Chapter Text
Despite what some people might think, Subaru is not dumb. Perhaps he wasn’t the genius he once believed himself to be, but he certainly wasn’t stupid.
He graduated from elementary and middle school at the top of his class, basking in the praise from teachers and classmates who constantly told him how smart he was.
Math? Easy.
Science? He even represented his school in a regional competition.
English? He was already fluent.
Social studies, fine arts, music, and physical education? Subaru didn’t put much effort into those, yet still came away with good grades.
He had a lot of friends to hang out with during lunch and after school. They’d go to the park to play soccer, mess around in the arcade for hours, or visit each other’s houses to play video games.
High school changed all of that.
All of his friends applied to different schools. Most stayed at the local high school, while others pursued their own paths.
Confident in his intellect, Subaru decided to apply to the most prestigious high school in the area, the one where the rich kids and overachievers went. However, the entrance exam turned out to be so difficult it made Subaru second-guess his decision. He was initially rejected and placed on a waitlist, only getting in because another student who passed declined their spot.
Subaru had been ecstatic when he received the acceptance letter. He hugged his parents tightly as they celebrated together.
That was the last time Subaru felt excited about high school.
His first day was a disaster. Back in middle school, his friends would have laughed at his antics. Here, his new classmates simply stared at him with blank, serious expressions while the teacher coughed awkwardly.
Subaru quickly realized he was a fish out of water. The material was far more difficult than he’d anticipated, and he had to study harder just to keep up. That alone wasn’t the issue. What truly broke him was everything else that kept piling on.
At this school, there were no class clowns or funny guys. The most popular students were the all-rounders. The ones who were academically brilliant, athletic, wealthy, well-connected, multilingual, musically talented, charismatic, and active in their communities.
Subaru could only check one of those boxes, his decent grades and even that was slipping away.
While he studied just to stay afloat, his classmates were doing charity work, competing in sports or the arts they'd trained in since childhood, traveling overseas, and preparing to inherit their family businesses. Even in their first year, many had private tutors to help them get into top-tier universities.
To Subaru, his classmates seemed like a different species.
If you asked them what they wanted to do in the future, they answered without hesitation:
"I plan to become a neurosurgeon. Oxford for my Bachelor of Surgery, then foundation and surgical training at my father’s hospital."
"I’m taking Economics at the University of Tokyo. After that, I’ll work in the family company."
"I’m going into engineering at MIT. My parents wanted me to become a doctor like them, but I convinced them otherwise. I’m interested in robotics and who knows, maybe the robots can assist in medical situations too. My grandparents taking me to an AI expo in the U.S."
But if you asked Subaru what he wanted to do…
"I don’t know… I haven’t really thought about it much. Probably something with a decent employment rate and salary. Maybe accounting, or engineering. I’m pretty decent at math, science, and tech."
It wasn’t just their ambitions that set them apart. Even their idea of friendship differed from his.
To Subaru, friends were people you liked people you could talk to, hang out with, and enjoy spending time together. His classmates’ version of friendship seemed more like strategic alliances. Their relationships were transactional: “What can you do for me?”
Even students from modest backgrounds, like Subaru, seemed to play along cozying up to future politicians, doctors, engineers, and heirs to multimillion-dollar companies, hoping that those connections might secure them a high-paying job someday.
Subaru tried to keep up.
He stopped playing video games, watching anime, reading manga or light novels. He no longer met up with his old middle school friends.
Instead, he spent his nights cramming, trying to absorb more information.
He trained harder to earn a spot on the soccer team’s first string.
He picked up the violin again, the one he gave up as a child when he lost interest.
He started learning a new language.
His parents told him to take it easy, but they didn’t understand.
He had to do this if he didn’t want to be left behind. If he wanted a future, this was the price.
Now in his third year, Subaru has made some progress.
He doesn’t have anyone he’d call a close friend, or anyone to eat lunch with but that’s okay. He communicates well enough with his classmates when group work is required.
He’s no longer the top student in school, but he’s proud to have made it into the top ten.
It took him three years, but he finally made the soccer team’s first string though a first-year student took a starting spot, and Subaru remains a substitute. Still, at least he gets to play in the championship.
