The street was empty, the kind of empty that doesn't feel lonely—just quiet. As if the world itself had stepped out for a moment and left everything in place.
The boy walked alone, his school shoes making soft clicks against the pavement. Overhead, a few telephone wires swayed gently in the breeze. He didn't mind the silence. It gave his thoughts more space to stretch out.
Up ahead, just before the corner where the sidewalk cracked in the shape of a bird, he saw the old vendor stall. Same as always—folding table, old canopy, rusted stool. The objects on display never really changed. An old radio with no cord, a music box that played only one note, a row of stones that might have been paperweights or maybe just... stones.
Mr. Takami sat behind the table, sipping tea from a chipped ceramic cup.
"You again," he said with a nod, not unkind. "I was wondering if the wind would blow you in today."
The boy gave a slight bow. "Didn't plan to. Just walking."
"That's how the best things happen," Mr. Takami said. "By not planning them."
They talked a little. About the colder mornings. The vending machine down the street that never worked. A dog that barked at nothing for twenty minutes yesterday.
Then, just as the boy was about to leave, Mr. Takami reached into an old cigar box and pulled out a small brass pocket watch. The chain was broken, and the hands didn't move.
"This was your father's," he said, placing it gently into the boy's hand. "He gave it to me when we were young. Said he was too busy to worry about time."
The boy turned the watch over. It was warm from the sun, or maybe from Mr. Takami's hands.
"He used to talk a lot about money," the old man said. "About human's value. About sentiments holding a person down."
Mr. Takami looked at the sky for a moment, like he was watching a memory drift by.
"Your father was quite the rare man to encounter," he said. "But he spent so much of it bracing for impact that I don't think he ever let himself just... live. That's why you should be a good student. Not every bruise makes you stronger."
The boy didn't respond right away.
"You know," the old man continued, "people always talk about getting rich, being able to afford anything, living a life of luxury. That's all fine. But don't forget to taste things. Sit under trees. Get rained on sometimes. Not everything is a war."
The wind shifted slightly. Leaves scraped softly along the ground.
"Time's strange," Mr. Takami said. "Even a broken watch can remind you to slow down."
The boy nodded, pocketed the watch, and thanked him.
Then he walked off into the fading light, the street quiet again, as if holding its breath.
Behind him, the old vendor stall stood in the same place it always did—like it was waiting, not for anything in particular, but simply because it had nowhere else to be.
--------------------------------------------
The sky was beginning to dim, but not yet dark. That soft in-between hour where everything looks a little off—like the city isn't sure whether it should rest or stay awake.
The boy walked home with Mr. Takami's words still echoing somewhere in the back of his mind. His body still carried the warmth of the broth, but his footsteps slowed as he reached the overpass near the old train tracks. Something didn't feel right.
He saw them before they spoke.
Four guys leaning against a graffitied wall, the kind that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since before he was born. Cigarette smoke hung around them like a lazy ghost. They weren't high schoolers—that much was obvious. Too big. Too calm.
One of them stepped forward. Tall. Slouched. A scar near his eye.
"You that kid from Manchaland High?" he asked.
The boy didn't answer. He didn't need to.
The second one chuckled. "Thought so. You're the one who dropped Nishikawa last month. Word gets around."
They surrounded him slowly—not with panic, but with the steady certainty of people who had done this kind of thing more than once.
He stayed quiet. His fingers curled at his sides.
Then it started. No warning, no buildup.
The first guy swung. The boy ducked.
The second went low. He stepped sideways.
The air filled with the dull sound of shoes scuffing pavement and fists cutting wind. He didn't think about Mr. Takami's advice in that moment—he thought about staying on his feet. About angles. About their attack patterns. The boy is slowly adapting to the four of them.
He moved like he had something to prove. Not to them—to himself.
After a few exchanges, one of them backed off, wiping blood from his lip. Another leaned against the wall, panting.
"Damn…" one muttered, half-laughing. "He's just a kid."
The tall one narrowed his eyes. "He's got control. Too much control for a high schooler."
They looked at each other. Then a fifth figure appeared.
He didn't walk like the rest. No swagger. Just quiet gravity. The kind that made space for itself.
The boy felt it in his spine. This wasn't like the others.
"You the one they're talking about?" the boss asked, cracking his neck once.
The boy said nothing.
Then the boss was on him.
It was faster than the others. Cleaner. Like fighting a mirror that had already seen his next move. Every strike the boy threw was met with one just as sharp. Every breath felt heavier.
The fight didn't drag—it coiled.
The world narrowed. No names, no voices, just the thud of shoes, the slap of fists, the tight tension of near-misses.
Then, in a final moment, both fighters stepped in. Neither hesitated. Two fists arced toward each other like matching pendulums.
But before they connected—
A siren blared.
Blue lights hit the walls like shattered glass.
A police car slid to a stop at the end of the street. A loudspeaker shouted something, but the boy didn't catch the words.
The gang scattered.
The boss didn't run right away. He looked at the boy, his breath short, his eyes measuring something.
"You're good," he said simply. "Too good to be wasting time in schoolyard brawls."
Then he turned and vanished down the alley with the others, swallowed by shadows and sirens.
The boy stood alone, fists loose at his sides, chest rising and falling.
