By Monday morning, the story had already grown its own legs.
"I heard Nakamura beat up two guys behind the lecture hall."
"No way—Nakamura? That quiet guy?"
"No, seriously. They tried to jump him, but he wrecked them. Like, martial arts moves and everything."
Each retelling stretched the truth a little more. By the time I reached campus, someone claimed I'd sent one of them to the hospital. I hadn't. A few bruises, maybe a fractured ego—but nothing that warranted stitches.
Still, the whispers followed me.
Eyes that once slid past me now lingered. In the hallway. In the cafeteria. In class.
I hated it.
Tanaka caught me between lectures. "You okay?" he asked, his expression unreadable.
"I'm fine."
He raised an eyebrow. "Heard some people talking. Said you took on two guys alone."
I didn't answer.
"They deserved it?"
"They started it."
He studied me a moment longer, then nodded. "Good."
That was all. No lecture, no sympathy, no probing. Just a quiet affirmation.
And somehow, that made it easier to breathe.
Later, I caught the girl with the red scarf—her name, I now knew, was Sae—glancing my way during our literature seminar. When the class ended and we both lingered longer than usual, she approached again.
"You really are okay?" she asked, hugging her notebook close to her chest.
"I said I was."
"Right. Sorry. I just…" She trailed off, then tried again. "I didn't think someone like you could… fight like that."
I shrugged. "People assume a lot of things."
She nodded slowly. "I used to get in fights in middle school. Mostly with girls who didn't like how I talked."
I blinked. "You?"
She smiled—small, almost embarrassed. "Yeah. I don't look it, but I broke a nose once."
A pause passed between us. Then, without thinking, I asked, "Why were you there?"
"Hm?"
"Friday. Why were you near the back hall?"
"Oh. I was… following a stray cat. I feed one sometimes."
Of course.
She fidgeted with her scarf. "Anyway… I thought what you did was brave."
"It wasn't brave. It was just necessary."
"That's kind of the same thing, isn't it?"
I didn't know how to respond to that.
Over the next few days, the buzz around the fight began to fade, but its effects didn't. A few students nodded at me in the hall. Some stepped aside when I passed, not out of respect—but caution.
I wasn't just the quiet kid anymore.
I was that guy.
And I wasn't sure if that was better or worse.
That night, I couldn't sleep again.
The asthma wasn't bad—just that ever-present tightness in my chest, like my lungs were wrapped in string and someone was slowly pulling.
I sat by the window, inhaler in one hand, the lights of the city beyond the glass flickering like tiny lives I wasn't part of.
My thoughts swirled again. I replayed the fight—not the hits, but their faces. The way they looked at me: not with fear, but with disbelief. Like they'd expected me to stay down. Like I'd broken some unspoken rule by standing up.
"You're not supposed to matter."
That's what their eyes had said.
And maybe that's what scared them most. That someone like me could.