December 2021

A man always appears in my sleep—that one dream I dream every ten days or so. He is always there, standing on the jagged cliff overlooking the forest, gazing into the never-ending sunrise. That scene is always the same, save for his expression. One night it might be solemn acceptance, another a joyous and cheeky grin. Yet most often I see a dazed amazement, as he struggles to let go of the contract that once chained him. His life, no longer dictated by the iron law, now floats upon the currents of his whims. It is upon this cliff that a single word finds its way into his mind: freedom.

I tried to become this man. I tried three times.

The first time I tried was when I was six. My family had just moved into a house for the first time in my life. I thought it was not much different from the apartment we used to live in…except for the yard. In our front yard sat the biggest tree I had ever seen, overshadowing even the formidable maple of the neighbouring lot. Its long, winding limbs tantalized me. I thought I would be able to see the entire world while nestled in its branches. That cliff top view I had seen countless times; would I be able to see it for myself? And so I resolved to climb that tree. But my mother quickly deciphered the meaning behind her son’s strange behavior—and tore both my body and dreams down from its branches. I have not tried to climb the tree since, for I knew my mother would keep me chained to the ground. Yet how could I blame her? What kind of parent…no, adult even, would allow a child to climb so high into the sky, and risk the dangers of being out of their grasp?

The second time came more than six years later. I was on our class’ annual trip to see a play. I never had interest in the play—all I longed for were the pizza and playground time which came after it. And once that time came, I cautiously allowed myself to be the kid I was, despite being dressed all prim and proper in a suit and tie. The playground itself was quite sad though, composed of only a single swing and a single roofed platform with a single slide descending from it. But my mind took note of a path crawling up the playground structure, up to its roof. I thought that it would give me that view. So in tight dress shoes and even tighter pants, I began my way to the top. Upon reaching the bottommost platform, I gazed up. The roof seemed to have moved further into the sky. And again it moved as I climbed to the second platform. Only once I reached the final platform did it seem to be within reach.

Up to the roof I went—just to be disappointed with a view of a few trees and a bus; the peak was not as high as I had imagined. But it was high enough that the teachers promptly noticed me and commanded my descent. I never returned to that playground—for I graduated that same year. My dream of that forest view, I thought, slowly was drifting away. After all, if adults discouraged me from climbing a structure as short as that playground, how could I ever climb something tall enough?

The third and final time came at the age of sixteen. Family friends whom I had not seen for some time had persuaded me to join them in an “excursion.” They told me I had never truly had my blood pumping, never truly lived. I still don’t know if they were right. But they led me by moonlight, through a back alley to the school three blocks away. I had heard of that school as not much more than a glorified daycare, and its size and lack of maintenance affirmed those rumors. The shadows before me danced their way to the side of the school. A conveniently placed fence and ledge offered a path to the roof, like the one from four years prior. But this time it was different. The roof of a school versus the roof of a playground…one was for goofy and reckless kids, the other for more unsavory individuals. Even still I felt my body take control and climb. Up the fence and onto the ledge I went.

With that first leg up onto the roof I felt something—but I knew not what it was. It startled me, but my limbs did not falter.

As I stood warily, the pathway—littered with basketballs and soccer balls—beckoned me forwards. I thought of the dreams their owners must have had. Out of pity for my own dreams, I returned them to the ground where they belonged. I do not know if they ever returned to their owners.

The figures ahead beckoned me further along. A ladder brought us to a higher part of the school. I kept my expectations low, for the roof seemed slightly higher than the tree I had once tried to climb, and it was surrounded by the same scenery as the park. But I made my way to the roof’s edge regardless. There was a curious tension within me—one side of me hoping I would meander forward, and the other tugging me back, telling me that doing such a thing was irreversible. In a way, I realized, going to the edge would be a loss of innocence. I would be a kind of exclamation to the world that I refuse to abide by its rules. That part of me, now furiously begging me to back away, was scared of what that might mean.

Yet, in just a flash in time, something pulled me forward. I am still not quite sure what it was; but I know my friends were not around me in that moment. And in the next second I stood at that edge. I couldn’t help but look out. There, I saw a forest in the sparse smattering of trees around houses. There, the peaks of the trees gazed up at me. And it was at that moment that a wave of déjà vu washed over me, and I heard the sound of metal snapping far down below.

