I wasn’t usually one to worry, but she really wasn’t coming, was she?

‘Did something happen?’

It was already midnight judging from the lack of light. The mist hid the moon well.

I closed the book that kept me company the entire day. While learning more about that fictional world, it had little to do with the world I was in. If I were to think of a point for all of it, it was to maintain my sanity.

I read books to escape, and even in this fantastical world, I was trying to escape.

The remedy was to get some sun. I knew that, but I didn’t want to do it.

It wasn’t that I was being tired, maybe lazy, but not tired. The hard truth was that I didn’t want to think. I wanted to numb my mind.

And well.

Life was boring.

Was it supposed to be?

Sure, a book or two would entertain me, but those were only distractions. Much like wars, it was something that lost you in the moment. Maybe you’d learn something. Maybe not. Hopefully.

I was no protagonist. The things that happened did not center around me just like how the universe did not revolve around me. As much as I would like for there to be a plot, I knew it would never happen if I sat on my ass reading an irrelevant book all day.

I wasn’t a solipsist.

I was aware of my own stubbornness as well as my idiocy.

Yet, I still craved validation from some higher being. I sought a thrill that would never come if I stayed put. Whether it was a god or some beggar on the street, they were both the same to me. I just wanted something interesting. But interesting phenomena do not chase dull people.

Nothing would change that truth.

In my sixty years of living, that was what I came to realize. Only those who chased the stars had a spotlight.

After all, passionate people were slaves to their craft.

As for me, I have no master. No insurance. No demon. Nothing I could dedicate my life to.

Books? It wasn’t a passion, it was a necessity.

Martial arts? It was a routine.

To a drug addict, drugs are not a passion. The things I did were addictions, not hobbies.

And as much as I wanted to be like everyone else, I was completely fine with not being like anyone else. The reason?

‘I don’t care enough.’

That was the simple answer.

As for why that was… Well…

As much as I would like to think I was a fighting genius, I did not have the talent.

All I did was train, practice, and experience the pain inflicted unto my body.

Anyone could do it. Anyone.

But no one ever achieved the same level as me when all they needed was to try.

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Pluck a stranger off the streets and they would have more motive than me to become strong. But they give up for some reason. It was a disservice to themselves, yet, their smiles were not of disappointment or regret. And here I am slaving away at combat day-in and day-out.

I live day-by-day with no anticipation for the next. I do what I do for no reason I could think of other than routine.

‘Maybe I’m doing it wrong.’

I wasn’t a blank canvas like everyone else who changed colors with the swipe of a brush. All because I didn’t paint my emotions like them—ignore that slip, there was no point to my unintelligible frustration.

But the people who tell me what I am have never understood what their labels meant.

In the DSM-7, shorthand for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, I was not considered a psychopath or a sociopath—meaning I was not included in the definition of antisocial personality disorder. I was also not afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder despite my blatant narcissism. If the handbook was correct, I knew exactly what I was, but I didn’t like being treated as a rarity nor regarded as a genius. I simply perform things that people give up on to a ridiculous extent.

So what am I?

As much as I wanted to proclaim, “Hell if I care!” that wasn’t how it worked. This was a question that would return as a plague in my everyday thoughts. So I came with answers beforehand.

I knew I was narcissistic. I knew because I surpassed my imposter syndrome decades ago.

It was exactly because I was narcissistic that I prided myself in being able to recognize my own shortcomings. I hated such a paradoxical reassurance.

But it wasn't paradoxical at all. It was merely everyone else who was wrong.

Any characteristic when coupled with stupidity was abhorrently obvious. This was where most people’s misconceptions came from. Good narcissists were able to hide it till the end.

I was also emotionally prone to mood swings.

Even if the muscles of my face did not move an inch, that didn’t mean I wasn’t angry, sad, or happy.

Even if the solution to being treated normally like everyone else was to show my emotions: embarrassment, fear, thoughts—I didn’t want to. Acting human and being human was different. I don’t want either.

Even if sociopaths were considered human, I don’t think I was. I could be sociopathic, definitely—but adapting that trait and being that trait was different too.

‘I’m a hypocrite too.’

He who fights monsters does not become a monster. “He,” has simply changed to survive in his environment. It was hard to change the fundamental essence that existed within every person.

But my question wasn’t if my essence existed, it was “What the hell is it?”

Was I demonic, bad, evil, Nazi? Where were my moral standards?

I cared more about not stepping on dog shit than I did the genocide of all puppies in the world.

At the end of the day, did it matter? I wonder…

Probably not. My opinion doesn’t matter. People say that to scout out yes-men to serve their cause. It wasn’t hard to draw parallels between a certain figure from World War II.

There were many arguments to counter such logical inconsistencies—after all, humans aren’t good at logic. Logic is only sound when you are talking to a wall.

Isn’t that right?

I was a lunatic because I talked to walls, just like I was doing now. I couldn’t talk to books so I was talking to walls. What the fuck is wrong with me?

In the end, I still don’t know what I was.

At best, I was a god.

At worst, a mere side character in someone’s fictional world.

As much as I liked to joke about it, that was all I could do.

I was a bland person.

‘...’

‘I should have died…’

Knowing that I was brought back to life because of someone I knew rather than some mystical phenomena made me hate this new life.

I wanted to believe, even for one moment, that God exists—and God validated my existence by bringing me back. I wanted that to be the reason I was reincarnated. Even though I didn’t believe in God, I wanted to think some higher being had chosen me for some reason. Any reason.

Perhaps I was chosen to complete some divine task in this fantasy world. Perhaps God saw my life on Earth and decided to grant me a second one. Perhaps… It could have been anything. Anything would have given me hope.

But it turned out to be Benni who brought me into this world—a person I only knew throughout my childhood life. I’ve lived forty years of life thinking he fucked himself over and jumped into the River Styx. So what the hell was the point? If the immortal question of life and death was circumvented so easily, what use was living? Who’s to say I can’t die and be reincarnated the next morning? Where was the value of living multiple lives?

‘Fuck…’

So maybe, maybe I should stop narrating my thoughts as if my life were a story.

Because it wasn’t. Not an interesting one at least.