My life ended on a Tuesday.
Not dramatically. Not with screaming or crying or some grand gesture. Just... quietly. Like a candle going out in an empty room.
I dropped out of college that morning.
The withdrawal form felt heavier than it should have in my hands. Student Name: Yuuma Kisaragi. Reason for Withdrawal: I'd stared at that blank line for twenty minutes before writing "Personal reasons."
What was I supposed to write? "Because I'm invisible"? "Because no one remembers I exist"? "Because I sit alone every day and pretend it doesn't hurt"?
The registrar barely looked up when I slid the paper across her desk. She stamped it with the same energy she'd use to swat a fly. Done. Finished. Erased.
Nineteen years old, and I was already a failure.
The apartment I shared with my roommate felt different when I got back. Smaller. Like the walls had moved closer while I was gone, ready to crush whatever was left of me.
Daiki wasn't home. He never was anymore—always out with friends, at parties, living the college life I'd never figured out how to join. His side of the room looked like a tornado of textbooks, energy drink cans, and clothes that actually got worn to places that mattered.
My side looked like a museum exhibit: "The Hermit Student, circa 2024."
I collapsed onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. The same water stain I'd been looking at for eight months stared back, shaped like a question mark. How fitting.
My phone buzzed once. A notification from the college app: "Don't forget! Club recruitment fair starts tomorrow!"
I laughed. Actually laughed out loud in my empty room like some kind of lunatic.
Tomorrow I'd be just another NEET. Another statistic. Another kid who couldn't handle the real world.
The worst part wasn't the failure. It was the relief.
No more sitting in lecture halls where I might as well have been furniture. No more group projects where people forgot to add me to the chat. No more pretending I had somewhere to go during lunch breaks.
No more hope that things might change.
I pulled my laptop onto my chest and opened it, muscle memory guiding me to the same websites I'd been escaping to for months. Anime. Manga. Light novels about kids who got second chances in magical worlds where they mattered.
Pathetic.
But I kept reading anyway, because what else was there?
Hours passed. The sun set. Daiki came home, said "hey" without looking at me, and disappeared into his headphones. The same routine we'd perfected—two strangers sharing space, pretending we were roommates instead of just people who split rent.
By midnight, my eyes burned from staring at screens. My back ached from lying in the same position. My chest felt hollow, like someone had scooped out everything important and left me running on empty.
I closed the laptop and rolled over, pulling my blanket up to my chin.
This is it, I thought. This is what giving up feels like.
The ceiling stared back at me, that question-mark water stain mocking everything I'd become.
2 AM. 3 AM. 4 AM.
Sleep felt impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the registrar's bored face stamping my withdrawal form. Heard my mother's voice from last week: "Yuuma, you're nineteen. You can't keep drifting like this."
But what was I supposed to drift toward? What was the point of having dreams when you were too invisible to achieve them?
I grabbed my phone, scrolling through social media like picking at a scab. Pictures of my old high school classmates at their college parties. Smiling. Laughing. Living lives that looked like they mattered.
Daiki's latest post: "Late night gaming session with the squad! 💪"
Squad. Even my roommate had people. I was just the guy who helped pay rent.
I set the phone aside and stared at my hands. When was the last time these hands had done something that mattered? When was the last time anyone had needed me for anything?
Eight years old, Mom crying because Dad left. "It's okay, Yuuma," she'd whispered. "We'll take care of each other." And for a while, I'd believed I could be the man of the house. Be someone she could count on.
Now I couldn't even count on myself.
Exhaustion finally won around 5 AM, dragging me under like a stone sinking in deep water.
But even in sleep, there was no escape. Just the same endless loop of memories, regrets, and the crushing weight of being nobody.
The last thing I remembered thinking was a wish I'd been carrying since childhood:
I just want to matter to someone. Anyone.
I just want to be seen.
Tomorrow would be the first day of the rest of my empty life.
Or so I thought.