"Five more days! Five more days! I can't wait till the newest manga drops. I'm buying everything! "
That's me, Isamu Saito. I'm seventeen years old, a total loser, and I know it. Not popular, no friends to speak of, and everyone avoids me like the plague. But honestly, I don't mind. I've learned to appreciate the solitude I get in my own peaceful little pocket of misery.Or… so I thought.
Today started like any other day. Walking home from school, taking the same cracked sidewalk I always do. No bike, no car, just me and my scuffed sneakers carrying me through this hellhole of a city. Most days, my mind is on cruise control—zoned out, dreaming about manga, anything to get through the monotony. But today felt different. Heavier. It was one of those days where everything hits you all at once—where you don't just know you've got a shitty life, you feel it. Like a deep, gnawing regret, the kind people probably experience right before they die. You know, that flickering memory reel you hear about? I almost couldn't shake the thought.I guess there's not much to replay anyway.
My life's as dull as it gets. Parents are gone—they died of some chronic disease years ago. My grades are better than most, but beyond that? I'm just going through the motions. Living alone, barely staying afloat. No excitement. No spark.On the way home, I muttered under my breath, "I wish everything could just... change." I wasn't being dramatic; I just meant it, you know? I felt drained, hopeless, like something in the universe should finally throw me a damn bone.
When I stepped into my small apartment, that 'wrong' feeling hit harder. My chest felt tight, cold. The silence inside wasn't normal—it was suffocating. My breath caught as I froze in place. For a second, I truly believed... no, knew I was standing face to face with Death itself. But when I turned around to see the source of the suffocating energy, there was nothing."Hah," I laughed nervously to myself. "Losing it, huh?"I shook it off, chalking it up to stress, and went about my normal routine. Dinner. Bed. Pretending my life wasn't a spiraling void of nothingness. Except tonight, it felt different again—the kind of different that weighs heavily on your limbs, as if gravity itself decided to play tricks on you.I drifted off to sleep in a haze of despair and exhaustion, muttering the same thing I always do: "I despise this world."