“Rivers.

Rivers flow, gently down my cheeks.

A storm has come, washing debris from my shores.

Storms stop, and the mind is cleansed.

But rivers dry.

They leave memories of the garbage that it had “cleansed”. (They were never actually cleansed, only hidden by the water)

They leave memories of their now forgotten paths, ditches in the earth and in my mind.

Where I belong.

Rivers flow, a memory of who I am.

Ditches. Lines, etched into my skin.

Rivers.

Jamie Campbell.”

I sniffled and wiped my nose off my sleeve. It was already crusty with how much snot I’d wiped onto it, but I could clean it easily with my magic.

“I wish I could say the same for my heart,” I muttered to myself.

I might have been able to do it if I wanted to. I was an OP isekai protagonist, and the OP isekai protagonist gets all the girls, right? If only it worked so easily like that.

The pervasive thought that it could work like that entered my mind, but I shook the thought away. The look of raw fear on Lena’s face as she asked whether I was brainwashing her was something I would never want to inflict on another person. I honestly didn’t know if it made me more sad to be rejected, than it did to know that I’d made her feel that way, even if it wasn’t actually true.

But hey.

“Love hurts, but time heals all wounds, right?”

Another sob escaped my lips, as if telling me that it wasn't possible.

I couldn’t help but agree with it.

I had genuinely thought that Lena was the one and, even after she rejected me, I still couldn’t help but feel that me and her were meant to be.

Or was it she and I?

I couldn’t remember. Maybe it would be easier to decide which one was better if I wrote it down.

I was fully aware of the fact that I was only distracting myself, but I welcomed the opportunity with open arms. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a pen or paper, since I never wrote down my poetry, but I had a solution to that.

I raised a finger up in the air.

“Sky write,” I said.

Immediately, I felt that same strange sensation of something welling up inside of me, and expelling itself from the pores on my finger in the form of a luminescent streak of light that remained stationary in the air.

“Me and her,” I dictated as I wrote it out. “She and I.”

I casted the spell as easily as I could breathe. Maybe even easier than that since sometimes, I’d randomly start being super self-conscious of my own breathing and just start breathing manually. Magic didn’t even have that slight hiccup for me. I felt like, if I wanted something to happen, I could just imagine it into existence with no effort involved.

Considering the fact that I seemed to have been isekaied into a pretty low-fantasy setting, where magical fighters could only use their mana for a few minutes before tiring themselves out, I was pretty broken.

I frowned as I remembered how Lena blew up at me for using that word.

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head quickly, as if I could physically jumble up the thoughts in my head if I did it fast enough. “Distractions, distractions. What was I doing again?”

The words, “me and her she and I” floated mockingly in front of my face.

I bit my lip to hold back another sob and quickly swiped my hand over the words, dissipating them instantly.

“Goddammit,” I said.

I tried to stop myself from thinking of her. I’d fallen for the I’m-gay excuse once before, but I was trying to convince myself that this time, it was for real. Lena was nice, the nicest person I’d ever met in my entire life. Surely she wouldn’t lie to me, right?

Or maybe that’s the reason why she would. Maybe she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, and was just trying to spare me from the fact that she wasn’t interested in me. Yet.

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head again, using both of my hands to physically jostle it around. “You can’t go down that road, Jamie. Not again.”

I cringed as my brain replayed the memory of my freshman year of high school, and though I hated remembering it, I forced myself to remember how I’d seen Taylor kissing Tyler after she told me she was gay. I forced myself to remember how I took that as a sign that I had a chance with her, rather than the obvious conclusion I should’ve made, and how badly that had gone for me.

“Even if Lena was lying, which I still think she isn’t,” I harshly reminded myself. “I should respect her boundaries. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. We can still be friends, right? And maybe, just maybe, it can grow into something more-”

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I winced as the pervasive thought wormed its way into my monologue.

“Goddammit.”

When a polite knock sounded out from my door, though I cringed when my first reaction was to imagine that it was Lena, dripping wet, with her clothes hanging heavy on the outline of her body again, I was grateful for the potential distraction.

Anything was better than having to listen to my own thoughts.

“Who is it?” I asked, wincing when I realized how hoarse my voice was from the last few hours of crying on and off.

“It’s Oren, my brother. May I come in?”

Though I had no reason to deny him, I paused. There was a strange lilt in Oren’s voice, and I couldn’t help but imagine a scene from a war movie, where a young wife opens the door to two sombre looking soldiers who are there to deliver the news that her husband has died overseas.

I almost didn’t want to open the door, but I shook off the idea easily. I knew I wasn’t that great with people, on account of not having interacted with them much outside of online chatrooms, so I knew I could just be imagining it. I couldn't deny my best friend for such a dumb reason.

“Come in,” I said, wiping my eyes and nose one last time, and hoping it wasn’t too noticeable.

Oren pushed open the door, just hard enough that it made me question whether he seemed like he was in a hurry, or if he was hesitant to talk.

He looked around, as if there could possibly be anyone else in the room, and closed the door behind him.

I looked up at him from my seated position on the bed, and with a start, realised it would probably be more polite to stand.

Before I could get up, however, Oren held a hand up.

“I think it’s better if you remained sitting for this, my brother,” he said.

I was a bit ashamed to admit to myself that my first thought was that this situation wasn’t nearly as hot as when Lena asked me to get on the bed, given that he was a dude. Thankfully, my hormone-ridden brain recovered fast enough for me to realise what he had just said.

