Broken Fragments || ni-ki

Two second-year students. Two broken families. One fateful night.

Opal Amano (20F) has spent her whole life accommodating to circumstance. Between nursing clinicals, the weight of her grandparents' expectations, and the guilt of a divorce she never asked for, she's learned to mute her desires to fulfill others' expectations and needs. Even at the expense of her own happiness.

Riki Nishimura (19M) has found a different way to navigate the crushing expectations and pressures his parents demand from him. By day, he's a business major, meeting the expectations placed on him as the oldest son expected to take over the family business. By night, he disappears into L.A.'s underground scene to live his true passion: dance.

Fate, a beautiful magnet, brings these two together during their most vulnerable time to comfort each other in an unexpected place: a bus stop.

Fate, a cruel puppeteer, converts their sincere connection into a point of manipulation for their families to trap them in everything they've been trying to escape: class, expectations, pressure, and the futures they're supposed to perform.

Now they must decide whether their connection is a means of autonomy and finally choosing their own desires openly, or falling into the web of control and manipulation that both of their families have set forth.

"Broken Fragments" is a slow-burn story about two exhausted souls navigating identity, family pressure, and the iridescent fragments that can either culminate to form a beautiful mural, or blind one's eyes from the truth and form irreparable scars.