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Your name is Jake English and you think he might kiss you. Your senses are being attacked from all directions, what feels like a hundred thousand posters pressed with glinting tacks on the wall, every surface of every shelf crowded up to the edge with metal scraps and bits and bobs. Mementos of a life spent unseen. It keeps beating you over the head that nobody else has ever been in here before, that you're the first. He trusts you like that, you're thinking. The gears are spinning, a strange sick panic building that the first person to ever see his room will make some fatal mistake. This panic mingles with a great unidentifiable longing in your chest. Nobody else has ever been in your room either. And you can imagine that if you were both in your room, you would be skiddish and trying to pull all your embarrassing posters off the wall. But he is not nervous at all. He wears a weird too-wide smile. It's the smile of somebody who hasn't been around people before, like he doesn't know how to control his face. Nobody taught him that you don't smile that big. It can be intimidating. You feel a little intimidated, in fact, with the knowledge of how many facial muscles you are consciously affecting, keeping your smile competing with his. It can be hard taking great care to make sure you're seen just the right way. You're not sure who you would be behind the deliberation. It scares you. To be fair, it's been a long time since anybody taught you how not to smile that big. Well, despite how your friends seem to wholeheartedly believe in your dumbass schtick, there are some things you can teach yourself just by watching movies. The leading man doesn't break down his wall for anything. Not for the bad guy, and not for his girl. He is a strong, sturdy piece of meat. He accepts the kisses, sure. He does not initiate. This much you have memorized, but you do not know what happens after that, what happens after the credits roll. When the volcano is done erupting, you're left with the aftermath of that kiss. You're left with the knowledge of your best friends mouth on yours, unable to be scrubbed off the surface of your brain. Well, you love him. Of course you'd thought about it. A thousand nights' thinking doesn't prepare you for the reality of the situation. The bright warmth. It's fair to say sometimes bright can be too bright.
After 16 years of dodging your way out of honesty, you're in your best friend's bedroom and your stomach is fluttering. And you're not sure how to classify the fluttering. Are you nervous, Jake? You don't think you're nervous. You think you know exactly how this is going to play out. But when you look at your best friend and his too-big smile you have to reckon with the fact that you find him hard to predict. He puts a hand on your knee. And the muscles clenching your face tightly let go for a second. Fully blank, eyes as open as they get, you take a moment to think. You think about your principles. You think about what you love. The heat of the chase, right? Everyday something new, going out on a limb and guns and monsters and all that. Isn't this just like that? There is something dangerous about how he sits in his bed, knees and elbows touching yours, under long, sharp swords mounted on the wall. Teeth bared in happiness. They seem to say I'm your best friend aren't I, Jake. They say look at me so happy to have you here. So you decide this is Jake English's next great adventure, goddammit. No holds barred! Gung ho! And you throw yourself headlong into his kiss. And that strange new feeling of someone else near fills your belly up with white light, eyes closed but you swear you could see the room glowing through the skin on your eyelids. And you think it is good. But it feels a little bit too much like Brobot when his hair hangs above your head, that familiar sensation of being pushed down into the ground. You can almost feel yourself pulling up those clumps of grass and dirt when your fingers twist around his bedsheets. New and old sensations at the same time. Gushing lava. Thick green vines. Eyes on you. Hot metal. Blood between your fingers. No, this time it's just dust. And linen. Leather fingerless gloves. Toothpaste. Your first real kiss (severed head notwithstanding) goes like that.
And the kisses keep coming over the next couple months, and they mean new things each time. It's hard not to let them twist you up until you start smelling that volcanic ash in the air again. It turns out you will never be that tough piece of meat that a leading man ought to be, because you can't hide what you're thinking from him. The second neurosis slips its way into your head, your mouth goes slack. It's just that he doesn't take that as the poison-frog neon signal he should. He takes it as an invitation to try to fix it, to keep himself by your side around the clock to keep you from feeling lonely. He just wants to protect you, you think. You think that's why he can't leave you alone for even a second. You don't really think you need to be protected though. You're tough. And being pinned by long, gangly limbs is a less than optimal sleeping arrangement. At least for every single night. And at least for now. In the early morning hours, when sleep has proven elusive, you will often both find yourself sprawled out across the floor. Toys sit between you. Ponies with half their hair pulled out, army men painted over to look like you and your friends. These were Dirk's handiwork at a young age, needing something physical to tell him you were all real. Well, now you're all real and here and sometimes he still clings to the little army men. Those mornings, he will take the toys and enact elaborate tales. And you play along, moving the horse figurines and puppets and G.I Joes to the tune of his story beats, intricate narration almost always saying something you don't think you really understand. Sometimes you take Roxy and Jane's figures and dance them around and wonder what might have happened if things had gone differently. What it might be like if you were laying on Jane's bedroom floor. Or even Roxy's. A conflicted voice at the back of your mind tells you this isn't how the story goes. You don't fall in love with the sidekick. You don't dream about strong hands on your shoulders. You don't trace the curve of your best friends back with one lazy hand while he babbles about philosophy into his pillow. You could be out there, being who you're supposed to be. There are ladies out there who broke down your door with their hearts in their hands just like him. Why did you pick the wrong choice?
The truth, of course, is because you are not that man at all. You are not the hero. If anything, you are the windswept lady in the throes of passion. You look up at his sharp nose and strong mouth every single day. You lay flat on the ground, below him sitting at his workbench and admire the curvature of his chin. Allow yourself to envy him for a second. He follows through, with no hesitation. He does what he says he will do. He knows, when he speaks, that he is making the right choice. And most importantly, Dirk doesn't lie. If you lie on his arm the wrong way, he asks that you politely get the fuck off. If he lies on your arm the wrong way, well, it's a long night. If anybody were to ask you, you are always doing just peachy. How could anybody not be doing wonderfully. There's so many skeleton guys to fight here it is so awesome. So many cool tombs to explore. But, really, you're just here lying on your boyfriend's floor, picking at stains in the carpet. You're a coward. And movies aren't real, that's why they're called movies. Dirk is the action movie hero of your motley crew, and the longer you spend here, doing jack shit all day but playing with toys like a little kid, everyone is slowly starting to realize you have been putting on a facade as long as you've known them. You're not sure what they think of it. You don't really want to talk about it. One day, when you feel like maybe some good old friendly fisticuffs might make you feel more normal, you ask Dirk if he wants to wrestle. You roll around, laughing and pushing and prodding and it makes you feel like a man. But then you really want to kiss him, so you do, which sets you right back to zero. You pick up a green pony one night and dub her Jake. She is beautiful and strong. You ask Dirk to write you a story. And your pony saves the world like you always wanted to, kisses an orange pony as the credits roll. Of course, that volcano erupts in the background. Little does pony Jake know what comes next.
When the credits roll, a hero has to reconcile where his journey has left him. You thought entering the game would be the beginning of the most important years of your life, but you think it was the end. Where has your childhood left you, hero? Well, your name is Jake English and Sburb has elected that you don't even get to be called a hero, but rather a Noble. And Nobles wait. So you get to waiting, like a wife waiting for her husband to come back in one of those war movies. Conceding to not being the biggest man. And it feels right, almost, and it certainly feels more honest. You don't mind waiting.