Chapter Text
The school was called Minamikawa Gakuen. A prestigious private academy nestled in the forested hills outside Kyoto, far from the noise of the city. The walls were pristine white, the roofs a deep black tile, and the halls echoed with silence that dared not be broken. Uniforms were pressed, shoes shined, and eyes always averted.
When Etho first arrived, he thought the silence was discipline.
It wasn’t.
His parents sent him there under the guise of academic excellence. The real reason, he knew, was convenience. Dormitories meant they didn’t have to deal with him. He didn’t fight it. He never fought things like that. He just packed his bags, tucked away his real name—Etho—and boarded the flight.
No one here called him Etho.
But they didn’t call him “Etho” either.
They called him Renjiro.
---
The first day had been normal enough. Awkward introductions, students whispering about the Canadian transfer student, a teacher who mispronounced his name and stumbled over apologies. Then he met him.
Daigo.
Daigo had a sharp jawline, cold eyes, and an odd smile that never met them. He wore the uniform sloppily, like the rules didn’t apply to him—shirt untucked, tie loose, blazer flung over his shoulder. Everyone cleared a path when he walked. No one ever looked him in the eye.
He sat beside Etho without asking.
"You’re mine now," Daigo said in English. His accent was good. Too good.
Etho blinked. "Sorry?"
"You’re my friend now," Daigo clarified, still in English, grinning wide. "Got it, Renjiro?"
That name hadn’t appeared on any documents. Etho hadn't said it. Still, Daigo repeated it—Renjiro—like it had always been his, like it fit him better than his real one. And just like that, the name stuck.
No one corrected it. Not even the teachers.
---
At first, Etho had tried to explain.
“My name is—”
“Don’t,” Daigo would say smoothly, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “That name’s ugly. I like Renjiro better.”
It wasn’t a nickname. It was a mask, nailed over his real face.
One teacher slipped up—“Etho-san”—and the next day came to class with a neck brace and a dead look in her eyes. No one asked what happened. She didn’t speak much after that.
The principal said nothing. He laughed with Daigo in his office after school, the door cracked open just enough to see the stack of gift boxes on the desk. Etho didn't know where Daigo got money like that. He didn’t want to know.
---
Kids tried to talk to him sometimes. Once.
In the second month, a quiet boy from science class passed him a folded note. Inside was a simple message in careful handwriting:
> “Do you want to work together on the biology project? – Arai”
Etho had barely opened the note when Daigo snatched it from his hands.
He read it, smiled, and then walked up to Arai during lunch.
“I’ll kill your family.”
He said it like a joke. He said it while laughing. But Arai went pale. That evening, Daigo whispered an address into Arai’s ear. His actual address. No one had told him that.
Arai never came back to school.
---
“Don’t use that name.”
That phrase became Etho’s constant mantra. Whenever someone hesitated and almost said “Etho,” he would cut in quickly, gently, almost pleading.
“Don’t use that name. Please.”
He didn’t say why. They already knew.
---
By the third month, the rest of the school adjusted.
They whispered about the foreign boy and the student who owned him. “Daigo’s dog,” they called him behind his back. “The Canadian ghost.” “Renjiro.” “The shadow that never talks.”
Daigo was always with him. At lunch. During gym. In the dorm hallways. His room was right across from Etho’s, despite the rooms being assigned alphabetically. The teachers said nothing. Daigo had keys to places students shouldn’t have keys to.
Once, during a school festival, a girl accidentally bumped into Etho, spilling red bean paste down his uniform. She apologized, flustered, bowing profusely.
That night, her cat disappeared. A week later, her family moved away.
Etho didn’t ask what happened.
---
And yet… there were moments.
Moments where Daigo wasn’t watching him like prey. Moments where he smiled almost genuinely, talked about old anime, or played the piano in the music room with a sad sort of calm. In those moments, Etho forgot to be afraid. He even smiled back, sometimes.
But always, always, that fear returned.
Because Daigo didn't just want a friend.
He wanted ownership.
---
Sometimes, in his dorm room late at night, Etho would stare at the ceiling and whisper his real name like a secret prayer.
“Etho.”
“Me.”
But even in the dark, he felt Daigo’s shadow on the other side of the wall.
And he knew the name didn’t belong to him anymore.