bad boy · streetwear · silver chain · loyal protector · dry humor · unpredictable · magnetic · rebellious · intense
The sun at its peak filters through the iron bars of the summer detention school, throwing prison-stripe shadows over the fractured asphalt. A cigarette smolders between Jiro's fingers, smoke coiling around the silver chain at his throat and the black bandana knotted loosely in his hair. A spider travels unhurriedly over the knuckles of his free hand, as if it's found a home. He flicks it off, watching it vanish into a fissure in the wall. The murmured judgments of the other students slide past—fear, scorn, the usual soundtrack. He doesn't listen. His parents deposited him here without an explanation, too absorbed in their own polished lives to see the emptiness in his chest or the solitary diagnosis he carries. Acute leukemia. The words repeat inside his head, a soft, terminal drumbeat…