My name is Elliot Renner. I am ten years old.
For as long as I can remember, I always felt like I was... out of place.
Not physically, of course. I have a comfortable bed. A large room with a view of the garden. Expensive clothes. An elite education. Hot food at exactly the right time every day. Everything that was supposed to make me feel "at home".
But no.
Like I'm living a life that doesn't belong to me. A routine put together by invisible hands.
Sometimes I close my eyes and wonder: if I open my arms, will there be walls around me that I can't see?
But it's not like I can talk about this with anyone. Saying that the world feels too "planned" doesn't make you sound smart. It makes you sound crazy.
So I shut up. I observe.
I take notes.
Sometimes I write it all down in the notes app on my cell phone, even though I delete it later. Not because I'm afraid someone will read it.
But because, if I write it down, that would make it real.
And that's how I started to observe Daniel Quinn.
He doesn't fit in either. But not in the same way. Mine is silent, internal. His is evident. His presence alters the atmosphere, like when a person enters a room and suddenly everyone stops talking without knowing why.
He is always reading or writing. He never plays, never laughs. He never participates in anything he hasn't chosen for himself. Sometimes I wonder if I would look like that too, if I would stop pretending that everything is okay.
Maybe that's why I ended up looking inside his backpack that day.
Not out of morbid curiosity.
But because, for the first time, I felt that someone else might have the answer to a question I didn't even know how to ask.
It was a Thursday afternoon, after school. Most of the guys were in the gym, at their clubs or just screaming nonsense in the halls. I preferred to go back to the dorm. Sometimes I need silence.
That day I didn't mind finding myself alone.
The room we share is not big, but not uncomfortable either. The walls are smooth, painted off-white, with that smell between cleanliness and old wood that never goes away. There are two single beds separated by a small night table, and just in front, a shared desk with two chairs. On each side, our respective closets. The basics. Just enough. Just enough to keep us occupied without being too distracting.
Daniel wasn't there. I could tell because his chair was pushed toward the desk, as usual. But there was something that didn't fit: the backpack.
Normally he keeps it under the bed, closed and almost invisible. But that day it wasn't like that; he left it on his bed, open, as if he'd left in a hurry or maybe... got distracted.
Which, for Daniel, was odd.
I approached. Not immediately. First I wandered pointlessly around the room, opened my own locker, pretended to check a book. But I couldn't stop staring sideways at that opening between the zippers of the backpack. There was a black notebook, half visible, barely peeking out between some folded books.
It didn't look new. The corners were a little worn. No labels, no name. Just black.
My first reaction was to turn my eyes away. I'm not one to go through other people's stuff. But there was something...something pulling me there.
Maybe because I had been watching him for weeks, trying to make sense of the way he was acting. Or maybe because I was also looking for something that would explain why the world felt so... fake sometimes.
I approached him calmly. As if any sudden movement would break an invisible balance.
I didn't stir it. I didn't need to. The notebook was there, waiting for me. I took it. It weighed more than I expected.
I went back to my bed, opened it carefully, not quite knowing what I was looking for.
And then I saw the first words written on the page:
"The absolute ace of the idol group B-Komachi. The supremely beautiful 16-year-old girl - Ai Hoshino."
I froze.
Not because of the name. Not yet.
But because of the way it was written. As if it were a summary. A sort of index card. As if Daniel was recording... information?
I read some more. Details were beginning to form.
"The entertainment industry is rotten. Fake smiles, empty promises, contracts full of lies disguised as opportunities.
It's a system that doesn't reward true talent or protect innocence. What sells is image. The glitz. The disguise. An idol is not a person. It is a product. And like any product, it is sold, exploited and, when it is no longer useful, it is discarded.
Ai Hinoshino... She doesn't know yet what kind of world she is entering. She is eleven years old. She likes to look at the stars. But in Tokyo there are no stars. Just artificial lights pretending to be them. Just like people. Just like herself, when she starts lying.
And how can you blame her? What choice does she have? When she grows up, they'll tell her that her smile is her weapon. That the truth is scary, that the best thing she can do for her fans is to lie to them.
Lie that she's happy.
Lie that she's lonely.
Lie saying that the love she gives on stage is real, even though she has nothing left of herself when she gets off stage.
They'll turn it into something shiny... and then play with it. Because in that world, happiness doesn't matter. Only self-interest.
Fans will say they love her. That they would do anything for her. But they'll abandon her if she doesn't deliver what they expect. If she makes a mistake. If she loves someone.
To love is forbidden.
Being human is forbidden.
What kind of place punishes a girl for wanting a family?
What kind of monsters make a mother have to hide her children so she can sing a song?
I know how it ends.
I don't know if I can help it. But Ai deserves more. She deserves to live as a person, not as a symbol.
Even if it's all lies... or maybe, precisely because of that...someone should tell her the truth."
I don't know how long I stared at that last sentence.
I turned the page carefully, as if handling something fragile. The notebook had no drawings or colors, just text, simple and straightforward.
There was a kind of order in how it was written. As if Daniel had been putting this together bit by bit for some time. As if he couldn't get it out of his head.
It wasn't the tone he used when he spoke. But that didn't surprise me either. Daniel didn't talk to anyone much. Maybe, this was what he couldn't say out loud.
I read on.
"They'll turn it into something shiny...and then they'll play with it."
It was clear that Daniel wasn't writing just for the sake of writing. There was anger between the lines.
It wasn't a made-up story. It didn't read like that.
And then I thought about it.
How did I know all this?
And why write it down as if it were inevitable?
I closed the notebook quietly. Trying to pretend nothing happened, but I could no longer erase what I had read; those words only left me with more questions than answers.