Chapter 1 - A Moment Too Late
"He's just misunderstood, man. You have to look at it from his point of view," Ryan said.
"Dude, no matter what you say, it still doesn't make sense," Noah replied, his frustration evident.
The car was moving steadily along the highway, and inside, the two guys were engaged in a heated conversation. Ryan glanced at Noah, who was in the passenger seat, struggling to contain his annoyance.
"If you had gone through what he has, you would be acting the same way."
Noah shot back immediately, exasperated. "He literally has a loving mother and father. He grew up in a caring household and has had friends his whole life. Which part of that is supposed to be traumatic?"
"And he didn't stop there either. ''When he got to the academy, girls threw themselves at him left and right. So, pray tell, dude, how am I supposed to feel bad for a guy who doesn't even care about people when his friends die before his eyes?"
Ryan couldn't respond because he knew Noah was right, but he wasn't about to let him win that easily. He glanced toward the front and cut in front of a car before ending up behind a flatbed truck that was transporting lumber.
"Whatever, man, you read the whole thing anyway, so don't even dare say you didn't like it, you even read the handbook!'' Ryan said indignantly.
"It's ranked number one in the entire world!"
Noah paused for a moment before answering. "It was good, really. I liked the world-building a lot, and the characters were great, especially Veyra. I wish we could've seen more of her, but—"
He turned to Ryan with a deadpan stare. "That doesn't excuse anything. Auren was an asshole through and through, and not the enjoyable kind to read about either."
He sighed and leaned back in his seat.
"I mean, sure, righteous protagonists are good and all, but they made him into a shitty one. His rigid way of thinking sabotaged most of the missions they went on, and don't even let me get started on his personality."
His tone turned venomous. "Even when his lover died before his very eyes, he cried for like a minute before moving on, leaving her body behind—he didn't even give her a proper burial like a normal human being! And his excuse? 'I have to prioritize the mission; I have to save the world, blah blah blah.'"
He was about to continue until Ryan interrupted him.
"That's why I think he's a good protagonist! He's not emotional and doesn't go into a rage over every little thing like many other main characters. He's caring but efficient, cold yet loving, and his girlfriend knew that. That's why she said, 'Continue without me, my dear,' during her last moments." Ryan said, attempting to preserve whatever little dignity he could muster, which wasn't much to begin with.
"Say that to his three other girlfriends," Noah scoffed, clearly unconvinced by Ryan's argument. "Whatever makes you sleep at night?"
Noah was always like that—cynical and sarcastic—but he was Ryan's only friend, and sadly, he felt stuck with him.
The book they were talking about was Lumen: Rise of the Heroic King. It was first seen as another 'chosen one' novel, where the main character gets chosen despite fate looking down at them, and rises to the top, slapping young masters left and right. But the author proved them wrong, the Main character was just a normal kid, albeit richer than most, and his inner way of thinking brought it lots of readers.
It got famous overnight, just over a week, and it has gotten over 10 million readers. People, from normal factory workers to actual idols and politicians, started reading it. It got so famous to the point that anime has even been made of it, and it has tons of merchandise being sold worldwide.
Ryan had been in love with it for a long while now. He had found it while doomscrolling back in middle school, and had been instantly hooked on the lore the story told. It was like the only thing he was looking forward to, and during dark times, it was an escape for him.
And after ages, literally years of begging Noah to read it, hyping it up every chance he finally got him to read it.
And he was trashing his favorite character in the entire series? His heart bled from frustration; if he had any say in it, he'd throw him out of the car the moment he started his rant. But Ryan, being the good citizen he is, swallowed his grievances and switched topics.
''So how's everything going right now?'' Ryan paused for a second, looking at his friend for a split second before continuing, ''Is your mom doing better?''
If you looked closely at Noah, his face remained stoic and uninterested as it always had been; if any stranger saw it, they would think he didn't really care one bit about his mother.
And they would indeed be right.
Noah sighed as he looked out the passenger window, looking at the passing scenery, ''She's being her usual self, drinking life away and siphoning all the money we have'' Noah said flatly, like it was more of a statement than anything, downplaying it like it was nothing to mention.
But Ryan knew, he knew it was a lot worse than he made it seem to be. Noah himself was an orphan at birth; his mother was an escort at a high district place in the city. And one day she got pregnant by a really important person who was here on a business trip from Asia, and at first she wanted to keep the baby, she wanted to care for it and give the baby a life she never had. But the man himself couldn't accept it, so he promised to pay her $50,000 just so she could get rid of the baby, and she, wanting to escape her escort life, took the deal.
She sold Noah for cash; she didn't even care for him afterwards, she dumped him on the stairs at an orphanage during winter, not even bothering to give him a blanket or anything to keep him warm. He survived by sheer luck, as the head of the orphanage was on his way to the city to buy supplies.
Things went even more downhill from there for him. The orphanage he was left at was beyond horrible, exploiting children to work and abusing them 24/7. He had found out that Noah had even worked days on end without sleep just so he could get any sort of resemblance to food, sometimes even begging on the streets or stealing.
Honestly, Ryan didn't know how he survived for so long, for he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he would never be able to live through shit like that. Noah himself told him how had told him he managed to survive mostly by stealing, becomming so good at it people barely noticed their wallets missing, things only went better when he entered school and met Ryan, though cynical and straight up rude at first due to his upbringing, Ryan still wanted to be friends with him, and he managed to defrost the radical tsundere.
Ryan was lost in thought, and he didn't notice that the truck that was driving down the highway in front of them, the one with timbers, started shaking uncontrollably. The shaking got so bad that one of the ropes holding down the wood snapped, and some timbers fell down from it and were heading towards them at an incredible speed.
''LOOK OUT!''
Ryan had a split second to look in front of him, and whoever said they could see their life flash before their eyes? They sure lied. He didn't see anything but a giant log in front of him. Ryan couldn't do anything but close his eyes and accept his fate. But -
CRASH!
He felt a pair of strong hands push him, and before he could react, the glass window shattered and rain fell all over him. he stomped on the brake while the car screeched to a stop. After a minute of catching his breath, he finally opened his eyes to see what had happened.
The entirety of his windshield was broken, smashed, and turned into dust; even parts of the roof were destroyed, and it looked almost like someone had dug into the sand with a shovel. He was shocked, that was anything but a death sentence, he was sure he would've met god, Buddha, or whatever was up there in the clouds. He turned towards Noah to see how he was, but what he saw made his heart drop. Noah, his best friend, was slumped on the passenger seat.
His whole head is gone.
His hands were passively draped over Ryan's shoulder. It was Noah who pushed him down; it was he who saved him. Ryan felt an indescribable sense of despair.
He killed him; he wasn't paying attention to the road. If he had paid attention, maybe he would've seen the logs way before the accident happened, or he could've just sped past the truck instead of forcing Noah to rate a damn novel.
He could've done anything, but sadly, he was just a moment too late, costing Noah his life.