It's Not Your Fault

I floated in space.

I knew I wasn’t hallucinating because I pinched myself about fifty times and it usually only took me three to snap out of something.

The scene soon began to ripple before me.

I was small again.

I heard my mother’s voice calling me from the ramen stall.

Steam rose from the pot, and it smelled absolutely delicious and divine. The right balance of flavor and subtlety, the right amount of dashi.

It was a wonder, then, as to why no one bothered to stop for us.

Rent was due, both for our hawker permit and our house. Mom’s hands shook slightly as she ladled soup to her one loyal customer.

“Excellent as always, Ms. Takuda.”

“Only the best for our customers!” she replied.

So I worked harder. I threw my arms wide, calling to strangers, my voice already rough from shouting.

“Hot ramen! Rich broth! Hand-pulled noodles! Cheaper than anything else on the road!”

People stared, yes, but mostly ignored me.

And then he appeared. A man in a pressed shirt and tie, the kind I would one day wear. His shoes clicked against the pavement, too clean for streets like ours.

I thought my pitch finally worked.

But instead of stopping, his hand lashed out. I didn’t remember the impact, only the numbness… and the ensuing scorpion bite of pain.

I remember the sting burning across my cheek, my knees hitting the dirt, the hot shame spreading faster than the pain.

His cologne bit at my nose. “If your food was any good you wouldn’t be flat-out begging people off the streets! It’s shameful!”

Mother screamed. “ENDO!!”

She ran straight from the stall.

I wanted to cry. It hurt so much!

But Mom had told me I was strong.

And if she said I was strong, then I had to be. So I clenched my jaw, blinked hard, and hid the tears. I pressed my palms to my scrapes.

Mom’s hands scooped me up.

“We’re closed!” she shouted to the salaryman still eating. “Closed!”

“I haven’t paid—”

“We interrupted you mid-meal; don’t bother! Just go!”

The salaryman hurriedly grabbed his black leather handbag and left.

The stars flickered again, pulling me back into the void.

I drifted there as I sensed Mom’s ramen steam fading into nothing.

I got it now. I was in a dream.

The dream brought me back to the day I learned that the world wasn’t meant for people like us.

\\

The dream brought me home. The front door wouldn’t close properly and the cold leaked through the cracks.

But that was fine. It was all going to be fine in the end.

I told myself it was fine because I was strong.

I had a bandaid lovingly placed across the cut on my chin. My mother had found out my cut, of course.

Then, just as quickly, she told me to go do my homework. There was still some left over from school.

But I wandered, like I always did, chasing distractions. I lined up my little plastic Amazing Sentai figurines along the floor, marching them across the wild and wonderful landscapes I built up in my head.

Today, I was a mage; the strongest in the world. Nobody knew it yet because I was stuck in a slum with a dad and mom who worked hard every day and told me I’d never amount a mage, let alone the greatest mage. But one day, I’d prove them all wrong.

That’s when I passed by my mom’s room. The door was ajar.

She was…. crying? Why was she crying? Didn’t I make her strong? Didn’t I make her happy?

I padded away, my socks scratching against the warped floorboards, until I reached the bathroom. The mirror was cracked across one corner, but it still reflected me clearly enough.

I stared at myself.

Then I slapped my cheek.

Slapped myself another time.

Slapped myself because I was weak.

“Stupid Endo!”

Again!

“You made Mom cry.”

Again!!

“You’re not strong.”

AGAIN!!

“You’re not strong at all!”

\\

I was floating again.

But this time felt more vivid than before. I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe—my own blood, probably—from the beam of blue light that had carved a heart-shaped hole straight through my upper arm and through my left lung. It must have pumped into my stomach lining, filling it until every gasp was suffocating.

I needed to get out!

Drowning was incredibly painful, believe it or not. You should try it sometime.

I needed it to stop.

Then, at last, I breached the surface and opened my eyes to what was in front of me. I knew that beeping. I’d recognize it anywhere. The cicadas outside, the steady tick of that specific brand of clock. I was at home again.

And I’d just woken to my alarm for work.

My weary eyes swept across the room. Yep, those were my posters. My favorite isekai series, Familiar of Infinity—the pink-haired mage and her goofy Japanese familiar. And the rest, all the anime I used to devour as a kid. I was a fantasy lover once. Not anymore.

God, what an elaborate dream that had been. Being isekai’d? Turning into an elf? Making friends with a lamia from some far flung empire?

Nonsense. It must have been the Strong Infinite lemon flavor I had last night that did my brain in.

I turned slowly to check the time.

8:00 a.m.

…

8 a.m.?!

Oh no. The commute was an hour and a half at least, and my shift started at nine!

I jumped out of bed. I had no time for a shower or to make breakfast. That was okay; there was a bento place near the office, and I have like a hundred different colognes.

I rushed to my wardrobe and pulled it open.

What?

Where were my neatly ironed shirts? I always had three prepared, and a backup for my backup. Something wasn’t right.

The sunlight caught my eye oddly. Strange—there was nothing reflective on that side of the room. The mirror was by the doorway, not here.

I turned.

I then saw a digital drawing tablet.

…

A drawing tablet?

