You are nothing but a disappointment

(A couple of months later)

Natsuo's eyes nearly closed from boredom that threatened to make him fall asleep. He leaned back on the uncomfortable chair and yawned, trying to stay awake.

Looking out the window, he noticed students hanging out outside, chatting and laughing before classes began again. Lunch break had started a while ago, but he was trapped, mostly against his will.

The leaves were turning yellow and orange as fall slowly approached. The weather was dull and gray, matching the mood inside the school counselor's office.

"Your grades were excellent before," the social worker stated as she flipped through Natsuo's previous diplomas, her eyebrows furrowed.

"But your recent results have been poor for the past few months. Is there something wrong at home?" she asked as she looked up from the papers, directing her attention towards him.

Natsuo sighed deeply as he thought about what to say.

"Well, Masashi works most evenings, and Noriko does what she does, such as cleaning and cooking. She is pretty boring," he said nonchalantly.

"Does your mother still work for the city council?"

"I don't know, ask her," Natsuo snorted and turned his gaze toward the window, when the blandness of the outside scenery provided a much more interesting view than the room he was in.

He watched birds fly across the sky, flapping their wings in complete harmony as they made their way to the horizon. Natsuo imagined himself flying with them, sailing through the clouds as he broke free from his troubles.

"Why don't you count these for me?"

The social worker gave him a piece of paper containing math problems from a higher-level course. The student laughed stiffly as he took it, quickly calculating the correct responses as he read them.

"Why bother? It won't change anything," he muttered bitterly.

"Can you solve them or are they too difficult for you?"

Natsuo narrowed his eyes to her, wondering what tricks she was trying to pull. He had been through the same thing countless times, with teachers and tutors trying to get him to invest his energy in something that would never matter in the end.

"I will let you go early if you do them."

Natsuo stretched his hand and gestured for a pen, fidgeting his fingers as he waited for her to hand him one. Maybe he should just make her eat her words.

The social worker handed it to him and watched as the teenager scribbled the answers to every problem in record time, moving the pencil like it was dancing across the page. When he was finished, he tossed the sheet and pen back to her.

"I'm leaving then," he announced smirking.

"Very good," she said, nodding approvingly as she double-checked the equations.

"But wait a minute."

Natsuo cursed under his breath when he was at the door, already holding the doorknob as he heard her voice. His eyes returned to her, visibly irritated, as he waited for her to finish speaking.

"This is math taught in senior class. You should have passed your course's mathematics, but you didn't. Why is that?"

Natsuo stared at her expressionless for a moment, letting the counselor's gaze drill into him as if it could uncover some hidden truth.

"I know," he said quietly, before turning his back and leaving the office.

He closed the door with a sigh, contemplating how troublesome it was to constantly prove himself to people who should already know how capable he was. Everything was just useless.

A student waiting in the hallway accidentally bumped into him. Their shoulders collided with a soft thud and both stumbled backwards.

"Watch it!" he grunted, causing the shorter boy to bow apologetically. Natsuo couldn't help but smile in return - it was the little ghost from the swing, trembling slightly in front of him.

His short black hair had a cool tint, which reflected in the light streaming through the window. It was neatly divided into two parts, with one half brushed to the left and the other to the right. He had a timid, meek demeanor that made him look like a mouse, scurrying away to safety at the slightest disturbance.

No one really seemed to pay attention to the boy as if he was invisible among them. He was a complete loner, a weirdo that no one wanted to be associated with. From the moment he walked into the school as a new student, he was an outcast. It was like he was a forgotten soul, referred to as a little ghost, lost in a sea of children who refused to acknowledge his existence.

"It's pretty brave of you to stumble into me like that. Maybe you should apologize better," Natsuo smirked at him, thinking he could entertain himself at the boy's expense.

The little ghost immediately fell to his knees and pressed his head to the tile floor.

Just then, their classmates walked out of the classroom and burst into laughter, taunting the other boy and his submissiveness. Natsuo snickered at him and grinned wryly.

"You better watch yourself, Jiro, otherwise you will find yourself in trouble," he whispered, calling his name for the first time.

(Later that day)

The wind blew through the schoolyard as the bell rang, signaling the end of the day. The students began to leave the grounds, some in groups of friends and others walking alone - including Jiro, whose head hung down as he strolled further away.

"Hey, is that your father?" one of the classmates asked and pointed to Masashi's figure stepping out of a black car.

Natsuo's eyes widened as he saw his father there so unexpectedly. The grim look on the man's face made him feel a bit uneasy, even though he usually was uncaring and cocky in his presence.

The blue-eyed student wished his classmates goodbye before making his way toward Masashi, who gestured for him to get into the car.

"What is the reason I have this honor to be in your company?" Natsuo asked, arrogant as ever, as the car drove away from the school's parking lot.

"Your counselor called today. You have been fooling around and failing your classes purposefully," Masashi stated in his usual strict voice, keeping his focus on the road.

Natsuo rolled his eyes, realizing he should have just played dumb, but the thought of getting out of the social worker's office faster was too tempting.

"You won't return to that school anymore. We will arrange for you to attend a boarding school."

Natsuo's stomach knotted as he heard that. He shifted in his seat, for the first time looking at his father pleadingly and hoping for a chance to explain himself, but the stern look in Masashi's eyes made it clear that his fate had been sealed.

"No, no - please, I will do my best now - "

"Quiet. You will leave tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?!"

Natsuo's heart raced as he heard the finality in the man's voice. Sudden, hot tears pricked his eyes, so he quickly wiped them away to keep his father from seeing how much he was hurting.

Even though he tried to keep up a facade of coolness and confidence around his schoolmates, deep down he liked the feeling of being accepted and appreciated. His peers' approval and admiration were important to him, since he had never been given that kind of recognition at home.

He had been raised to believe that his worth was solely based on his educational achievements and that anything less than excellence was unacceptable, but his father never seemed to love him despite anything he had done. As a younger child, he had always excelled in all his classes, but the man always demanded more from him and relentlessly pushed his son to strive for more.

The adopted boy had never had the opportunity to be like other kids, with no playtime or friends to spend time with. His birthdays and Christmases never included presents or special treats - instead, he was given more books to study and chores to do.

So, after years of feeling like he was never good enough, he simply stopped caring. Natsuo had reached his breaking point and deliberately failed his exams, hoping that his father would eventually take notice of him and realize that he couldn't be pushed beyond his limits.

But that only angered the man even more.

Every whipping and beating only fueled the fire within the boy, pushing him further away from submission. He found himself growing more rebellious, constantly testing the boundaries and challenging his father's, as well as everyone else's authority.

The car pulled up to a pristine house with a manicured lawn. Natsuo stepped out and looked up at the building he had lived in for fifteen years. Everything seemed so foreign and strange to him like he never had a home there.

He longed to break away from his father's chains, to experience a life beyond expectations and restrictions. He wished to have a family who liked him for who he was, who would be proud of him - who didn't beat him every day and didn't care about him.

Masashi grabbed his son by his arm and dragged him inside by force.

"How dare you make me look like a fool!" the man shouted as soon as the door closed with a loud bang.

"You are nothing but a disappointment. You are not my son, never were, and you never will be," he grumbled, pushing him away with such strength that the boy fell to the ground.

And with that, the fire in his blue eyes was finally extinguished by the water that broke free and streamed down his face.