The courtyard was quiet in a way that felt unnatural.
Not peaceful—just emptied.
Akira noticed it the moment he stepped through the gates. The scuff marks on the concrete hadn't been scrubbed out completely. Hairline cracks still ran where bodies had slammed down only a day earlier. Even the air felt different, as if the school itself hadn't decided whether to breathe normally again.
Students watched.
Not openly. Not boldly.
They stared and then looked away, shifting their bags, adjusting their steps, moving aside without being asked. Paths cleared before Akira, Kenji, Nikki, and Vincent as if the ground itself had decided where people were allowed to stand.
Kenji noticed first.
"Well damn," he said lightly, hands in his pockets, grin already forming. "Look at that. They part like the Red Sea."
Nikki glanced sideways at him. "You enjoying being Moses?"
Kenji chuckled. "Maybe a little."
Akira didn't smile. He kept walking, eyes forward, jaw tight. He hated the way people looked at him now—not with anger, not even fear exactly, but calculation. Like he'd become a problem that needed solving.
Vincent walked half a step behind them, quiet as ever, eyes constantly moving. He watched hands, shoulders, posture. Who flinched. Who stared too long. Who looked away too fast.
They stop seeing you as a person, Akira thought.
Start seeing a title.
And once someone decided you had a title, someone else always wanted to take it.
The vice principal's office smelled like stale coffee and paper.
Akira stood in front of the desk while the man flipped through a thin file, eyes sharp behind his glasses. He didn't look angry. That was worse.
"You're new," the vice principal said calmly, tapping the folder. "And you're already the talk of the school."
Akira didn't answer.
"You think Yokosaki is some kind of ring?" the man continued. "A place to prove something?"
"No, sir," Akira said evenly. "I didn't start that fight."
The vice principal leaned back slightly. "Maybe not. But when you end it like that… you own it."
Akira held his gaze.
"Keep your head down," the man said. "This isn't a place for heroes."
Akira nodded once and turned to leave.
As he did, the vice principal glanced down again at the file. Bold letters stamped across the top caught Akira's eye just before the door closed.
TRANSFERRED — INCIDENT RECORD.
The garage smelled like oil, rust, and something almost comforting.
Akira stood under the hood of a half-finished car as the sun dipped low, radio murmuring softly from somewhere in the back. His hands were black with grease, knuckles nicked and bruised beneath the grime.
"Looks like you're fighting it," his grandpa said from the doorway.
Akira glanced up. "Just trying to get it running."
His grandpa smiled faintly. "You fixing it… or trying to force it?"
Akira snorted quietly but didn't answer.
After a moment, his grandpa spoke again. "Your hands can build things, Akira. Don't forget that."
Akira looked at his reflection in the windshield. The faint bruising on his cheek. The tiredness behind his eyes.
It's easy to forget why you started fixing things, he thought, when breaking them feels so much easier.
Across town, Nikki sat on her bed with her phone lighting up nonstop.
Messages. Group chats. Clips of the fight reposted and slowed down and captioned with stupid jokes and worse assumptions. She scrolled until it made her chest feel tight, then tossed the phone aside.
Her gaze drifted to the framed photo on her nightstand—her and her mom, smiling back when everything felt lighter. Before shouting through walls. Before silence became routine.
A knock came at the door.
"Dinner's cold, Nikki," her mom called.
"Yeah," Nikki said softly. "I'll be down."
She didn't move right away.
Everyone talks about strength, she thought. No one talks about the cost.
Vincent sat on the edge of his apartment building's rooftop, legs dangling over empty space.
His phone buzzed once.
Grades are slipping again. Fix it.
He locked the screen and set the phone aside.
Laughter floated up from somewhere below—his younger brother, carefree, untouched by expectations Vincent had never been able to escape.
You live under someone else's rules long enough, Vincent thought, you start wanting to make your own.
Even if they were worse.
The rooftop at school felt like neutral ground.
Akira, Kenji, Nikki, and Vincent sat together there during lunch—not because they planned it, but because no one else dared follow. The wind was stronger up here, tugging at clothes and thoughts alike.
"So," Kenji said, stretching out, "what now, boss?"
Akira shot him a look. "Don't call me that."
Kenji shrugged. "Too late. Everyone else already does."
Vincent leaned back against the railing. "Doesn't matter what you want to be called," he said quietly. "You win one fight, and everyone crowns you king."
Silence followed.
Nikki stared at her food. "Kings fall faster than they rise."
The words lingered.
Akira looked out over Yokosaki, lights flickering in the distance, students whispering below.
I didn't want a crown, he thought.
But maybe Yokosaki needed someone to wear it.
The wind carried that thought away.
And somewhere beneath the calm, something began to move.