Silent Suffering

The door to Class 2-B slid open with a dry, metallic rasp.

The teacher paused her lecture, her chalk hovering over the blackboard. Heads turned slightly, the collective attention of the room briefly pivoting to the doorway.

The teacher looked at him, as if asking,' Who are you and what do you want?'

Her eyes moved from his face to the attendance sheet on her desk.

Then back again.

"I was at the nurse’s office," Hugo stated flatly, his tone completely devoid of embarrassment or explanation. He held up the small white slip of paper.

"Right. Take your seat, Narakami," the teacher said, already turning back to the board before he even moved.

Hugo walked down the aisle. As he passed Yuri’s desk, she actively looked out the opposite window, her jaw set tight. He ignored her entirely. He sat down, aligned the edge of his notebook perfectly with the faint ink stain on the wood, uncapped his pen, and seamlessly re-entered the background.

It was as if the bloody nose thing never happened.

He began copying the math equations, his handwriting precise and measured. 

Thwack. Hugo’s pen paused. His eyes shifted toward the open window.

Down in the courtyard, the junior high kids were in the middle of PE. A bright white volleyball arched over a net, met by a pair of forearms. Thwack. The sound vibrated against the glass.

In middle school, Hugo had liked the sport. He liked the 9-by-18-meter rectangle taped onto the gymnasium floor. He liked that out-of-bounds was a measurable fact, not an opinion. Inside those lines, the world made sense.

So he joined the volleyball club. He didn't play very often, but that was fine by him. 

One day, the captain handed out the order forms for the tournament jerseys. The tournament, which Hugo would later not be a part of. 

'Three thousand yen.' 

Hugo stared at the printed number for a long time. His parents both worked long hours; he knew exactly how much three thousand yen meant for groceries, for electric bills, for his mother rubbing her tired arches at the kitchen table. He was a benchwarmer. He spent games sitting on the polished wood, tracking the score. He didn’t need a polyester jersey to sit still.

He left his form blank.

The next afternoon, the captain caught him in the clubroom. The rest of the team had already filtered out. The captain leaned back against the sliding door, crossing his arms and effectively sealing the only exit. He smiled, but his eyes were hard, calculating.

“Forgot your form, Narakami,” the captain said, tapping a clipboard against his thigh. “We all have matches coming up. You don’t want to be the only guy left out, do you? Kinda drags the whole team morale down.”

The air in the clubroom suddenly felt thick, smelling of old sweat and floor wax. Hugo looked at the door, then at the captain’s broad shoulders. 

The clipboard tapped once against his palm.

The next day, Hugo handed over three crisp 1,000-yen notes. The paper felt paper-thin and slightly damp against his fingertips. As the captain slipped the cash into an envelope, a quiet, sickening knot tightened at the bottom of Hugo’s stomach.

Two weeks later, the captain tossed a plastic-wrapped package onto Hugo’s lap before practice.

Hugo tore the plastic open. He unfolded the fabric.

The name printed in bold black letters across the shoulders was not his. 

He asked the captain about it.

“Oops, typo,” the captain called out from across the room, already lacing up his shoes, “I’ll get the manufacturer to fix it later.”

He took Hugo's jersey under the pretense of fixing it. 

A month passed. The weather grew warmer. There was no sign of his jersey.

One evening, walking home alone past the local batting cages, Hugo stopped. Standing by the vending machines, laughing with a soda in his hand, was a kid from the same club as Hugo—the captain’s friend.

He was wearing a brand-new volleyball jersey. The name on the back matched the typo.

"No one pays attention to the name on the jersey. So wear this in the next match as well," the captain said.

Hugo couldn't hear what they were talking about, but he could conclude what had happened with his money and jersey.

Hugo stood on the sidewalk for a full minute, watching the fabric shift as the boy laughed. He didn’t cross the street. He didn’t march up and demand his parents' money back. He just watched the transaction perfectly finalize in his head: the captain took his cash, bought a gift for his friend, and relied on the quiet kid to stay silent.

Hugo turned around and walked home.

But the final lock clicked into place the next morning.

Daiki was waiting for him at the corner, just like he had since elementary school. They lived three streets apart. They walked the same route every morning. Daiki wasn’t a benchwarmer; he was a starting server. He spent hours in the locker room, right in the center of the team's inner circle. Gossip in a middle school club was an inescapable currency.

Hugo walked beside Daiki in silence, their footsteps syncing on the pavement.

They walked half a block, then another. Hugo said nothing. Neither did Daiki.

He waited for the childhood friend to lower his voice and say, I heard what he did. That’s messed up. Daiki pulled his phone from his pocket. He opened a gacha game, tapping the screen with aggressive, rapid movements. He didn't look over. He didn't even turn his head.

It was like he didn't even care.

“Man, I could really go for some pork buns right now,” Daiki announced, his eyes never leaving the screen.

He just kept walking, his eyes firmly glued to the glowing pixels, safely ignoring the reality walking right next to him. To call out the captain meant risking his spot in the starting lineup. It meant friction.

Daiki chose the pork buns.

Hugo looked at the side of Daiki’s face, at the intense concentration focused entirely on a fake game, and the sickening knot in his stomach finally unraveled, leaving nothing but a cold, hollow clarity.

The screen light reflected in Daiki’s eyes. Hugo looked away. 

They reached the next corner. Neither mentioned the jersey.

"Listen carefully, I will only say this once."

The teacher’s voice snapped like a ruler against a desk.

Hugo blinked. The courtyard outside was empty. He was back in Class 2-B. His grip on his pen was so tight his knuckles were white. He slowly exhaled, loosening his fingers one by one.

He locked his expectations away, built a fortress of absolute apathy, and threw away the key.

The teacher was holding up a thick stack of printed handouts. A collective, miserable groan rippled through the classroom.

"We are starting the new social studies project today," she announced, a cruel, authoritative smile touching her lips. "And no, you may not work alone."

Hugo froze. The pen in his hand went perfectly, rigidly still.

"You will be working in groups of four," she continued, her words landing on Hugo’s desk like heavy artillery shells.

Hugo stared blankly at the blackboard. His fortress of absolute apathy was suddenly flashing bright red warning lights.

A mandatory group project.

The ultimate, inescapable nightmare.