Ch 1: I am Takumi
Every day was the same.
Wake up. Go to school. Come home. Make dinner. Nothing ever changed.
My first year of high school started just like middle school — with everyone staring at me. I never really got along with people my age anyway. I was homeschooled until middle school, so I wasn’t used to being around that many people. Toward the end of middle school, more and more girls started talking to me. I tried being friends with them, but it always ended the same way — with someone confessing they liked me.
Back then, I didn’t care about dating. But in high school, I thought, why not? So when a few girls asked me out, I said yes.
None of it lasted though. I got bored too fast.
The last girl I dated was… kind of normal, I guess. She wanted to come over to my place, and I said ‘yes’. She was curious, and honestly, so was I.
That’s how, at sixteen, I’d ever had slept with a girl for the first time. It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be.
We did it a few more times. But one day, she started crying and she wanted me to be honest — to tell her if I really liked her or not. She complained that I didn’t look her in the eye deeply, that meaned I didn’t care. After a long talk full of tears and anger, scream.. she broke up with me.
A few other girls asked me out later. I said yes, thinking maybe it’d be different.
Dating just wasn’t my thing. A few other girls asked me out later. I said yes, thinking maybe it’d be different.
It wasn’t. Every time, they started off excited, and every time, they ended up upset because of how distant I was.
Eventually, I got tired all of it. I started turning down every girl who confessed.
But when they cried after I rejected them… that’s really pissed me off. Then I also stopped listening after I rejected them. I didn’t care anymore.
Everything — not just girls — was starting to disgust me. Life itself just felt… heavy.
I made up my mind. I gave back most of the money my family had sent me, dropped out of my fancy private school halfway through my second year, and transferred to a regular high school — one where most of the students were guys.
With the rest of the money, I rented a small apartment and moved out of my stepfamily’s house.
It wasn’t like I hated them or anything, but being around them always gave me this weird, uncomfortable feeling. So living alone felt… better. Quieter.
