The Stars He Gave Me

Brother's friend

AGE GAP

Fumito is the life of the party. Smiling, sociable, always surrounded by people. But behind this bright facade hides a quiet, desperate loneliness that no one notices. He has a loving family: parents whose marriage seems like a fairy tale, and an older brother who still acts like a teenager. Their little bakery is a warm and cozy little world where everything is simple and clear.

Until one day He walks in. Stern, cold, unfamiliar. His brother's best friend, back from Germany. A man unlike anyone in Fumito's usual circle. He doesn't smile without reason, doesn't hand out empty compliments. But he listens. Attentively, without interrupting. And one day, he gives Fumito something he had dreamed of as a child but was too afraid to ask for.

A year and a half of quiet, hopeless love. A year and a half of trying to get closer and crashing against a cold wall of indifference. And now, at the end of his strength, Fumito decides to take a desperate step. He sits down on the steps of the closed bakery with a backpack on his shoulders and starts to cry. His plan is simple and insane: to say he has been kicked out of the house, and to hope that the man he loves will invite him to stay. Because when you love this deeply, other methods no longer work.

This is a story about how far a person can go to be noticed by someone who stubbornly refuses to see them. About a family that loves but cannot always protect. And about the fine line between sincerity and manipulation when a broken heart is at stake.

How much sorrow can I take?