Dream or Nightmare

"I LOVE YOU."

Yeah. That's the word I heard.

Three words. One sentence. Infinite chaos.

You ever feel like your soul just slapped your brain and yelled, "Bro, wake up, we're in a ROMANCE now!"?

Because that's what it felt like.

Who knew… who actually knew… that a dashing, noble, clearly protagonist-level man such as myself—chiseled like a Greek god (in a dimly lit room, through a funhouse mirror, while squinting)—would hear those magical words from a real, living girl? And not from my imagination this time?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the unthinkable.

The MC got the girl. At the start.

THE START.

Chapter 4 and BOOM! Confession.

Take that, every slow-paced, hand-holding, "we're just friends even though we bathe together" anime! This isn't your usual romcom where the final episode's big climax is a forehead kiss and a maybe-I-like-you whisper.

No, no, no. This is MY story.

And my story decided to speedrun love.

Maybe it's fate. Maybe it's karma. Maybe it's the author having a mental breakdown while watching ten romcoms at 3 a.m.

But one thing's for sure: this ain't normal.

Of course, this would all be a lot more believable if I was, you know, actually handsome. Or cool. Or average.

Let me backtrack a bit.

I said I was handsome earlier. Noble. Charming. The whole hot-boy-next-door package, right?

Yeah. No. Complete and utter fabrication.

In truth? I'm what happens when you mix social anxiety, questionable internet history, and a face that screams "background character #46."

If life were a gacha game, I'd be a C-tier pull with a broken skill tree.

I'm not even the guy girls friendzone. I'm the guy they never notice existed. You ever walk past someone, and they don't even blink? That's me. The invisible man. The anime extra. The guy standing behind the vending machine in the opening credits.

So yeah, when I said I was noble and handsome?

Cap.

And yet… here we are.

A real girl.

A confession.

And not just any girl.

Mikaela. The untouchable goddess of Class 1-A. The perfect mix of brains, beauty, and bozangkas. She had the kind of walk that slowed time and the kind of smile that made the school heartthrobs suddenly rethink their life goals.

Every guy in school either wanted to marry her or build a shrine in her honor.

Me?

I… may or may not have done things last night I now deeply regret.

Yes. I admit. I was in that kind of mood. And yes, her assets may have been involved in my solo imagination episode. Don't judge me! I'm just a man! A desperate, perverted, lonely man!

And now?

Now this goddess is telling me—ME—that she loves me?

What kind of fever dream side quest glitch is this!?

But I digress.

This is it. My moment. My big "hero rises" scene. I can see it now—the camera pans in, slow music starts, cherry blossoms fall dramatically despite it being summer, and my internal monologue plays in the background while I prepare to speak the line that will seal my destiny.

I breathe in. Compose myself.

I turn.

"I love you too… Mikaela Satu—"

My heart soared.

This was the scene. This was the moment. This was the one they'll make a figure out of. The kind of moment people clip and post with sad anime music on TikTok.

I was about to speak the line that would start my journey from loser to legend.

I couldn't see her face just yet, but I could feel it. The aura. The emotion. The butterflies. All leading to—

Wait…

M…

I…

K…

A…

…

E—HUH!??

Record scratch.

"And that's the moment I knew... I seriously fked up."

My face turned redder than a tomato caught in a blender with performance anxiety.

I blinked.

Rubbed my eyes.

Looked again.

Standing before me wasn't Mikaela.

Oh no.

It was her.

Her.

Her.

AKIRA. SUZUKI.

My brain did a Windows XP shutdown sound.

Akira-freakin'-Suzuki.

You know how every school has that one girl? The one who sits in the back, always quiet, always intense? The one who never participates in class but somehow scores the highest grades and scares the living soul out of delinquents?

Yeah, that's her.

Rumor says she once made the PE teacher apologize to her. She didn't say a word. Just stared. He crumbled.

No one knows what she does outside of school, but there are whispers.

Mafia ties? Secret assassin? K-pop idol?

Okay, maybe not the last one.

But the aura… the power...

She looked like she could dismantle a government in her sleep.

AND SHE JUST CONFESSED TO ME!?

W-what!? HOW!?

Did I accidentally activate a hidden route!? Was this one of those dark-horse heroines that you only unlock by choosing all the sarcastic dialogue options!?

I stood frozen.

She looked at me, totally serious. Eyes like obsidian. Arms crossed. Deadpan expression.

Like she just admitted loving me wasn't even a big deal.

Me! A guy whose biggest achievement this week was not sneezing during attendance!

And suddenly… I felt something stir.

Fear?

Excitement?

Maybe indigestion?

I didn't know.

All I knew was… this wasn't over.

Oh no.

This story?

It was just getting started.

________

Wait.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait—

WHAT THE ACTUAL INTERDIMENSIONAL TACO-FLIPPING HECK JUST HAPPENED.

I'm sorry, was that reality? Did that moment actually occur in this timeline? Did I get isekai'd for five seconds into a parallel universe where the laws of logic got drunk, blindfolded themselves, and ran headfirst into traffic!?

What did I ever do to deserve this?

I mean yeah, okay, maybe I once used my little brother's toothbrush to clean my shoes in middle school. Maybe I accidentally switched someone's "like" to a "dislike" in a heated anime argument online. And yeah, I might've peeked in the girls' bathroom back in middle school to see if I could catch a glimpse of a hot teacher or two on accident. That's normal, right? Just harmless teenage curiosity… right?