The police chased us off that roof not long after. Even still, I could not shake that image from my mind. On top of the world I had stood—and there I had found my freedom, if only for a moment. I have since never went back, nor dreamed of that moment. I cannot allow myself to go back. I peeked into Pandora’s box and came back with my sanity. That alone excited a part of me, but scared the rest.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have always thought of freedom as somewhat of a paradox. In my mind, I always associate it with an old tableau: one of a man on an edge, gazing over the trees below. I can never become this man—and I am content with that fact. For he has broken the bonds society placed on him. He has rejected the life that he was given. I don’t wish to; I cannot. But some nights, when the mind wanders to rest, I wonder where that man might have gone. And I envy his freedom. After all—I once tasted the life he lived.

It was over.

I pressed my hands into my face.

It was over.

A low, shaky sigh escaped my lips, leaving an emptiness in my chest. This must’ve been what it felt like to lose a part of your soul.

It was over.

Would the tears come? I sort of hoped they would. Tears would have filled the hollow silence that I had been plunged into.

Cheap, black earbuds dangled listlessly from my ears. No sound played from them, but I could still hear the echoes of that final, bittersweet note that played as it all faded into black.

No longer would I be able to see the flowing colours.

How long had I been sitting there? The screen had fallen asleep—a cruel reminder that it was but a fictional world, existing only in itself. An unreachable plane of existence. An unattainable dream.

What was I going to do?

Now that it was over…

Now that it was over, I had nothing to live fo—

“I made it to Gold!” My bedroom door was suddenly flung open with so much force that the papers on my desk shifted, and light—the cursed thing!—invaded my dark and cozy room like cancer. Silhouetted against the hallway, it was none other than my older sister.

“Dammit Erin, I was in the middle of a very emotional moment!”

It seemed the world wouldn’t even allow me a moment to mourn the loss of Lelouch vi Britannia, the villain, the martyr, the bringer of peace. The world might have reviled you, but you would always have a place in—

Erin glanced at my laptop. “Code Geass again? You’ve already seen it like, ten times.”

“I needed a break from my shoujo anime marathon. They were all starting to blend together.”

“That’s very cool. But you wanna know what’s cooler? I just hit Gold!”

“Can you like, actually study instead of playing League all day?”

“It’s summer break!”

“You don’t have summer break. You have summer school.”

“Well you know what I do have? Friends.”

“I have friends.”

“Uh huh? Let me see your DMs.”

As if on cue, a ba-boop sounded from my phone. I opened up Discord to find a new message from ‘casual hoodie muncher’. I gave Erin the fattest smirk I could fit on my face and let the situation speak for itself.

“Alright, fine,” she begrudgingly conceded. “You’ve got one friend. I thought you didn’t get along with your classmates.”

“I didn’t. I met hoodie muncher in an online forum.”

“Wait—so this is just some random from the internet? How do you know it’s not some forty-year-old living in his mom’s basement?” She grabbed my phone from me and began scrolling through our messages.

“We’ve been chatting for like, three months. I’m pretty sure he’s around my age.”

“Huh.” Her eyes widened slightly, and a strange look took to her face.

“What is it?” I looked over her shoulder, but there was nothing particularly strange about our message history.

“Do you know what they look like?”

“No…” I had never thought about it. “Why?”

“What about their voice?”

“His mic doesn’t work.”

“Real name?”

“Well, um, the topic never came up...I guess?”

"Is this person really your friend?"

"I know his top three anime," I offered, starting to feel embarrassed, which was dumb, because I knew all sorts of things about hoodie muncher. Real friendship didn't need superficial things like names. “Psycho-Pass season 1, Bungou Stray Dogs, and Madoka Magica.”

“Yep, that pretty much confirms it.”

“Online friends are equally as valid as IRL friends! In fact, I would argue that online relationships are more genuine. Due to anonymity, more relationships are formed on the basis of personality rather than gender, race, or appearance!”

