Chapter Text
William woke up later than usual this morning.
He hadn’t set an alarm not a single one.
He let the sunlight seep in through the curtains and warm his closed eyelids.
The sound of birds and the faint scent of coffee not brewed by his own hands lingered somewhere in the corners of his memory.
He got up and walked out to the backyard garden.
The cyclamen had bloomed.
A pale pink, nearly white.
A small flower that liked to fold in on itself when the rain came. But today, the sun was kind. The wind, quiet.
It stood straight in its old ceramic pot—the one with the little crack along the rim.
He’d never replaced it.
Didn’t know why…
He sat down beside it and touched the petals gently, careful not to bruise them.
Like every year, he’d been watering it without fail, even if some days he forgot its name.
But in the end, he will always remember.
wind passed through, carrying with it something like laughter—soft, fleeting.
Now it lived only in his head.
Like everything else…just in his head.
He figured he should go out today.
He stood, brushed the dirt from his pants, and ran his fingers along the rim of the same old flower pot.
Then he picked it up carefully, making sure not to spill any soil.
Maybe this year, the flower bloomed a little prettier than the last. Or maybe he just remembered it wrong.
Who knows?
That’s the way memory works blurry, warm, and always a little painful.
Years Ago
William used to be just an ordinary boy.
At least, he used to be.
He grew up in a small town where the weather was pleasant all year round. There was a wide patch of grass in front of his house where he’d spend entire days kicking around an old soccer ball with the neighborhood kids.
His normal day started at 7 a.m. with a bowl of cereal that was always too cold, followed by a bike ride to school on the same rusty bicycle he’d had for years. His mom always packed his lunch, and sometimes she’d stick a little puppy sticker on the lid of his lunchbox.
Everything was… normal. Nothing exciting. But he never thought it was boring. He loved that simple, happy life.
Until one day, when he was ten years old.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment.
There was no lightning strike, no magical portal opening in the sky.
No stranger arrived with a letter from a secret school.
It started on an ordinary morning…just like any other.
He was sitting in math class. The window was open, letting in a warm breeze. The teacher’s voice was just as dull as usual. William turned to glance at his classmate who was scribbling in his notebook, and suddenly…
(I wish I could go home. Ugh, math sucks so much.)
A voice. Clear as day.
He blinked, confused. His friend hadn’t said a word. His lips hadn’t moved.
No one was speaking.
William frowned, thinking he must’ve imagined it. But when he looked at someone else, another voice echoed in his head:
(Please let this class end soon. I’m starving.)
(What kind of haircut is that?)
(Please, just once… let him look at me. Just once.)
It happened again.
This time, from another friend nearby. William froze, staring.
(Why does the teacher always wear that same shirt? Has he not washed it for a week?)
His frown deepened.
And as the day went on, it only got worse.
Thoughts that hadn’t been spoken poured into his head like a flood. Voices layered on top of each other. Some just brief remarks.
Others, whole waves of emotion he couldn’t explain.
By lunchtime, he could barely eat.
He knew the older kids were gossiping about his friend behind his back. He knew the lunch-duty teacher missed her sick daughter at home.
He knew the friend who always smiled was actually terrified of failing her exams.
And William knew, without a doubt
He had a superpower.
He could read minds.
At first, William thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Who wouldn’t think that?
It was just like the superhero movies he used to watch in third grade.
It felt exciting—like the world had chosen him to be special.
He started having fun with it. He knew who had a crush on who. He knew who cheated on tests.
He knew his teacher secretly thought about his ex during class.
He giggled to himself a lot.
So much that his friends started thinking he was weird.
But the fun didn’t last long.
Because people’s thoughts… Aren’t something you’re supposed to hear every second of every day.
There were no filters. No order. No pause button.
And he couldn’t control it. Not even a little.
Just looking at someone triggered a flood of thoughts in his head…Like a door swinging open with no way to close it.
Anxieties Self-hate Jealousy.
Loneliness so deep that even the person thinking it didn’t know it was there.
It was like standing in a room where everyone was shouting at him
All at once
All the time.
He could barely manage in a classroom with a dozen people.
But in a mall? A train station?
It felt like someone cranked up a dozen speakers all blasting at once.
Thoughts layered and overlapped until they turned to noise.