But this? This emotional RPG boss fight? This heart-palpitating psychological horror disguised as a romcom!?

I didn't sign up for this!

No. That's it. I want to speak to the manager of fate. Where's the complaint box? Is there a divine HR department I can call? Because this storyline is CLEARLY being written by someone who hates me.

How else do I explain the fact that Akira freaking Suzuki just confessed to me?

Akira. Suzuki.

You don't meet her. You survive her.

She's not a person. She's a natural disaster in pigtails.

A storm wrapped in a school uniform.

A 4'11" package of rage, dignity, and terrifying eye contact, blessed with the fashion sense of a mafia boss and the attitude of someone who definitely has a criminal record in another dimension.

And now she's standing in front of me.

On my way home.

Eyes locked on mine.

Expression blank.

Tone serious.

Vibe: "I will either marry you or murder you. Possibly both."

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't blink.

I think my ancestors couldn't breathe either. I could hear them whispering in the void, "Run, fool! RUN!"

This wasn't a school confession.

This was a blood pact.

A ritual.

She wasn't saying "I like you" in the cute, anime-girl way.

She was saying "I like you" in the "you are now contractually bound to me until the heat death of the universe" way.

My brain went full Windows XP error mode.

ERROR: EMOTIONAL CAPACITY HAS EXCEEDED LIMITS. PLEASE REBOOT NERVOUS SYSTEM.

I started calculating my odds.

Plan A: Say yes. Smile. Try to live a happy life with Akira Suzuki.

Projected outcome: I die in under 72 hours. The autopsy report would read: "Overwhelmed by intensity. Eyes melted. Dignity disintegrated. Last words: 'It's not you, it's my heartbeat imploding.'"

Plan B: Say no. Politely. Respectfully. Firmly.

Projected outcome: I die instantly. The moment the word "no" leaves my mouth, I get hit by a flying desk, or spontaneously combust via pure shame. Ghost me gets slapped in the afterlife.

Plan C: Pretend this is a dream and jump into traffic hoping I wake up.

Projected outcome: I still die. But at least I go out with style.

Okay. New plan:

Do not speak. Do not breathe. Do not exist.

Just stand here like a mannequin and hope she forgets you exist.

Akira narrowed her eyes.

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

She's thinking.

And when Akira Suzuki thinks, someone usually gets hospitalized.

I tried to talk. I really did.

But my voice had committed tax fraud and fled the country.

I was sweating like I just got caught cheating on a test I didn't even take.

Why did she like me? What part of "guy who eats cup noodles alone and talks to pigeons like they're therapists" screamed "dateable material"?

Was I on a hidden camera show?

A prank?

A demonic summoning?

Some kind of twisted magical girl reverse-harem nonsense?

Oh god.

Was I the harem protagonist now!?

Where were the sparkles? The love triangles? The beach episode!?

I didn't ask for this.

I just wanted a quiet school life. Maybe a girlfriend one day. Preferably not someone who looks like she'd stab me and then sue me for bleeding on her uniform.

But noooo.

Fate looked at me and said:

"You know what would be funny? If Akira Suzuki—yes, that Akira—decided this loser was her chosen one."

And honestly?

I was scared.

Not because she liked me.

But because a part of me—some lonely, pathetic, romance-starved part of me—was into it.

Oh no.

Oh god no.

Did I… like her!?

NO. SHUT UP, BRAIN. THIS IS A HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF FEELINGS. THIS IS NOT STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. THIS IS AN EMOTIONAL HACKING ATTACK.

Abort mission. Abort romance. Deploy emotional firewalls.

But she just stood there. Waiting.

Unblinking.

And then—

And THEN—

I felt it.

A tingle.

No. A twitch.

No. A sensation of absolute cosmic wrongness.

It started as a buzz. Then a zap. Then a full-on spiritual exorcism compressed into a single atomic burn across my face.

It was like my cheek had offended a god.

Like someone had taken a branding iron of fate and stamped "SUFFER" across my skin.

I gasped.

I actually gasped. Out loud. Like an anime protagonist getting slapped into a flashback sequence.

But here's the scary part.

There was no hand.

No slap.

No Akira raising her arm. No audience. No ghostly figure whispering ominous lines like, "He has been marked."

Nothing.

Just.

Pain.

Pure, unfiltered, narrator-muting, self-esteem-erasing pain.

And it came out of NOWHERE.

My knees wobbled.

My brain spiraled.

I think I saw my life flash before my eyes, and it was just a slideshow of me embarrassing myself in progressively worse ways.

Akira tilted her head, just slightly.

I stared at her, wide-eyed.

She stared back.

Then she said—calmly, like it was the most natural thing in the world:

"...You were thinking something stupid again, weren't you?"

I wanted to deny it.

To lie.

To gaslight fate and say, "No, actually I was doing calculus in my head, thanks."

But the burn on my cheek pulsed.

My soul whimpered.

And my mouth?

My mouth said:

"…Yes."

And that's when the world seemed to grow cold.

The air grew still.

And I felt it.

A presence.

Not hers.

Not mine.

But something else.

Watching.

Waiting.

Lingering just beyond the edges of my perception like a shadow with memories.

And in the stillness, I heard no words…

…but I knew.

This wasn't over.

Something had just awakened.

Something sharp.

Unseen.

And my story?

It wasn't going the way I thought it would.