Chapter 1: Self Proclaimed Otaku Part 1: Time Stop.

“Loser, Worthless. Good for nothing. You’ll never amount to anything, Kinben.” His eyes open as he looks around his environment. He lets out a sigh as he realizes he was in another boring class of history. He begins to speak to himself as if he was starring in a video game or maybe an isekai anime, talking in the third person as if he was important or cool or maybe he was just bored in this kind of environment. The sun was blazing on the other side of his body as he sat next to the window, it was autumn after all. He sat by the window on purpose as he wanted to portray to himself and others that he was the protagonist. Alex is a normal kid with nothing going for him, no girlfriend, a Half -American Otaku that thought Japan was just like anime and now he’s sitting here bored out of his mind. He lived in Tokyo, Japan and most of the time sat by the window in class to admire Tokyo’s skyscrapers and birds, but also because he wanted to be an anime character.

“This class is boring…”

Alex sounded like one of those stereotypical anime protagonists, he knew this himself but he took this as a compliment. He then remembered he was still in class and not in an anime, so he went right back to being in his usual boring mood. He’d usually try to distract himself with his huge imagination and think of situations where he was a cool anime character, but for some reason today he didn’t feel like it.

He wondered if he would ever leave this boring situation and lifestyle we call school life. He hated this place and wanted to leave, too bad he was forced to be here due to society making people go to school. Stress, stress, and even more stress is the only thing he felt at school, he had worked himself every day for good grades, but there was no point. He knew school was a waste; the only true reason he came to school was that he was forced by his parents to. He began to think of what if this class just stopped, he thought if it was just done, no more school. He did think of becoming what they call a Hikimori, but due to his exceptionalist African American parents being from America they demanded good grades. His parents wanted Alex to be great at everything he did, even when it came to grades. If he didn’t get good grades he would most likely be punished relentlessly so becoming a hikikomori isn’t an option.

He didn't want to be here anyway, he just wanted the school day to be over with. It was the last period of the day and he couldn’t wait, too bad he couldn’t just stop everything. The classroom was boring and generic. The room had grey desks and a bunch of people in it who were either studying or sleeping just like he was before. Alex looks up as he sees the teacher again and then directs his vision to the board. It had the day's date which read September second two thousand twenty as he saw the date he spoke to himself out loud quietly. His accent was more American than Japanese as he spoke.

“I’m Alex Zuki, another Day in this damn boring history class, I hate Mr.Aburaya”

Alex’s voice started coming out of his mouth, his vision began to switch as he turned his head to the left seeing a classroom full of students in black uniform like he was and then he looked to the right side which had a window, his face began to reflect off the window as he looked at himself. Alex had white hair and dark skin, His white hair was spiked and rather messy indicating that he was sleeping, he had African American features, but also some Japanese ones like his eyes that were also black. He was talking to himself, he said his words out loud, but no one else heard him weirdly enough. He repeated a phrase he said to himself in a loathing tone. Alex was still talking to himself in the third person to entertain himself in this environment of this boring habitat. Alex was way darker than his peers which made him stand out from his peers.

Alex had moved to Japan five years ago and back then he was a huge otaku even at the age of ten years. He thought Japan was just like anime with cute anime girls and superpowers everywhere, but when he moved here it was just like anywhere in America, no superpowers or cute anime girls and still, he couldn’t get a girlfriend. He realized once again he sounded like those stereotypical isekai protagonists, but too bad he wasn’t. He was just a normal Half-Blooded American who moved to Japan. His dad moved here because of government work. When he first found out he was going to move here he was happy. Alex didn’t have many friends in America anyway so he didn’t care about America, but when he moved here it was just nothing like anime at all.

But Japan was just a normal place, Like everywhere else not like how Anime portrayed it be at least. He remembered even being excited to come to the most popular place in Japan which is Tokyo. When he first got here he was disappointed, but even so, he didn’t give up. He thought when he would get to high school he’d get a girlfriend and harem like all the other protagonists, but now he is fifteen and a freshman and still doesn't have either of those. He knew that most of the stuff he’d seen in anime would never happen, but even so still somewhere deep inside his soul, he wished that superpowers, loli’s, and anime waifus were real. Even though most of his notions were crushed by his peers, he still hoped.

