Chapter 24: I Didn't Want Revenge, Until They Gave Me Nothing Else
He stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria and stopped showing up to class half the time when teachers called his name, they got silence.When they sent him to the counselor, he didn't speak. Just stared through the walls.
Reiko tried to talk to him once.
"You're scaring her," she said.
He blinked at her slowly.
"I've always scared people. This is nothing new."
"But you weren't like this before."
"No," he said. "Before, I had hope."
In his notebook, he started drawing strange things.
Not monsters.
Just names.
Dozens of them.
Every name that had whispered. Mocked. Laughed.
Next to each one:A circle.A black X.A number.
He wasn't planning violence.
He was keeping score.
Yumi noticed the change.
Of course she did.
The way he walked slower.The way his hands always found his hoodie strings, like he needed something to hold on to.The way he barely looked at her anymore, like looking too close might crack the mask.
But when she asked:
"Are you okay?"
He smiled.
Thin. Unnatural.
"Fine."
She didn't believe it.
Didn't want to.
But part of her—
Was afraid of the answer if she pushed.
One night, she texted:
Yumi: "I miss you even when you're next to me."
He left it on read.
But while Akiro sank inward…
The school began to shift outward.
A post on the student group chat.
A blurred photo of them on the rooftop.Caption: "Beauty and the Beast. How long until she regrets it?"
It got fifty shares in three hours.
The next morning, someone spray-painted his locker.
FREAK.
GO BACK TO THE TRASH YOU CAME FROM.
SHE PITY-F*ED YOU.**
He didn't report it.
He didn't clean it.
He just stared.
And smiled.
Not sad.
Not broken.
Something colder.
That day, Yumi found him in the stairwell alone.
Sat beside him.
Waited.
Then quietly said:
"Please don't become the thing they say you are."
A long pause.
Then his whisper:
"What if I already have?"
Next chapter:Should Yumi force him to feel again — confront him, shake him, kiss him until he remembers who he is?Or should something snap — a public humiliation that drives Akiro to finally act, without her there to stop him?
Either way… the line between tragedy and love is about to blur