Yearning For An Escape

I am Daichi Orio. I have worked as the manager of Floormart for the past 25 years. And if I had to sum up my life in one word.. “REGRET!!” My mundane daily life that I’ve experienced for the past two and-a-half decades has made me realize that I haven’t done anything with my life. I live by myself, no wife or children despite being 48 years old. I had struggled my whole life when it comes to connecting with others. Every relationship that I attempted to create would end badly one way or another. There came a point where I decided I’d be better off alone, and stopped trying to form relationships with others. I became reclusive to everyone, even my own family. My life sounds just as depressing as it actually is. 

If I had known when I was a child that this was all I would amount to, I don’t think I would have ever wanted to grow up at all, despite the fact that I was excited for adulthood early in life. Being an astronaut, a sports player, an important political figure, these were all things that excited me and that I though I could accomplish. 

Yet, here I am: locking the doors to Floormart for the 5th time this week and preparing to go home and repeat the same routine tomorrow. I arrive home, and prepare another microwave meal: chicken curry, the same as last night. And the night before. As well as the night before that. After eating, I stare at the empty plastic container, and at the sauce remnants. The same sauce remnants I see most nights. In a moment of frustration, I throw the container across the room, hitting and knocking over a box that had been there for years. 

I approach the box to clean up the mess I made, and see the contents of the box that had spilled onto the floor. It was my manga collection from my school days. Before my current monotonous life, I was quite the Otaku in my school days. Seeing the titles and covers of these classic mangas flooded my mind with numerous nostalgic memories. The epic Shōnen battles that I would imitate as a child, the thrilling dramas that had me eagerly waiting each weekly release, the epic worlds of swords and sorcery that protagonists would be reborn into! I had forgotten what an amazing escape from reality these stories were! 

I stayed up for most of the night, rereading some of the most amazing battles, moments, and worlds that made my childhood. I glance to my clock to realize that it is already five in the morning, and an overwhelming feeling of depression hit me. No matter how amazing these worlds are, they’re only a temporary escape from real life. I’d do anything to escape this world, and wake up in a world of magic and sword fighting. If only I could be a manga protagonist. 

My immense sense of disappointment persists as I put my collection back into the box that it collected many years of dust in. I proceed to try and get some sleep, knowing I have to return to the life that I hate more than anything when I awake. As I’m drifting off, visions of an Isekai paradise fill my mind. Waking up in a world where I have instant skills and potential, becoming the most skillful mage in the land, going on an epic quest to defeat the demon lord! It all sounds so amazing, and I would do anything to actually wake up in that world.