~No matter how many times I open and close my eyes—the world still chooses its own version of truth.~
1. Eyes That Do Not Forgive
No matter how often I shut my eyes,
not a single wound is polite enough to close with them.
A week after the incident,
on our first day back at school,
I walked through the classroom corridors like someone already declared guilty—
even before the trial began.
Their gazes were cold.
Not passive cold—
but judging cold.
As if I were no longer human,
but a walking mistake.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2. The Name That Was Thrown Away
From that day on,
I was placed in an invisible territory called exile.
At the exact moment my classmates saw me being dragged away by the teachers,
my name stopped being used.
I became:
"the perpetrator."
"the pervert."
"trash."
They no longer called me Satoshi.
They only spoke of my sin—
a sin I never committed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. Rumor as a Weapon
My thoughts shrank again, thinking like a child clutching fragile hope:
"If only I could explain… if only they would believe me… maybe this wouldn't have happened to me."
That sentence kept circling in my head,
haunting every step I took,
like a prayer spoken too late
to a fate that had already turned cruel.
Unfortunately, rumors travel faster than truth.
They crawl from classroom to classroom.
From whispers to stares.
Worse still, it wasn't only my grade that knew the disgrace—
the entire school swallowed it as news,
passing it from mouth to mouth,
until my name was no longer treated as a person,
but as a story stripped and twisted.
Everyone talked about me,
yet no one truly spoke to me.
Their words were like small stones:
not enough to kill at once,
but enough to slowly crush the will to endure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4. A Body Put on Trial
The female students kept their distance from me as if I were a disease.
Their fear was human—
and precisely because of that, I sank deeper.
To the male students,
I was a legitimate target.
Some hit me.
Some mocked me.
Some only stared with hatred not yet brave enough to act.
Their girlfriends became the excuse.
My name became the justification.
And my body—
became the evidence they could punish without a courtroom.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
5. Truth With No Place to Live
I wanted to defend myself.
I wanted to shout that all of it was a lie.
I wanted to stitch the torn truth back together.
But every piece of evidence pointed at me.
Every line of logic turned and attacked me.
That was when I understood something bitter:
truth does not die—
it is simply given no place to live.
The school that should have been a place of learning
slowly transformed into the cruelest prison of memory in my life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
6. The Hero and the Offering
And what about Hiroshi?
His name was praised.
Admired.
Raised as a hero.
His shout that day was treated as proof of virtue.
The reporter who saved everyone.
He became the light.
I became the shadow.
Our fates moved in opposite directions,
as if every tragedy requires one savior and one sacrifice.
And the world chose me
as the easiest victim to forget.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
7. The Wound I Told Misaki
Telling all of this to Misaki felt like
slowly skinning myself alive.
Every word that left my lips
was invisible blood dripping out.
I didn't know what she truly thought at that moment.
Her eyes were calm.
Too calm.
Yet inside that calm,
I felt something difficult to translate:
not pity,
not disgust—
but understanding.
And understanding from someone like Misaki
felt warmer than judgment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
8. A Mocking Fate
I often ask myself:
If I had never met Hiroshi…
would I also never have met Misaki?
It is as if the wheel of fate now turning
is smiling faintly at me—
a smile that never brings rescue.
It does not lead me out of pain.
It only guides me
into a new shape of pain.
More subtle.
More silent.
Deeper.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
9. The Price of Humiliation
Rough treatment.
Insults.
Belittling stares.
Little by little,
they pulled my self-confidence out by the roots.
The "Hiroshi" incident made me begin to doubt
the way I stand,
the way I speak,
the way I breathe.
As if my very existence
were something suspicious.
And now, in the middle of all that—
she was there.
Misaki.
Between the looks of disgust and the blows I once received,
between slanderous whispers and the loneliness I carried,
inevitably—
my presence kept colliding with hers.
She was not there as a savior.
Nor as an executioner.
She was simply someone
who did not demand a defense from me.
And precisely because of that,
I fell deeper.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
10. A World That Begins to Move
My existence, which longed so much for truth,
had always wanted to be acknowledged.
But I was too indifferent.
Too tired.
Too afraid to defend myself.
I chose silence.
And within that silence,
the world decided everything for me.
And that silence
was what led me to Misaki.