The bell had long since rung when I left my study. The pile of files the principal had dumped on my desk rose behind me like a skyscraper in the dim light.
I would handle them later. I have a more important job now.
When I entered the lab, class 3-C was waiting for me: the noisiest, most "problematic" class in the school.
When I opened the door, the roar inside resembled a stadium.
I moved to my desk. I put down my books. I picked up the chalk. I didn't speak. I didn't say "Quiet." I didn't bang on the board.
I simply turned my back and wrote a massive, complex redox reaction on the blackboard.
The coefficients of the equation were so mismatched that balancing it seemed impossible.
I continued writing until the tak-tak sound of the chalk on the board became the only rhythmic sound in the classroom. The roar slowly subsided.
First, the front rows fell silent, watching curiously to see what I was doing. Then the whispers in the back rows ceased.
Within a minute, that "problematic" class had fallen into a library silence. People were used to noise being met with shouting; silence made them uneasy, it sparked curiosity.
I turned around. My eyes locked onto the boy in the very back row, buried in his desk with his hood pulled down to his forehead—Klein.
The kid other teachers called a "rebel" or a "hopeless case."
"This reaction," I said in a calm voice. "Is like life. Reactants and products never seem equal. You lose on one side, energy is released on the other. But mass is never destroyed, it only changes form."
I walked towards Klein's desk. The class held its breath. Everyone thought I was going to yell at him, forcefully pull that hood off his head, and send him to discipline.
Klein tensed, his shoulders rising to his ears. He was on the defensive.
I stopped in front of his desk.
Under his hood, I could see the irregular marks on the nape of his neck, as if his hair had been cut with dull scissors.
Yesterday, I had heard the laughter of the seniors in the restrooms, mocking him: "We missed with the machine; his head looks like a map." I knew why Klein was hiding.
This wasn't a rebellion; it was camouflage.
He was holding the pen so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
There were random scribbles in his notebook, but amidst that chaos, I could see the correct starting step of the problem on the board. He just didn't have the courage to finish it.
His self-confidence had been razed along with his hair.
I placed my finger lightly on that small equation in his notebook.
"The electron transfer here is correct," I whispered. Only he could hear.
Klein looked at me out of the corner of his eye without lifting his head.
I softened my voice further, speaking not like a teacher, but like an older brother. "And you don't need to hide, Klein. I know what happened."
Klein flinched, lifting his head rapidly. There was panic and shame in his eyes.
"Hair is just keratin," I said with a slight smile. "It gets cut, it falls out, but as long as the roots are strong, it always grows back thicker. That stupid prank those kids pulled cannot ruin your charisma or your stance."
I touched his temple lightly with my finger.
"Temporary damage on the outside of your head does not change the potential inside it. You are a smart kid. Too smart to hide under that hood."
Klein's eyes filled up, but this time not from shame, but from the relief of being understood. He took a deep breath.
"Can I do it, sir?" he asked in a shaky voice. He meant both the question and walking around with that head.
"Atoms don't lie," I said. "And neither does your logic. Stand tall and proceed."
As I returned to my seat, I saw Klein slowly lower his hood. His hair was indeed badly cut; patches of scalp were visible.
A few people in the class started to snicker, but Klein ignored them, grabbed his pen, and began solving the equation.
Seeing that upright posture, the snickering stopped.
There was no noise in the lab that day. There was only the sound of pens and minds at work.
It was past 8:00 PM when I returned home.
As I hung my jacket on the coat rack, I felt the invisible weight on my shoulders being hung there with it. I took off my shoes. Silence. This was my kingdom.
I dropped myself onto the armchair. I closed my eyes. I was exhausted. This wasn't a physical tiredness; it was spiritual exhaustion.
I was tired of absorbing the emotions, lies, fears, and expectations of hundreds of people like a sponge every day, tired of silently solving every equation.
The real world was too... messy. Unruly. Good people lost, bad people won, and most of the time, there was no reason for anything.
That's why I loved fiction.
As I picked up my tablet, the gray clouds inside me began to disperse. Stories... They were orderly. If a character suffered, it was for their development.
If a tragedy occurred, it served the plot. In the fictional world, even chaos had mathematics. God (the author) did not play dice randomly.
Or, they shouldn't.
"Let's see what's recommended this week..."
I looked at the new chapters dropping on literary forums. The majority were discussing the same thing: The Aethermore Series.
"A 7-book series," I muttered, opening the digital library. "The universe is vast. Magic system... Purple mana energy. Interesting."
I opened "Dawn of Ashes," chronologically the last but the first published book of the series. Year 734.
As the pages turned, my peace was slowly replaced by a growing discomfort.
The author's descriptions were powerful. But in the character construction, there were tremors like a building with cracks in its foundation.
Especially Veyra Arvhal Merevain. The book's "Villainess." The author had given her immense depth.