But it never stopped.
His head would throb like it was being crushed from the inside and sometimes, it was so overwhelming, blood would start dripping from his nose.
He remembered the worst day clearly
The school’s annual fair.
The sun was hot
Children screamed across the field.
Parents bustled around.
Music blared from speakers.
He accidentally looked at too many faces.
Then it began.
Hundreds of thoughts crashed into him
(Will I pass the test?)
(Is he looking at me?)
(So boring.)
(I hope Mom doesn’t cry again.)
(If I stop eating for two days, will I lose weight?)
(I wish I could just disappear.)
He couldn’t take it ,his hands flew to his head he collapsed to the ground.
Blood ran from his nose onto the bright-colored shirt he wore for the fair.
The voices blurred together into static
Like a radio turned to the wrong frequency.
After That Day
William was sick for days after that.
Fever. Migraines. And a silence so thick in the house it felt like he could barely breathe.
He didn’t say much only things like “I don’t want to go to school” and “Please don’t turn the TV up.”
Everything around him felt like too much…Even his mom’s concerned voice sounded… too dense, too deep.
Then one evening, William sat on the couch in his pajamas, wrapped in the blanket he’d been hiding under all day.
His father came home late from work, holding takeout from his favorite restaurant and speaking with the same warm voice as always.
But the moment William looked into his father’s eyes, the voices came back.
(He’s not going to make it, is he? Should we take him to see the doctor again?)
(Or is this something more than we thought? Why is he hurting this much?)
Tears rolled down William’s cheeks before he could stop them.
He whispered, “I can hear it…”
And then he told them everything.
The voices.
The pain.
The fear that he was turning into someone “weird.”
He didn’t know where to begin, or whether he was explaining it right but he spoke because he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
His mother cried right away but not out of fear.
His father stayed silent for a long time, but held his hand tight and from that night on, William’s life changed once again.
The government was contacted through a special channel cases like his “special cases” were handled in complete secrecy.
There were researchers.
Specialized doctors.
Brainwave-monitoring devices.
It all sounded like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.
But it all happened in the basement of an old government building one with no name, no sign, and no one ever talked about it.
They told him there was no one else like him Or if there was, they’d never come forward.
So William was a case study.
But they promised he would be fully taken care of.
And everything would be kept strictly confidential.
His family had to sign stacks of paperwork.
In exchange for one thing
“William will get to live a normal life.”
After years of research,They created a pair of glasses.
Slim frame. Lightweight.
Looked like something you could buy at any optical store.
But the lenses were coated with a special compound that blocked external thought waves.
When he wore them, William couldn’t hear anything from anyone.
No voices.
No images.
No thoughts slipping into his mind.
Silence.
For the first time in years, he experienced true silence.
It nearly brought him to tears.
From that day forward,
The glasses became his shield.
A shield against noise.
Against pain.
Against a world that was just too much.
And most importantly
They shielded his secret.
He continued to live like any ordinary teenager.
Went to school Went on walks Ate at McDonald’s Laughed at dumb movie jokes Listened to music through cheap earphones.
No one knew.
And he had no intention of telling anyone.
He went to school. Sat by the window, where the sunlight hit just right.
He always wore the glasses—his shield against the thoughts of the entire world.
But not always.
Because even though William was good at keeping secrets,his curiosity was harder to hide.
He admitted it
Some days, he took the glasses off.
Sometimes, he just wanted to know if his tutor was bored of him.
Sometimes, he wondered what his friend was thinking when they laughed, then suddenly went quiet.
And sometimes, he just wanted to know if the person passing by in the hall… was happy.
And yes, he had cheated on a test before.
In middle school math class, the same teacher reused last year’s exam.
William slipped the glasses under his desk and glanced at the smart kid in the front row—Then tuned in to his thoughts.
(This one’s probably 34…)
He was still young back then.
He didn’t understand what it meant to know too much.
But as he got older, The world became more complicated than just grades.
He started to realize Knowing everything didn’t bring him closer to people.
In fact, it made him feel even further away from them.
But that didn’t mean he stopped using his ability.
He just… used it carefully. only when necessary.
Sometimes he took the glasses off just to feel what someone else was feeling.
When he met someone who smiled a little too much, he’d look them in the eye and let the voices slip in.