“Why did anime lie to me, I didn’t even get sent to a parallel world or even meet a useless goddess?! Japan is a scam.”

Alex said to himself quietly and angrily as he looked down, The teacher's voice could be heard from afar saying stuff about Roman Aztec history it didn’t matter he wasn’t listening to him anyway. Alex turns his head to the right to look around. He had just woken up and wanted to get his surroundings in check. He was sitting by the window as he saw the full classroom of the students. Some were studying and paying attention while others were sleeping just like he had a few minutes ago. As he turns around again as he looks at certain people for no reason, maybe they were familiar to him in a way, he didn’t keep his eyes on them for too long. He let out a sigh, not that loud but not extremely quiet either. He turned to the teacher who was male and was talking in a monotone voice writing stuff on the whiteboard. He didn’t know why he kept looking around his classroom, maybe it was to forget how boring the class was.

Alex had remembered he was in class again and turned to see the clock to check the time he still had a few more minutes in this godforsaken class. He considered going back to sleep and due to him not wanting to deal with this hell hole he did indeed, he closed his eyes. As he closed his eyes something felt off about his eyes, something that wasn’t normal he could almost feel that all of his energy was somewhat being drained by closing his eyes and his body felt light. He felt a vibration that forced more tension in his eyes, he let out a sigh one more time.

He opened his eyes to maybe see if he was just daydreaming. But suddenly, almost immediately, a word popped into his head that described his whole feeling about this class. He wished this class would just end right now or if it stopped, he didn’t want to hear the monotone teacher every day that bored him. He felt alone and bored, none of his friends were there today. He just wanted it to end right now; he wanted the world to come to a halt. He had a desire and a wish for him to stop being annoyed by the teacher's boring words.

“Stop.”
As soon as those words exited from his mouth, he felt a sudden shake within his body as he also felt a bit of tiredness over his body. A sharp feeling in his head made his body shake once again forcing him to blink his eyes, subsequently opening them. His eyes now open began to wander around the room once again, looking at the walls and also tiles. He looked to the right where the window was. When he looked he noticed that his eye color wasn’t its normal black, it had become blacker and a black color filled his iris, pupils, and sclera. It now had an unnatural black glow to it. Alex, being confused about why his eyes looked like that, jumped back almost falling out of his desk. He looked down at his hand, it also had a black glow to it, he rubbed his eyes, questioning if he was daydreaming, but no it felt too real. His body was surrounded by the black glow which only confused him even more.

Alex also noticed there was no noise at all, he turned to his left looking at the people in the classroom. They weren’t moving, not the teacher or anyone else in the room for that matter, they weren’t talking or anything. They were just frozen in place as if time had stopped. Alex was confused. He was in this situation but he didn’t know why but he felt an eerie feeling that made him gasp for air. This physically shook his body, he felt a tingle as he felt like he was suddenly exhausted. Doing any action would make him even more tired. It was strange and he had no idea why this was happening to him for all people.

“Is this real?”

He stood up quickly as he felt his energy was increasingly drained from doing that single action. His body fell, making him collapse back into his desk chair. His muscles were weakened for some odd reason. It felt like something was grasping his neck and a burning sensation caused him to cough up blood and also made him open his mouth. A voice said something to him as soon as he coughed blood. The voice had no tone to it, but at the same time, it was demonic. There was a slight pain in his stomach each time blood exited from his mouth.

“Exchange, it’s my power, human.”

The grasp around his neck felt like a hand, Alex’s eyes looked around but no one was touching him. The feeling of being choked is what Alex could describe this to be, but being choked by what? That was the question that was in Alex’s head and it made no sense. But with a sudden cough of more blood from Alex’s mouth, it stopped, Just abruptly stopped. No explanation or anything, it just stopped.

