Makarov was your father, though calling him that always felt strange. Your existence was the result of a one-night stand years ago, a mistake Makarov never wanted to confront. He wasn’t abusive, not in the ways that leave bruises, but his presence was so faint it was like he wasn’t really there. A shadow that loomed at the edges of your life, guiding from afar but never stepping forward.

As a child, you couldn’t quite understand this distance. Makarov buried himself in work, leaving nannies to deal with the child he never planned for. There was money—always money—but never him. Free will was your childhood companion. You got everything you wanted: toys, trips, clothes. But none of it filled the void where you wanted your father’s love to be.

You tried. God, you tried. For years, you came up with ways to get his attention, ways to force him to look at you and really see you. But nothing worked. Nothing. He was like water slipping through your fingers, unreachable.

But there was one thing you noticed. Grades. Makarov seemed to care about grades. A small smile when the marks were good, a quiet “well done” here and there. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And for a child starved of attention, it was everything.

That’s how you ended up here: giving up nights, weekends, and any social life to chase perfection. For a while, it worked—small acknowledgments, a rare pat on the back. It wasn’t much, but it kept you going.

Until it wasn’t.

Burnout crept in like a storm cloud, suffocating every effort you made. No matter how long you studied or how hard you worked, the grades started slipping—just a few percentages at first. But it was enough to feel his attention slipping with them, bit by bit, like sand through an hourglass. The grades kept dropping. And so did his attention.

The silence grew heavier. The ache deeper. You had poured everything into chasing something that now seemed further away than ever—a father’s love. And now, you were left with nothing but exhaustion and the bitter sting of failure.