It was raining again.
A cold, slanting rain that washed the city in silver and silence. The kind of rain that blurred the faces of strangers and erased footsteps the moment they were made. Ayasaka walked beneath it with an umbrella in one hand, eyes scanning the street with practiced detachment.
He already knew what he'd see.
There, just across the street, stood Sakurako kohaku—offering his umbrella to the angel of the school, Matsushita asami. A perfect, storybook moment, drawn straight from the pages of a novel. Ayasaka didn't need to eavesdrop to know what they were saying. He had read it all before.
Because he was a reader.
Or at least, he used to be. In another life, before a truck or fate or narrative convenience had thrown him into this world. Reincarnated—not as the protagonist, not as the cool rival, but as that guy. The normal-looking boy who shows up in a single scene just long enough to deliver one line.
> "What's so special about him? Why did you choose him over us?!"
Only to be silenced by Matsushita tired, gentle answer:
> "He doesn't need to be special to be loved."
That was it. That was his big moment. The entire reason this body had a name.
But ayasaka didn't mind. Not anymore.
He preferred it this way.
Because he had seen angels before.
And he knew—all angels eventually burn their wings.
---
Ayasaka passed them by without a glance.
He didn't care about the beginning of Matsushita and Sakurako romance. He didn't want to interfere. He already knew how it ended, and more importantly, he knew his role.
He went home to his average house. His average family. Ate his average dinner.
And he thought.
> Have any of us ever truly considered what it means to be a shadow?
Not a villain. Not a rival. Not even a sidekick. Just... an extra.
A prop. A narrative device meant to make someone else shine brighter.
At first, it hurt. That sting on his tongue when he realized what he'd become.
But then came the understanding.
We always hate that one character in romance anime—the arrogant pretty boy, the rich class president, the one trying to get in the way of the main couple. We call them annoying, jealous, irrelevant. But what if you were born as him?
What if you had everything—wealth, beauty, reputation—only to be destroyed by someone invisible? A protagonist no one cared about until the plot demanded they exist?
> "It's not jealousy," ayasaka whispered into the rain. "It's not even resentment. It's just the quiet understanding that I was born to lose... in a story that was never mine to win."
He started noticing things.
How people cut him off mid-sentence.
How his compliments sounded arrogant, no matter how sincere.
How every effort he made was labeled "performative."
He wasn't allowed to suffer beautifully. He wasn't written that way.
"If I cried, would it even be canon?"
"If I broke, would the camera keep rolling?"
Every smile he wore was drawn by obligation.
Every step forward, a prelude to being ignored again.
But that's when the thought crept in:
What if I broke the script?
What if he stopped trying to play a role?
What if he stopped waiting for approval and just... existed?
He didn't want the girl. He didn't want the spotlight.
He wanted something more terrifying—a purpose.
A reason to move forward that wasn't borrowed from someone else's arc.
A dream that wasn't defined by how useful it was to the lead.
So he became a ghost.
Unseen. Unacknowledged. Free.
Because ghosts don't have to change.
Ghosts don't sacrifice their dreams for someone else's smile.
Ghosts can slip through the cracks, mingle with others like them—
those who waited too long in the background and turned to bones.
In the end, he thought, maybe it's better to fake rule in heaven
than serve obediently in someone else's hell.
And as the rain washed over the world again, Ayasaka smiled.
Not out of joy. Not out of rebellion.
But because, for the first time, the story felt like his