---
Tokyo wasn't quiet—not in the alleys where neon signs flickered like broken thoughts, not in the mornings when trains hummed like restrained screams, and certainly not in the mind of a boy who had learned that silence only made betrayal easier.
Sora Kuroda stood on the platform of Kanda Station at 6:43 a.m., as he did every weekday. The same half-sleeping salarymen. The same student chatter. The same indecipherable station announcements echoing like prayers no one believed in. He wore his school uniform with surgical neatness—tie centered, collar folded just enough to look effortless, bag slung over one shoulder.
His eyes, however, did not match the rest of him. They were quiet—too quiet for a fifteen-year-old—and when they drifted from face to face in the crowd, they weren't looking for connection. They were collecting data.
He noticed the man with the ink-stained cuffs tapping his phone screen exactly three times before stuffing it into his coat. A woman in heels had her earbuds in but wasn't listening—her eyes were scanning people's reflections in the station glass. Sora's gaze drifted to a group of boys from another school laughing far too loudly. Two were genuine. One was faking it.
Sora noticed everything. He always had.
A memory fluttered at the edge of his mind—something with red chalk dust and a classroom window creaking open. But he shut it away like he always did. There were parts of his past he allowed himself to acknowledge, and parts he buried so deep that not even dreams were allowed to touch them.
The train arrived.
He stepped in without glancing at anyone.
---
By the time he reached Seirinkan High School, the sun had risen, weak and filtered behind a veil of clouded sky. He walked through the school gates just as the bell rang for morning homeroom.
"Yo, Kuroda!" someone called out from behind him.
He paused.
Yuto Takahashi, a boy with floppy hair and an overinflated sense of social value, jogged up beside him.
"Hey, man, you finish that math worksheet yet? I'm kinda screwed if Sensei checks it today."
Sora offered a neutral smile. "I did. Why?"
"Well, I mean," Yuto laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "You know, you're good at that stuff. You could help me out a little?"
There it was. The same tone. The same smirk people used when they wanted something but didn't want to admit it. Sora had heard it a hundred times from a hundred mouths. He smiled again—barely.
"I could," he said, voice soft. "But then again, if I helped you every time, you'd never learn."
Yuto blinked, taken aback by the reply. "I... I mean, just this once—"
"You said that last week. And the week before."
Sora didn't stop walking. He didn't need to. People like Yuto were predictable—they expected favors, and when denied, they'd either sulk or move on to someone weaker.
Sora was no longer the weak one.
---
Classroom 1-B was already half full. Students milled about, exchanging notes, laughter, half-hearted gossip. Sora took his seat at the third row by the window, opened his notebook, and waited. He didn't engage. He didn't interrupt. He simply listened.
He'd learned long ago that silence made people careless.
From behind him, a girl's voice whispered, "He's kind of creepy, isn't he?"
"Who, Kuroda?" another replied. "Yeah, like… too quiet. Always watching."
"Maybe he thinks he's better than everyone."
He heard it all without flinching. He didn't care. Let them talk. Gossip was just emotional leakage—proof that people needed attention more than truth. The less he responded, the more they revealed about themselves.
Then, a voice that didn't belong to the crowd cut through the low buzz.
"You've improved."
He turned his head slightly.
Standing by the doorway was Homeroom Teacher Ishikawa. Tall, sharp-eyed, unnervingly observant. A former psychologist turned educator. He only taught literature now, but he had a way of looking through people that Sora hadn't quite decoded yet.
Sora gave a modest nod. "Thank you, Sensei."
"Your essay on disillusionment," Ishikawa said, approaching his desk. "Cold, insightful, and disturbingly precise. Especially for a fifteen-year-old."
"I only wrote what I understood," Sora replied.
Ishikawa looked at him for a moment longer, then smiled faintly. "That's what concerns me."
And just like that, he moved on.
---
Midday passed without incident. Sora made no effort to engage in small talk, but people still came to him for help—how to phrase a speech, how to calculate interest, how to interpret a vague assignment. He never refused outright, but he made his price subtle: time, favors, leverage.
He didn't need friends. He needed people to owe him.
At lunch, he sat alone by the window as always. Bento box untouched. Watching.
A student two rows down was crying softly—barely audible, but Sora caught the trembling of her fingers, the darting glance to her phone screen. A message had shattered her. He made a mental note of her name.
