Kihoru learned early that school was not a place to breathe—it was another battlefield he had to tiptoe through. By Class 2, he had already claimed the last bench near the window, the place where the wind could touch him without asking questions.
He wasn't just quiet.
He was the quiet fat kid.
The one whose uniform buttons always looked strained, whose backpack seemed heavier than him, whose tiffin was large enough for two but always ended up half-eaten. Kids noticed these things. Kids always notice.
"Why does he walk like that?"
"He reads during recess… who reads at school?"
"Fat nerd!"
He heard it all, every day. And every day, he just lowered his head and went on. He wasn't weak—he just didn't know how to fight back. Not yet.
But the world wasn't done shaping him.
The Arrival of a Storm Named Rihan
Rihan joined in Class 3.
Tall for his age, loud for no reason, and smiling like rules didn't apply to him. He made friends on day one. He made followers by day two.
And on day three…
He noticed Kihoru.
"Oi, chubby brain. Why're you alone all the time?"
A chalk bounced off Kihoru's arm. The class laughed.
Kihoru didn't.
Silence was his shield.
But to Rihan, silence was an invitation—a blank page he could scribble his cruelty on.
From then on, Rihan made him his personal target.
Hide the lunchbox.
Kick the chair.
Steal the notebook.
Blame him for things he didn't do.
Teachers never saw it.
Friends never existed.
And Kihoru learned to breathe through the ache.
Small Victories in a Small Life
Class 4 came with new textbooks and the same loneliness.
Kihoru discovered a strange trick—if the world pushed him down during recess, he could rise by scoring high on the unit test.
If Rihan tore a page, Kihoru rewrote two.
If he cried at home, he solved more math questions until the page blurred.
He didn't fight back…
But he didn't break either.
That was his victory.
The Cracks Begin to Show
Home never helped.
His father's tantrums arrived every night with the smell of alcohol and defeat.
A plate thrown.
A scream.
A bruise on his mother's cheek.
Another bruise a week later.
Kihoru became an expert at walking silently between arguments, slipping through the house like a ghost. Studying in corners. Reading with a torch under his blanket. Pretending not to hear.
He perfected the art of existing quietly.
But even silence has limits.
Class 5 — The Year Things Turned Personal
Rihan stopped using simple insults.
One day during lunch he leaned close and whispered,
"So, your dad really beats your mom? No wonder you're like this."
Kihoru froze.
The food turned to ash in his mouth.
The world tilted.
No one had the right to say that.
And something inside him… moved.
It wasn't rage.
It was something colder.
Something that didn't flare like fire, but curled like smoke—slow, creeping, dangerous.
Rihan didn't notice the shift.
No one did.
But Kihoru's eyes that day weren't the same.
The First Hint of a Different Path
One rainy afternoon, while waiting near the canteen, Kihoru saw a half-torn poster flapping on the noticeboard.
"MMA Classes — Limited Spots — No Fees for Selected Members."
His heart thumped once.
Then again.
MMA.
Strength.
Self-defense.
A place where fists talked louder than mocking laughter.
He stood there, staring at the poster until the ink looked alive.
He didn't go.
Not yet.
Life was too complicated.
His father would never allow it.
He had no money, no support, no reason.
But the idea stayed.
Like a seed buried deep.
He found himself sketching fists in his notebook—hands wrapped in tape, foot stances, guards he'd seen in movies. He didn't even know he was training his imagination.
He just knew one thing:
He didn't want to be prey forever.
The Slow, Quiet Transformation
By the end of Class 5, Kihoru was still the fat nerd. Still bullied. Still alone.
But he carried a different weight now—
the weight of learning, the weight of discipline,
the weight of silent promise.
And though Rihan still laughed at him…
Something in Kihoru's eyes made that laughter ring empty.
The story of his revenge hadn't begun yet.
But the story of who he would become…
had already started whispering beneath his skin.
Class 6 arrived quietly for Kihoru, the same way every year arrived for him—without celebration, without expectation, without anyone calling his name. He sat in the second-last row now, not because he wanted to change his place, but because the new seating chart forced him into the crowd he always avoided.
Being surrounded didn't make him feel less alone.
On the first week, the teacher asked everyone to introduce themselves. Kids stood up proudly, bragging about hobbies, cricket tournaments, summer vacations. When it was Kihoru's turn, he stood slowly, his chair scraping the floor a little too loudly.
"I… I like reading and maths," he said.
"That's it?" someone giggled.
"Of course that's it," Rihan muttered loud enough for the class to hear. "His hobby is being boring."
Laughter followed like a trained response.
Kihoru sat back down, cheeks burning, but his eyes did not water. He had learned to swallow humiliation the way other kids swallowed their lunch—daily, without complaint.
But Class 6 brought an unexpected shift.
During one recess, while he ate alone behind the staircase, a group of older boys ran past, shoving each other. One of them dropped a notebook. When Kihoru picked it up to return it, he froze.
Inside were quick sketches—stances, punches, footwork drills. Real MMA techniques.
The older boy, Aruto, blinked in surprise. "You… into fighting?"
Kihoru shook his head too quickly. "No—I just found it."
Aruto smirked. "You've got steady hands. Those drawings of yours… you pay attention to details, huh?"
Kihoru didn't know what to say.
No one had ever complimented him for anything real.
Aruto ruffled his hair carelessly and jogged off, leaving Kihoru holding something he didn't recognize:
A hint of possibility.
Something in him shifted that day—not loudly, not dramatically, but unmistakably.
The seed inside him sprouted its first leaf.