Praise is a strange thing. At first, it feels like sunlight after a long winter, warming the skin, filling the chest with a quiet pride. But if it lingers too long, if it shines too brightly, it begins to scorch. Shino Taketsu learned this truth sooner than most. After victories at science fairs and the curious stares of classmates turned into applause, a new force entered his life—not silence, not failure, but the weight of light.
Teachers began to speak of him differently. The same instructors who once overlooked his quietness now called on him with expectancy, as though his every word should carry genius. "Gifted," they said, with a tone that was half admiration, half pressure. Friends who had once teased him for tinkering with scraps now leaned close, asking for his help, his guidance, sometimes even his secrets. Even strangers—parents of classmates, neighbors who had barely noticed him before—began to refer to him as "the boy with a future."
At first, Shino accepted this shift. Who wouldn't? To be seen after so many years of shadows felt like a kind of justice. Yet quickly he discovered a truth hidden beneath the applause: recognition is heavy. Praise, unlike silence, demanded more of him. It was no longer enough to create; he had to exceed. Every new project was judged against the last. Every success raised expectations higher. And within that rising tide of attention, he began to feel an unexpected hollowness.
Applause faded quickly. The roar of approval at competitions, the handshakes from judges, even the smiles of teachers—all of it dissolved within days. Trophies gathered dust on his shelves, certificates curled at their corners. They shone for a moment but did nothing to fill the emptiness within him. The void was still there, unshaken, watching.
Shino began to see the cruel truth: being noticed is not the same as being understood.
The world praised his machines, his cleverness, the results of his labor. But no one saw the silent hours that carved him—the long nights when his eyes blurred over schematics, the repeated failures that left him staring at broken pieces in the dark, the loneliness that hung in the air like smoke. People clapped for the fire, but never looked at the firewood. They marveled at the glow, but never asked what it cost to burn.
And so, he carried that weight. He carried it not proudly, but with a disciplined acceptance. If the world demanded brilliance, he would give them brilliance. If they expected more, he would create more. But inside, the hollowness whispered. It asked questions no applause could answer: Who are you without the machines? Would anyone see you if the inventions disappeared? Do they admire Shino, or only the work born from him?
There were days when he looked at his trophies and felt as though they belonged to someone else—a boy people imagined, not the boy he actually was. To his teachers, he was a promise of greatness. To his friends, a source of awe. To his community, a name to boast about. But to himself, he remained unfinished. No victory erased the feeling that he was still incomplete, still searching for something deeper than praise.
The weight of light followed him everywhere. In the classroom, eyes turned to him whenever a question about science arose, as though his answer carried more authority than anyone else's. In hallways, students whispered, not mocking him now, but building him up into something larger than life. At home, relatives spoke proudly of his accomplishments, imagining futures for him he had not chosen. Every compliment was a chain. Every expectation, another stone on his back.
Yet Shino did not rebel against it. He did not run from the weight. Instead, he learned to bear it. If discipline had been his ally in silence, it became his shield in the light. He woke earlier, worked harder, studied deeper. If the world wanted brilliance, then brilliance they would have. But inside, he began crafting a resolve that reached beyond recognition.
For he had realized something the others could not see: light was fragile. It flickered. It swayed with the wind of opinion. Applause could vanish, reputations could crumble, and praise could turn into criticism with a single failure. To build his life on light would be to build it on sand. Shino's vision demanded something stronger, something unshakable.
So he began to shift his gaze. No longer was his focus on trophies or applause. His nights became less about impressing judges and more about testing the edges of his imagination. He built machines not because people expected him to, but because the act itself gave him a sense of truth. He started to see invention not as performance, but as meditation—a dialogue between his mind and the world, one that existed whether or not anyone was watching.
Sometimes, he would turn off the lights in his workshop and let his machines glow faintly in the dark. He would watch their gears turn, their circuits pulse, their forms move with the logic he had given them. In that dim room, far from the eyes of the world, he felt a different kind of satisfaction. Not the applause of the crowd, but the quiet acknowledgment of creation itself. Here, in the solitude, was understanding. Here, he was not "gifted" or "talented" or "the boy with a future." Here, he was simply Shino—unfinished, yes, but real.
The weight of light never truly left him. It pressed on his shoulders wherever he went. But Shino began to understand how to carry it—not as a crown of pride, nor as a chain of despair, but as resistance training. Every expectation, every demand from the world, became fuel. Just as weights in a gym tear muscles only to make them stronger, so too did the world's light strengthen his will.
And deep inside, beyond the hollowness, something else began to form. A vision not dependent on recognition, not fragile like light, but grounded, unshakable. He could not name it yet, but he felt it waiting. Something greater than applause, greater than brilliance for its own sake. Something that would define not just what he created, but why he created.
The world had given him light. But Shino Taketsu was preparing for something larger—something that would outlast both darkness and light.