CHAPTER 3 - The anatomy of Near-Death (Romantic) Experience
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They say the road to love is paved with stolen glances, fluttering hearts, and the perfect meeting of souls beneath a canopy of cherry blossoms.
But not for me.
No, not for someone like me—whose romantic fate feels as though it were penned by a blindfolded Shakespeare on a sugar crash, armed with a quill dipped in irony.
Today began with something dangerously close to hope. That naive, starry-eyed optimism that clings to teenage boys and anime protagonists like glitter to a greeting card. I was glowing. Practically levitating. Radiating that overconfident, delusional thing they call main character energy.
Why?
Because I volunteered to take out the trash.
Yes—trash.
Not out of civic duty or some sudden spark of environmental consciousness. No. This was a mission of the heart. A silent, reckless offering to the universe in exchange for a moment—just one—with her.
Let's call her Her for now. Because saying her name aloud would feel like whispering a prayer too sacred for my lips—something delicate and divine that I'm not yet worthy to speak.
And there she was. Right beside me. Hand on the opposite end of the trash bag, oblivious to the way the world tilted beneath my feet.
And then…
Our fingers brushed.
It was barely a touch—light as air, fleeting as a heartbeat. But in that instant, time folded in on itself. The noise of the hallway disappeared. My pulse roared in my ears like a crashing tide, drowning out everything but the thunder in my chest.
It was electric. Innocent. Terrifying.
For that single, precious moment, I wasn't just a boy holding a trash bag. I was the hero of my own story, caught in a scene that felt like it had been torn straight from a romance film. The world slowed, and all I could see was her.
The soft curve of her lips. The warmth in her eyes. The accidental intimacy of skin meeting skin, even if only for a second.
And in that second, I saw it all.
Our future. The unspoken confessions. The laughter, the late-night walks, the quiet understanding only soulmates share.
Spoiler alert: it was beautiful.
Spoiler alert: it wasn't real.
But for a hopeless dreamer like me?
It was everything.
Cue the romantic piano music swelling in the background. Cue the cherry blossoms fluttering through the air—despite the total absence of trees. Cue a fantasy where she and I got married, adopted a cat named Mochi, and argued lovingly over which restaurant to order from on Friday nights.
And then... she spoke.
"Can you not touch it so much? It's leaking. Gross."
That was it.
The words that struck like a dagger, right to the center of my hopelessly romantic, shoujo-saturated heart. The climax of my delusional love story. A death sentence delivered in the most casual tone imaginable.
My imaginary castle—built on stolen glances, accidental hand brushes, and borrowed pencils—crumbled in a single breath. A Jenga tower toppled by the careless flick of fate.
She didn't even glance my way afterward.
Just turned. Walked. Left.
I returned to class not so much alone as… emotionally hollowed out. It wasn't loneliness I carried with me—it was something heavier. Something colder.
It was rejection.
The cruel kind, the quiet kind—the one that doesn't come with closure or kindness. The kind that leaves a pit in your stomach and a question mark in your soul.
Her seat was empty. Her bag, gone. Her presence, erased as if she'd been nothing more than a fleeting dream.
And me?
I slumped in my chair like a soggy biscuit abandoned in lukewarm tea—melting, shapeless, tragic. One hand clutched my chest in theatrical agony, the other raised skyward as if pleading with the universe.
Why? Why did love taste like this?
Bitter. Brief. Beautiful.
And utterly, irrevocably doomed.
"Why, cruel world? Why must thou mock me so?"
The janitor paused by the doorway, broom in hand, raising an eyebrow at the sight of me slumped across my desk like a Shakespearean tragedy come to life.
"You good, kid?"
I lifted my head, eyes clouded with existential defeat. "Only as good as Hamlet in Act V, Scene 2," I murmured, my voice tinged with sorrow and a flair for the theatrical.
He blinked twice. Then walked away.
Rude. But fair.
With the weight of a thousand broken daydreams pressing down on me, I rose. Every step felt like wading through molasses—slow, heavy, emotionally unnecessary. The hallway stretched endlessly before me, a corridor of doom. Students moved at a normal pace, laughing, chatting, existing.
But I?
I was in anime slow motion. The camera panned dramatically. My footsteps echoed like a forgotten war drum. Somewhere, an invisible orchestra played a solo violin, mourning the tragic fall of a boy who never even got to fall in love properly.
Outside, the world had the audacity to carry on.
Birds chirped without remorse. Couples giggled with cruel joy. A dog barked at a butterfly with unbothered enthusiasm.
The nerve.