Another group was laughing at a table near the door. But the laughter was strained. One of the girls didn't laugh—she mimicked it with the rhythm but not the breath. Sora filed that away too.
---
That afternoon, while leaving school, he found a strange note tucked into the side pocket of his bag.
He hadn't noticed anyone approach him during the day. He was sure of it.
The paper was folded into a perfect square. Unmarked. Uncreased.
Inside was a single sentence, written in sharp, spidery kanji:
"How many threads must break before you notice the puppet strings?"
Sora stared at it for a long time.
No name. No context.
He didn't react outwardly—but something shifted in his chest. Not fear. Not confusion. It was something colder.
A curiosity.
---
Sora's apartment was on the fourth floor of a narrow concrete building in a quiet street near Suidobashi. Too quiet.
The door creaked when he unlocked it, as if the hinges had learned to whisper instead of groan. The lights were already on. His mother must've forgotten to turn them off again.
He stepped inside and quietly slid the door closed. Slippers on. Bag off. No sound.
The living room smelled of burnt instant curry and cold cigarette smoke. His mother was slouched on the couch, eyes glued to the television where a variety show laughed over nothing. She didn't look up.
"Home," he said flatly.
"Mm," she muttered without turning.
That was enough. That was always enough.
Sora walked past her into the hallway, not expecting anything more. But as he reached for his room's sliding door, he heard a voice from the back room—hoarse, grating.
"Sora."
His body went still.
His father.
"Come here."
---
The room was small. Just a low table, a pile of newspapers, and the strong, bitter stench of alcohol. The man sitting inside was built like a shovel—broad, dull, and used to breaking things. His eyes were bloodshot. A half-empty bottle of sake sat beside him.
Sora stepped inside.
"What."
"Is that how you talk to your old man?"
Sora's voice didn't rise. "You only talk to me when you're drunk."
His father slammed the table with one open palm. The bottle rattled. The silence after it was heavier than the sound itself.
"Don't get smart with me," he growled.
Sora didn't flinch.
His father stood slowly. "Backtalking now? You think you're better than us, huh? With your books and your grades?"
There was movement. A hand raised. A flicker of muscle memory sparked in Sora's legs.
But the hand didn't come down.
Not yet.
Instead, his father leaned close, breath hot with rot and resentment.
"One day, someone will show you your place. And it won't be me. But you'll wish it was."
Sora stared into the eyes of the man who'd once left a bruise on his ribs so dark his teacher thought it was an accident on the stairs.
"I already know my place," he said coldly. "It's not beside you."
He left without another word.
---
The sliding door to his bedroom shut like a sigh of relief.
Sora sat on the edge of his futon, unbuttoned his uniform slowly, methodically. He wasn't shaking. Not outside.
The notebook was where he'd left it, atop the low shelf beside his desk. He opened it and found the strange note again. The characters hadn't changed.
"How many threads must break before you notice the puppet strings?"
He stared at it.
Then he turned the page and began to write.
Not words.
Diagrams. Names. Arrows. Patterns of behavior.
A boy in his class who always apologized even when he wasn't wrong. Weak-willed. Useful.
A girl who lied about her grades to gain sympathy. Insecure. Vulnerable.
His teacher, Ishikawa. Intelligent. Watching him closely. A potential threat—or an observer?
Each name connected to another like strands of webbing. It wasn't cruelty. It was structure. It was the only way he could make sense of people.
Because trust had failed him. So he built a map.
Not of streets, but of weaknesses.
---
That night, sleep came reluctantly. And when it did, it brought a memory.
Not the worst one. Not yet. His mind protected that. But one just close enough to leave bruises on his thoughts.
He was younger. Maybe eight. His father had shouted something about a broken vase. Something Sora hadn't done. His mother said nothing. Just left the room.
He remembered the sound—not the impact, but the silence before it. He remembered biting his lip so hard it bled, just to stop himself from making noise. Noise meant more pain.
The dream ended before the worst part.
Like always.
---
The next morning at school, he was pulled aside by Ishikawa-sensei before homeroom.
"I read your behavioral analysis essay," the teacher said quietly. "You wrote about emotional camouflage."
Sora blinked. "It was the assignment."
"You described it too well."
"I observe. That's all."
Ishikawa tilted his head. "Have you ever spoken to a counselor?"
"No."
"Do you want to?"
"No."
