Chapter 1 – Delusion Training Arc

There are people who train for the Olympics. There are people who train for law school. And then, there's me training to become the ideal background character in the life of one woman I've never met in the foreign country of Japan.

Her name?

Nanatsu Degurei.
Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental... unless you know exactly who I'm talking about. In that case, please don't tell her. I'm not ready for prison or marriage.

She's not an idol. She's not in some weird mobile otome game character. No. She's an actress. A real one at that. The kind that doesn't wink at the camera but breaks your heart with one line and revives you with the next. She played a terminally ill girl once and somehow made dying look poetic. In another film, she was a clueless mafia boss's daughter who thought "money laundering" involved washing dollar bills in a sink. But what got me was her role in Blue Autumn Ride-Or-Die, a high school love story where she yells at her crush for being emotionally constipated and then getting stood up at a festival, what a highschool romance.

She wasn't quiet or mysterious. She was loud. Assertive. The kind of girl who'd hijack a student council meeting just to announce she was switching to almond milk, when its just the same as the usual milk just produced almond cow right hahaha.

I fell in love instantly.

Not real love. I mean okay, yes, real love. But in a totally healthy, legal, absolutely not-criminal kind of way.

Let me back up.

My name isn't important. Not yet. Mostly because I'm worried Interpol might read this. What matters is, I'm not from Japan. I came from a country you've probably seen once in a geography quiz and then forgot about immediately. A country known mostly for exporting dried mangoes and emotional damage. My Japanese was limited to anime catchphrases and YouTube subtitles. But I had something stronger than fluency, delusion.

I first saw Nanatsu Degurei when I was 19. I was at a sleepover, pretending to be emotionally stable, when someone put on Blue Autumn Ride-Or-Die. Nanatsu came on screen and then I paused the video and scream.
"Who is THAT?!!" I asked.
"Bro. It's a drama. Calm down."
"I am calm," I lied, while already searching for flight tickets to Tokyo.

Fast forward two years. I'm 21 and standing in my bedroom with three duffel bags, a pocket dictionary, and a heart full of unrealistic expectations.

My goal?
To move to Japan.
To become part of Nanatsu Degurei's orbit.
To fall in love slowly cinematically, like in those doramas where no one showers, yet everyone looks like they just stepped out of a skincare commercial.

But I couldn't just go to Japan. That would be insane. I needed training.

Thus began the Delusion Training Arc.

Day 1: I practiced "accidentally bumping into someone while holding a convenience store bento."
Results: 3 spilled lunches. 1 deeply offended grandmother.

Day 5: I spent 6 hours watching Japanese variety shows to prepare for spontaneous interviews where I'd need to say something witty while eating fermented squid.
I laughed. I cried. I still don't know what the game rules were.

Day 12: I perfected 23 elevator lines, including, "Oh, you're Nanatsu Degurei? I didn't even recognize you without your high-school mafia uniform!"

Day 20: I started narrating my own life internally, like a dorama protagonist. "As he waited for the water to boil, he thought: Will she ever notice a guy who can make instant ramen this well?"

I was spiraling. And loving it.

My friends were concerned. My parents were confused.
"Why do you want to go to Japan again?"
"Cultural curiosity," I said.
(Translation: Nanatsu.)

I applied for a short-term visa. Bought the cheapest plane ticket I could find. Watched Blue Spring Ride-Or-Die five more times, this time with a notebook and a pen, studying her every mannerism.

Nanatsu eats her yakisoba with chopsticks held slightly crooked. I must train my fingers.
Nanatsu wears her school uniform slightly loose, like she doesn't care. I must buy oversized sweaters.

I wasn't obsessed. I was dedicated.
Like a monk.
A monk of love.

By the end of my "training arc," I had learned:

Enough Japanese to order ramen and apologize profusely. How to cry on command. That if you stare at Nanatsu Degurei's photo too long, your phone battery dies faster, possibly out of shame.

The only thing left was the flight.

The night before I left, I stood in front of my mirror wearing a secondhand gakuran jacket I bought online. I looked like a background character in a low-budget school anime. Which was exactly the point.

"My goal is to be unnoticed," I whispered to my reflection.
"To be just enough in her peripheral vision that she wonders who is that crazily good looking and not suspicious guy who keeps showing up near my filming locations?"

I know it sounds crazy.

But sometimes, love isn't about being reasonable.
It's about packing three months of clothes and a laminated headshot into a carry-on bag and whispering, "See you soon, Nanatsu."

The journey had begun.

Not the love story.

The delusion story.

And every delusion has its first step.

Mine just happened to involve immigrating across an ocean, faking confidence, and manifesting a meet with a woman who didn't even know I existed.

But hey.

At least I trained for it.