CHAPTER 1 — A WORD THAT REJECTED ME
Hoshigawa High School.
From the outside, it looked like a postcard.
Crisp white walls, perfectly trimmed grass, and tall iron gates that screamed discipline and success.
Parents paid good money to send their kids here, thinking it guaranteed a bright future.
But inside, the system was completely rotten.
Grades didn't run this school.
Looks and violence did.
If you were weak, you weren't a person; you were just background noise.
Invisible, at least until someone strong got bored and needed a toy to break.
Bullying wasn't just an occasional issue here—it was the law.
The good-looking, athletic kids walked around like they owned the place, and the weak just learned to stare at the floor and stay out of the way.
The final bell had finally rung.
The school was buzzing as students packed their bags, laughing and getting ready to head home.
Renjiro Hoshino just wanted to do the same.
He swung his heavy backpack over his shoulder and stepped out of the classroom into the crowded hallway.
One hundred and fifty kilograms.
Every step he took made his cheap school shoes squeak slightly against the polished floorboards.
His uniform was uncomfortably tight around his stomach, and his collar was already damp with sweat just from the effort of moving through the crowd.
He had a round, heavy face—the exact kind of face that made you a magnet for disrespect in a place like this.
In a school entirely obsessed with sharp jawlines, expensive haircuts, and perfect bodies, Renjiro was the ultimate trash.
As he walked slowly toward the main exit, two girls walking in the opposite direction noticed him.
Without missing a beat, they pulled their skirts a little closer to their legs and stepped to the far edge of the hall,
looking at him with naked disgust, as if his shadow alone might infect them.
A few steps later, an average-sized guy purposely clipped Renjiro's shoulder as he walked past.
The guy had plenty of room in the hallway,
but he didn't take it. He wanted to make a point.
"Watch where you're going, fatass,"
the guy muttered without even stopping.
Renjiro didn't say a word.
He didn't get angry.
He just lowered his head a little more.
Just let me go home,Renjiro thought, trying to hunch his broad shoulders inward,
desperately trying to make his massive body look smaller.
He just wanted to slip out the front doors, walk back to his empty house, and disappear.
But you can't hide when you weigh 150 kilos.
You can't be invisible.
You are always a target.
A massive, slow-moving target.
He was only a few yards away from the exit.
But unfortunately for him, his hellish day wasn't over yet.
Suddenly, the crowd in the hallway stopped moving.
Like water changing course, students shoved each other out of the way, flattening themselves against the lockers.
A wide path cleared down the center.
The stale smell of school sweat was abruptly replaced by the sharp scent of expensive cologne.
Renjiro's heavy footsteps froze.
His heart started pounding against his ribs.
Yuto and Daichi walked down the cleared path, trailing just behind Hiroto.
Hiroto looked like a model—sharp jawline, flawless skin, and cold eyes that could freeze you in place.
He was the undisputed king of the school, and everyone knew that when he walked in wearing that calm, polite smile, someone was going to bleed.
"Look at him... coming in slow motion,"
Yuto laughed loudly, looking back at his friends.
Renjiro lowered his eyes and tried to quietly slip past them.
He only managed one step before—
THUD!
A violent shove from behind sent Renjiro's 150-kilo frame crashing into the cold wall.
A sharp pain shot through his shoulder. His bag slipped from his grip and skidded across the floor.
"Stop right there,"
Daichi growled, cracking his knuckles.
"You've done enough walking for today, fatass."
Before Renjiro could even steady himself, Hiroto stepped directly in front of him.
A dead silence fell over the hallway.
The students who had been heading for the exit stopped in their tracks to watch.
Some looked terrified;
others secretly pulled out their smartphones, ready to record.
"Hey... listen, fat guy,"
Hiroto said, wearing that same cold smile.
He took a slow step closer.
"How many times have
I told you... don't even show up near my Miyu-san."
Renjiro's throat went dry.
His mind flashed back to that morning.
He hadn't harassed Miyu.
He hadn't even touched her.
She had dropped her pen outside the chemistry lab, and Renjiro had simply picked it up and handed it back to her.
She had politely said 'thank you,' and that was the entire interaction.
But to Hiroto, a piece of trash even looking at his girl was a crime.
"Do you not listen... or do you just not understand?"
Hiroto leaned in.
His voice dropped into a dangerous, toxic whisper.
"Or is it both?"
Yuto burst out laughing.
"Boss, we should install a GPS on him.
This idiot always wanders into the wrong places."
Daichi narrowed his eyes.
"This fat pig looked at Miyu-san, right?
I'm thinking... maybe I should just take his eyes."
Hiroto raised a hand, silencing them.
His presence was so suffocating Renjiro felt like he couldn't breathe.
"What do you think?"
Hiroto asked casually.
"You and Miyu... are equal?
You're not even worth the dirt on her shoes.
You are a useless... slow... disgusting mistake."
Renjiro's entire body was shaking.
His massive fists clenched at his sides, but he couldn't find the strength to raise them.
Tears of pure humiliation pricked his eyes.
He thought he would stay quiet, but a broken, trembling voice slipped from his throat anyway.
