footsteps before pain bloomed across my jaw.
The sound—flesh striking flesh—rang too loudly, like it echoed inside my skull instead of the alley. I hit the ground hard, breath torn from my lungs. The world tilted, blurred, then sharpened again as shadows fell over me.
"Well?" Tobashi said, amused. "You awake?"
He always sounded relaxed. As if this was nothing more than killing time before class.
I tried to speak. My mouth tasted like iron.
Shiro laughed from somewhere above me. "Look at him. Always staring. Like he's got something to say."
A boot pressed into my ribs—not hard enough to break anything. Just enough to remind me where I was.
"I—I'm sorry," I said. The words came automatically. Apologies weren't choices anymore. They were reflexes. "I wasn't—I didn't—"
Ryo crouched in front of me, blocking out the thin slice of sky overhead. His expression twisted with something close to disgust, as if my existence offended him personally.
"Relax," he said softly. "You don't have to explain. We already know what you are."
The punch came fast. Then another.
Each blow stole a little more of the world—sound dulling, vision narrowing, thoughts slipping through my grasp. Pain stopped being sharp and became everywhere, a buzzing pressure that made it hard to remember why breathing mattered.
"People like you," Tobashi said, leaning close enough that I could smell the mint on his breath, "exist so the rest of us feel better about ourselves."
Someone laughed.
Someone else said they'd be late for class.
I don't remember when they left.
Only the cold of the ground beneath me. The way my body refused to move. The distant thought—strange and quiet—that if I closed my eyes, maybe none of this would follow me anymore.
Darkness took me before I could decide.
⟡
The ceiling above me buzzed.
Fluorescent lights hummed in that hollow, artificial way that made time feel wrong. I lay very still, cataloging pain the way someone else might count cracks in a wall. My face throbbed. My chest burned when I breathed.
Voices drifted in from nearby.
"He won't say anything," the nurse murmured. "I've asked. He just… shuts down."
Another voice answered—familiar, tired, edged with worry.
My mother.
I kept my eyes fixed upward when she came into view. She sat beside the bed carefully, like any sudden movement might break me further.
"Takuya," she said. "If you tell us who did this, we can help. The school—"
I let out a short, broken laugh. It hurt more than crying would have.
"Help how?"
She hesitated.
"They'll be punished."
"Punished," I repeated quietly. "And tomorrow?"
She had no answer.
I didn't blame her. This world wasn't built with solutions for people like me.
I turned away, pulling the thin curtain between us. It was easier not to see the disappointment she tried to hide—or the guilt she carried for not being able to protect me.
By the time I left the building, the sun was already sinking. Students passed me in clusters—loud, alive—careful not to look too closely. I moved like a ghost among them, unseen and unmissed.
At home, the lights were on.
That was wrong.
Shoes by the door—too small to be my mother's.
My sister sat on my bed, arms crossed, eyes sharp beneath her forced calm. One look at me, and she understood more than anyone else had.
"Who did this?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
I didn't answer. I lay down, turning toward the wall.
After a long moment, the door closed softly behind her.
That night, I dreamed of nothing.
Not darkness—absence.
No weight. No sound. No pain. Just the sensation of being suspended between moments, like the world had forgotten to finish rendering me.
A presence stirred.
Not a shape. Not a face. Something vast. Patient.
"You have endured long enough," it said—not aloud, but directly inside me.
"What is this?" I asked, though the idea of a voice felt meaningless here.
"A threshold," it replied. "A choice few are allowed to see."
Light gathered in the distance—small at first, then brighter. An orb pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Do you wish to continue as you are?" the presence asked. "To return and be broken again?"
I hesitated.
Morning tore me awake before I could answer.
⟡
The next day began the same way they always did—hood up, eyes down, footsteps measured. I almost believed I could pass through unseen.
Almost.
"Takuya."
I didn't stop.
The shove sent me stumbling off the sidewalk. Pain flared. Tires screeched. The world exploded into noise and light—
And then—
Silence.
The void returned, colder now. Deeper. I floated without a body, without breath, without fear.
What has even happened? I asked myself. Is that it?
The light appeared again.
Brighter. Closer.
"This time," the presence said, "the choice is yours."
I thought of the alley. The hallway. The way the world had always felt too sharp, too heavy, too cruel to carry.
"I don't want to live like this anymore," I said.
The light surged.
The void shattered.
And somewhere beyond death—
Something else began.