The empty classroom

The people was already gathered around the stage, waiting for Yoriyuki Yamahito. The creator of Sekaunmei, therefore, Ken’s idol. But he wasn’t there.

Instead, he was outside. He had been walking around for plenty minutes. He thought that he already had made his mind, but that wasn’t the case. He was still doubting between leave or not.

He started to play with one toy knife while hesitating. He was throwing it up and down, from one hand to the other. Then, he noticed that there were people seated near, in the fountain they met with Zack early that day. Due to that, he stopped playing. He wanted to, but he couldn’t: there were people watching.

“Why is it so hard for you to be honest with me?”

—You were wrong on that too. It’s hard for me to be honest with anyone, even strangers.

Since when did it started? He had no idea. It wasn’t something natural born, that was for sure. At some point, he just started overanalyzing social relationships and being extremely scared of being judged.

“I don’t want anyone think bad of me” was the basic thought. The fear of being rejected.

“I don’t want to be the focus of attention. I just want to go unnoticed.”

That way, he built a repertory of masks to use in every situation. But as a consequence, he forgot about his real face, and then he had no idea how to be honest with an acquainted.

“Which is the real me?” he thought, looking at the sun with narrowed eyes.

A wave of claps flooded the building when the Japanese writer dressed with a suit appeared up the stage and sat in the middle, next to the producer of the event: they were going to have a quick interview. Since Yoriyuki knew English, and he was actually very good at it, a translator wasn’t needed.

Mirena wasn’t clapping though. She was just amused seeing that guy, like a priest that just saw God. Due to the nature of her case, the analogy is pretty accurate. Her feelings were way more complex than the admiration of the whole crowd.

He was so close, and she just wanted to scream for him to notice her, but she couldn’t. Be it due to fear or social decorum, she stayed quiet, admiring him.

When he closed his eyes, for some reason he visualized himself in a classroom at the sunset. The orange sky was seen through the window, barely illuminating the room. It had a lot of empty desks and a door leading to a closet at the back of the room.

Ken was standing in front of the teacher’s desk. There was nobody there except for him and a child. He was dressed with the elementary school uniform, playing with the rubber and the pencils. The black and short hair covered a bright, creative and cheerful mind. The boy raised the head and looked at him.

—What happened to you, sir? —he asked.

—What do you mean?

—You seem a bit sad.

—I am a bit sad, indeed. Don’t worry about it, it’s just adult’s problems.

—Am I going to be like you when I grow up?

—Yes, you will.

Ken approached to the window and saw the sun. Since it was falling, the bright was mitigated and he was able to see it directly without narrowing the eyes.

—When I was a kid, I was very funny. At least that’s how I remember myself, maybe I was just a cringy brat. But the thing is that I didn’t care about it, I was just the way I was. I was honest. Is that how I want to be? I want to be cheerful and funny again, like I am with my mom? Am I honest to her?

He turned around and stared to the kid, who returned the look back.

After some introductory questions, the producer asked:

—So, what did inspire you to write Sekaunmei?

In that moment, something in his face changed, especially on the eyes. He grabbed firmly the microphone and stoop up. The question touched his soul.

—Life can be tough for a worker. I know I shouldn’t be ungrateful, at least I was born in a first-world country, in an upper-middle class family, with a lot of facilities other people don’t have. But still, my life in my early 20’s was just miserable. Over and over the same thing, the same monotone life with anything, or anyone, to put some bright on it...

They both stared each other for a long time, until Ken negated with the head.

—So that’s the problem. I can’t be honest with the other people if I can’t even be honest with myself. Who’s the real me? I know it perfectly. But who I want to be? I have no idea. But definitely, I don’t want to be like this kid. I’ve changed, and that’s good. I just have to find another path to follow. One that suits the adult me. Sorry.

—It’s fine —said the kid before disappearing, smiling though.

—I was bored, I was exhausted, but I was also too scared to change it. Taking some risk, doing a life-changing decision: all those things were absolute terrifying for me. I preferred the status quo, even when it was miserable and sad.

»It was at that moment when the fantasy, the fiction, appeared in my life. I always liked to dive into fictional worlds as entertainment, but at that time, more than entertainment it became a matter of survival. I decided to give up on real world and found myself happy just living in my fantasy worlds.

Ken had no idea if he just appeared out a nowhere, or if he had been there the whole time and he just noticed him later.

In the corner of the room, hunched over himself like if he wanted to disappear, there was a young teenager. The uniform was similar to the kid’s one but with different colors, indicating that he was a high school student.

—Then that stage came. The one when I became way more shy than I am right now. I feel bad for you kid, but definitely that’s not how I want to be.

And the teenager disappeared too.

Suddenly, the entire classroom was full. All the desks had a student. They all looked like adult Ken, but with different personalities and tastes. The athlete, the arrogant, the smart, the nice guy, the one who liked to go to parties, the other one who preferred reading books, the activist one, etc.

A lot of Kens, but the real Ken didn’t identify with any of them. Just a lot of crazy possibilities, nothing more. He started to think that he was just a hollow being, with absolutely no personality.

At that moment, he heard a strange sound coming from the closet at the end of the room.

—So that’s how Sekaunmei was built. A world created as opposed to the real world. Everything that I hated from here, I inverted it in Sekaunmei creating the most perfect fantasy. That’s why I think it became so popular: any human being can find one of his or her fantasies there. As long as you suffered at least one problem, preoccupation or tragedy in your life, Sekaunmei will be the place you can go to and evade those problems.

»Of course, that’s how I used to think. Now that I can live doing what I love, I’m way happier. And that’s thanks to all of you who support my work!

Yoriyuki Yamahito bowed to the crowd, and they absolutely loosed it and clapped, very moved by his words.

