Vol. 1
The Eternal War
Narrator: Akito Rin
Though born of two human parents, I have never felt like a human in my life. I'm always disconnected from a world that I only viewed as I had little to no time. For me, it is a world where I am here only to live a short life then pass on to my real world, whether it be heaven or hell. I always knew something was off with me, especially the way I view this world and the way his world has its views upon me. I am nothing to this world; still, a simple high school freshman born of two somewhat successful parents, you see my father Kazuma Rin is a game programmer who has successfully launched his online VR game in the past three months. My mother, Ichika Rin, is a nurse who always taught me "do no harm," which is a code my older brother and I have always obeyed.
Oh yeah, my older brother is just your typical handsome guy. Satoshi Rin is his name. He is 16 years old. He is 5'11 and weighs 79kg or 174 pounds, he is a junior in high school, intelligent and fit, and with his body, he sighted, wherever he goes. He has girls drooling over him. Don't tell him, but you see, I was the favorite of my father and mother, and I was always spoiled rotten, especially with snacks, so one thing led to another, and I became chubby, not fat! Chubby! Anyways, I am Akito Rin. My family and I live in Japan near Osaka to the east in an upcoming city. I am 15 years old, and I'm not ready to age yet. Being a grown-up would be such a drag. I like playing video games and eating. I stand 181 cm or 5'9 tall, and I weigh 90kg or 198 pounds, and my goal is to have a better body than my brother and ask my crush Rias out!!! Believe it!!
…
As he was deep in sleep, he could hear someone reaching out to him and murmuring very softly. At first, he could not grasp what the person behind him was saying, but with the whispering becoming more apparent, he heard: "Wake up, wake up."
He suddenly rises out of bed only to see his brother standing in front of him, shaking and screaming at him to wake up. He asks his brother in a sleepy voice, "dude, what! I was getting to the good part of the dream, and I was going to kiss my crush, you jerk!" His older brother left in confusion and speechless. In the silence, Akito realizes that he and his older brother are late for school. "I'm late for my first day of high school!" he screams, then he mumbles to himself, "damn it, there goes my reputation." Akito pushes his brother aside and rushes to the bathroom. He walks in, closes the door, and takes a leak. After what seemed like a forever piss, he washes his hands in a hurry and brushes his teeth, he then splashes his face with cold water, and unknowingly the water goes all over the floor, where he reaches for the towel and slips.
*Boom*
A loud noise came from the bathroom. Satoshi rushed upstairs and tried to open up the bathrooms door, to which he slammed the door against Akito's butt. "What the hell" yelled Akito. Satoshi, with a blank look, uttered, "Are you okay?" Akito's face was very flushed and pissed off. With an agisted tone, he replies. "Yeah, I'm fine, apart from my ass." Satoshi had this blank look on his face. Then, watching his brother overreact, he said, "Calm down. I didn't open the door that hard." Akito stood up and walked over to his brother. "I bet you my ass is red because of you," Satoshi then Sighs and tells his brother, "go get dressed, fat ass."
Unhappy with his brother's usual comment, Aktio replied. "What did you just call me, long face." Satoshi stood his guard and repeated, "I called you a fat ass because your a fat ass." with a petty look Akito recalled the same comment once again. "Long face!" As both, the brothers made their way to their desired destination. "Humph, dumb ass," said Akito under his breath as he made his way to his room. He rushes to get dressed and forgets to finish his tie correctly. Finally, after a while in his bedroom, Akito picks up his bag and makes his way down to the kitchen, where he sits and speaks as fast as ever, "Let's eat!" He finished his food in the blink of an eye.
As Satoshi took his brother onto the path he used to take to school every day, he asked his brother: "Oi pig, I'm surprised that you didn't choke back there." Akito, pissed, replies, "who are you calling a pig? Long face." Satoshi's ego grew more extensive, and he exclaimed. "You obviously, who else." Akito's thoughts were dry, not knowing how to assemble a comeback. Finally, he responded, "Well, for one, your girlfriend is right next to you." Satoshi reminiscing about his crush looked over to his side, and with a nervous look, he said. "Haa! What girl…" as he kept looking around nervously. Akito exploded into laughter and said. "Haha… stupid, you should see your face." with an exhausted tone, Satoshi said, "seriously, dude, I thought I had a girl for a second."
