It started with a bump.
Small. Intentional.
Just enough force to jolt my shoulder as I passed through the courtyard on my way to the engineering wing.
"Watch it, freak," one of them muttered.
I paused. The voice belonged to a broad-shouldered guy I vaguely recognized from a year below—second-year economics, maybe. Loud in group work, louder in the cafeteria. Always surrounded by noise and people who laughed at everything he said.
His friend, taller and leaner, smirked behind him. "Guy walks around like he's better than everyone. Can't even say hello like a normal person."
I said nothing. Kept walking.
But they followed.
I didn't know what made me a target. Maybe someone had enough of my silence. Maybe they didn't like how Tanaka spoke to me in front of others. Maybe someone said something stupid and someone else believed it. It didn't matter.
What mattered was that two hours later, when classes had ended and the halls had emptied, I found myself cornered behind the east-side lecture building.
"You think you're special?" the broad one snarled. "Too good to talk to anyone, huh? Just walking around with that dead stare and perfect grades?"
I didn't answer. Not because I was afraid. But because I was tired.
He lunged first.
People always assume quiet means weak.
That silence equals submission.
But silence can also be survival.
And survival can be sharp.
I side-stepped the punch easily. Years of karate and jiu-jitsu practice had hardwired the motions into my body. My father may not have praised me, but he had made sure I could fight.
The second guy grabbed for my shoulder—I dropped low, swept his legs out from under him, and twisted. Pain bloomed in my side as I misjudged a kick and took a glancing blow to the ribs, but I stayed upright.
Two minutes later, they were both on the ground.
Breathing. Groaning. But not getting back up.
From across the field, I caught movement—a figure ducking behind the chain-link fence. I couldn't see her face clearly, but it was someone from the morning literature lecture. A girl with a red scarf and a spiral notebook always full of annotations.
She disappeared before I could register more.
I walked home in the fading light, fingers stiff from the cold and bruises already forming beneath my sleeves.
I didn't feel proud.
Didn't feel victorious.
Just… tired.
The night was quiet, but my chest wasn't.
Asthma had a cruel sense of timing. The adrenaline from the fight had worn off by the time I made it home, and now, as I lay in bed, my lungs refused to relax. No wheezing, not yet—but tightness. Pressure. Like someone was sitting on my sternum.
I used the inhaler. Twice.
It helped. A little.
But sleep wouldn't come.
When I can't sleep, my thoughts unravel.
Not slowly. Violently.
My mind replays everything—every word from those guys, every time someone flinched when I walked past, every moment I spoke too little or too much.
"You're just like your father."
"Why can't you be more like your brother?"
"Don't waste the tuition we—"
Voices that no longer needed to be spoken aloud. They lived in my bones now.
I curled in on myself beneath the thin blanket. One arm wrapped tight around my ribs. The bruises ached. But it was a distant, manageable pain. Physical pain always was.
The worse pain was the one that didn't bleed. The one that asked:
Why are you like this?
Why are you still alone?
Why does kindness feel like a trap?
And no matter how many breaths I took—shallow, shaky, controlled—I couldn't answer those questions.
Not yet.
But the next day, something unexpected happened.
As I entered the lecture hall, I saw her—the girl with the red scarf—hesitating by the doorway. Our eyes met.
She looked nervous. Then stepped closer.
"…Nakamura-kun?"
Her voice was soft, uncertain.
"I… I saw what happened yesterday. Are you okay?"