Iris, Erased.

Takumi stands behind the half-open door, giving Yuna a blank stare.

“Is now a bad time?” she asks

His eyes pass over and around her, but never quite land on her.

He’s not standing like Takumi Sora.

No intimidating or overconfident aura.

He’s just…standing there.

He takes a moment, like he’s thinking about her question.

He opens the door a bit wider, backing up.

“Do you want to come in?” He asks, avoiding her question.

He wouldn’t be able to answer anyway.

Silence stretches between them, neither moving a muscle.

Then she takes the first step into his house.

She takes her shoes off, and Takumi walks away from the open door, allowing it to slowly creep closed.

As she places her shoes next to the ones already there, she notices they’re completely lined up.

They enter the main room, a quiet shadow cast on the entire place.

All the lights are off, no distant hum of electricity being used, no muffled chatter from another room.

The place looked untouched, like a display case of a house. The air felt stale, undisturbed.

Without the misplaced bag on the stairs, it would’ve been mistaken for a sound stage.

She sits on the couch in front of the TV, and Takumi goes to get them both glasses of water.

They both drink in silence, the space between them growing heavier

“It’s quiet,” Yuna says, attempting to disrupt the silence.

“Nobody’s home, that’s why” Takumi answers plainly.

Yuna looks around the house, every corner drowned in the same gray shade.

To Yuna, it felt like a sketch of how a house should look.

Convincing at a glance, but hollow beneath the surface.

She notices small bags under Takumi’s eyes.

“Did you just get back?” she asks, like she’s already worried about the answer.

“Yeah.” Takumi answers.

Takumi’s eyelids drift slightly closer together, and he rubs them to keep them open.

“You look…like you haven’t slept in days.” She adds.

Takumi doesn’t argue. He doesn’t do anything in response.

His eyes are fixated on the clock above his TV.

There’s no ticking. He can’t see the hands move.

His attention drifts back to the conversation between him and Yuna.

“Do you ever…want to take a break from it all?”

Takumi doesn’t answer and thinks about what just happened.

Last week.

All the attention.

…and the feeling of being erased.

“After that interview ended…I didn’t know what to do anymore.

It’s like…the thing I held the closest for so long was just…gone.

…and now I’m left struggling to figure out what that thing was.”

Takumi’s hands rest on his knees, maintaining a loose grip on the glass.

He stares off into complete nothingness.

The silence between them doesn’t impose any more weight. The silence feels as though the house itself is waiting for him to move.

“After filming all those interviews, all those shows…you should feel proud, or at least satisfied.” Yuna says softly, as her careful voice attempts to understand, not probe.

Takumi is surprised to hear this. He should feel proud. He should feel satisfied.

He tries to picture the stage in his mind, but is reminded of how it shattered, and erased everything with it.

“I…don’t know.”

Takumi admits this quietly, but even that’s enough to be heard.

The words feel strange coming off his lips.

“I thought I wanted it…all of it. And I got it. Every last second of attention. But now…” his voice trails off.

He places the glass on the coffee table, clinking softly against the wood.

He lets his hands drop to his lap.

“...now I feel empty. Like I’m living a life that isn’t mine, existing in a space I don’t belong.”

Yuna remains silent. She doesn’t need to answer.

Just listening was enough.

She doesn’t rush Takumi, and lets him find the words he wants to say.

Takumi finally looks at her. Not just at her face, or her eyes…but at her concern. Her patience. The way she doesn’t deny his feelings.

This sight makes him feel something.

Something new. Something to break the perpetual numbness he’d been living in.

“I kept thinking that…that if I held onto the spotlight, if I kept performing, If I kept letting Takumi Sora live my life..” he says with a low voice.

“...then things would make sense. But it doesn’t work like that. Now I'm left questioning what I want.”

“What do you remember enjoying, before you started to perform?” Yuna asks, trying to help him remember.

The sandbox. Whatever I wanted to make… I could. There, anyone could do anything. No need to compare yourself to the other people who built different things, after all you could build them yourself.
Those days, where the sun cradled my face, and the vibrant green of the grass…I didn’t need anything else. I was happy to witness it.

Yuna leans forward, just enough to close the distance but not intrude.

“That’s how we all live. There’s no guide on living. We make our own life worth living”

She whispers.

We make our own life worth living…

“How do you know your life’s worth living? How would you live your life in a valuable way?” Takumi asks, hoping for a direct answer.

“I don’t have the answer to that.” she replies, “...you need to find what means something to you.”

I’ve chased after the sound of applause, the glint of awards, the security of the spotlight…because that’s what people wanted Takumi Sora to do.
What do I want to chase after? What do I want to accomplish?

Takumi closes his eyes, and exhales in a long, trembling breath.

For the first time, he can’t perform. He doesn’t want to.

Not a star.

Not a celebrity.

Not the person everyone wants him to be.

Just… him.

In that moment, with the gray shade wrapping the entire room…

…he lets himself exist.

With that exhale, he went over his limit. The exhaustion of performing for so long left him without any energy.

His eyelids finally gave out. The melancholic gray of the room felt like it gently pressed him into the couch.

His breathing slowed, his muscles relaxed.
He didn’t have to hold back.

With the last sliver of consciousness, he hears Yuna whisper something to him.

“Don’t be Takumi Sora…be you. You don’t need to decide now. Just…don’t live as somebody else.”

Takumi falls asleep, and Yuna quietly leaves the house.

…

A few days later, Takumi heads to school on a Saturday to re-do the test he’d failed before.

Walking down the same street he’d walked so many times before, with the quiet sunlight spilling onto the pavement in uneven segments.

He noticed a stray cat sprinting behind a rusted chain-linked fence.

A dated blue bicycle, chained to a lamppost in front of a rustic cafe.

The faint aroma of baking wafting from…somewhere he’d never been.

He didn’t discover anything new. He’d been taking that route every day.

He rediscovered what it felt like. To just be a witness to the world, and not have it revolve around you.

Each step toward school felt heavy, yet somehow more free than the last.

Thinking back to the classes, one moment stands out to him.

The moment he deemed himself Regulus.

The king star. Bright, commanding, and untouchable.

He used to feel like that star. Draw the attention of everyone below him, and hold onto their admiration no matter what.
He wanted them to orbit him, and donate their attention so he can thrive in the spotlight.

But what did that cost him? Everything he considered to be himself.

Maybe…maybe he doesn’t want to be Regulus anymore.

Instead of being something so high, so bright and above everyone else…

…he wanted to bloom next to them.

The thought filled him with an unfamiliar warmth. A silent eagerness. Something he hadn’t felt since the sandbox.

He once thought the sky needed a ruler.

Now he wondered if it simply needed stars willing to stay.

Even if he couldn’t put that into words yet.

…

Getting to school, he heads straight to the faculty office, getting the test and trying again.

As he writes his answers on the paper, he remembers what Yuna said.

You need to find what means something to you.

Her words lingered, this time with purpose.

An echoing, soft rhythm he couldn’t shake.

What do I value? I don’t know…
What used to matter to me…just feels wrong now. Feels like someone else wanted it for me.
Who am I without Takumi Sora?
Who’s the person left here?

He finishes the makeup test, and leaves the building.

I haven’t felt enough to know what means something to me…not yet at least.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, but he doesn’t pick it up.

He doesn’t feel like he needs to.

Takumi felt like he was given a blank canvas.

And for the first time in his life, was given the brush to paint absolutely anything on it.