With a curious look, Satoshi proposed a question to his brother. "Let's talk about you; someone as romantic as you would surely kiss the girl of his desire, right? I was wondering who was that girl you were dreaming about?" Creeped out, Aktio replied. "Dude, you sound creepy. But never mind that right now, we have arrived at my new school." Akito excitedly said while he lightly jumped and his belly roles banged against one another. Noticing the messed-up tie, Satoshi stopped his brother by the entrance and said, "wait, before you go in, let me fix this for you." Satoshi leaned in and grabbed Akito's messed-up tie, and he then properly fixed it for him and told him to go off to his new school.
"Have fun alright, and find a club for yourself. Perhaps one that has a lot running in it." Said Satoshi. As Akito made his way down the aisle of people lined up asking new students to take an interest in their clubs, he looked to be interested in one thing and one thing only, his crush Rias. As he nervously spun around in circles thinking to himself. "Damn, I did not know she looked this good. I fully downgraded her fine self in the dream I had." As Akito built up the courage to go and talk to her, he glanced over his shoulder only to see her being carried away by the swamp of upper-class students wanting her in their clubs. "Ahhh damn it, why! Why is fate so cruel!" he thought to himself. As he placed his hands over his head and, with a pale face, shook it around simultaneously until he got dizzy. Akito shook his head side to side to rid of the dizziness and said, "I mean, not like I was going to go and talk to her. I'm bumping my hopes a little too high up this morning." He then started to make his way down to the class board, and as he rejected every club and said: "I will think about it" to every person who asked him to join their club, he came across his friend doing the same thing. Yui Katou was his best friend from childhood. As he spotted her, he screamed. "Yui!" upon hearing her name, shouted. She started to look around. Finally, she spotted him and yelled out his name. "Akito!"
Approaching each other, Akito asked her."Hey, How have you been Yui, its been almost a week since the beach." To which she seemed irritated to answer. "I'm fine. I texted you yesterday, so why haven't you replied to my text, you bum," she said in a pouting face. "Yui," he said in puppy eyes. "I'm sorry, Yui, I dropped my phone in the toilet water, and now it's gone, my poor little phone died on me, Yui." He said with a crying face. Yui, confused, soon caught on and said, "may he rest in the battery paradise." As she looked up in the sky and saluted the phone goodbye, she soon switched the subject. "Anyways, you should've just come over and told me at least. I mean, I live a street away." Akito, seemingly nervous, tried to look for an excuse, and so he blurred, "it happened yesterday." Finally, honest feelings from Yui met his reason. "Still, I was worried about you, and I also wanted to see you." Akito, noticeably blushing, tried to brush off the situation. "You expect me to walk a street down to tell you about a phone?" The case seemed to get awkward, so Yui thought about breaking the tension by checking out their class schedules. As Yui took off, running, Akito yelled out, "Hey, don't run Yui, I don't feel like running today, Yui." A few steps later, Akito already seemed to be out of breath. He stopped to catch his breath.
He takes a deep breath and says: "Yui, I told you not to run, and gosh, look at that line of people, what do we do?" His response received excitement. "We should squeeze through them!" Yui yelled back while she was running. irritated Akito yelled, "I'm not squeezing through anything with all of this meat on my bones." Hesitant to answer what Akito said, Yui brushes it off and replies. "Oh, come on, don't you want to know if we're in the same class." Determined by his dirty thoughts, he yelled. "You know what, Yui, let's do it." As both the best friends got closer and closer to the board, they met up with Kazuto Takahashi. Kazuto is 15 years old of average built body. He is a history nerd and Akito's boy best friend. spotting his friend Akito screamed, "Hey, Kazuto, what class are you in?" Finally, having to locate both of his friends within the crowd of students, he walked over to them and said, "Oh hi, Yui, Akito, nice to see you guys. I'm in class 1-1. I have seen your name here. We were in the same class." excited Akito replied, "seriously? Hell yeah." However, he had ulterior motives. Akito then asked, "what about Yui?" Kazuto looked over the board once again and ran back to inform them. "No, Yui isn't here." "Really?" said Yui in a sad tone. The two finally managed to squeeze through the crowd, and there they grouped up and went to look over the board again. "Look, Yui, you're in class 1-2," yelled Aktio across from Yui. "Oh, that sucks. I just wanted to be in the same class with you, Akito," she said as she walked up to him. Not sure what to say, he half-assed his reply and said, "me too. I mean hell, I could've had two people to copy from."
