The alarm didn't wake her.
It was the ache in her chest.
The morning sun filtered weakly through her sheer curtains, the light diluted and soft like a faded memory. Her knees curled to her chest, salt drying on her skin. The silence in her room had grown thick, heavy, and suffocating. Her throat was dry, her limbs reluctant. She stared at the ceiling for a while, listening to the silence pressing in around her like a weight.
There was a familiar hum outside her window. The neighbor's clumsy broom scraping against concrete. The low bark of a distant dog. A car engine starting. The world still moved.
But she hadn't.
Her alarm had buzzed an hour ago. She'd silenced it with a single tap and let it fall to the floor, screen spiderwebbed from the night before. Still cracked. Still real.
She exhaled through her nose. It came out too loud in the stillness.
Her finger throbbed faintly against her chest where she'd kept it nestled all night, as if holding the ache there could stop it from spreading.
She should get up.
She pushed herself to sit upright, the blanket slipping off her shoulder. Her phone lay face-down on the floor. She didn't bother picking it up.
She sat in a haze thinking how she should brush her teeth, fix her face, pretend. That's what she always did. But even the thought of standing felt like lifting cinderblocks tied to her ankles.
It was strange—how her body could feel both brittle and too heavy to move. Like glass weighed down by water. Her finger throbbed beneath the bandage, a dull pulse in time with her heart.
Her father was gone when she stepped into the kitchen for a glass of water before getting ready. He'd left early for work again. The note on the counter said: Thanks for the lunch, BearRi. You're the best. Love, Papa.
She stared at the handwriting for longer than necessary, her hand hovering above the paper. Her chest sank in that familiar way. Not with anger—she'd stopped expecting more a long time ago—but with a dull ache. Not disappointment, exactly. Just... the hollow confirmation of something she already knew.
Notice me. Just once. Really see me.
She shoved the note in the trash and walked out the door.
He loved her. She knew that. But love, in her life, had always come in whispers and half-thoughts. In work boots at the door and plastic convenience store bags with her favorite melon bread when he remembered.
Never in asking how her day went.
Never in noticing the swelling beneath her eyes or the fresh bandage on her finger.
She went back to her bedroom.
Instead, she turned her face toward the window, where light cut through the sheer curtain in pale slants. Dust floated lazily in the beam like it had all the time in the world. She watched it for a long time, wishing she could be that aimless. That unaffected.
But there was school.
There was always something to do. Something to keep her hands busy. Something to give the illusion of control.
She stood slowly, her muscles aching in quiet protest. The bathroom mirror caught her reflection as she passed, and she stopped.
Her eyes looked older than sixteen.
There was a shadow beneath them—deeper than any concealer could hide. Her hair was mussed on one side, curled from sleep and damp with sweat at the roots. Her lips were pale. She pressed them together like that might fix it.
She splashed water on her face. It didn't help.
And still, she pulled herself together—mechanical and practiced. Braiding her hair back. Pulling on the uniform. Making sure her shirt was tucked just right.
She couldn't afford to fall apart. Not out there.
As she grabbed her bag and moved toward the door, her gaze caught on the cutting board still drying in the rack, the faint pink stain in the wood barely visible.
She turned away quickly.
Outside, the morning was bright but too loud. A blaring horn. The squawk of someone yelling down the street. Her senses were too sharp today. Everything felt like static.
She walked to school like she always did—shoulders straight, eyes down, steps measured. No one could see it, not if she didn't let them.
No one would know that every step was just another crack in the glass she was trying to hold together.
But someone had already seen, hadn't they?
She thought of him again—Hoshina. Smirking. Smug. But something in his eyes... she hated that it had stuck with her.
He'd looked at her like he knew something. Like he'd noticed.
She hated that.
She hated that it made her feel seen.