Work Text:
Yumenosaki was a battlefield to many but to him, it was school.
Everyday, he woke, dressed in his uniform, left the house, walked along his same route, attended the same classes with maybe slight differences, heard the whispers in the hall that never echoed his own story back to him and went home. Day in, day out. Not even a background character - something less noticeable than that. Maybe the very brick the building was made out of or the ground that was needed for the heroes and villains of the stories to step forward?
The drops of blood were staining but they never fell onto his uniform. Maybe he should be thankful to be free of any stains. Not once was he called to answer for crimes or defend someone for theirs or commit his own. He dissolved in the hallways, barely following the narratives of the remarkable many who reformed Yumenosaki in ways that were nothing to him. Surely, they were something for someone with a far greater tale, a much more important narrative - he had nothing. He could barely remember his own name, never mind others keeping track of his. Not even his classmates, who often took solace in their mediocrity with playful jokes and ribbing, took note of him. He was a nobody amongst nobodies.
He knew that it was different for his sister. He didn’t directly hear of her daring tales - just saw the mud on her clothes when she got back, the spring in her step, the knowing, dreamy smile on her face. It was the look of the protagonist in storybooks when he was much younger and that laughed at him from the old manga he left to dust on his bookcase but couldn’t bring himself to throw out. It was a look that only the heroes would have.
Or it was. Until things began to change and morph. Until the sister that he avoided in the halls started to come back with much more than mud on her uniform, walking like she hoped no one would notice her, an expression far from a smile. She was still a main character but her role had been changed.
Sometimes he wondered if he should reach out to her. Say something. Do something. He could intervene. He could turn up to the school and talk to someone - demand something - change things for her-
But he was a nobody. He couldn’t even make it across the hallway to her bedroom to ask her if she was okay.
It took an opportunity that landed on his lap. The transfer suggestion was most widely advertised to the average students of Yumenoseki. It was an easy opportunity to cut off the dead weight that the school had been mercilessly shedding, even if just by one student. He knew that he had no significant place in the grand narrative being constructed around him. He had nothing to do with its beginning and would have nothing to do with its end.
But he could help his sister escape her own.
The morning that he woke to his new uniform hanging off his cupboard, nothing happened. The sun didn’t spotlight his new task as it forced its way through his room. He had no fond memories to recount of old friends. He had no heavy promises on his back or lofty aspirations. Just another day but now in a different setting. A new place to be a brick in the wall.
He hoped this wall would be more stable.