He rubs his eyes as he begins to overthink: was this real? Alex kept thinking about himself, his heartbeat was normal, everything was normal, but this situation. At this point, he was wondering if he was even sane anymore, his energy felt like it was somewhat drained from his mind, body, and most importantly soul. Alex heard whispers in his head which made him question his sanity once again. The voice was ominous. He couldn’t understand what the voice was saying in his head. It all sounded gibberish to him. He couldn’t speak or yell or even say anything, he only could talk to himself in his head. He couldn't believe this was happening at the moment but he wanted all of this to stop. His breathing was increasing, was it fear? Fear of the unknown, fear of being alone, or fear of this entire situation?

It all bugged and also confused him; he just wanted all this to stop, he said to himself once again in his head. This was torture for him, he suddenly remembered his class and thought to himself he wanted that back it was better than this, he closed his eyes and envisioned his classroom. In all his moments he never wanted to be back in his normal classroom where everyone wasn’t standing still doing absolutely anything. He yelled in his mind continuously over and over again. His sanity was slowly slipping at a fast and chilling rate.

“Continue,continue, continue.”

Alex yelled repeatedly to himself in his head, he then felt everything just stop happening, his energy was back to normal and he felt another shake around his body. He then heard the familiar sound of his student peers talking and the occasional sounds of cars passing by. There was no longer a tight feeling on his neck either, Alex’s body was still shaking from fear but he had no reason why. In an impulse, Alex yells out loud as he looks around him simultaneously standing up. As he yelled he then realized that almost everything had gone back to normal, he was still shaken from the event that just happened, but he still felt the need to yell.

“W-what the fu- ?!”

The students in the full-packed classroom looked back at the yelling boy with confusion, the teacher also looked back with a semi angry expression on his face, he spoke back to the loud and more annoying student out of the class which was Alex. Something like this has happened before in class previously and even still the teacher had no tolerance for it. He was pissed off and didn’t want to hear Alex yelling for no complete reason and ruining his classroom’s focus.

“Alex! do not yell out into my classroom again! That will not be tolerated in my class, I’m warning you.”

Some of the students in the classroom laughed and giggled while the previous studying students looked back in disgust at the yelling of the boy and the teacher. The students that were previously sleeping were woken up by Alex and the teachers yelling, some of the students threw pencils and erasers at Alex as payback for ruining the lesson and some of their peaceful sleep.

“Damn he’s annoying.”
A random boy with yellow hair said as others whispered words, other students just continued laughing at Alex. Alex being scared as shit and just shocked at the situation that happened he realized that if he said what just happened to him he’d just embarrass himself, even more. Alex nods and then sits down as he speaks back to the teacher quietly. He spoke to himself as he smiled weirdly as a way to hide his embarrassment, he was also hurt by some of their words. He also let the pencils and erasers hit him on purpose because he deserved it for ruining the classroom atmosphere, at least in his mind he thought so.

He felt ashamed and made fun of and for being stupid, but it wasn’t his fault but even if he told his side of the story no one would listen to him. He tried to be happy but he was somewhat scared and afraid because of multiple things like being ridiculed by classmates, being bullied, and because of the situation that just happened. So Alex thought it would be the best course of action and just apologize to the teacher.

“S-sorry teach, my bad, I won’t do it again.”

The teacher turned back as he began to speak in a monotone voice again and began to continue the lesson that he was explaining before he was interrupted. Students also look back, some going back to sleep and some paying attention once more. Alex took a deep breath in as he smiled to himself and then stopped smiling as he reflected on his situation and mumbled to himself this time instead of speaking loudly, he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself. He was already flustered enough and he didn’t want to get in trouble again. He thought even in Japan no one liked him. God damn it, anime lied to me. He felt a bit of sadness being made fun of by his peers but he had to be prideful and not seem more like a loser.

“What was that? This can’t be real... God. Why was everyone and everything still?”