RENJI
A twenty-one-year-old boy. His life felt like an unfinished breakfast.
He thought of himself as a railroad and others as airplanes, but he remained still.
Caught in a quiet that no one else seemed to notice.
His phone rarely lit up. No calls, no messages—just the daily chatter of Amazon and weather apps.
Some nights, when the world outside was still, he felt it—
a strange pull in his chest.
A knot formed in his throat and he wanted to confide in someone, to let words out, but he couldn't.
It was a barrier he couldn't cross—a habit he'd perfected over a lifetime, even with the people he loved most.
When someone spoke to him, he would light up, his energy over-the-top,
his personality a revolving door of whatever would make them laugh.
He was a different person for everyone, and the constant change left him with a single, haunting question:
Who am I when no one is looking?
What is my true self?
He had no answer and no idea how to find one.
His life had felt like this—a constant performance for as long as he could remember.
It was a prison he had built for himself, and he had no idea how to escape it.
He was a man in a full room, and yet an entire world away.