The sound was the first thing to register—a low, snickering buzz, like flies circling rot. It cut through the heavy warmth of the afternoon classroom, more irritating than the droning lecture on quadratic equations.
Taro's head was pillowed on his arms, the world a distant, muffled thing. In the space between wakefulness and sleep, he wasn't the loser, the orphan, the failure. He was just… adrift.
Sniff.
A scent cut through the haze. Musky. Damp. Unmistakably foul.
*Sniff Sniff*
His nose wrinkled, his brain struggling to categorize the smell. It was… a sock. A dirty sock.
"Urgh!" He jolted upright, swatting at the air before him as if swarming insects. His eyes, bleary with sleep, focused on the trio of students retreating to their desks, their shoulders shaking with silent laughter. One of them held a meter stick, and from its tip dangled the offending article—a grimy white sports sock. "What a stink!.. Which one of you bastards did that?!"
"Mr. Taro!"
The voice sliced through the classroom's muted chatter, sharp and final. The teacher stood at the front, her arms crossed, a look of profound disappointment etched on her face. It was a look he knew well. It was better than the anger, somehow. Anger was hot, fleeting. Disappointment was cold, and it lingered.
"You have the nerve to sleep in my class," she began, her voice dangerously calm, "then wake up and immediately pick a fight with those who woke you up?"
"Yeah " the students gestured shouting nearly not being able to hold their laughs
She gestured with a sharp nod to the whiteboard, covered in a complex web of numbers and Greek letters. "Get up here. Now. Solve this equation, or it's detention. Again."
A wave of silent, eager anticipation washed over the room. Taro felt it like a physical pressure. He pushed his chair back, the screech of its legs against the linoleum a sound of surrender. He slouched to the front, his gait a performance of nonchalance he didn't feel. The eyes of his classmates were drills boring into his back.
He stood before the board, squinting. The equation was a foreign language, a taunting puzzle. He could feel the smirks, hear the suppressed giggles. Just do something, he thought, the heat of humiliation rising up his neck. Anything. With a deep breath and a surge of misplaced confidence, he snatched a marker and scrawled out an answer.
He stepped back, looking at the teacher. Her lips were pressed into a thin line. Then, a miracle. One corner of her mouth twitched upwards. A slight, unexpected smile.
"Very good," she said, and the classroom fell into a stunned hush. "You got it."
"Really?" The word was out before he could stop it, his face lighting up with a fragile, stupid hope. For a single, glorious second, he wasn't a lost cause.
"Yep. You got it..." Her smile vanished, replaced by a stern disappointment that felt more like a gut punch than any shouted insult. "...all wrong. You couldn't be more off track. Detention."
The dam broke. The classroom erupted in laughter. It wasn't just noise; it was a wall, solid and suffocating. It pushed him back to his desk, a solitary island in a sea of derision. He sank into his chair, the sound of their joy etching itself into his bones.
---
[After Detention]
The walk home was a funeral march for his dignity. The late afternoon sun cast long, distorted shadows that seemed to mock his hunched posture. He kicked a stray pebble, sending it clattering ahead of him on the cracked sidewalk. It was a small, satisfying act of violence against the world.
"Tsk. These teachers," he muttered to the empty street, his voice the only sound in the twilight. "Why they gotta downplay my intelligence like that? I'm supposed to be the cool, kick-butt and smart protagonist. The one who secretly has it all figured out." He kicked the pebble again, harder this time. It ricocheted off a fire hydrant with a sharp ping. "But no. None of that's happening. Just… this. Ughhh."
His soliloquy of self-pity was cut short as he passed an alleyway, its mouth overflowing with bulging trash bags. A glint of gold, sharp and utterly out of place, caught his eye from the pavement. He stopped, his worn sneaker scuffing against the concrete.
There, nestled against the grimy curb, was a perfect, gold star sticker.
He blinked. It remained. A little five-pointed star, the kind a kindergarten teacher would press onto a perfect spelling test. It was pristine, untouched by the grime around it.
"A golden star?" he whispered, kneeling. His knees protested with a quiet pop. He reached out, his fingers hesitating for a moment before plucking it from the ground. He wiped a faint smudge of city dirt from its surface with his thumb. It was flawless. "Wait, aren't these the awards they give to the honor roll kids? The ones they stick on their folders to let everyone know they're better than you?"
He held it up, tilting it. The dying sunlight caught its edges, setting it ablaze with a cheap, brilliant fire. The contrast was absurd. This tiny emblem of achievement, lying in the gutter. "Whoa. Someone just threw it away. Who does that?" A wry, cynical thought struck him. "Whoever it was must be such a high-level intellectual that they have too many of these things. Probably finds them tedious."
He stared at the star, a strange sense of kinship blooming in his chest. Discarded. Unwanted. But still holding a sparkle.
"Well, I'll take it," he declared to the empty street, slipping it into his pocket. It felt like a secret. "I'll give it some real value. Since I'll probably never get one of these in my life anyway."
---
[At Home]
The key turned in the lock with a sound that was always too loud. The door to his apartment groaned open, revealing a darkness that was deeper than just the absence of light. He flicked the switch, and a single, bare bulb in the hallway sputtered to life, casting a sickly yellow glow.
"Mom! Dad! I'm home!" he called out.
The silence that answered was a physical thing, thick and heavy. It was the silence of empty rooms, of a microwave dinner for one, of a life on pause. He paused in the genkan, listening to the hollow quiet, the hum of the refrigerator his only reply.
Then he let out a laugh. It was a single, sharp, "Hah!" that ripped from his throat, more a sound of pain than amusement.
"Haha... ahhh, God," he said, the false cheer crumbling. "It's a nice joke. A real knee-slapper. Considering I live alone. With no friends. Or family. Hahahahaha."
The laughter echoed in the cramped entryway, each "ha" a hollow note that died as soon as it was born, swallowed by the immense, hungry stillness. The silence rushed back in, louder than before.
---
[Later That Night]
The ramen noodles had been consumed without tasting. The day's humiliations had been replayed in his mind until they lost all meaning, becoming just a dull, familiar ache.
"Well, it's about time I hit the bed. Yaaaaawn." Taro stretched, his joints popping a protest in the quiet room. The sound was unnaturally loud. He looked around the barren space, at the single chair, the silent television, the empty second bedroom.
"Well, goodnight..." he said to the room. He trailed off, shaking his head. The gesture was one of profound weariness. "Ah, who am I kidding?" he whispered, the words barely audible. "I have no one to talk to."
A thought, absurd and desperate, struck him. He walked to the desk where he'd dumped his school things. There, next to a crumpled detention slip, was the golden star. It looked even more out of place here, in his sad, little apartment. It felt silly, childish, a pathetic attempt to combat a loneliness that felt as vast as the city outside his window.
But the loneliness was heavier.
He picked it up. The laminate was cool against his skin. He held it up, a tiny, defiant gesture against the dark.
"Goodnight, star."
He placed it carefully, almost reverently, on his nightstand, positioning it so it would catch the first light of dawn. A tiny, golden sentinel. He climbed into bed, the springs squeaking their familiar complaint, and let the exhaustion pull him under.
The moment his breathing evened out into the deep, regular rhythm of sleep, the star flashed.
It wasn't a reflection. It was a single, deep pulse of otherworldly, emerald light that erupted from its core. The light didn't just illuminate the shadows of the room.
It swallowed them whole.
---
All Socials: (Sypnosis)