Beyond the glass

Hikari is twenty-two. He goes to university on Mondays. He works at a tech company the rest of the week. He has a girlfriend who loves him. He has a routine that works. None of it reaches him. There's a glass wall between him and everything he can see life on the other side but he can't touch it. He laughs at the right moments. He says "fine" when asked how he is. He's good at pretending. Too good. Nobody checks. But underneath the routine, underneath the performance, there's an urge that won't shut up to create something, something big, something that stays. Something that would make people feel what he can't feel. He tries. He tries friends, work, love, creation. For a moment, the glass wall thins. For a moment, he believes he can change. He can't.