[Year: 2016 | Ren: 9 y/o (Grade 4) | Haruto: 10 y/o (Grade 5)]
Midterm exams.
Students fidgeted with their pencils, brows furrowed, feet tapping nervously.
Haruto Akihara stared at the final problem on his math sheet. His chest tightened. The numbers didn't add up. He bit his lip and glanced sideways — toward the classroom door. There was no Ren here.
In separate classes now. Separate levels. He was on his own.
He did the best he could.
Two days later, the results came out.
Haruto placed second in his class. Not bad. But the number one spot belonged to someone else — someone from a lower grade.
"Did you hear?" his friend whispered. "A fourth grader topped the entire school. Again."
Haruto knew before the name was even said.
Ren Akihara.
That evening, silence hung over the dinner table.
Ayaka Akihara, their mother, placed bowls of curry on the table. "I'm proud of both of you," she said gently.
Haruto forced a smile. "Thanks, Mom."
Ren ate quietly, then looked up. "You got second place, right? That's good."
"…Yeah."
"You improved from last term. That's great."
It wasn't mocking. It wasn't arrogant.
It was sincere.
But that made it worse.
Haruto nodded slowly, eyes lowered to his plate. For the first time, he felt it.
A gap.
The kind that couldn't be closed with hard work.
Later that night, Ren sat by the window, scribbling thoughts in his notebook.
"He tries. But trying is not enough.
He is beginning to feel it."
And far in the corner of the page, he drew a small circle. Then another. And another.
Ten circles. One darker than the rest.