His sincere words and feelings, except for the last part. That was a huge lie.

The room became empty once more when he approached to the closet. The sounds had stopped. He extended his hand slowly and opened the sliding door. Then, he jumped to the side, evading the guy who almost fell on him.

—Ouch —he said—. Why did you kept looking at me and didn’t do anything to stop me from falling?!

Ken smiled due to the nostalgia, even if only two weeks had passed.

—Who are you? —asked the real Ken to his doppelganger—. My gay side?

—I came out from the closet but no, I’m not.

—Oh…

—You sound disappointed.

—Well, if I were gay, I wouldn’t be suffering for my love to Mirena. So? Who are you? What were you doing in the closet?

—Oh, that’s where I have my manga collection. I was cleaning it, leaning on the door, and when you opened it… Well, you know the rest.

­—So even in my fantasies I hide the things I like… —said the real Ken. However:

—No, no, no, I don’t hide the mangas because I’m ashamed of something like that. It’s just that the stupid kid you saw early tends to color my books, can you believe it?

—Oh, I see. I wish I could be like you… —And just when he pronounced those words, he understood everything—. You are the real me.

—No, that’s wrong. You are the real one. I’m rather some kind of subconscious, the you that is hidden deep inside your soul.

Again, he approached to the window. The sky hadn’t changed at all, but the sun seemed a bit brighter for some reason.

—A guy who tends to be sarcastic and ironic, even if not necessary cheerful or funny. Someone who expects basic respect from the others, who finds it difficult to enter into confidence and gets annoyed pretty easy. That last part is unfortunate, but that’s how I am.

»Just a normal guy who goes to the gym, works at a mall and likes anime and otaku things in general. Someone that is not to sociable, but sometimes needs to talk with people and be friends with them. Just sometimes, except for Mirena. She’s the only one with whom I could live two, three, four weeks, a whole life, without feeling exhausted.

»Because I love her. Even if all the things I said before were a lie, even if I don’t know myself as much as I think, that last thing is true for sure. I love her.

The sun became so bright that its radiance covered all the room until it disappeared.

When he opened the eyes, he was, of course, in the same site than before. Just standing there, close to the fountain where two people were seated. They were a male and a female. She was dressed casual, while he was using a Mask cosplay. His was a bit cheaper though, but it reflected the effort it took to do it. However, he didn’t have the mask, probably the most important part of the cosplay for a character that is literary called Mask.

He stared at the female, and for some reason her face seemed familiar. He approached due to the curiosity, and then she noticed him.

—Oh wow, your cosplay is really good! —she said—. Why aren’t you inside though? Yoriyuki Yamahito is talking right now.

—Well, I could ask the same thing —he responded.

—Wait, that voice seems familiar.

Ken took out the mask while thinking: “This is a very big city, and you’re telling me that we met by coincidence twice? This seems scripted”.

—I never thought I would find you in a place like this one, Mai. —She was his classmate, the same girl he found on the train the day when he bought the 14th volume of Sekaunmei. The day it all started, and the day it all was going to end, both times she appeared out of nowhere.

—Oh, it’s Ken! I can’t believe it! I also never thought I would find you here, even less wearing such a good cosplay.

—It’s borrowed, so it’s not really my merit.

—This is Jimmy, my boyfriend.

The both Masks greeted each other shaking hands. Looking at him from that close, Ken noticed that he was very pale. And not because that were his natural skin tone, neither because he used makeup; it was sick paleness.

—Are you all right?

—Yes —he responded—, it’s just that this is my first time cosplaying and I suffered a heat stroke.

—Oh, I see. Get well soon.

—Don’t worry, I’m already feeling much better.

—That’s good. So, Mai, are you here just to accompany him or…?

—No, no, I’m a huge anime fan since high school.

—Eh? Since high school? —he asked, astonished.

—Yes! I even used to be part of a manga club; I loved to draw in those times. Now because I don’t have time, otherwise I would still draw for sure.

—Since high school… —Ken repeated.

“So, if I had been sincere about my true self from the beginning, could we have been friends? would I have been able to have friends in school? And go to clubs, and interact with people with similar tastes and personalities?”

—I’m sorry, for my fault you can’t hear to Yoriyuki’s interview —said Jimmy.

—Oh, it’s fine —she responded—. Anyway is just a short interview and he’ll leave immediately after that, so it’s fine.

Then, out a nowhere, Ken laughed. He laughed out loud by the irony of his whole life. A painful irony, and a painful laugh. A laugh that was at the limit of the cry and the screams. They both watched to him rather confused.

—Sorry, I just remembered something very funny —he excused himself once he calmed a little bit—. Wait, you said that he’s leaving immediately after the interview?

—Yeah, that’s right. I thought there would be an autograph signing or something, but that’s not the case. He has to attend a lot of other events too.

—Shit, then I should hurry. It was nice to see you both. Wait, now that I think about it, where’s your mask, Jimmy?

—Oh, the elastic broke and I lost it somewhere. My cosplay is a bit messy, isn’t it?

Ken thought about it some seconds, and then he handed the mask to Jimmy.

—Take it.

—Eh? No, I can’t accept it.

—Seriously, take it.

—But you said it was a borrowed costume.

—Just some parts, the mask is a gift. Also, to obtain it one of the conditions was that I had to give it away to someone, at some point. Well, the time has come. Hopefully, I won’t need a mask anymore.

—But with that cosplay you can even win the contest.

—Nah, I know someone else who’s gonna win for sure. Nobody can’t compete against her.

Still a bit reluctant, Jimmy took the gift and threw a lot of gratitude words. However, Ken had no time to hear all of them. He rushed and entered the building.