I control everything

The classroom was a lukewarm soup of chalk dust, bad coffee aroma, and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights threatening to flicker out at any moment. Toma Yuuma sat alone in the far corner, the unofficial king of invisibility. Not because he wanted to be, but because nobody else wanted him close.

His hair stuck up in uneven tufts, as if the wind had given up trying to style it, and his glasses balanced precariously on the edge of his nose—half-slide, half-slip. If ugliness were a class, Toma would have graduated summa cum laude.

Even his parents sometimes glanced at him sideways and whispered, “Are you sure this kid’s ours?” The hospital must’ve done a swap; he was convinced of it.

Toma sighed and glanced at the clock. Thirty-seven minutes left until freedom. He imagined getting home, collapsing onto his sagging couch, and hoping he’d wake up looking less like a gremlin.

The teacher droned on about something involving trigonometry and existential despair, two things Toma had zero interest in. His eyelids drooped. Somewhere, in the murmur of the classroom, his classmates snickered. The nickname had stuck long ago: Gremlin Junior. Not because he looked like a cute fantasy creature, but because he emitted the exact energy of one.

“Hey! Gremlin Junior!” The teacher’s voice cut through his haze like a cheese grater on old vinyl. “You’re drifting again. Care to share what you’re dreaming about this time? Probably a better life, huh?”

Toma blinked, startled. “I’m right here,” he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. But the teacher just shook his head and returned to the blackboard, chalk squeaking ominously.

The lesson trudged forward, a death march of numbers and theorems, until the familiar warmth of sleep crept in, wrapping its lazy arms around Toma. His head lolled gently, eyes closing despite the chorus of voices.

...

..

.

A lone figure stood in an open field of gentle grass, the wind pulling at the hems of his tunic like invisible fingers. Overhead, clouds drifted lazily through a pale blue sky, the sun casting golden light across the hills. The boy was seventeen, though he carried himself with a confidence that suggested someone older—someone who had faced danger before and come out smiling.

He was, by every measure, striking. Handsome in a way that didn’t quite seem fair. Hair tousled just enough to appear windswept but not messy. Skin clear and smooth. His posture natural, unforced, the kind that made other boys look like they were trying too hard.

Before him lay the shattered remains of a stone golem, its once-massive frame split clean down the center. Cracks spiderwebbed through its body like ice fracturing glass, and bits of gravel still rolled from the corpse where his final blow had landed.

The boy lowered his wooden training sword. Not a magical blade, not a relic from an ancient hero—just a polished stick of oak. And yet, he had brought down a mountain of living stone with it.

He exhaled slowly. The breeze caught his breath and carried it away.

“It’s over,” he murmured to no one in particular. His voice was calm, steady, reflective. A quiet moment of victory.

For a while, he simply stood there, letting the wind move around him. Then, as he turned to leave, something on the ground caught his attention—a ripple of water no larger than a dinner plate, nestled in a small dip in the earth.

He looked down.

His reflection stared back.

And he froze.

The boy in the puddle wasn’t just handsome. He was... flawless. Jawline cut from marble, eyes sharp and alert, not a single blemish in sight. He looked like the protagonist of a high-budget fantasy adaptation.

His lips parted slightly.

“What...?”

A beat passed.

And then—

“This is a dream,” he said aloud, as if speaking the thought made it real. “There’s no way I look like that. Not even after filters and good lighting. No way.”

A pause. His gaze shifted, scanning the environment again—too clean, too vivid, too... ideal.

“Wait,” he whispered. “This is a dream. A lucid dream.”

Realization crept in like sunlight through a window he hadn’t meant to leave open.

And then, slowly, an expression spread across his face—not panic, not confusion. A smile. It began at the corners of his mouth, curling upward into something sly, something knowing.

“If I’m dreaming…”

He reached down and plucked a single green leaf from the grass. It felt soft, flexible, cool to the touch. He turned it between his fingers.


“Then I.. control everything.”

The wind shifted. The trees in the distance swayed a little too evenly. A bird cawed overhead, perfectly timed, like ambient background noise designed by an algorithm.

His smile widened.

He tucked the wooden sword into a leather strap at his side—he hadn’t noticed that detail until now, but it felt right. Everything about this place did. Like it was built to his preferences, even if he couldn’t remember choosing them.

“Well then,” he said to no one, stretching his arms. “Might as well explore my world."