Chapter 64 — "Coward"
---
**2025. Sakuragawa High School. Morning.**
Takeshi Yamaguchi entered the classroom.
His desk was waiting.
Written in thick black marker across the surface:
**COWARD**
**SMALL DUCK**
He stared at the misspelled word for a second.
Then looked around the room.
No one met his eyes.
He took a cloth from his bag and quietly erased it.
*If You didn't know English? Use Japanese or at least use a dictionary…*
After class, he went to the toilet.
His old basketball teammates were already there — cornering him the moment he stepped in.
"So, Takeshi… you coming to practice or not?"
Takeshi looked at the floor.
"I left the basketball team."
One of them punched him hard in the stomach.
Takeshi doubled over, gasping.
"Just answer in yes or no."
He coughed.
"No."
Another teammate smirked.
"Okay. Open my zip. I'm smoking, so my hands are busy."
Takeshi didn't move.
They laughed and left him there.
---
School ended.
Takeshi walked alone.
He found a small garden behind the school and sat on a bench.
"Damm Kaito…"
He muttered.
"Because of him my life became like this."
He cursed the sky.
"Dammit, Kaito. You had to go and be a hero? You had to go and 'die'? Because of your dramatic exit, I'm the designated villain. I'm the coward. Even Yui dumped me! She said my 'fearful aura' was ruining her skin routine!"
Before the lab incident, he was the idol.
Everyone looked up to him.
After that day — everyone saw him run.
Now they looked at him like he was just a coward.
Even his girlfriend broke up with him.
"Because of Kaito… now everyone thinks he is cool."
A person in a different uniform sat beside him.
"What are you Doing?"
Takeshi didn't look up.
"Can't you see I'm sitting?"
The person continued calmly.
"Did they bully you?"
Takeshi nodded.
"Yes."
The stranger looked at the sky.
"This society is too much different… or you can say hypocrite."
Takeshi glanced at him.
The person continued.
"Like you bully the weak one… then you also get bullied because you are weak."
Takeshi frowned.
"What?"
"Do you remember your Pikachu?"
"Ahh… that fatty."
The person smiled faintly.
"You bullied him because he looked different from you and he was weak. But you were weak too. You were hiding your insecurity and trying to show off to girls and boys that you are cool."
Takeshi stayed silent.
The person stood up.
"And now they are bullying you… not because you are weak… but…"
He started walking away.
Takeshi looked down at the ground.
---
**Next day.**
Takeshi entered the classroom.
Same thing written on his desk.
He didn't erase it.
Instead, he took the marker and wrote the same words on every desk in the room.
After school, he went back to the basketball team.
The members came to bully him again.
He ignored them.
Didn't even listen.
His ex-girlfriend tried to hate on him — trying to clear her name, saying she was forced to be in a relationship with him.
He exposed her reality in front of everyone.
After some time, people started ignoring him too.
The basketball team won their match.
Takeshi sat at the very back of the bus.
No one knew.
No one cared.
---
**Morning. 2025.**
My name is Takeshi Yamaguchi, and my life is, to put it simply, absolute garbage.
Not the dramatic kind of garbage where you'd get some tragic backstory that makes people feel sorry for you. No, no. I'm talking about the boring, mundane, "why do I even bother waking up" kind of garbage. The kind where you're just… there. Existing. Taking up space and oxygen that could probably be better used by literally anyone else.
I'm seventeen years old, a third-year high school student at Sakuragawa High, and I have exactly zero friends now.
And girlfriends? Don't even get me started.
At Home mom always cry about "Don't become like your brother."
Like how i will become like him i didn't see him yet.
Actually, you know what? Let me tell you about my morning. It perfectly encapsulates the disaster that is my existence.
"Morning, Kazuo!" a girl's voice chirped from across the street.
"Morning, Ami!" a guy responded, way too enthusiastically for 7:30 in the morning.
I glanced over.
And smiled.
*It's a loop. A circle.*
One person falls down, and people immediately start loving another just because he's a little better than them… or he's just better at acting.
Rather than changing ourselves, we usually set up a person we can't beat or who seems perfect — without seeing the full side of him.
I smiled.
Because I finally understood.
---
*End*