stars. | tsukkiyama

03

yamaguchi jinxed it.

the rest of the school day was filled with strange mishaps. he tried talking to hinata at lunch, but the latter wouldn't even look at him, even after he tried multiple things to grab his attention. he accidentally bumped into multiple people, but no one seemed to care. it was as if he were truly invisible.

yamaguchi was currently at the lockers, thinking of a million different reasons as to why everyone could be ignoring him. maybe it was a prank... no, why would the whole school be in on it? maybe he was just that unnoticeable that everyone couldn't see him. maybe he was too quiet. maybe hinata was mad at him.

as he started walking back home, thick, gray clouds began to form in the sky. yamaguchi cursed at himself, annoyed that he hadn't brought an umbrella with him.

maybe this is all just a dream... a really bad dream...

suddenly, he felt something drip onto his shoulder. it began to lightly drizzle, raindrops covering the dry pavement with tiny, wet spots. yamaguchi sighed, raising his bag over his head as a last resort to shelter himself from the impending storm.

he quickened his pace, the rain pouring down in torrents. he splashed through puddles of muddy water and internally grimaced at the thought of the grime sullying his uniform pants. yamaguchi felt something slip out of his pocket as he ran, stopping in his tracks and looking back to see his phone submerged in a huge puddle on the side of the road.

"oh, great. how am i going to get this fixed?" he angrily muttered, fishing it out of the rainwater and shoving it into his backpack.

soaked in rain, yamaguchi eventually arrived home. the storm didn't cease, however, and the streets quickly flooded with large amounts of rainwater, with the wind blowing the droplets in all different directions.

at the entrance, yamaguchi took off his shoes, which were, as he'd predicted, drenched in mud. he sighed, realizing that he'd have to scrub them down later.

as he waltzed into his bedroom, yamaguchi chucked his wet bag across the wooden floor and pulled his uniform shirt over his head, tossing it into his laundry hamper along with his pants. he also pulled off his socks and wrung them out in the bathroom sink before placing them into the hamper as well.

yamaguchi changed into dry clothes before lying down on his bed and sinking into the sheets. this day seemed to just get worse and worse, and he didn't know what to do about the strange aura that had been following him around all day.

he let his mind wander for a bit before the most unexpected idea popped into his head. the wish he made yesterday... did it have anything to do with everyone ignoring him?

there was no way. yamaguchi didn't think something so bizarre would come out of such a simple wish. he wanted something interesting to happen, but this was far from what he was expecting.

did he seriously turn invisible? was that the 'interesting' thing that was supposed to happen to him?

yamaguchi shook his head. magic wasn't real, and therefore, wishes couldn't come true. sure, everyone wished on the star, but that was only because it was a superstition for their desires to be fulfilled. even if a miracle were to happen as a result of making a wish, it had to be a coincidence. that meant the strange events that occurred at school also had to be coincidences... right?

being left alone with his own thoughts wasn't good for yamaguchi. it always ended up with him overthinking and tricking his mind into believing his most bizarre judgements to be true. because of this, it wasn't long before yamaguchi found himself panicking, his breaths growing uneven and his heart pulsating against his ribcage.

he rushed to the bathroom, almost tripping over his own feet in the process. tightly gripping the porcelain sink, yamaguchi gazed desperately into the mirror.

nothing was staring back at him.

he rubbed his eyes. yamaguchi tried focusing on the mirror again, but he didn't see anything besides the pastel yellow wallpaper behind him.

"no..." yamaguchi whispered. "w-wha- no!"

he leaned even closer, knowing for a fact that his mind was playing tricks on him. maybe he'd tricked himself into thinking such outlandish thoughts that his eyes were now deceiving him. that had to be the case.

unable to stand looking into his reflection anymore, yamaguchi stumbled backwards until his back hit the cold wall, pulling on his slightly wet hair with his trembling hands. tears welled up in his eyes as his breathing quickened impossibly more.

this couldn't be real. he was truly invisible. what was he going to tell his family? how was he going to attend school? would he ever return back to normal?

yamaguchi felt the walls of his throat closing in, cutting off his air supply. his heart palpitated in his chest along with the rhythm of the wind and rain furiously beating against the window. thousands of concerns swamped the freckled boy's mind until his head was filled with hazy words that jumbled together into nonsense.

after some time, his vision began to fade, and he found himself desperately clawing at the hands of reality, only to fail and sink into the depths of unconsciousness.

yamaguchi awoke with a terrible clobbering in his skull. his back was still plastered to the wall, and his legs had grown numb from being sprawled out on the floor for so long. he groaned in agony and attempted to stand up, using the bathroom counter to support his feeble legs.

for a minute, yamaguchi struggled to recall what had happened that had caused him to lose consciousness. suddenly, the memories came surging back, along with the anxiety they had caused.

"it was all just a dream, yamaguchi," he whispered in an attempt to reassure himself. "you accidentally fell asleep on the bathroom floor and had a nightmare."

yamaguchi breathed out shakily in an attempt to calm down as he stared intensely into the sink. he was terrified to look up at the mirror. he wanted anything but to confirm that he was actually invisible - that he had disappeared out of thin air because of some dumb wish he had made the night before.

"no. i have to do this."

his eyes traveled from the drain, to the wall, to the bottom of the mirror, and then straight into his reflection.

again, all that was visible was the moonlight casting a white glow the wall behind him; not even a hint of a freckle or a lock of hair.

yamaguchi held his breath, reaching up to touch his face. he could feel his skin, but he couldn't see it in his reflection.

he felt his shoulders tense up at the realization that it was, in fact, not a nightmare. he was gone.

the panic settled in again. yamaguchi's head spun as he peered into the mirror, too afraid to blink, to move, to do anything. he was truly invisible, and he had some stupid wish to blame for that. his nightmare had become a reality.

immediately, he realized he needed to do something about his parents. he didn't want them to worry about him, and he needed to make sure they didn't find out about yamaguchi's strange case until he somehow found a way to fix it.

he slowly crept downstairs. luckily, no one was home yet, as both his parents worked until late at night. yamaguchi peered at the clock on the kitchen wall and registered that he'd been passed out for three hours.

he decided on leaving a note for his parents, letting them know that he was staying over at hinata's for a week to work on a project, and that he couldn't call or text them since he'd broken his phone. yamaguchi prayed that they wouldn't suspect anything for the time that he was trying to figure out his situation.

after putting the pen down, he decided to take a shower to wash off the soot and rainwater that had dried on his skin.

maybe it would help clear his mind.