Dusk folded the park in half—one side still lit by the last strip of sun, the other already soft with shadow.
Itsuki sat on a swing, legs dangling, watching his feet move back and forth. The world around him felt too big and empty; the creak of the chain was the only steady thing that evening. Ten years old, forced to grow up overnight—he had learned to make his loneliness into a shield.
He did not notice Hotaru approach at first.
When she sat down on the neighboring swing, it was so quiet that the small whisper of her movement sounded like a brave secret.
"Hi," she said, voice small and steady.
Itsuki looked at her without interest.
He kept swinging.
"Are you… itsuki?" she asked after a pause, as if confirming a fact she had been told.
Itsuki finally glanced toward her. He could have ignored her. He could have pretended not to hear. Instead he scoffed, the habit of roughness rising like a reflex.
"Why do you talk to me?" he snapped.
"Why would I want a friend like you?"
Hotaru's hands curled around the chain. Her smile—soft, patient—did not break.
"I thought… maybe we could be friends," she said.
"I like making friends."
Itsuki's mouth twisted. He scooped a handful of dirt from the ground and let the soil slide through his fingers—then, with the kind of anger that had nothing to do with Hotaru and everything to do with the emptiness inside him, he flung the dirt toward her.
"Do you think I need anyone?" Itsuki spat.
"I don't need someone like you. I don't need anyone."
The dirt hit Hotaru's sleeve and fell to the ground. She did not cry. She only wiped at the spot with the back of her hand and offered the same small, unwavering smile.
"Okay," she said.
"I understand."
The next morning, the school felt colder.
Itsuki and his two friends had learned to take the easiest path to attention: mockery, little insults that cut and then retreated. What started as whispered jibes turned quickly into rougher games—shove a foot forward so she would stumble, pull the bandage loose for a moment and tease her, flick water from a bottle when no teacher was looking. Sometimes they wrote nasty words on the board, always erasing them later and pretending to be shocked—"Who wrote this?"—when a teacher walked in.
Every time someone removed Hotaru's bandage, her eyelids stayed closed. She never lashed out. She rarely even cried out loud. More often she would sit very still, and when the bandage was tied back, she would breathe and then smile as if the world had simply rearranged itself again.
Itsuki watched these things happen and joined in like reflex. He pushed. He pulled. He laughed with the others. He wanted the sound of himself in the room more than anything—proof that he existed.
Then, one ordinary morning when the class was waiting for the teacher to arrive and chatter filled the classroom, Itsuki jerked the bandage from Hotaru's eyes in a quick, careless motion.
Something about the moment was wrong—too quick, too loud in the still air.
Hotaru's eyelids fluttered, and for the first time in months, her eyes opened.
For a heartbeat there was confusion in the room—then, a slow, dark wetness spreading from Hotaru's eyes.
Blood welled at the corners and traced thin lines down her cheeks.
The class erupted.
"Her eyes—call a teacher! Someone call the nurse!"
"She's bleeding! What did you do?"
Hotaru sat perfectly still. Her face did not show the wild fear the other children's screams had. She let out a small, breathless sound like someone trying to hold a secret from spilling.
A wave of shocked whispers rolled through the desks. Some students scrambled for the teacher. Some stared with wide mouths. Hotaru simply bowed her head, and the faintest sound of a sob escaped her—so small it could have been mistaken for the rustle of paper.
Itsuki felt the room tilt. He had seen pain before; he had caused scraps and tears and had watched them be mended. This was different. This was red and real and impossible to ignore. The bandage had been there for a reason—Hotaru's eyes were fragile. The doctors had said so. That was why she kept them covered.
When the dust settled and the teacher and the principal had been called, Hotaru was led quietly out of the room, her cheeks damp, the faint smile gone. No one dared make a joke now.
The next day, there was an empty space where Hotaru usually sat.
The teacher announced nothing at first, only clearing the air with a heavy tone. The room felt like a held breath.
Itsuki tried to do the same—pretend nothing had happened—but the memory of the red on Hotaru's cheeks was a splinter he couldn't pry out. For the first time, guilt crept into him like cold water.
Did he go too far?