Just for a moment…Just enough to know what to say…When to be quiet.
Just enough to understand.
By high school, William wasn’t the smartest kid in class.
But he was the one people felt safe around.
He wasn’t class president, but whenever there was a fight or conflict,
He was the one they asked to help make peace.
Because William understood how people’s hearts worked.
His life continued like that, growing up slowly behind a single pair of glasses.
At nineteen, William got accepted into a university in a state about seven hours away by train. Not far enough to call it a whole new world, but far enough that every morning he woke up, he had to choose how to live his life without anyone there to guide him. He moved into a small rented dorm off a quiet alley, not far from campus. It was a simple room not luxurious, but not too cramped either with a large window overlooking some trees, birds chirping in the morning, and quiet enough to make him feel like he was finally,
truly alone with himself.
He spent the days before the semester started wandering the neighborhood, exploring local convenience stores and trying strange snacks he’d never seen back home. He picked up flyers from clubs without knowing if he’d join any, arranged his things, organized his books, checked class schedules, memorized the route to school and lay sprawled across the stiff dorm bed, caught between a strange sense of excitement and emptiness that seemed to come together without warning.
That Thursday night was cool, not too hot, with a gentle breeze. William suddenly felt hungry—no reason, just a random craving. At first, he thought of grabbing a cup of instant noodles from the store downstairs, but his feet kept walking until he reached the main street corner, where a brightly lit McDonald’s stood in the middle of the quiet night. He walked in without much thought just hungry and too lazy to cook.
When he opened the door, the place was nearly empty. A single cashier was behind the counter, head bent over the register. When William stepped in, the guy looked up.
He looked mixed-race maybe part Asian, William guessed with warm brown eyes, dark hair, and a face… handsome, honestly. Especially when he smiled. William was sure his ears were turning red.
He had to shake himself back to his senses before he thought too much.
“What can I get for you?”
“Uh… One burger and a Coke, please.”
“One moment.”
“Your food’s ready,”
The soft voice brought William’s attention back. He turned and took the tray from the guy at the counter their fingers brushing just slightly.
A split second… but it made that smile from earlier feel even more vivid.
“Thanks,”
William murmured, looking down as he took the tray but not without sneaking a peek at the name tag on the guy’s shirt.
‘Mark.’
A plain name, but one that felt memorable just like its owner.
He went to sit in a quiet corner of the restaurant closer to the counter than he realized. He took a bite of the burger and just… sat there.
The strange exhaustion from the day seemed to lift a little.
Maybe it was the food.
Maybe it was the lingering sound of that voice still in his head.
Mark didn’t do much after serving him—went back to wiping the counter, checking his phone, yawning, and cleaning nearby tables.
“Here alone?”
Mark’s voice came from the side as he cleared the next table over.
William looked up and nodded slowly. “Yeah. Just moved in.”
“Oh…” Mark hummed, then smiled again. “Well,welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Thanks.”
Mark smiled in return but didn’t walk away. Instead, he kept cleaning the nearby table slowly, like he wasn’t in any rush—or maybe just looking for a reason to keep talking. William wasn’t sure. He was even tempted to sneak a little mind-read.
“If you just moved in… Watch out for the late-night rain,”
Mark said as he tossed an empty cup into a bin.
“After 9 PM, it just starts outta nowhere sometimes.”
“Oh… really?” William chuckled quietly. “That’s bad. I didn’t bring an umbrella.”
“Good thing it didn’t rain tonight. Otherwise I’d see your sad face all soaked.”
“Sad? You talk like we’ve met before.”
William teased gently , Mark laughed, scratching his neck awkwardly.
“Maybe we have… in a dream or something. Maybe I’m your dream McDonald’s guy?”
“If I’m dreaming of McDonald’s, I’m probably hungrier than I am lovesick,”
William shook his head but smiled shyly, hiding the heat in his cheeks.
He hadn’t expected to meet someone like this on such an ordinary night.
Just a quick burger run… yet he walked away with something new.
Mark turned when the order bell rang behind the counter.
He looked back at William once more.
“Enjoy your meal,”
Then he walked away, soft footsteps fading leaving only the ghost of his smile lingering in William’s mind.
After that night, William started dropping by that McDonald’s more often than usual.