Irritated, Yui turned around and crossed her arms as a scoffing noise came out of her mouth. "That's the only reason? Jerk!" Akito felt guilty watching her walk away towards the gym. He reached out his hand and stopped her by grabbing her bag. "Yui, wait. I'm kidding. Of course, I would want you in the same class. You're like my comfort." He unknowingly said to Yui. as both stood there blushing, it took no time for Kazuto to make fun of them. "Stop the lovey-dovey talk. For now, the ceremony will begin shortly." Giggling, he was met by anger, "Shut up." both Screamed. "Yeah, yeah, so that you know, both of our classes are right next to each other. So let's go already, hurry." He replied with an intelligent smirk. Both, with a blank look, stared him down. As the bell rang away and students made their way to the gym for the ceremony, Akito sensed being stalked by something. Chills are running up through his back. He could feel the air getting heavier. He suddenly stopped in his tracks and held his neck. "What the hell is this feeling?" he said to himself while trembling.
He tried to keep on running but fell behind his friends. He stopped once again, inhaling deeply, trying to catch his breath, though he began coughing. Yui and Kazuto stopped to notice that Akito was standing there, struggling to breathe. "Akito, are you okay?" Yui asked. Akito, with both of his hands on his knees, held up a thumbs up, "yeah, just a fat person thing." The feeling of the heavy air got thinner, he could feel his senses come back, and he started to breathe normally once again. In a moment of uncertainty, he began to think to himself, "that was weird. Could it do something with my blood pressure or perhaps my heart not being able to perform as it once had." He was scared. His mind started to race through questions and answers. "These types of symptoms don't just come and go like that." He finally caught up to his two friends, but he could feel the strong presence in the atmosphere. It was as if every negative feeling had poured out of everyone's mind into the world. It felt as if everyone surrounding him had a sense of grudge and hatred for him. There he began to see a vision of a lonely boy, crouched in the darkness. Upon seeing that he came to his senses, he whispered, "I must lose weight" to himself. A voice came to him, breaking the tension he was stuck in. "Hi Akito, what was that dude?" asked Kazuto. In hesitation to tell the truth to his friends, he came up with an excuse. "It was nothing. I just ran out of breath from all the running."
Kazuto, in confusion, thought to himself, "out of breath, but he only felt that now? I must say that is kind of weird. Why would he only feel fatigued after running a short distance and after a couple of minutes after the run?" Then, he came up with an idea. He was going to ask his friend to tag along with him on his daily exercises. "Hey, Akito, would you like to come with me after school to a path where I run every day." With mixed feelings, Akito said, "A path, why is that?" Kazuto began looking for a way not to hurt his friend's feelings. "Well, you know I care for you, so to be honest with you, you need to lose weight," he said while laughing nervously. With an angry look on his face, Akito agreed and said, "yeah, I know, I will come."
It was the first time the two witnessed Akito not go berserk after being told he was overweight. In confusion, they both yelled, "wait, you're not mad?" Akito, while laughing, replied. "No, because you're right, Kazuto. I feel weird. I feel like doing the smallest thing gets me tired nowadays, so no, I'm not. If anything, I feel cared for when you said that Kazuto, Thank you," he said with a smile on his face. Both confused and unsettled by the reply drew their eyebrows in closer, though they smiled in the sense of relief.
As the three best friends and the new students made it inside the stadium gym, the upper-classes, teachers, and parents applauded them. "Welcome!" screamed the school president into the microphone. She continued, "take a seat, and the ceremony will begin shortly," as she began applauding them. As the ceremony commenced and ended, the new students made their way to their new classes. Everyone was excited to see who their homeroom teacher would be and how the school year would unfold. The two boys dropped off Yui at her new class. Akito spotted a shadow behind a tree, staring into his soul. He began to have his nerves throbbing. "What the hell, this feeling again? Who is that behind the tree?" he squinted his eyes to get a better look, but a faint voice broke his focus. "Hey?" As Kazuto touched his shoulder, finally breaking his focus from the shadow. "Dude, are you okay?" said Kazuto, as they finally made some eye contact. "I'm fine. I was only spacing out," said Akito as he began to stroll out of Yui's classroom.
As the two best friends made their way out of homeroom 1-2, they opened the next door, and something good and if not outstanding was awaiting Akito, and to his surprise, he saw what he had always wanted.