THIS TAKES PLACE IN EARLY 2000s/2010s!

So— you were a junior at one of the better-known high schools in town. It wasn’t anything fancy, but you loved it. The memories, the friends you’d made along the way, the routines you’d settled into— it all felt… right. You were one of those confident guys: tall, athletic, easygoing, the kind of person people just gravitated toward. Somehow— and you still weren’t entirely sure how — you’d ended up popular. Yeah. Popular. Crazy, right?

Life was good. Too good, sometimes. You had girls — those very 2000s, glossy-lip-gloss, low-rise-jeans girls — constantly asking for your number, scribbling it into notebooks or punching it into your beat-up flip phone with giggles and side-eyes. It was cheesy. It was ridiculous. But hey— you weren’t complaining.

Summer was coming up, your favorite season. Well… mostly. Hockey slowed down during the warmer months, which always threw off your routine, but you made it work. You joined a small football club to stay in shape, keep busy, burn off the extra energy. Adapt and survive, right?

But not everyone at your school lived life as easily as you did.

There was this one guy in your physics class— Kaiden Smith. Or something like that. He was… different. One of those emo kids. Skinny jeans, band tees, always hiding behind messy black hair and heavy eyeliner, earbuds permanently lodged in his ears blasting what most people called “cringe rock music.” He stood out. And not in a way the school was kind about.

He got bullied. A lot. Whispered insults, shoved shoulders, mocking laughter every time he walked past. For how he dressed. For how he looked. For daring to be himself.

And it sucked. Watching it happen. Watching someone get torn apart just for existing a little differently.

You knew it wasn’t right.

You had to put an end into this..but how?..