Ao o Fumu

A painful heartbreak during middle school left scars on Atobe that never truly faded. In its wake, he learned to keep his gaze glued to the floor, avoiding the eyes of everyone around him. The boy who once dared to believe in love now drifts through his school days under a quiet, crushing certainty—that someone as damaged as himself could never deserve it. Yet his defenses begin to waver the moment his attention turns to Amakawa, a classmate who awakens something he believed was long buried. He cannot help but be drawn to her, even as instinct urges him to retreat, but his shattered sense of self-worth pins him firmly in place. Convinced that a person like him has no right to reach for happiness, Atobe resigns himself to quietly admiring her from afar, his feelings never once allowed to surface. What he cannot know is that Amakawa guards a secret of her own. Beneath the surface she shows to others lies something she carefully conceals from the world—something that may run far deeper than a simple, hidden crush. Whatever truth she carries could reshape everything between them, if only Atobe can find the courage to lift his eyes.