I woke up at 2 PM with a headache that felt like my brain was trying to escape through my eye sockets.
The apartment was silent. Daiki had already left for his morning classes—the ones I should have been attending if I hadn't thrown my future in the trash yesterday.
Yesterday. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours since I'd walked out of the registrar's office? It felt like a lifetime had passed, or maybe no time at all. Days blurred together when you had nowhere to be.
I shuffled to the bathroom and caught my reflection in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair sticking up in seventeen different directions. The face of someone who'd given up.
This is what a NEET looks like, I thought. Congratulations, Yuuma. You've officially joined the ranks of society's failures.
The convenience store run at 3 PM was my first human interaction of the day.
"That'll be 1,200 yen," the clerk said without looking up from his phone. Cup noodles, energy drinks, and a bag of chips—the breakfast of champions.
I handed him exact change. He gave me the receipt. We didn't make eye contact.
Even the convenience store clerk found me forgettable.
Walking back to the apartment, I passed a group of college students about my age. They were loud, laughing about something that had happened in their morning lecture. One of them was wearing a jacket from my old university.
That could have been me, I thought.
Should have been me.
Instead, I was the guy walking alone with convenience store dinner, watching other people live the life I'd abandoned.
The afternoon disappeared into a black hole of anime and self-pity.
I was halfway through episode twelve of some isekai series when my phone buzzed. A text from Mom.
"How are your classes going, sweetheart? Haven't heard from you in a while."
My thumb hovered over the keyboard for ten minutes. How was I supposed to tell her I'd already failed at the one thing she'd scraped together money for? How could I explain that her son was officially a waste of space?
I typed: "Fine. Busy with midterms."
The lie tasted bitter, even through text.
She replied immediately: "I'm so proud of you, Yuuma. Your father would be too."
I threw my phone across the room. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor, screen somehow still intact.
Dad would be proud? Dad, who'd walked out when I was eight because he couldn't handle having a family? Dad, who sent a birthday card twice a year like that made up for everything?
Mom was proud of a son who didn't exist anymore.
Around 6 PM, Daiki came home with two of his friends. I recognized them from the photos on his social media—Sato and Yamamoto, both from his business management program.
"Oh, hey Yuuma," Daiki said, like he was surprised to find me in my own room. "These are my study group partners."
They waved politely, the way you wave at your friend's weird uncle at family gatherings.
"We're gonna work on our project in the living room," Daiki continued. "You don't mind, right?"
Of course I don't mind, I wanted to say. It's not like I have anywhere else to go.
Instead, I just nodded.
For the next three hours, I listened to them through the thin walls. Discussing business strategies, sharing snacks, laughing at inside jokes. Living the college experience I'd never figured out how to join.
At one point, I heard Sato ask, "What's your roommate's major?"
"Honestly? I'm not really sure," Daiki replied. "He keeps to himself a lot."
They moved on to talking about their weekend plans. I wasn't mentioned again.
After they left, the apartment felt even emptier than before.
I sat on my bed, staring at the wall where my phone had left a small scuff mark. The evening stretched ahead of me like a desert—endless, empty, and impossible to cross.
Tomorrow would be the same. And the day after that. And the day after that.
Is this what the rest of my life looks like?
I thought about the isekai protagonist I'd been watching earlier. Ordinary guy, boring life, gets hit by a truck and wakes up in a fantasy world where he matters. Where people need him. Where he can be a hero instead of a ghost.
Must be nice, I thought bitterly. Too bad real life doesn't work that way.
But as I lay back down to sleep, pulling my blanket over my head like armor against the world, something strange happened.
For just a moment, I could have sworn I smelled cherry blossoms.
In the distance, so faint I might have imagined it, I heard someone laugh.
It sounded like spring.