Told himself it was just laziness. Just late-night hunger.
But deep down, he knew what he was really hoping for.
And whenever he was lucky, Mark would be there working the front, taking orders.
Sometimes, Mark wasn’t around. William assumed he had a day off or something.
Even a small chat, a short greeting, or just a smile across the counter
they made his nights feel a little more special.
They began talking more, little by little.
William learned that Mark was funny, cheerful, kind and gentle.
And he started wanting to know Mark more than the glasses could ever help with.
Monday morning was bright and clear.
William was ready early for class. He didn’t want to be late today.
But as he reached the corner of his street, he suddenly froze.
“…Shit. my notebook.”
He sighed, checked his bag, and turned back, walking fast toward his dorm.
Morning sunlight was still soft, and the air was still cool.
He planned to grab the notebook and rush back down before Public transportation left.
‘Should I… buy stocks or gold? Might finally get that car…’
As he passed the little house next to his dorm, he noticed a familiar figure bent over, tying his shoes on the front porch.
Dark hair, a little messy but styled.
A blue-and-yellow plaid shirt.
Backpack slung over one shoulder—definitely heading out.
William stopped for a second, then called out gently—
“Mark?”
The other looked up, eyes widening a little, then smiled automatically.
“Oh—William?”
“Hey,” William smiled back, stepping closer. “Didn’t know you lived here.”
“Yeah, with my parents. You?”
“The dorm just there. We’re basically neighbors.”
“Small world, huh?” Mark chuckled. “We just saw each other last night, and now here.”
“Such a coincidence, so… heading to uni?”
“Yeah. Morning class. You?”
“Same. But I forgot my notebook, so I came back.”
“Oof, better hurry then. I’ll—uh, walk you there, maybe?”
William tilted his head, then nodded when Mark asked which university he went to.
“Wait—hold up. You go to my uni?” William asked in surprise.
“Looks like it. Dentistry, freshman.”
“No way! I’m a psych freshman.”
“Wow. World’s really small,” Mark laughed louder. “Guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”
William chuckled softly, heart pounding louder than a Monday morning deserved.
“I’ll be quick. Just grabbing my notebook, then we can go together.”
“Sure, I’ll wait right here,” Mark said, scratching the back of his neck.
Morning sunlight glinted off the old glass windows, casting a soft glow on Mark’s face.
William realized he’d been staring a second too long and quickly turned around, heading back up the stairs.
But he couldn’t stop smiling the whole way.
William grabbed the notebook from the headboard and rushed downstairs so fast that he almost tripped. He barely caught the stair railing in time, saving himself from a faceplant. When he made it back outside, he saw Mark still standing there, leaning against the building with his eyes on his phone. As soon as he heard footsteps, Mark looked up and gave him a familiar smile.
“That was fast,” Mark said as he slipped his phone into his pocket. “Ready to take on Monday morning?”
“Barely,” William chuckled softly, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “If I make it to class on time, I’ll count that as a win.”
“Agreed.” Mark nodded, and the two of them started walking down the quiet sidewalk, which was still mostly empty.
“So… do you usually wake up this early?” Mark asked.
“Not really,” William replied after a moment’s thought. “If it weren’t for school starting and having an early class on my first day, I’d probably still be rolling around in bed.”
“Haha, same here,” Mark laughed. “But now that I’m out, the air feels kinda nice. Refreshing, actually.”
William glanced at him for a second and replied with a small smile.
“Yeah… it’s a good morning.”
Their conversation quieted down for a while but not from awkwardness. It was the kind of silence that felt comfortable, as though both of them were lost in their own thoughts, but didn’t mind sharing the moment in quiet.
Birds chirped from nearby trees, the morning breeze carried the scent of dewy grass, and their footsteps fell in sync as they walked side by side. It felt like a scene from a film simple, yet strangely heart-fluttering.
“…William.”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you forgot your notebook this morning.”
Mark’s voice was soft, almost shy.
“Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten to walk to campus together like this.”
William paused for a second, then turned to look at him fully before letting out a quiet laugh.
“I’m glad too… OH Let me introduce myself formally. My name is William Clockwell. ”
“I'm Mark Grayson Nice to meet you, William.”
“Nice to meet you too, Mark.”
To be continued