The hot water came running on to me through the shower head, tracing the paths of my body from my head all the way down. A fresh bruise was already blooming on my ribs, a deep purple gift from the hiza geri carter hit me with. I welcomed it. The pain was honest. It was something I could understand, a problem with a direct solution: ice, rest, endure.
It was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than the memories.I still remember..
Her laughter echoed in the quiet hallway. Not with me.No. With him Hiroshi an old friend of mine. His arm lounged on her shoulder, his smirk aimed right at me. The text messages I wasn't supposed to see. The lies that were so pathetic, that the real insult was that she thought I was dumb enough to believe them.
I turned the shower to cold. The chilling sensation felt like it was severing the thought. My breath caught, and my knuckles turned white where they pressed against the wall. It was the only thing that worked to make me forget that memory.
An year back it would've drowned me. It kinda did to be honest. For months, I was that guy—Satoshi Nakamura, the pathetic loser who got cheated on and then became the school's favorite punching bag. I remember all the times those bastards put their hands on me called me names, how some watched and didn't act.
I got tired of that, tired of being weak.
So, I decided to not be weak. Not to fight in the school hallways—that would have just made me look like those uneducated and unloved thugs. I fought in the only place where the rules were clear and the pain had a purpose: a mixed martial arts gym on the other side of the railway station.
I learned to wrestle. I learned kickboxing. I learned how to take a hit and, more importantly, how to give one. I traded passive shame for active sweat. I channeled all that silent rage into conditioning drills and heavy bags until my body was too exhausted to feel anything else.
And my body changed. The softness disappeared, replaced by defined muscle and a posture that didn't beg to be overlooked. My face lost its boyish roundness, sharpening into something people glanced at twice. I stopped slouching. I just… stopped. I do look attractive though. Ok yeah i may be a little bit narcissistic from time to time, but who am I even hurting.
I also stopped failing my classes. Turns out, when you're not spending every waking second thinking about heartbreak, you can actually focus on calculus and electrodynamics. My grades climbed from the basement to the top floor. Either no one noticed or no one gave two shits. To everyone at Aoba High, I was still the same old Satoshi. The quiet kid. The ghost. The loser who kept to himself.
I turned off the water and reached for a towel, rubbing it over my short-cropped hair. I caught my reflection in the foggy mirror. The guy staring back was a stranger. Calm eyes in a face that knew how to take a punch. He looked capable. He looked like he could handle things.And again looked hot as fuck, i mean i looked good during the beginning of grade 12, but now, after summer break i look even better. Haaah.
I got dressed in the clean, simple uniform which clung to my broader shoulders and fell down my lean obliques. My school bag felt heavier than usual, weighted down with more than just books. I had kept a few weights to improve my strength. I slung it over my shoulder and pushed the door open, heading out under the sharp sun kissed weather of post summer holidays, to school.
I reached there just minutes before the morning bell rang. My goal was simple: get to my locker, keep my stuff, get to class and spend 5 hours. I moved through the crowded halls with accuracy avoiding hitting people, my fighter's awareness subconsciously noting the space around me, predicting movements, avoiding collisions without even thinking I saw some people look at me, some girls giggling pointing at me.
I was almost clear.
And then I saw her. My ex. She was at her locker, laughing with Tanahashi. His eyes met mine over her shoulder.His eyes froze for a moment taking in my appearance but then his smirk came back, a little lazier now, assuming his victory was permanent and my appearance was a charade. An year ago, that look would have sent me spiraling. Now, it just felt… disappointing. Like watching a bad rerun.
I held his gaze for a half-second longer than necessary. Just long enough for the smirk to falter, just long enough for a flicker of confusion to appear in his eyes. He looked away first. I didn't feel triumph. I felt nothing. I turned toward my own locker.
That was my mistake. My focus had narrowed for a second too long.
I rounded the corner—and wham.