There was a long pause. Ishikawa finally nodded. "Let me know if that changes."
Sora walked away. But for the first time in a long while, he didn't feel like he'd won an interaction.
---
At lunch, something changed.
There was a group of three girls standing near the stairwell, whispering with their backs turned. When Sora passed them, they all went silent at once.
Not nervous silence.
Deliberate.
One of them, the same girl who'd muttered about him being creepy days ago, turned to him with a forced smile.
"Hey, Kuroda. You dropped this earlier."
She held out a folded piece of paper.
He didn't take it.
"I didn't drop anything."
She smiled wider. "Maybe just read it."
Her tone was too smooth. The smile too sharp.
He took the paper carefully, not reacting.
She walked away with the others, already giggling like the plan had worked.
He opened the note in the hallway.
There was no mockery.
No joke.
Just a second message:
"You see them as tools. But are you sure you're not someone else's?"
---
---
Sora sat alone on the rooftop during cleaning period.
The wind scratched lightly at the fencing. Far below, the steady drone of traffic continued as if time had no weight.
He read the note again.
"You see them as tools. But are you sure you're not someone else's?"
It wasn't a prank. It was too precise, too invasive. Whoever wrote this knew how he thought. Knew what he feared.
He traced the paper's fold lines. Perfect symmetry. No handwriting errors. Whoever this was, they were watching him closely. Too closely.
For the first time, he felt the threads he thought he held in his hands — tug ever so slightly from above.
---
Back in class, he observed more carefully. A few classmates avoided looking at him now. One girl accidentally made eye contact, then dropped her gaze instantly, lips pressed tight.
Yuto Takahashi glanced at him multiple times, clearly uneasy.
Good.
Let them worry. Let them suspect. Fear kept people in place.
But the question gnawed.
"Are you sure you're not someone else's tool?"
Who would dare say that to him?
That night, he walked home slowly. His mother wasn't at the apartment. His father's room was locked. He didn't check.
Instead, he went to his room and opened his notebook again. He added new entries. Re-evaluated connections. Strengthened leverage points. A small ecosystem of loyalty and silence, curated by quiet influence.
Then his pencil stopped.
He couldn't explain it—but in the corner of the page, a word had appeared. Faintly, as if written in near-invisible graphite. Letters scratched so lightly they shimmered only when the light hit from the right angle.
"Remember."
He hadn't written it.
He stared at it for a long time.
---
He woke in the middle of the night.
No sound.
No dreams.
Just a pressure in his chest, like something had tried to escape his memories and failed.
He sat up slowly, fingers cold despite the blanket.
Something had changed in the room.
The air felt too still. Not heavy—silent. Too silent.
He looked around.
And there—near the edge of his desk—was his old sketchbook. The one he hadn't opened in years. The one he had buried under boxes after… that day.
His hand hovered over it.
He opened it slowly.
The first few pages were filled with childish drawings. His family. His home. A playground. Smiling stick figures.
Then, farther in… a drawing in red crayon. Slashes. A broken stick figure. A face with no eyes.
The label, written in a shaky child's hand:
"Me."
He remembered drawing it.
He remembered the night it happened.
He remembered the belt.
He remembered choking on his own sobs in the dark, with the window shut and the door locked from outside.
---
He closed the book slowly.
His breath steadied, but something in his face twisted, just for a moment.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Resolve.
He would never be weak again. Never beg again. Never cry again.
He would use anyone. Step over anyone. Until the entire world bent to him or broke trying.
That was the vow he made at eight years old.
And no note could shake it.
---
The next day, he came to school early.
The halls were quiet. He walked calmly, eyes scanning lockers and hallway corners.
No sign of anything unusual.
Until he reached his desk.
A third note.
Neatly folded. No one else had arrived yet.
He opened it.
One line:
"You're not alone in watching."
He folded the note carefully and slipped it into his inner jacket pocket.
Then, with absolute calm, he turned and walked out of the classroom.
---
He didn't go home that afternoon.
Instead, he took the train three stops farther than usual. Walked through the old district where vending machines were overgrown with rust and ivy. Past the forgotten bookstore with only one shelf.
He stopped at a wooden post box beside a shuttered shrine.
There was no name on it. No sign.
But he slid the third note inside.
And whispered, "I'm listening."
The wind stirred the leaves.
And from deep inside the shuttered shrine, something knocked back.
---