“What? Why?” I asked, realising that he had just said a line that I had heard too many times in movies, and never in a good context. “What happened?”

Oren bit his lip anxiously and looked to the side.

While a small part of me was nervous about how my best friend was acting, I couldn’t find myself in me to take his problem all too seriously. With my love problems still weighing heavily on me, I didn’t think there was any problem that could be much worse.

Even if someone had gotten seriously injured somehow, or died if my initial hunch had been correct, my OP isekai protagonist powers had taken out some of the stakes of this story. Even if one of my friends died, I would be able to bring them back to life with my bullshit powers, so I doubted there was anything Oren could say that would be big enough to distract me from Lena for too long.

Even so, I appreciated any distraction that would come. I gave Oren a weak smile, to try and help encourage him along as he seemed to struggle to find his words.

Oren only frowned in response.

“I’m sorry, Jamie,” he said. “You can’t be an adventurer.”

I blinked rapidly a few times, unsure of if I’d heard him correctly.

“What?”

Oren gave me a sad and guilty frown, but one filled with an uncomfortable determination, like a TV detective that had just figured out that his best friend was a corrupt drug lord and had to be put down.

“Jamie,” he said. “I did some research, and it turns out that there is an archaic set of rules around who can be adventurers. Adventurers are supposed to be paragons of justice and honour. No criminal may become an adventurer.”

I blinked a few times. The detective metaphor had been surprisingly accurate. What was Oren talking about? Aside from the fact that what he said about these random rules sounded made up and nonsensical, why was he calling me a criminal?

“What are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely confused.

Oren’s eyes narrowed for a split second, returning to his anxious grimace so fast that I wasn’t sure I’d imagined the brief change in expression or not. He stayed silent, making me wonder if I should clarify what I meant, but right as I was about to speak, Oren sighed and bowed his head.

“Jamie, my brother,” he said, in that endearing Medieval bro-speak of his. “I am sorry, but crimes committed on Earth count too.”

I stared up at him, still confused, but I wasn’t able to deny him this time for some reason. Back at home - no, not home. This was home now. Back on Earth, I hadn’t been a criminal either. I wasn’t a great kid, but I was quiet, never got into trouble, and I wasn’t actively bullied by the kids at school so I never became any teacher's problem, and I certainly hadn’t gotten the attention of the police. At least none on duty.

But I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell Oren that, with the pit in my throat blocking all my words.

Why?

And then I realized why.

His words, as strangely phrased as they were, were too familiar. It had been many years since I’d heard them said out loud, and they were never said in the calm, convincing way that Oren’s words always seemed to convey, but it was as if Steven was standing right in front of me, giving me that cold side-eye of his as he downed another bottle of Coors Lite.

“You murdered someone, didn’t you, Jamie.”

I looked up at Oren, too shocked to remember where I was for a moment. When I finally registered what he said, I quickly slammed my hands against my ears, as if trying to rupture my eardrums would erase the memory of what they heard.

“No,” I said, mumbling at Steven. “No no no no no.”

“I’m sorry, Jamie, but denying it won’t change the truth. You will never become an adventurer.”

“No,” I said, not sure of why Steven had brought that up, but knowing he would only use it to mock me. Had he found my journal? Hadn’t he ripped them all up already?

“Jamie. It’s not healthy to ignore the truth. Admitting it will only make you feel better.”

“Shut up. Shut up!” I screamed.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I froze, not knowing what was happening. I looked up at Oren, wondering where Steven went, before I remembered where I was.

“I am not a murderer!” I shouted, shooting up to a standing position.

There was a resounding crack, as the simple force of my movement snapped the wooden boards of my bed.

Oren stared up at me and gave me a sad smile.

“I think you know what you are, Jamie,” he said.

“No!” I shouted again, lunging forward and grabbing his collar. As I pushed him and held him against the wall, there was a terrible snapping sound as the wooden planks on the wall began to crack under the pressure.

“I didn’t kill her!” I screamed. My lungs felt raw and my watery eyes made it difficult to see Steven clearly, but knowing he could finally hear me was enough. “I was a baby! I never asked to be born, dad! So stop making it my fault!”

Angry tears streamed freely from my eyes, obscuring my vision, but not enough to miss the grimace on Steven’s face.

“Never… Adventurer…”

I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Too much blood was pumping, and my heartbeat was pounding too loudly to hear much else. But I could tell that Steven wasn’t listening. He never listened.

But right now? I could make him listen.

I felt my grip tighten around his collar and the planks on the wall snapped some more. They kept snapping, and Steven let out a low groan of pain.

“Jamie!”

I didn’t recognize the voice shouting my name. I ignored it. For the first time in my life, I was on the verge of making my dad listen to me.

“Jamie, stop!”

Never.

I heard a few screams, and felt something hit my back that I vaguely registered as being wet and soft. It wasn’t enough to stop me, but when I felt a hand over my own, trying to pry my fingers away from Steven’s collar, I slapped it away.

There was another snap of wood, and a scream.

“Lena!”

I froze. My heart was still pumping, and my hands were still firmly attached to Steven’s collar, but I couldn’t ignore that scream.

I turned around.

My eyes were still watery and dulled with the haze of pent up rage, but I could recognize that shock of blonde anywhere.

“Lena?” I asked.

Lena smiled at me, and waved weakly at me from the floor with the arm that wasn’t bent backwards at an impossible angle.

“Hey,” she squeaked.

Her head fell backwards as she slumped to the floor, unconscious.