Chapter 18: what the people saw

Days passed into days, and the weight of time weighed upon Umbra's shoulders like an unyielding shadow. He went about his routine as always, training his body and mind in a relentless rhythm and keeping his emotions locked away behind the walls he had built with so much care. Yet, something inside him had shifted. Small, almost imperceptible, but it was there. It was the thought of his reaching the age of sixteen that kept him going, kept him from ending it all like so many times previously. For in that world, at such an age, he would see her once more: Akari.

Nobody else in this place mattered. The others at the Academy, the teachers, the students-none of them understood. None of them could. They asked why he was so cold, why he kept to himself, why he acted like a stone in a sea of life. They saw a boy who seemed disjoined, distant-unwilling to forge connections. But they couldn't see the truth of it.