Hiro’s eyes slowly opened, heavy as if carrying the weight of his entire body.
A long sigh escaped—something between laziness and frustration. He was a high school student with an anti‑social nature, living a simple and monotonous life: sleep, eat, and… sleep again. Dreaming was his only escape from the choking loneliness.
“Ahhh… sleeping feels so good. Makes me want to go back to sleep,” he mumbled, stretching his thin body across the bed. Morning light slowly crept through the window, but to him, it only disturbed the peace he found in his dreams.
He sat at the edge of his bed, staring at the messy floor—books scattered, clothes piled up, and a dead alarm clock he never bothered to set. To Hiro, all of it was just meaningless background noise. In his head, the dream world was far more comforting—there, someone existed. Someone who made him feel safe and warm, something he had never felt in real life.
The day began as usual: a quick meal, glancing through a few textbooks, and waiting for the time to sleep again. But somehow, today felt strange. Something was different, like a shadow moving at the edge of his vision—something familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“I think I’d rather stay home and do homework than go to school,” Hiro muttered, pulling the blanket tighter. He hadn’t gone out in a long time, not because he was busy—but because he hated the outside view: the crowds, the noise, and everything that made him uneasy.
His eyes drifted toward the window. Morning light pierced through the thin curtain, illuminating the quiet street outside—but it still felt intrusive.
“Ah… there’s nothing interesting out there,” he thought.
With sluggish steps, he walked toward the PC in the corner of his room. The desk was cluttered with leftover snacks and unwashed bottles. He turned on the computer, hearing the hum of the fan and the flicker of the screen—signaling the start of today’s “escape.” Hiro opened his favorite game, a virtual world far more comfortable than reality. Here, he could move freely, interact without effort, and—most importantly—avoid dealing with people.
His thin fingers danced over the keyboard, eyes focused on the screen, while his mind occasionally drifted back to last night’s dream. The woman was still there, smiling, waiting. Sometimes Hiro wondered which world he truly belonged to—the real one, or the one inside his head.
Hiro opened the Wassup app on his phone, used by his small online community. His fingers typed quickly, tapping the screen in a rhythm only he knew.
“Hey… I dreamed about that woman again,” he wrote.
Hiro had an online circle of other anti‑social people he met on the internet. They shared strange experiences, loneliness, or random jokes about real life and dreams alike.
“Whoa… you’re lucky to dream about the same thing twice,” one of his friends replied, followed by a wide‑grinning emoji.
Hiro smiled faintly as he read the message. Something about it warmed his heart, even if just a little.
“Well… if that girl were real, I’d go to the mall in a clown costume,” he typed back, adding a laughing emoji.
He chuckled softly to himself. Only here, in the virtual world, could he express himself fully—without fear of being judged, without needing to go outside, without facing the world that always felt so suffocating.
A month passed.
Hiro’s days became filled with a simple routine: waking up, eating, gaming, and—most of all—sleeping to enter his dream again. Every night, he longed for that woman’s presence, feeling more at peace in that warm dream world than in cold reality. He started neglecting his homework, schoolwork, and even his online friends.
His friends on Wassup began to notice the change.
“Hiro… you’re still alive in the real world, right?” one of them joked, half‑concerned.
Hiro just smiled faintly, too absorbed in his dreams to take it seriously.
But one night, the dream didn’t come.
The world that used to comfort him was now empty—silent. The woman’s face was gone, her smile vanished, and the once‑warm room felt cold and unfamiliar.
Hiro woke with his heart pounding. Panic surged through him, as if all the comfort he had built over a month had shattered in an instant. His hands trembled, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, trying to understand: Why did the dream disappear?
For the first time in a month, Hiro felt truly alone.
The real world, once merely dull and irritating, now felt cruel and heavy. Panic, unease, and loss blended together, leaving him longing for the world that was now just a memory.
Weeks passed. Without the woman in his dreams, Hiro wandered aimlessly through each day. His meals turned into instant noodles piling up in the corner—some still sealed, others hurled against the wall.
“Damn it… why isn’t she there anymore?!” he shouted hoarsely.
The noodle wrapper hit the wall, leaving a faint stain.
From that day on, sleep no longer comforted him. Every time he closed his eyes, he found nothing but darkness and a faint humming in his head.
He began to stare blankly at the PC screen, fingers resting motionless on the keyboard.
“I’m tired…” he whispered weakly, his voice nearly swallowed by the air.
He sat on the floor, back against the cold wall. His eyes fixed on the door, as if waiting for something—or someone—to appear.
“I don’t even know why I’m still here,” he muttered again.
He covered his face with both hands, feeling the subtle tremor in his fingers.
“...maybe she’s really gone?”
“I’m tired of this life. I have no one I love, living off my parents’ pension… maybe it’s better to just end this. Where’s that rope…” he murmured, glancing toward the door.
Hiro walked toward it with trembling hands.
“Come on… I should see the world once before I disappear,” he whispered, his voice quivering.
He put on a jacket and long pants, covering his entire body—trying to hide himself from the world that always made him anxious.
As the door opened, his chest tightened, cold sweat trickled down his skin. His breathing grew heavy, but he forced himself to stay calm.
“Come on… it’s just a rope,” he told himself quietly.
He opened the map app on his phone and began to walk. Each step felt heavier than the last, every sound of the wind or passing car made his heart race. He managed to buy the rope and hurried home, desperate to return to his dark, safe room.
But then, his steps froze.
At the end of the street, a woman stood, playing the violin calmly. Her blue eyes gazed softly down the road, long hair falling neatly over her shoulders—and that smile, the exact same smile from his dream, never faded.
Hiro’s eyes widened. His body stiffened.
“This… can’t be real…” he whispered to himself.
He never imagined he’d see that figure in the real world.
All his fears, anxieties, and the comfort he found in dreams collided in that single, fragile moment.