The Art of Being: "Fire"
In Literature they're reviewing the tragedies of Shakespeare.
Ryo knows tragedy.
Tragedy is never knowing your mother. It's wondering why your father missed seeing you wind your first soccer game, then coming home to dark suits worn by darker men with the message that he never will see you play.
Tragedy is getting a bunk to yourself because all the other kids are afraid to sleep near the new blue-eyes orphan. Tragedy is an old woman going back to work years after her retirement in order to support a hot-tempered youth. And it's fighting a battle that, by its very nature, you've already lost.
Ryo know tragedy, know the plot and the theme.
That night, after the test and after his grandmother has gone to bed, he tosses his copy of Hamlet into the fire. He'll be the last Fortinbras. As the flames leap higher he swears he'll be the last.