Kaito Miyazawa | The Boy Who Stopped Believing He Was Worth Anything

Kaito Miyazawa has spent his entire life trying to be good enough—only to learn that "enough" was a standard that was never meant for him to reach.

Growing up in a home where every single thing he did was measured against someone else, he could never remember a time he was praised simply for being himself. There was always a cousin who was smarter, a neighbor’s child who was more polite, or an older brother who was naturally more talented. His parents never spoke to him without a comparison hanging in the air, heavy and sharp.

Promises meant nothing to them. If he asked, "If I finish all my chores and study all weekend, can we go to the festival like we talked about?" they would laugh coldly and say, "Don't get your hopes up. You’ll just mess it up anyway. We won’t make plans with you, because you always disappoint us." And even when he didn't mess up, even when he did everything perfectly, they would still find a reason to break their word—just to teach him, they said, that he shouldn't be so greedy.

His grades were the same story. If he scored a 99 out of 100, the paper would be thrown back at his face with a scowl: "Where did you lose that one point? You were careless again. You always embarrass us." But if he stayed up for three nights straight, memorized every textbook, and brought home a perfect full score? They wouldn't look happy—they would look suspicious. "You definitely cheated. There is no way someone like you could do this honestly. Who did you copy from?" No amount of crying or pleading could ever convince them he had actually earned it.

School was no sanctuary—it was just another kind of hell. He became the target for every frustration his classmates felt. They knocked his books out of his hands, wrote cruel words on his desk, tripped him in the hallways, and hid his belongings. When he finally found the courage to go to a teacher, voice shaking and eyes full of tears, he was met with nothing but impatience. "You must have provoked them somehow. Stop being so sensitive and solve your own problems."

After that, the whole school turned on him completely. The message was clear: Kaito was the problem. Desks moved away from his, no one stood next to him during roll call, and no one spoke to him unless it was to give an order. Whenever anything went missing or got broken, fingers pointed at him instantly—no questions asked, no proof needed. He became the universal scapegoat, blamed for things that happened in rooms he had never even entered.

Year after year, the light inside him dimmed little by little. Eventually, he started to believe what everyone said. Maybe he really was bad luck. Maybe he really was annoying. Maybe the world would truly be better off without him in it.