The impact was soft. A surprised yelp, the scent of strawberries and perfume, and the clatter of a phone hitting the floor. Due to my attention being entirely on Tanahashi i fell down and felt something soft land on my face.
I see two mountains of flesh and flashes of blonde hair. A deep tan.Damn its Hikari Yoshida. The school's resident gyaru, the most popular girl over here. She lied over me her breasts pressing on my lips for a few seconds before she shifted and moved a bit back.
"Whoa! My bad!" she yelp, the smile snapping back into place like it had never left. As she sat on my lap staring at me "Totally my fault! Wasn't looking where I was going."
The script from a past life demanded I stammer, bow, and apologize profusely. The new me just nodded, his voice calm and low. "It's fine."
We both got up and i picked up her phone and handed it back, our fingers brushed. Her eyes, bright and curious, scanned my face. She wasn't just looking at me; she was actually seeing me.
"Hey," she said, her head tilting. "You're in my calc class. Satoshi, right? You aced that last integrals test. Seriously, how? I was totally lost."
She knew my name. That too as the guy who aced the test.Not a ghost, hm interesting.
Before I could try and say anything a low, calm voice cut through the noise from behind me.
"His situational awareness is clearly better than yours, Yoshida. Maybe you should learn that instead of causing incidents like this."
I turned. Leaning against the lockers, a black sketchbook held to her chest, you could even say it was being swallowed by them, was Kurayami. She was as expressive as a piece of paper, her amethyst eyes flicking between me and Hikari with detached interest.
Hikari pouted, put her hands on her hips, but she was still smiling. "Hey! I said I was sorry, Miss Morbidity." She turned her dazzling smile back to me. "Thanks for not knocking me over, Satoshi-kun. You're surprisingly solid."
She gave a little wave and bounced away, leaving me alone in the hallway with the goth girl.
Kurayami's gaze landed on me fully. It was analytical, like she was trying to solve a puzzle. "You're the only one who aced the integral test.Interesting."
She pushed off the lockers. "Good going, it seems you've got your academics sorted."
Without another word, she turned and glided away, her boots making no sound on the linoleum.
I stood there, the hallway suddenly empty. The ghost had been seen. By the two most opposite people in the entire school. And I have no clue what either saw or thought.
I decided to ignore that and head towards the classroom.
Time table: 8-9 calculus
9:15-10:15 Electrodynamics
10:30-11:30 History
12-1 Chemistry
Hmm damn! They reduced the number of classes but made them all for an hour, well at least it won't be that long of a day today.Haaah , I'll stop complaining and just go to class. I hope that it wont be too bad. I grabbed my calc book and shut the locker door with a solid thud. The sound echoed in the now-empty hallway. For a year, my life had been a secret, it was a whisper amongst noise. Today, that silence had been broken. Not by a shout, but by two completely different voices that had somehow found me in the crowd.
The bell rang, a shrill sound cutting through the quiet. Time to move.
As I walked toward the calculus class, a strange thought occurred to me. The classroom door didn't feel like the gates of hell anymore. The first class since the break. The first day my new, quiet life had officially been disrupted.
I took a seat near the back, as always. Hikari Yoshida was near the front, already chatting animatedly with her friends. She didn't look back.
A moment later, Kurayami slipped in just before the second bell and took a seat by the window, pulling out her sketchbook without a sound.
And me? I was right in the middle. The ghost in the machine. For now.
Mr. Fujita came in looking as grumpy as a woman who didn't get a good discount on onions, he started writing equations on the board, his voice felt dry like always. I opened my notebook, my pen feeling familiar in my hand. This was my element. This, I could control…. Jeez why is he teaching linear differential equations, they are so easy.
As i speedran the problems, a part of my mind wasn't on this. It was replaying the feeling of the fall, the surprise in Hikari's eyes, the analytical gaze of Kurayami.
My quiet year was over. Something new had begun. And I had absolutely no idea what the hell it was.