Part 1
The bell rang, same as always. Mechanical. Tired.
And, as always, no one turned to look at Rei Kanzaki.
Classroom 2-B at Higashiyama High was like any other: walls with crooked posters, scratched-up desks carved with the names of long-graduated students, and the heavy air of everyday school routine.
Rei sat in the back corner, by the window. The classic "main character" spot, someone might think…
But he wasn't the protagonist of anything. Not in this place.
"Kazuki, great job in yesterday's game!" shouted a cheerful voice.
"That pass was amazing! You really look like a hero, Hayama!"
Rei looked up.
There he was, as always—Kazuki Hayama. Tall, smiling, uniform perfectly neat, radiating that shining energy that made everyone orbit around him like satellites.
In front of him, Shunta roared with laughter, slapping desks with his open palm.
Yui Kamishiro watched from the side, as if she wanted to say something—but her mouth never opened.
Kaede, sitting diagonally from Rei, was one of the few who had ever greeted him… though now, she only looked at him with pity.
Rei turned away.
He preferred the void of the cloudy sky outside.
It wasn't that they hated him.
It was worse.
It was like… he didn't exist.
And maybe, if he was honest with himself… he understood why.
Faded blonde hair. Gray eyes. A foreign last name from his mother's side.
He didn't fit.
Anywhere.
As a child, he dreamed of building things.
He played with motors, gears, scavenged computer parts—dreaming of creating something that could protect him.
But dreams don't shield you from being left out.
A loud thump snapped him from his thoughts.
His desk shook. Shunta had walked by and "accidentally" bumped it.
"Ah, sorry, Kanzaki. Didn't see you there," he said with that smile only he thought was charming.
"No problem…" Rei replied, forcing a smile.
Before he could turn back to the window, Renji Sawada showed up, casually holding a handheld game console.
"Hey, Kanzaki. That game you lent me doesn't work. Don't lend out trash like this," he said, dropping it onto Rei's desk.
The casing had a visible crack. The power button was broken.
Rei just stared at it, receiving the ruined console silently.
So it was Renji who stole it from my bag…
Renji walked off whistling like nothing happened, and Kaede Minazuki turned around from her seat, lollipop in her mouth and eyes locked onto his.
"When are you gonna man up and tell those bullies the truth?" she asked bluntly, still chewing.
Rei met her gaze in silence.
"Tch. What a coward. You gotta learn to stand up for yourself… Scumbags like that are everywhere, you know?"
"I'm sorry…" he murmured, barely audible.
"Don't know why I even bother…" Kaede clicked her tongue, like she hadn't expected anything else, and turned away again.
His life had always been like this.
He'd lost count of how many times they'd stolen his bag, taken his lunch, broken his glasses, or emptied his wallet.
And still, he kept going to the same school.
The same classroom.
The same corner in the back.
His mother always wanted to send him to Germany, to live with his grandparents—far from all this bullying.
But he knew that if he left, he wouldn't have access to the resources he needed for his studies.
Not in that environment. Not with his goals.
He had endured years of mistreatment just to hold on to the dream of getting into the University of Tokyo—or, in the best-case scenario, winning a scholarship to MIT.
It was his only shot.
Gambling his life… for a future that already felt impossible.
Just then, the door slid open with a harsh clang, and a woman who looked thoroughly exhausted walked into the classroom with a lit cigarette hanging from her lips.
"Morning, brats. Got your test results right here…" she said, dropping a stack of papers onto the desk with complete disinterest.
"And, surprise surprise, you all failed…"
Rei raised his hand, genuinely curious.
"Did I fail too, ma'am?"
"You? Pudding-head...?" she muttered, squinting at him. "Don't remember your name. Mind repeating it?"
A flicker of indignation crossed Rei's face.
Maria Itsuka had been his teacher for the last three years.
"Rei Kanzaki, ma'am."
She flicked her ashes onto the floor without a care in the world.
"Name sounds familiar… but no, I don't remember grading anything under that name."
She took a long drag from her cigarette, exhaled slowly, and continued like someone who'd long stopped giving a damn.
"Were you even here on test day?"
A group of students near the front laughed, not even bothering to hide their guilt.
And in that moment, he understood everything.
They had made his test disappear.
"Yes, ma'am…"
"You got any proof you were here?"