He told himself he had not. Hotaru was different—people like her didn't matter, he thought, a thought sharpened in the same place where his loneliness lived. Still, a small, uncooperative part of him—one he had trained to ignore—asked a question he didn't want to answer.
In the middle of class, the principal and homeroom teacher walked in. The principal's eyes scanned the room like an accusation. He called them to order and then fixed his gaze on the class slowly, as if measuring each student.
"Who removed Hotaru's bandage?" he asked.
"Who was responsible?"
There was a murmur. Some pupils shifted their weight. Itsuki's fingers itched. He could feel the faces around him like heat.
The homeroom teacher pointed slowly, and then—clearly, painfully—looked toward Itsuki.
"Itsuki," the teacher said, voice steady and loud enough for every head to turn, "stand."
Itsuki's limbs moved of their own accord. He stood, sudden and ashamed under the scrutiny.
"We all know you used to tease her," the teacher continued. "You have been one of those who made fun, who pulled the bandage, who encouraged others. Who took the bandage off this time?"
A dozen eyes fell to the floor. Itsuki wanted to say that he hadn't done it alone—that he was not the only one; that his friends had been there—but the words jammed in his throat like rusted coins. He hated admitting anything that made him look weak. He hated the thought of being blamed.
He opened his mouth and swallowed a confession that felt like both truth and half-truth.
"I… I took it," he said.
"But I wasn't alone. The others pushed too. We were all—"
Hotaru's name on their lips made the room small and hot. The teacher's face held a disappointment that landed like a weight.
The homeroom teacher put a palm to the board, drawing attention, and looked straight at Itsuki.
"You will go to her house. You will apologize to Hotaru and to her mother. You will offer compensation for the emergency care—one hundred thousand rupees. You will help in whatever way you can."
The class exhaled. The words split the air. One hundred thousand rupees—an impossible number spinning like a coin Itsuki could not reach.
Hotaru's sob finally broke in the back row; someone said her name and she started to cry—softly, as if not to disturb the world. Her small sound stabbed through the room.
Itsuki's chest tightened. For a moment he saw himself as he truly was: a boy who had hurled dirt, who had pushed, who had yanked bandages—and now faced the full weight of what those small cruelties could become.
But when the bell rang and the chaos of dismissal came, fear pushed him forward. He grabbed his bag and fled the school like a hunted thing.
At home, the apartment felt too quiet. Itsuki collapsed on the floor by the door, heart hammering.
"How am I supposed to get that money?" he whispered to no one.
"That was the money my parents left. I live on that. Where will I find one hundred thousand rupees?"
He thought of the empty shelves, the little bills he rationed each week, the way his life was stitched together from what was left of another life. The number was a mountain. He had no plan. He had no right to ask anyone for help. He had nowhere to go that wouldn't make him feel smaller.
Morning came like a test. Itsuki pushed open the gate with hands that trembled. He traveled the familiar route to Hotaru's house because the teacher had ordered him to go. He rehearsed words in his head that felt like stones: apology, sorry, compensation.
When he reached her door, he stood with his fist against the bell. The wood felt heavier than any book.
He rang. One quick ring that sounded too loud.
Footsteps came from inside.
A woman opened the door. Her face was tired and lined, but composed. She looked at Itsuki with something between curiosity and wariness.
"Who is it?" she asked.
Itsuki forced himself to speak, voice small and raw.
"I'm from her class. My name is Itsuki. I—"
He stopped. Words would not come easily in person. His rehearsed apology felt thin when weighed against the hurt he had caused.
The woman's eyes flicked, and she recognized him. The breath left Itsuki in a sudden hitch. Before he could finish, the woman's hand moved.
A sharp, stinging slap landed across his cheek.
Itsuki's head turned from the force. The world reeled.
The door stayed open a moment longer, then closed. The sound of the latch dropping seemed to say that there was no easy return.
Itsuki pressed his fingertips to his burning cheek and felt the sudden, hollow loneliness more sharply than ever. He had imagined anger, perhaps blame—but not this. Not the pain and the shame and the taste of something that might finally wake him up.
He stood there a long time, the dusk folding in again, and somewhere inside the place where he kept himself small and mean, something shifted.
✨ End of Chapter 3 ✨