Chapter 29 – Side Story

“Haaa”, A long sight escaped his lips as he let himself sink into his chair. After yet another unending day at work, he was more tired than he should, much of that was his unhappy life and dissatisfaction with his current situation.

To this day, the only source of happiness and satisfaction were stories, without those he would have broke under the harshness of a world he didn’t fit in.

When did it start, he didn’t remember, maybe it was when he, together with his parents, relocated to another country in search of a better life, leaving behind his friends, his country that he knew how to live in and he left the girl he liked, he was happy at first, but did things turn out better?

Not for him, under the bad ability of his parents at parenting and managing money, he had to go to school without many of the required supplies needed and with a very shallow knowledge of the language, for half of his year of school he was without books or other tools needed for certain activities. He was too young to understand how his classmates started seeing him, the poor kid, the stranger, the one without friends, the kid who they had to share their things with.

Did they think he felt nothing having to ask his classmates to share? He slowly started to feel inferior to them, after all, he didn’t have what they had, he had to lower himself and ask them to share.

No one was willing to add him to their circles.

He had no friends. How could he make friends? He couldn’t go on school trips because of money; he couldn’t go outside and play with his friends because he didn’t have anything to connect with them. They had the most recent games, they had guitars and they had what he didn’t. The only thing he had was a computer, his most trusted and loyal friend. It didn’t judge him, and it didn’t speak behind his back, it became his best friend.

Then things turned from bad to worse.

From a good student, he started to fall behind, when his parents bought what he needed it was already too late to catch up with his classmates, he also became the kid with bad grades. Without knowing, the sense of inferiority within himself was being cultivated, he no longer tried to talk with them, he no longer liked the company of people and he no longer liked to go outside. His only company was his computer and his own thoughts.

People may say that his parents did their best, they just didn’t have money. His parent’s second car would disagree, as would his father newest touchscreen stereo and expensive smokes.

But he didn’t think of that, he didn’t connect his parent’s new things with his absence of supplies. He had to go to school with 1$ for food, it was enough as the food at school was cheap and he didn’t ask for more, he never asked anything. Maybe he should have, but he didn’t want to make trouble for his parents.

That was his whole school life, he slowly fell behind then he failed a year, then he failed another, then another.

He no longer was able to function as a normal person, he no longer spoke with people, he didn’t need friends, or that was the conclusion he reached with his immaturity and inexperience. Later he would have to pay.

What followed was also bad, but he would understand all this only when he was much older.

His love for computers became a necessity in suppressing his loneliness, he was dependent on it to reach the illusion of happiness, he could even had reached the point where it would have become a way to improve his future, but he got no support from his parents but only blame for failing years and wasting their money, he couldn’t refute them because in his mind they were right, he believed so.

His parents also weren’t evil, they just didn’t know better, they grew up in a poor country influenced by their parents and their old and bad customs and poor education.

So, he also couldn’t accomplish anything in the field of computers, he was without guidance, without support or understanding, and most importantly, his foundation was destroyed in the school where it should have been built.

What could the future of such a boy hold? Sadly, what awaited his was an even worse future.

His parents lost their jobs in the same month, what an unfortunate kid he was.

From worse to even worse, from a two storied apartment with two bathrooms and much space, to live in a single room with his parents, in the house of a friend of his family. The same day they moved to that room, his father let their cat outside, and it never came back.

When you think his sense of inferiority couldn’t become worse... But he at least had his loved computer.

He only had it for a week or so, shortly after that it broke.

Now he was in a room with his parents, no computer, no friends on internet.

But his father did take his computer to get fixed with the little money they had, the boy was moved by that, his computer would come back.

Half a year passed; he couldn’t go to school as they had too little money but after half a year their situation got a bit better, so he was sent to school.

With no books, only a notebook and a pen, half a year after the school year began.

After one year they moved to a cheap and small apartment, if it could be called that, his parents had to go for a week to make the place livable.

At least now he had his own room, too bad it couldn’t stop the cold from entering, even to this day he couldn’t understand how the cold entered through the closed window.

Half a year passed, lucky for him his classroom had only boys as he wasn’t able to communicate with girls anymore, he would always feel like he was too inferior to dare speak with them, he was nothing good for them.

At least he did make a friend, who like him, came from another country.

The two years spent in that ‘school’ were better, there were bullies but he wasn’t afraid of them, he wasn’t afraid to fight back, so he did, then no one bothered him anymore.

He passed the days, mostly alone as he liked it, until one day his parents chose to return to their country.

He returned before he could finish school, he would never finish it anymore, he was too old, and he failed too many years.

At least he did return to his friends, he did meet them when he and his family returned for vacations, but a long separation of nine years will change many things.

His friends changed, many didn’t connect with him anymore, but there were still a few that did, so he experienced a bit of what he lost, friends.

But he was damaged, he spent most of his time closed in his room, but from time to time he did go out with his few friends, he really did have fun for that period, he experienced the happiness that having friends brought.

That continued for two years, then his best friend left for another country himself, it was the one that always came to his room and insisted on him going out, that connected him with the other friends.

Fate really had a strange sense of humor.

Now he didn’t leave his room anymore, but he also started to understand his situation, he couldn’t go on like that, he had to leave, he had to leave his area of comfort and break free.

So, when the opportunity came, he took it, he left alone for another country again, he got a well-paying job and was the owner of his life.

He now had control over his life, he now had his own money, no longer living off his parents.

Despite that, he wasn’t able to connect with people, he was too different from them, he had nothing to talk with them about.

Those years of solitude he was only able to think, he thought about many things, he got to know himself, he understood his damaged self, but even if he knew it, he couldn’t fix it. He couldn’t gather the will to persist in anything, he was a ghost, he wasn’t part of anyone’s life anymore.

He found true solitude, but he also had something dear to him, stories. While reading a story or watching an anime, he would feel what those people felt and what he missed. He would feel happiness when something good happened and sadness when something sad happened, he also felt love when the protagonist felt love, he found something to heal his dying heart.

He found a corner of happiness in the world, and he no longer could let go, he no longer could be without those stories or anime or movies or anything connected to stories for even a day. But at least he was happy.

Even if not his happiness, it was happiness, nonetheless.

Remembering his past, Alexander had a bitter smile, the world wasn’t fair, it wasn’t like in his stories, it was unforgiving. He lost at life before he had a chance to fight. When he understood his situation, it was already too late.

But at least he found his happiness, and who is to say that is false? Maybe those worlds exist somewhere.

While thinking that, Alexander decided to watch one of his favorite anime, One Piece.

Then, when the opening played, darkness fell on him.