He didn't feel proud. He didn't feel strong. Just—still. Like the fight hadn't ended, only paused.
Somewhere in his pocket, the old watch sat quiet and unmoving.
----------------------------------------------------
The house was dim when they pulled up. One of the police officers, a younger man with a bored expression, stayed in the car. The older one walked the boy to the door.
"I don't want to do this again," the officer said quietly, hands in his pockets. "We've seen what happens to boys who get too good at this."
The boy didn't answer.
The door opened before they knocked.
His mother stood in the doorway. Her apron was still tied around her waist. Her face was pale, unreadable.
The officer gave a short, practiced bow.
"Ma'am," he said. "We caught your son fighting again. This time with a group of college-age boys near the station. It wasn't a simple scuffle."
She didn't look at her son. Only at the officer.
He continued. "We've let it go before. This is the last time we'll walk him home. Next time, it won't be a ride. It'll be a record."
Then he bowed again, more out of formality than feeling, and left.
The door closed with a sound that didn't echo, but stuck.
The boy stood in the hallway, his eyes on the floor, his hands still slightly shaking—not from fear, not anymore, but from the afterimage of everything that had just happened.
His mother said nothing at first.
Then—crack.
Her palm struck his cheek.
The force wasn't overwhelming. But the silence that followed was.
Her voice came out low and sharp, like it had been boiling all night.
"You're not your father," she said.
He didn't move.
"You think you're doing something brave?" she continued. "Picking fights like the world owes you something? That's not courage. That's failure on repeat. I didn't raise you for this."
He still didn't say a word.
She took a step closer, finger trembling slightly as she pointed to his chest.
"I don't care how strong you think you are. You're not some street legend. You're my son. And as long as you live under this roof, you will carry that name like it means something."
Her voice cracked.
"Do you hear me, Faulker?"
That was it.
Faulker.
She hadn't said it all night—not until now. As if the name itself was too personal, too painful. But when she said it, it landed harder than the slap. Like something ancient had just been dug up.
Faulker stood there a second longer.
Then he walked down the hall, silent, the sting on his cheek already fading.
In his room, he closed the door quietly behind him. No slam. No drama.
He dropped his bag beside his desk, sat down, and stared at the old pocket watch on his shelf. The one that never ticked.
It was still warm from being in his jacket.
The fight still burned in his muscles. But what lingered more was the look on his mother's face. Not the anger—but the disappointment beneath it.
He leaned back in the chair and whispered his own name.
"…Faulker."
It sounded heavier now. Like it had finally grown into him.
Faulker never saw his father's face in person.
Not truly.
There were photos, sure—slightly faded ones kept in an old album, tucked inside a drawer his mother rarely opened. In every picture, his father wore the same crooked half-smile, like he was only halfway in the moment. Sometimes clad in black. Sometimes in shirts that looked foreign, unfamiliar.
But never in a way that felt real.
By the time Faulker could crawl, his father was already gone. Not missing. Just… away.
No explanation. No promises. Only envelopes. Once a month. Always on time. Always enough to keep the lights on and food in the fridge.
He never asked where the money came from.
His mother never offered the answer.
"He's working. Far away," she would say.
And that was that.
So Faulker grew up in the shadow of a man he'd never met—present through absence, known only through old paper and short silences at the dinner table.
In elementary school, Faulker had a friend named Arima. Small, quiet, gentle in the way most boys were before the world taught them otherwise.
Arima got bullied.
Faulker didn't like it. So he told them to stop.
He didn't yell. He didn't shove. Just said it calmly—serious in a way that made the others laugh. But the laughter didn't last long.
Because the bullying didn't stop.
It shifted.
To him.
It started with names. Then books tossed out windows. Then the kind of punches thrown just hard enough not to leave bruises a teacher could see. Day by day, it chipped away at him.
Until one day, it didn't.
He snapped in the middle of winter.
At recess. Cold air, gray sky, blood on snow.
Faulker fought back. Not clean. Not pretty. Not with balance or rhythm—just teeth and fists and a scream he didn't know he had. He lost that fight. Badly. Three kids left him coughing blood behind the equipment shed.
They all got suspended for two weeks.
And in those two weeks, something changed.
He didn't rest. He didn't play games or sit around sulking.
He trained.
Not like an athlete.
More like someone preparing to survive.
No coaches. No weights. Just trial and pain. Punching a tree until his knuckles bled. Watching old street fight clips. Studying how to end fights fast—break the nose, knock the wind, keep moving, no hesitation.
When he came back, they tried again.
This time it wasn't a fight. It was a correction.
Outside of school. No teachers. No rules.
He broke one kid's nose in six seconds. The rest ran.
That's how it started.
Not because he loved fighting.
But because he hated being hunted.
From then on, Faulker became a name people whispered. The kind of name that made others look twice in the hallway. Not a delinquent, not quite—but not someone to push.
Now in high school, his body moves like it remembers every fight. Every bruise.
He doesn't throw wild punches anymore.
He aims to end things quickly.
But deep inside, something still pulls at him.
A hollow space shaped like a man he's never met.
A pocket watch that doesn't tick.
A street vendor's words still echoing:
"Be a good student. Not every bruise makes you stronger."