It started from that day.

I was born into a high-achieving, prestigious family and had been oppressed by academic pressure since elementary school, and as a young kid, I hated it. The day I skipped my academy classes, prepared for the world to end. Ignoring the constant notifications, I walked through the amusement park with a mix of anxiety and fear, and my eyes met a girl my age who was skipping stones alone. It started with a strange attraction that led us to talk.

As if entranced, I stood by her side, staring at the stones skipping across the water and pouring my heart out. The words I heard then were nothing short of shocking to my young self.

"If you don't want to do it, why do it? You're the one living your life, not a proxy."

With that one sentence, it felt like all the noise in the world stopped. That sensation of a stone skipping across the surface of the water and hitting me right in the head, instead of the water.

Shocked, I parted ways after that brief meeting and spent days ruminating on the words of that nameless girl. Even while getting scolded severely by my parents at home, I had a hard time because I couldn't forget that moment.

Still, reality didn't change. I was a being tied to my parents anyway. That meeting repeatedly floated in my brain like an illusion, and then I was on my way to the academy as usual.

Ah, coincidence is so cruel. Did you think I could forget your face after ruminating on that situation for days? Seeing that girl entering an art academy building, I was entranced and threw a tantrum for the first time, asking my parents to send me to an art academy. I got scolded to death. But there was no way I could give up. I was curious—what kind of world do you see? I was impulsively seized by the thought of what kind of paintings you would draw.

My parents were surprised too—that the boy who had been so obedient was throwing a fit over art, something he had no interest in. No parent can beat their child, Well, my parents probably sent me there more as a form of reprieve.

You don't know that from that moment on, my only standard was you.

And you were always like someone leaving footprints on pure, unmarked snow the day after it falls. The first step of my life was always you. Do you even know that I've come this far just because of that one casual compliment you dropped about my drawing at our next meeting?