An 8-year-old child is watching her mother being poisoned before her eyes. A cursed body where anyone who touched her was harmed. Social isolation.
That loneliness where everyone feared her but needed her power... Veyra was intellectual. She was smart. But she was fragile.
Then I turned the page, and Clarean entered the scene.
The protagonist. The male hero. The "Elyuneth" from the Sacred Temple lineage.
My stomach knotted.
Clarean was Veyra's fiancé. A fate sealed by the Queen's decree. As Veyra's mother died, Clarean had promised to protect her.
But the portrait of Clarean drawn by the author was not that of a protective hero, but of an addict driven by impulses, with zero emotional intelligence.
In the scene, Clarean was drunk. He was lying on the bed with a half-finished bottle of wine. His gaze was dull, his expression empty. And he wasn't alone.
Sera. Clarean's private bodyguard. The way the author depicted this loyal knight who had saved Clarean's life was an absolute disgrace.
There wasn't a single line to make one feel Sera's deep, perhaps forbidden love for Clarean.
Instead, Sera was behaving like a "roleplay" object in Clarean's lap, wearing a ridiculous maid costume.
The woman's will, honor, and knighthood had been erased; replaced by a puppet of flesh to satisfy the author's cheap fantasies.
And at that moment... Veyra entered the room.
She saw her fiancé and his bodyguard in that state.
The reaction I expected was a scream, an explosion of rage, a magic attack, or at least a silently shed tear.
This would be fitting for the character's past and the trauma she had endured.
But what did Veyra do?
She looked at them with a dull expression, bowed her head slightly, and said: "Sorry, I interrupted."
Then she turned her back and left the room. And she attacked a maid she met in the hallway with fire magic just because the maid looked at her wrong.
"This is bullshit!" The tablet almost fell from my hand.
Why would an author create such inconsistency? A proud and wounded woman like Veyra wouldn't just say "Sorry" and leave after seeing her fiancé's betrayal.
This lack of reaction didn't make her character "cool-headed"; it roboticized her. Attacking an innocent maid immediately after was just a forced patch made to make her look "evil."
Clarean's empty stare, Sera's humiliating situation, Veyra's irrational reaction...
Anger began to circulate in my veins like caffeine. This wasn't just bad fiction; this was a terrible meal made with perfect ingredients.
It was a waste of potential. It was like a chemist taking a flawless formula and ruining the experiment by pouring random acid into it.
I clicked rapidly on the comment panel.
Just then, a notification dropped from the top of the screen. Sender: My Brother."Bro, our folks are asking for money again. Can you send it this month? If you're tight, say so, we'll handle it."
I clicked the notification, quickly typed "I'll handle it tomorrow, no problem," and returned to the app.
My mind was so full that I didn't even notice my profile switching from ElAitch mode to my personal account, "Leon Howells," as I returned from the messaging app to the novel.
My fingers were hitting the screen without the patience I had shown Klein in the classroom. Now, there was only the sharp rage of an editor towards a broken text.
[Writing Comment...]
"The only thing 'evil' in this story is the author's character construction. Veyra Arvhal Merevain... You gave her a terrible past, a cursed body, but you stole her soul. A woman who sees her fiancé in that state doesn't say 'Sorry' and leave. This unresponsiveness isn't 'composure,' it's writing laziness."
"Clarean isn't a hero, just an addict moving on impulses, with emotional depth as shallow as a wine bottle. And Sera... You took a knight and turned her into a cheap fantasy object just to satisfy the protagonist's ego. You described her body, not the loyalty in her eyes."
"This story doesn't need a 'hero', it urgently needs an 'editor'. Someone needs to enter this fiction and fix these logic errors, this waste of character. Veyra isn't a monster, she's a victim screaming for help. And I see more light in her 'cursed' eyes than in your so-called hero's heart."
I pressed the [SEND] button.
I took a deep breath. The tablet screen went dark, but the restlessness inside me didn't pass. What I wrote was harsh. Maybe too harsh.
But someone had to say it. I stayed silent against the injustices in the real world, yes. I was conserving energy. But in the fictional world? Never.
That was my sanctuary, and I wouldn't let anyone pollute it.
I leaned my head back against the chair. As my eyes closed, I passed that sentence through my mind: "If only... If only someone could step in and fix this nonsense."
At that moment, the air in the room grew heavy. The tablet screen lit up again, but it wasn't a notification light. A strange, purplish glow rippled across the screen.
Then my head spun. A feeling of emptiness hit my stomach as if the ground had been pulled from under my feet. I thought it was fatigue, but this was different.
It was like some kind of energy transfer; I was being torn from one place and pulled to another.
As my vision darkened, the last thing I heard was that crackling sound coming from the tablet screen. It was as if the comment I wrote had been accepted as a petition.
Then, even the silence fell silent.