Fully decked out—lamp, paper, a computer, a digital pen, traditional brushes, the works…

My hands shook as I moved closer.

“Please come downstairs!” My mother’s voice floated up from below. “I made your favorite—grilled fish with tomato sauce. Some spam on the side!”

Was this a world where I hadn’t chosen the salaryman’s path? Where I became a mangaka instead? Where Mom paid for all of this?!

I picked up the stylus pen. It felt too light.

"I just want to have breakfast with you!"

CRACK!!!

I threw it down with all my might. It nearly snapped clean in two.

\\

“There you are! Come sit, sit my beloved son!”

The most unbelievable part of this dream wasn’t the food on the table or the steam from the fish. It was Mom… smiling at me as if I wasn’t living in her house like a roach. Feeding off her work like a leech.

“Your sister already left for school half an hour ago,” Mom added. “She was sad her big bro was still asleep!”

I sat down without replying.

Mom hated tatami mats, so it was always this plain wooden chair that dug into my thighs.

She wore her faded I ♥ NY shirt and her hair was dyed dirty blonde. She loved that boxed dye brand because it looked relatively OK and didn’t break that bank.

“Any new offers from that new publisher?” Mom asked. “I heard you were closing in on Kabogawa. Very prestigious company—you’re lucky to have moved onto the next stage.”

I didn’t respond.

“You can say no, y’know,” she said lightly. “You just gotta keep at it. Ganbare! Heehee.”

“Mom… how can I leave you like this?”

Her chopsticks froze mid-air.

“...Leave me like what?”

“You’re still working at the ramen shop…”

Her eyes flicked up.

“Hey, if I was good enough to apply to a fine dining restaurant, I would’ve by—”

“To support me.”

“Well, I can hardly think of a more noble cause. You’re my beloved son!”

“But you aren’t happy about it. You can’t be.”

…

“You know I’m not,” she admitted. “If I had my way when I was younger I’d travel all the time! Drive through the Rockies, see New England in autumn. That time passed—fifteen years too late. But I wouldn’t change it. If it meant I didn’t get to have you, I’d make the same choice.”

“You could be in the U.S. right now. If I wasn’t so… selfish.”

“Endo… what are you talking about?”

“I stole your life,” I replied “Your free time. Everything.”

“You didn’t steal anything.”

“I did,” I pressed. “You just say that to make me feel better.”

“Endo, you are scaring me…”

“Instead of going to university, getting a proper job—I chose a world where things were easier. In a better world where we moved out of our house, I would’ve worked sales, made commission, in Japan by the way, came home Saturdays to help with the shop you opened three days a week because you loved it, not because you had to bleed yourself dry.”

Mom’s gaze softened. “Endo… you wouldn’t have liked that world.”

“Some people don’t get to be happy,” I muttered. “That’s the responsibility I bear. Because it was never about me.”

She set her chopsticks down. “Endo. Do you assume so little of me?”

“I am not assuming anything.”

“You think I’m ignorant to the fact you think that I am doing something good for you, so you have to answer with equal virtue, equal sacrifice?"

"What are you saying...?"

"It is far more insulting to bend over backwards over the false pretense that there is nothing you can do. There is! I am giving you a way out! But you are too prideful to say yes and take it with grace. The corrupt soul of modern Japanese society is embodied in your actions, your behaviours. ‘It can’t be helped.’ That damnable phrase. A surrender dressed up as virtue."

"Mom?"

“You cling to it, thinking it makes you strong. And poverty has only tightened those chains. You wear your hunger, your lack, like proof of strength—but it has made you blind! Blind to choice! You cling to misery as if enduring it makes you noble, when in truth it only makes you a coward. A man too afraid to demand more of the world, and of himself.”

I swallowed hard, and I wanted so badly to protest, but the words wouldn’t come.

Mom leaned closer. “You keep saying it’s not about you. But tell me, Endo—when did you decide you weren’t allowed to matter? You need to own it instead of hiding behind social convention as an excuse!”

Then she stopped. I saw her eyes light up.

“I love you, Endo. You are enough. And I hate seeing you beat yourself up over things that shouldn’t be beaten up over.”

“Mom…”

“Please, son, look at me.”

I did.

“I love you. You are enough.”

“Mom, you’re being ridiculous.”

“You are enough.”

“Mom… stop. I’m serious.”

“If I could live another life in a world where I didn’t have you and the roof didn’t leak and I didn’t work sixty hour weeks, I’d still choose you. You are enough to me.”

“Mom, don’t screw with me.”

“If I could have all the time in the world to travel, I’d still sleep with you in the winter without a heater.”

“STOP! PLEASE! Please…”

“I’d go hungry again and again just to see you smile.”

“M-Mom…! I can’t… I-I can’t…!”

I cried into her shoulders. Time hadn’t passed by.

“You matter.”

I found it within myself to look up.

I saw Malmagos’ face. But the smile on her mask wasn’t present. Somehow, I saw beneath the mask… of her face, her real face.

“Would she have said all of these things?” I croaked. “Please… don’t lie…”

“Yes.”

One of her tendrilled hands cupped my face.

“Of course she would’ve.”

As if put under a spell… I fell into oblivion.