I took the long way home—the unnecessarily poetic path, the one that screamed "melancholy protagonist energy." Trees swayed as if sighing with me. Leaves drifted down like discarded hopes.
Every shadow whispered the same mocking refrain: You got rejected… without even confessing.
I exhaled deeply, one hand in my pocket, the other raised toward the heavens like a man demanding divine answers.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of emotional despair," I intoned solemnly, "I shall fear no heartbreak, for the gods of romance have already forsaken me."
Then… like a final, poetic punch to the gut from Cupid himself… someone behind me said it.
"I love you."
Pause.
Freeze frame.
Heart: Wait… what?
My spine snapped straight like I'd been hit with divine lightning. My palms went clammy. My soul briefly ascended to the heavens—only to plummet back down like a paper airplane hurled by fate itself.
"I love you."
Again. Softer this time. But real.
I didn't turn around.
Not yet.
Because if I turned and saw it was a joke, a prank, or worse—a misunderstanding—I would evaporate on the spot. Disintegrate into pure emotional mist. Become the cautionary tale whispered around lockers:
The Boy Who Believed.
So I stood there. Glitched. Frozen like an NPC in a dating sim who just triggered the true ending route by accident.
My thoughts? Chaos.
Thought 1: Is this a joke? Is there a hidden camera? Am I on some secret show?
Thought 2: Is this a ghost? Did I die without knowing it? Is this love… from the afterlife?
Thought 3: Dear anime gods, if you're listening—please let this be real. I have sacrificed all my dignity for this moment. I beg you.
I glanced down at the ground, praying it would offer divine insight.
It didn't. Useless ground.
Suddenly, my brain decided now was the perfect time to launch a highlight reel of every interaction I'd ever had with a girl.
That one classmate who said, "Thanks for passing the worksheet." Did she mean something more?
That other girl who waved last week. Was it directed at me? Or the guy behind me? I never checked.
And then… there was Her.
No. It couldn't be Her.
Or could it?
My heart entered hyperdrive. My internal monologue spiraled into courtroom drama territory.
"Turn around!"
"No, you fool! What if it's a prank?"
"But what if it's real?!"
"What if it's… your mom?!"
...
Silence.
Slowly—agonizingly—I began to turn. Like a scene out of a high-budget period drama. The wind blew. Leaves scattered. My hair fluttered like the studio finally got the animation budget it deserved.
I envisioned Her. Standing there. School bag clutched, cheeks tinged pink. The perfect romcom heroine after twelve episodes of unresolved tension.
But it wasn't Her.
It was someone else entirely.
System Error.
My internal software crashed. Brain.exe stopped responding. Emotions failed to load. The scene glitched.
What… what plot twist was this?
And then she spoke again:
"I really do love you. I've been trying to say it all year. I was too scared. But today… you looked so sad, and I couldn't hold it in anymore."
I opened my mouth to say something—anything.
What came out was: "Nice weather today."
Kill me.
Just kill me now.
Her brow furrowed. I panicked.
"I mean—uh—the clouds! They're nice. Soft. Like your voice! Cloud-like! In a… good way?"
Shut up, brain. I beg you.
I let out a laugh. The worst kind—the awkward, broken laugh of a socially malfunctioning teenage boy mid-heartquake.
But then…
She giggled.
Giggled.
Was it a good sign? Or was she laughing because she just realized she'd confessed to the emotionally unstable poetry club reject?
"So… can we talk?" she asked, a little quieter. "Properly? Maybe… walk home together?"
My brain was still rebooting. My mouth tried to comply.
I opened it—
—and sneezed.
Loud. Violent. Possibly apocalyptic.
She flinched. My soul flung itself off a cliff.
"S-sorry!" I gasped. "Allergies. Romantic tension. Pollen. Probably destiny."
She laughed harder.
And that laugh…
It melted something inside me. Like a warm drink on a cold day. Like someone pulling you into a hug when you didn't know how badly you needed one.
I smiled. A real one. Small. But real.
For the first time all day, I felt… seen.
Maybe this wasn't some cosmic prank. Maybe it wasn't another cruel joke from the universe. Maybe, just maybe…
"I love you."
She said it one more time. And this time, it didn't sound like hesitation. It sounded like hope. Like courage. Like something she'd practiced a hundred times but only now found the strength to say out loud.
And in that moment, for the first time, I didn't feel like a side character in someone else's story.
I felt like the lead.
I turned to face her fully…
And then:
BLACK.
Cue the ending theme.
Cue the stylized To Be Continued… scrolling across the screen.
Cue me, screaming internally into the endless void of teenage romance.