"No, ma'am…"
"Then go fill out a form for the principal and have your parents sign it. Not my problema…"
Professor Itsuka huffed, smashing the cigarette into an empty coffee can she used as an ashtray.
Without another word, she began handing out the tests one by one, with the same enthusiasm as someone passing out flyers on the street.
"Common mistakes are marked. The dumbest ones too. And if you didn't hand anything in, don't even talk to me. They don't pay me enough to deal with your nonsense."
The class sank into a low murmur.
Kaede scoffed at her grade.
Shunta joked with Riku about drawing a sword instead of solving the physics question.
Yui stared at her paper in frustration, while Itsuki quietly took mental notes of everyone like he was mapping out a network of useful idiots.
Rei had only an empty desk in front of him.
No paper.
No score.
Just a void.
As always.
Class went on without him.
The school bell rang across the building, marking the start of the break like a false truce.
Students poured into the hallway or clustered into their usual groups, like planets orbiting their personal suns.
Rei stayed in his seat, pulling a small, dented metal lunchbox from his bag.
No decorations.
No surprises.
Two onigiri wrapped in rice paper.
A bottle of green tea.
And nothing more.
The broken console was still there, like a corpse buried in his backpack.
The power button was loose. He could fix it if he found a similar board… but those parts weren't cheap, and lately, not even his lunch money lasted the whole week.
From the far end of the classroom, Shunta's laugh hit him like a nail to the chest.
"Look, Hinata's talking to himself again!" he called out, pointing at the boy with thick glasses, who was mumbling to himself while staring at his dead school-issued watch.
Hinata Yoshino—the other outcast of the class.
At least he wasn't bullied or mocked. He was just… ignored. Like he didn't exist.
Rei looked at him from his seat.
Their eyes met for a second.
Poor guy. Bet they stole his lunch again.
Hinata gave him a faint smile.
One that said: I know.
One that said: You're alone too.
And then he lowered his head, like nothing happened.
Rei went back to his lunch.
He chewed slowly.
Not because he was hungry.
But because… if he finished too fast, he'd have no excuse to keep sitting there—pretending the world wasn't ignoring him.
"Kazuki, are you gonna share that melon bread or not?!" shouted Kaede with a grin, snatching it from his bag with a leap.
"Hey! Give it back, Minazuki! That's an attack on a hero in training!" he joked, while the girls around them laughed.
"Stop acting like you're the main character in some anime," Renji teased from the back.
Rei swallowed the last bite in silence.
That world… that group… wasn't his.
But it was fine.
He told himself that every day.
It was fine.
They think they're manga heroes, high-class divas, rebels against the system.
Give it a few years, they'll all crash and burn. I can see it.
I just have to ignore them. I have to graduate from this rotten school and get into the University of Tokyo. I can't let their nonsense distract me from my goal.
He repeated it like a mantra.
Like a prayer to keep from breaking.
As if convincing himself was enough… to make the pain disappear.
But deep down, that voice didn't sound so sure anymore.
Reiji and Shunta walked over with their usual mocking grins.
Without saying a word, they grabbed his second rice ball and tossed it out the window.
"Hey, Kanzaki. Why don't you go back to Germany with your mommy?" Reiji sneered.
"That was my lunch…" Rei said quietly.
"Don't play dumb," Shunta muttered, slamming his desk.
"Sorry… but my family and I are Japanese, just like you."
Reiji grabbed a handful of Rei's hair and yanked his head back.
"You can lie all you want, but that hair color isn't normal…"
"Maybe we should make it disappear. Like his test," Shunta added, pulling a pair of scissors from his pocket.
"That's enough. Leave him alone."
A firm voice cut in.
A hand grabbed Shunta's wrist just before the scissors got close.
Minami Aoki, the class president, stared at them with pressed lips and cold eyes.
"Hey, Prez… it was just a joke…" Reiji muttered, suddenly uncomfortable.
The two of them backed off without another word.
Rei awkwardly fixed his uniform, eyes lowered.
"Thanks, Aoki…" he whispered, barely audible.
"There's nothing to thank me for. It's just the right thing to do," she replied, without even looking at him.
This had always been his life…
Bullying. Hatred. Discrimination.
It could've driven anyone mad.
But he held on.
All for a peaceful, promising future… in some distant university.