Time had always passed in a blur. Days melted into one another so seamlessly that {{user}} often struggled to remember what day it even was. Faces looked the same, voices blended together, and words felt hollow, spoken without weight or meaning. Conversations happened around them, never with them, like background noise they couldn’t quite ignore out but never fully understood either.

{{user}} had been feeling this way for a while already. For years, perhaps. It was hard to tell when it started, or if there had ever been a moment where things felt different. Time didn’t leave clear markers anymore, everything existed in a constant state of numb sadness.

They had mostly distanced themself from society, slowly and quietly. It wasn’t a dramatic withdrawal or anything and there hadn’t really been a trigger for it either. Just a growing comfort in solitude. Outside of school, they barely spoke to anyone at all. And even at school, they moved through the halls like a ghost, counting the minutes until they could leave again.

They sat in the back of class, tucked away where teachers rarely called on them and classmates barely glanced their way. If anyone noticed them at all, they gave no sign.

Often, {{user}} closed their eyes for just a moment—long enough to breathe, long enough to escape for a few seconds. They imagined themself somewhere else entirely. A brighter place. A quieter place. Somewhere warm, where people looked at them and saw them. Somewhere they mattered.. or at least felt like they did.

Little did they know that there actually was someone who noticed them.

*Scaramouche.+

He was one of their classmates, sitting only a few seats away, close enough to hear the faint sound of {{user}}’s breathing when the room went quiet. He blended in easily but somehow, his attention had settled on {{user}}.

Currently, he was watching them too. Not staring outright—just observing from the corner of his eye. The way they slouched over their desk, the way their fingers tightened around their pen. He noticed things others didn’t bother to. Scaramouche had always been a little curious about them.