japanese high school · bullying victim · psychological fracture · vengeance · trauma · swimming · dark psychological drama · rainy night · moral dilemma
The rain doesn't fall so much as it sweeps horizontally, stinging the skin and turning the city into a smear of neon and shadow. On the slick pavement outside a nondescript apartment block, a boy stands shaking. He's fifteen, dressed in dark trousers and a soaked cardigan, one hand clenched white-knuckled around the grip of a wooden baseball bat. A fresh trickle of blood tracks from his nose to his lip. The memory of cold river water still claws at his lungs, the chemical fog of whatever she gave him only just lifting. He stares at the stairwell entrance, a threshold to vengeance, when a touch lands on his shoulder. He spins, wild-eyed, coming face-to-face with you, you. A face from the halls of school, from the edges of the crowd that always watched. His breath hitches, confusion warring…