"I was just... helping her,"
Renjiro stammered.
"I'm... a human being too."
"Human??"
Hiroto's face violently twisted.
The smile vanished.
SMASH!
A brutal kick planted squarely against the side of Renjiro's face.
Time seemed to slow down.
The rough texture of the shoe sole, the sickening impact against his jaw.
Renjiro's head snapped back.
It felt like a bomb went off inside his skull.
His ears rang with a high-pitched whine, and the disgusting, metallic taste of blood instantly flooded his mouth.
THUD.
His massive body crashed heavily onto the cold floor tiles.
And then, without an ounce of mercy, the beating began.
"Get up... the show isn't over yet, motherf*cker!"
Yuto laughed like a maniac.
The kicks came relentlessly.
One to the ribs.
Another to the stomach.
Every time Renjiro tried to curl up to protect his face, Daichi kicked him back flat.
"He even needs permission just to fall over.
Look at this pathetic pile of lard,"
Daichi spat on the floor next to his head.
From somewhere in the crowd, a girl giggled.
The mechanical click of phone cameras echoed down the hall.
No one stepped in to help.
No teacher shouted to stop.
Lying in a puddle of his own sweat and blood, Renjiro took deep, ragged breaths.
His vision was completely blurred.
Hiroto stood over him like a god looking down at garbage.
"Listen carefully..."
Hiroto said, his voice returning to ice.
"If you ever show up near Miyu-san again...
I will remind you that you don't even deserve to exist in this world."
He cast one final look of absolute disgust at Renjiro, then turned and walked away with his gang. "Let's go."
The sound of their expensive shoes slowly faded down the hallway.
Seconds later, the students started talking and laughing again, exactly as if a human being hadn't just been beaten like an animal in front of them.
People walked past his fallen body like he was a discarded trash bag in the middle of the road.
Renjiro stayed on the cold floor.
His chest felt like it was ripping apart from the physical pain and the sheer indignity of it all.
Am I... really the one in the wrong here?
he asked himself, a single tear cutting through the blood near his nose.
Or am I... just the problem?
Night time
"Hey. Kid.
Get up."
Renjiro groaned as a rough hand shook his shoulder.
He forced his swollen eyes open.
The hallway was completely empty, and the main lights had already been turned off.
A tired-looking school janitor stood over him, holding a massive ring of keys.
"School's closed," the janitor said, not even asking why Renjiro was bleeding.
He had probably seen it a hundred times before.
"You need to leave so I can lock the doors."
Renjiro pressed a thick hand against the cold tiles.
His ribs immediately screamed in protest.
The dried blood on his cheek cracked as he opened his mouth to breathe.
He dragged his 150-kilo frame off the floor, his body feeling like a concrete cage trapping him inside.
He didn't say a word.
He just picked up his scuffed bag and limped out the front doors.
CLACK
The heavy iron doors locked right behind him.
It was completely dark outside now.
The laughing, the clicking cameras, the students—everyone was long gone.
There was only the dead silence of the empty school courtyard and the faint, buzzing hum of a flickering street lamp near the main gate.
Renjiro slumped against the cold brick wall near the gate.
"Why do I always go down?"
he muttered to the empty street.
"Why is it so easy for them?"
He closed his eyes.
The memory of Hiroto's shoe hitting his face played on a loop. The slow arc of the kick.
The impact.
The floor rushing up to meet him.
Then, a different memory cut through the pain.
Dust.
The smell of dry clay.
The training ground back in Osaka.
His grandfather, Kanji Hoshino, stood in the center of the dirt ring.
The old man wasn't just big; he was a mountain.
He stomped his bare foot against the earth.
THUD.
The ground actually seemed to shake.
"It's not about strength, Renjiro," his grandfather's deep voice echoed in his mind.
"It's about balance.
If you own the ground beneath your feet, nobody can push you down."
Renjiro opened his eyes.
The cold night air suddenly filled his lungs.
He pushed himself off the brick wall.
Ignoring the sharp pain in his stomach, he stepped directly under the flickering street lamp.
His legs were shaking.
Balance.
Slowly, almost by instinct, Renjiro slid his feet apart on the concrete.
Wider than shoulder-width. He bent his knees and dropped his hips, lowering his center of gravity.
A classic Sumo stance.
Shiko.
The shaking in his legs stopped.
The cold wind blew past him, rustling the trees, but Renjiro didn't budge.
The air around him suddenly felt heavy. Still.
For the first time in his life, the 150 kilos of fat and mass didn't feel like a burden dragging him down. It felt like an anchor.
He pressed the soles of his cheap school shoes hard into the pavement.
The ground pushed back.
He felt rooted. Immovable.
Hiroto's cold voice whispered in his memory:
You're a mistake.
You don't belong here.
Renjiro's massive hands gripped his knees.
His knuckles turned white.
"I'm not a mistake,"
Renjiro whispered to the dark, empty street.
He held the low stance for a long time, letting the pain in his body fade into the background.
He looked back at the locked gates of the school that had rejected him.
"I'm not going down next time."
Chapter Ends