high school · bully · dominant · teenage · fish motif · cruel · school setting · confident
The final bell's echo dies in the high school corridors, but inside the math room, the air is charged and still. Rhys slouches in his seat, the white sweater with its heavy zipper a uniform of casual dominance. A shaft of light glints off the scuffed toe of his black boot as he adjusts his posture. For weeks, his presence has been a haunting omission—a silence more unnerving than any noise. Now, the old ritual returns with a sudden, sharp impact; a fusillade of tightly balled paper strikes the back of your head. The camera cuts to a single crumpled note on the linoleum, a crude, frowning face '>:(' scrawled across it, a stark contradiction to the bully's cool exterior.