It’s just a little unfortunate, Subaru thinks, that he made it this far in his third year—
but not to graduation.
It stated with the violin.
He’d been practicing the same passage for nearly an hour, trying to hit a clean, sustained note that no longer existed in his fingers. The string screeched again flat, then sharp, then just noise.
Subaru flinched. He gritted his teeth, repositioned his hand, adjusted his bow, and played it again.
Wrong.
Wrong again.
And again.
The sound wasn’t even music anymore. It was friction. Pressure. Grating on his nerves like glass dragged across pavement.
Subaru stared at the instrument in his hands. He gritted his teeth.
He tried again.
Screech.
And something cracked.
He slammed the violin down onto his desk, the bow clattering to the floor. He just stood there, chest heaving, staring at the splintered curve of wood where it had hit the edge.
And then the tears came.
Not soft. Not cinematic.
Ugly. Shaking. Violent.
He slid down the side of his bed until he hit the floor, knees pulled to his chest, arms tight around them as if he could hold himself together that way.
He couldn’t even cry properly. His breath hitched in gasps, sobs catching in his throat like he was drowning and didn’t know how to swim anymore.
It’s goddamn stupid, crying over a violin.
But it wasn’t about the violin.
It was everything.
He thought he was doing so well and keeping up with the giants, but it seems that he had met his limit.
The flashcards he hadn’t memorized. The formulas he couldn’t recall fast enough. The essay due tomorrow. The group project no one told him they changed the meeting time for. The soccer coach’s disapproving glance. The first year who got more play time. The grades that slipped from second to fourth, then to seventh.
The weight on his chest felt like it might cave in his ribs.
He wasn’t sleeping. Not really. His dreams were just extensions of his to-do list.
What was the point of any of this?
Even his parents, loving as they were, had started to praise him more cautiously like they didn’t want to upset the balance. Like he might shatter if they cheered too loudly.
Subaru thought he was exceptional turns out he was ordinary who couldn’t even keep up with his peers.
Was that ambition to lofty for him to achieve?
The room was quiet except for his breathing, raw and uneven.
He pressed his forehead against his knees. His vision blurred. His body ached in strange, invisible ways.
Subaru needs to study for the quiz tomorrow, he also needs to stay up later in school tomorrow because of science club and the strategy session for the next soccer match.
Subaru didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
For the first time in years, he let himself sit in the failure.
He didn’t pick up the violin. Didn’t reach for his notes. Didn’t force himself to open a book or log into a study app.
He just sat there, letting the weight crush him fully. Not fighting it this time.
The next morning, his mother knocked on his door to wake him up when she simply notice Subaru laying on his bed staring at nothingness.
“Are you ok, Subaru?” his mum asked. “You’re looking a little unwell. Do you want me to call your school?”
“Hmpmh” Subaru grunted before turning away from his mum.
Subaru did not attend that school that way nor did he attend school in the following weeks.
He just stayed home, and no one visited him. Not his old middle school friends whom he pushed away, not his current classmates who he was never closed with.
His parents let him be, hoping that he simply needed rest and giving him time to come out of his room voice soft and gentle as if he were made of glass.
After the first week Subaru finally stepped out of his room to have dinner with his parents, his mum sighed in relief and guilt churned in his heart on how he worried his parents.
He sat on the table and thanked his mum for the meal.
Behind him, the television was on with the news playing.
A straight-A student had jumped to his death. The reported was interviewing his classmates, parents and teacher.
They described how what a good student he was and that they did not realise he was suffering so much. He was the life of the party. The Kendo captain and the class president. He won awards that featured in the local newspaper. However, it seems he couldn’t handle the pressure anymore.
His parents stiffened in front of him.
Subaru quickly finished his meal and excused himself to go back in his room.
As Subaru read the light novel he had stopped reading years ago, he wondered if his classmates and teachers would have the same kind words if he was the one in the news.
Probably.
People only seem to care if you were dead.
Unfortunately, Subaru doesn’t have the death wish to find that out. He was simply content to waste away in his bedroom and drown in self-hate and guilt.