Kirisawa Tsurugi learned quickly that quitting kendo didn't just mean giving up a sport—it meant losing the place where he belonged. The dojo was his second home, and the team felt like his second family. Losing that hurt a lot, but what happened next cut much deeper.
Because rumors moved faster than the truth.
It began quietly. Just a few hushed voices in the hallway. Students would look at him with a strange mix of interest and worry. They would stop talking when he walked by, their eyes following him.
Then, he heard it. Someone spoke just loud enough for him to catch the words:
"That's the guy who almost killed his partner in kendo, right?"
Those words struck him harder than any training stick ever had.
He kept walking, head down, his face hot with shame. But the whispers followed him.
"The coach had to pull him away."
"He just lost it, I heard."
"They say the other guy nearly needed surgery."
"Imagine being that out of control… he's a nutjob."
None of it was true, not the way they told it. But rumors didn't need to be true—they just needed to be interesting. And Tsurugi, quiet and missing from kendo, was the perfect target.
At first, he tried to just ignore it. He tried to pretend he didn't hear the mean laughter behind him. He tried to tell himself it didn't matter.
But the whispers became bolder.
One day, while he was changing shoes, a group of older boys stopped nearby. One of them grinned and made a chopping motion with his hand.
"Hey, watch out, everyone. Don't make Kirisawa mad. He might try to hit you with a real swing." The others laughed.
Tsurugi froze, gripping his shoelaces tightly. His heart hammered painfully in his chest. He wanted to say something—It was an accident!—but his throat clamped shut.
He wasn't mad at them. He wasn't even offended.
He was scared.
Because their cruel joke sounded too much like the bad feeling he already had about himself.
After that, the bullying became planned.
He found a note on his desk written in bright red pen: "Future Killer." The color made him sick.
He didn't tear it up. He didn't throw it away.
He folded it once, very quietly, and put it deep in his bag. A small, defeated part of him thought he deserved to keep it—that it was true.
During lunch, two girls whispered loudly enough for him to hear:
"I heard he's banned from the kendo club for good."
"No way! Did he really try to stab someone?"
"Why else would he quit? He loved it."
Tsurugi kept his head down, looking at his untouched food. His stomach felt tight, like he was going to throw up. He felt everyone looking at him. The cafeteria felt too small and too loud.
He suddenly stood up, his chair scraping loudly, and left quickly without looking back.
He ate his lunch alone in the quiet, dusty stairwell after that. It was the only place where the world felt calm enough for him to breathe.
A week later, the cruelty reached its peak in the bright school gym.
The teacher asked students to practice with wooden sticks, like fake swords. A boy named Sato grinned and tossed a spare stick right at Tsurugi's feet.
"Here, Kirisawa. Need to practice killing again?"
A few students looked uncomfortable. Most just watched.
Tsurugi stared at the stick on the floor.
He froze. His hands twitched. His breathing got fast and shallow. The sound of the stick rolling slightly turned into the loud thud of his bamboo sword hitting his friend Hayato.
His vision went blurry. The gym started to spin. He felt cold—a deep, shaking cold.
"Tsurugi?" the teacher called. "Pick it up."
He couldn't move.
"Pick it up," the teacher repeated, sounding annoyed.
Tsurugi stepped backward quickly, staring at the stick as if it were a dangerous snake. Someone laughed hard.
"What, scared you might hurt someone again? Don't be a baby!" The laughter spread.
Tsurugi ran. He bolted out of the gym, out of the building, and collapsed against a wall in the quiet courtyard. He hugged his knees to his chest, his fingernails digging into his palms.
He wasn't crying. He just needed to breathe.
He tried to stop his mind from playing the scene over and over: the strike, the fall, Hayato's shocked eyes—and now the voices of his classmates added to the horror:
Killer.
Crazy.
Dangerous.
Monster.
Words that cut sharper than any sword.
Hiding the Truth
At home, he hid everything. He forced a smile when his mother asked about his day. He always said "fine." He pretended everything was normal so they wouldn't ask questions.
But the moment he was alone in his room, the smile disappeared.
He would press his head against his desk, breathing shaky gasps. He would sit there for an hour until the sun went down and his room was dark.
His phone constantly buzzed with messages—group chats from the kendo team, kind texts from Hayato.
He turned off all notifications. He couldn't handle the guilt. He couldn't face the idea that Hayato might secretly hate him. He thought that avoiding them was safer.
But the truth was, the silence made everything worse.
Walking to school became terrible. He looked down, walked fast, and tried not to see anyone especially students wearing club jackets.
One morning, he got to school early by accident.
Three older boys were standing by the lockers.
"Look," one said, "the sword crazy is here."
Tsurugi stopped walking, frozen.
Another leaned in close with a mean smile. "Are you going to attack someone today? Should we stand in line?"
Laughter.
A hand suddenly slapped loudly onto Tsurugi's shoulder.
He jumped back so hard he hit the metal lockers. His breath hitched, and his eyes were wide with pure panic.
He didn't shout. He didn't push them away. He just stood there, shaking.
The boy who touched him raised his hands in a fake surrender.
"Whoa, chill out! I didn't mean to 'almost kill' you."
Laughter again.
Tsurugi felt a cold, empty feeling in his chest. He quietly slipped past them, head down, shoulders slumped not because he was scared of them, but because he was scared of himself.
Scared that they might be right. Scared that he was truly the kind of person who could hurt others.
By the end of the week, Tsurugi stopped eating lunch completely. He skipped gym class by pretending he had stomach aches. He walked quickly between classes, speaking only when he had to.
Each day felt heavier.
Each whisper cut deeper.
Each laugh echoed longer.
And when he looked at his reflection, he barely recognized the boy staring back
.
He no longer saw the boy who held a sword with pride.
He no longer saw the boy who dreamed of winning competitions.
He no longer saw the boy who smiled easily in the dojo.
Now, he saw someone small.
Someone weak.
Someone terrified.
Someone people called—
"The boy who tried to kill someone."
And no matter how far he ran, he couldn't escape those words.