Roy lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought. His body felt heavy, as if the weight of the day was pressing him down into the mattress. The silence of his room was broken only by the distant rumble of thunder outside.
"Why does everything always go wrong?" Roy muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. He replayed the events of the day in his mind, each memory stinging more than the last.
Earlier that day, during class, his teacher had singled him out, scolding him in front of everyone for his poor exam results. He could still hear her voice, sharp and disappointed. "Roy, you've failed to meet expectations again. If you don't take your studies seriously, there will be consequences!" Her words echoed in his mind, each one feeling like a punch to his chest.
At home, things weren't any better. His mom had been upset too. "No dinner for you tonight," she had said coldly when he walked through the door. "Maybe hunger will remind you of the importance of working hard."
Roy's stomach grumbled, but the frustration gnawing at him felt far worse than the hunger. He was tired—tired of being scolded, of being punished, of feeling like a failure. He sat up, running his hands through his hair, trying to push the thoughts away.
He couldn't stand the suffocating atmosphere in his room anymore. Pushing himself off the bed, Roy walked toward the house gallery, where the wind blew in through the slightly open window. Outside, the storm raged. Heavy rain fell in sheets, and flashes of lightning lit up the dark sky. The storm felt like a reflection of his emotions—wild, uncontrollable, and angry.
He stepped out into the open gallery, feeling the cold wind brush against his skin. His fists clenched at his sides as he stared out into the storm. The rain drenched the garden below, and the lightning seemed to split the sky in half.
"Why?" Roy's voice trembled as he spoke aloud, though no one was there to hear him. "Why is my life so miserable?"
He looked up at the sky, frustration bubbling up inside him until he couldn't hold it back anymore.
"I work hard!" he yelled into the storm. "I try my best, but nothing ever changes! Why can't I just be like those characters in manhwa or anime? I wish I had a status window! I wish I could control something in my life!"
His voice broke as he shouted. He closed his eyes, feeling tears prickling the edges of his vision. It wasn't fair. Nothing in his life felt like it was in his control, and the pressure to meet everyone's expectations was suffocating him.
"I wish... I wish my life were different!" he screamed, his voice lost in the sound of thunder.
As if the storm had heard his desperate plea, a bolt of lightning suddenly tore through the sky. In an instant, it struck Roy directly. He didn't even have time to move. A blinding flash filled his vision, and his body seized up in shock.
For a brief moment, pain shot through him like nothing he had ever felt before, then everything went blank. The world around him vanished into a bright, overwhelming white. The rain, the wind, the storm—it all disappeared, leaving only silence and emptiness.
Am I... am I going to die? Roy thought, his mind swirling in the darkness that crept in at the edges of his vision. His body felt weightless, as though he were floating between life and death.
His lips moved, forming the words that passed through his mind. "I haven't even... touched a girl's hand yet..."
As the darkness fully closed in, Roy's last conscious thought was one of regret—a regret so simple, yet so real in his young mind. And then, there was nothing.
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