“True. Case-in-point, you still haven’t realized that ‘casual hoodie muncher’ is a girl.”

“Huh?”

And thus began my metamorphosis from Lvl. 1 Weeb to Lvl. 100 Rom-Com Anime Protagonist.

...

This is probably where the OP would kick in.

After Erin left, presumably to grind more League, I visited the popular anime forum, Animusings.

Well, ‘popular’ might’ve been a bit of an overstatement. There were only around thirty or so active members.

But I actually preferred it this way. Our discussions on anime often felt a lot more intimate, and I wouldn’t even hesitate to say that the friends I made on Animusings were better friends than those I made in real life. Hoodie muncher was but one of them.

It was run by one of the biggest blogs in the ani-blogging community—which was a pretty underground community to be a part of. So naturally, I was quite surprised when the top post was made only two hours ago, yet it had received well over a hundred upvotes.

I clicked onto the post to find an anime girl smiling mischievously at me through my laptop screen. She was laid on her stomach across a white bed, clad in a long, dark blue camisole and black shorts. Her legs were playfully bent into the air and the side of her face was gently laid on top of her arms.

Well, it’s only natural that something like this would attract lots of attention. In fact, it was this sudden burst of activity on the forum that prompted hoodie muncher to message me earlier:

The forums have been raided by a wave of degenerates :weary:

I typed back:

Bro they’re like monkeys XD

But just as I was about to hit enter, I recalled Erin’s words—she had claimed that hoodie muncher was a girl.

At first, I was skeptical. “There’s no way.”

Erin pointed to hoodie muncher’s profile picture. “First of all—her profile picture is Dazai. She’s part of the ninety-nine percent of girls that simp for him.”

“That’s hardly concrete proof.”

“She probably hated Psycho-Pass season 2 because Kogami wasn’t in it.”

“Bruh.”

“I’ll bet she likes Banana Fish.”

“Doubt it. They said Yuri on Ice was cringe.”

“Of course she did. You can tell she’s in her edgy phase. Probably thinks she’s very quirky. I’ll bet she likes Kaneki too.”

Hoodie muncher was, in fact, a pretty big fan of Tokyo Ghoul. And suddenly, I found myself unsure of how I should interact with hoodie muncher. Which was dumb, because there was logically no reason for me to be unsure of anything. Our friendship would be the same as it had always been. I sent the message I had typed, sent the dumb thoughts out my head, and returned my attention to the anime girl on my screen.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the kind of stuff I was interested in—I was more of a discussion and analysis kind of guy. You know, the kind of guy who would type a thousand-word essay trashing on Demon Slayer and adjust his glasses upon finishing it. So yeah, you could say that I was above such posts that targeted the average teenage boy.

…

Well, it was a very well drawn scene. The artist paid a lot of attention to the girl’s features. And the background too. Slivers of morning light illuminated the small, neat bookshelf holding an interesting myriad of manga and English literature. The bedding was a mature gray-blue and neatly made, wrinkling only where it dipped beneath her body.

My eyes trailed back to her face, and I took in her dark blue eyes, her dark locks tucked behind her ear, her pale neck and shoulders…

So as I was saying, I wasn’t really interested in this kind of stuff. I accidentally right-clicked on the picture and downloaded it to my ‘Homework’ folder. Whoops. I'll delete it later.

Scrolling down, I found that the art managed to spawn multiple conversation threads. I managed to find a comment from the artist, by the username humu_humu.

butayarouWu

The detail on those feet !!!! (OwO) I see u are fellow man of culture.

What anime is she from?

humu_humu

@butayarouWu ty lol. she’s not from an anime. she’s basically an OC, tho I kinda used one of my friends as a model—she’s even prettier irl ;alksdjfa;fjq;

Pfft. There was no way anyone could look this pretty in real life. Anime was the pinnacle of perfection, after all. Transforming the model into an anime girl no doubt amplified her beauty sevenfold!

I upvoted the post and shut my laptop, just as Mom’s voice came from below, telling me to go to sleep. And go to sleep I did—peacefully, blissfully, ignorant of the tumultuous romantic comedy that would unfold in my first year of high school.