Chapter Text
The sun was at its zenith, and Chris could feel his sweat trickling on his back. It was supposed to be a dream, but the heat that seeped through the diamond was demanding to be felt. And he could feel every bit of it—from the 30°C of the ten o’clock game, the tension of the game itself, and the heat radiated by his very own team’s pitcher.
It’s already the bottom of the ninth with a runner on second base, and his team is an out away to win the tournament. Chris has the scouts lining up for him, so winning the game isn’t something so crucial for his career. But he’s not the only one on the team, and going home with a victory could be very much helpful to his other teammates.
As the team captain, Chris always reminded his team to focus on the ongoing game and not chase the scores, but just let the scoreboard reflect all their hard work for the season. It’s not that he didn’t step on the diamond without aiming to win. He was just confident with his team after all the extra training they had to prepare for their long-awaited battle at the Koshien stadium. But right at that moment, he himself couldn’t help getting giddy at the sweet thought of victory being one strike away from his fingers.
He locked eyes with his pitcher, full of fire, determined to end the game at that very moment, and not allow any more fouls to eat the stamina of his pitcher who has been on the mound for nine straight innings. They are only one run ahead of the opposing team so they couldn't afford to be careless, not with a runner in scoring position. Going for extra innings isn't an option.
Chris gave the sign asking for a low outside pitch, which should be unexpected for the opposing team when Chris barely asked for it for the whole duration of the tournament.
His pitcher gave him a nod and shot a big smile at him, a smile that he knew was telling him that they can do it and that he’ll always trust his calls.
It should have been unexpected but he watched the batter change his stance to match the expected trajectory of the pitch.
“This is the pitch that I want you to learn the most.”
He watched the ball fly in slow motion to his direction, as it’s too late to change anything unless some raindrop changes the course for even a centimeter.
Clang.
Chris woke up, and he was back in his bedroom, his blanket wrapped around him instead of the catcher gear, his third pillow on his fist instead of the mitt. It was not the first time he had that certain dream. It always came to visit him every day. Every detail was always vivid, except for the face and the voice of his pitcher. It was always blurry, but Chris knew it whenever they locked eyes and when he smiled at him. He saw that dream on the daily, but he never got an inch closer to seeing his face.
Why was he seeing the same dream all over again? Who is that pitcher, and why couldn’t he see him every time? What was the whole point of seeing this dream? But his confusions were never answered, and he was just left with more questions.
His phone alarm rang, telling him he woke up just in time to prepare for his morning class. He did a few stretches like a cat getting up from a nap, got up to prepare the clothes for the day, and fixed his bed. On his way to take a shower, he found the kitchen lights that he forgot to turn off before sleeping, just like he always does every single day. His morning always smelled like bacon and eggs fresh out of the stove. Any other breakfast option would spell disaster. Sticking to the same routine has always been the way for him. No more, no less.
He’s just some extra in this story, but he even has his own routine to follow. The one time he decided to have burgers for breakfast was the worst breakfast he ever had. He wants to give kudos to the author for going through the details of an extra like him. Or maybe it was something default to any manga character like him.
It’s not that he couldn’t do what he wants. After all, he’s just some extra who doesn’t even need to follow a script. But going against his character always felt like having a new pimple on his butt. Yes, he may be able to sit, but it does feel uncomfortable. So he doesn’t try to defy anything. Because there will be no point.
Plus, there will always be that possibility of the author deleting him from their stories, should the author realize he’s been changing too many things in the background. Chris had to learn it the hard way, because the morning after the burger incident, he witnessed his stomach become translucent for the whole day. It came back to normal after he returned to his assigned routine.
After all, if someone is not essential to the plot—or worse, they’re ruining it—why should the author bother putting them in their little made-up universe? And if he gets deleted, what would be left of him? The author has that kind of power, and he is nothing but one of their pawns.
He had so many questions. And these weren't even half of them.
So he sat there, eating his breakfast, already knowing what lies ahead of him for the rest of the day. He’ll get to the bus stop two minutes before the scheduled time. Their strict Communications professor will give them tons of homework. He’ll have chicken teriyaki and mashed potato for lunch. Their Art History professor will be doing a surprise quiz, and despite getting the correct answers since he knew it was coming ahead of time, his answers always managed to get changed to something else to keep his score in the middle. Just enough to keep him unnoticeable. He’ll be ten seconds late to the bus as he comes out of school so he’d have to wait a little longer. He’ll have fried chicken and fried rice for dinner. He’ll do a little bit of homework, forget to turn off the lights in the kitchen, and finally, head to bed.
At least, that was what was supposed to happen.
“Chris-senpai!” a student who looked like a sophomore called out behind him.
A new character? At this time? Chris asked himself.
For some reason, he felt a whirlwind forming inside his stomach. Just like when he ate noodles for lunch. Just like a pimple is coming out on his butt cheeks.
“Who is he?” Chris asked softly. He smelled nothing but trouble, and he was not ready for it.
Discovering he’s a manga character shocked him at first, but eventually, he was able to adjust to that fact. Rather, it was easier to accept he’s fictional because that made more sense with how things were going around him.
The thundering sound of the flipping pages almost drove him crazy, especially since no one else seemed to hear them except him. He barely talked to people around him, and the first time he did, they just gave him the look . Because there’s no way some flipping pages roaring in the sky would go unnoticed by everyone.
There were moments when he was suddenly sent standing in the middle of some commotion in the park when a few seconds ago, he was getting groceries.
Chris is in his last year in college as the plot follows the story of his batchmates, which means if the author only decided to have the plot revolve around the characters’ university lives, the manga was bound to end soon.
And not too long after, he will be in the new manga of the same author. He thinks. After all, he seems to be the favorite extra. On some lucky days, he gets to be a side character with a little more character depth. But anything could have more character depth than his usual assignment—the disciplined classmate who has average grades and literally has nothing else going on with his life except for the fact that he kept forgetting to turn off his kitchen lights every night. He thought the kitchen lights were weird for being like that every single time, but he thought that maybe that’s just what the author wanted. So he let it go and just lived with it.
He was never the main character. Except for the baseball scene he always saw in his dreams.
So maybe, his vivid dreams were just his wishful thinking. What if he gets to be the main character? What if he got something more going on with his plotline?
"Good morning, Chris-senpai!" a voice behind him called out.
It was the same student who kept greeting him for the whole week every after class. Different year levels have different break times, but the sophomore boy always managed to spot him after he gets out of his classroom.
Weird things have been happening to him since the day that boy said hi to him. For five days in a row, he didn't forget to turn off his kitchen lights. On yesterday's breakfast, he was craving hotdogs. He hesitated, unwilling to experience the burger incident once again, but gave in to one bite. Just one bite. Nothing wrong happened to his stomach, though. Yet. It felt all right.
Things seemed all right. For now.
He could see the scrambling students from his usual spot outside the classroom overlooking the school field. The usual hushed conversations along the hallway felt like whispers of tranquility to his ears. Nothing out of the ordinary—
“Chris-senpai! Chris-senpai! Do you wanna have chicken wings for lunch?”
Chicken wings for lunch? He thought it’s ridiculous. A bite of a different breakfast is one thing. Going for a different meal could be overdoing it.
“I think my chicken teriyaki and mashed potato need my company more,” he replied.
He turned him down yesterday. He turned him down today. And he’ll definitely turn him down tomorrow. Chris just wanted to live in peace before the manga wraps up.
Fortunately, the sophomore boy didn’t show up for the rest of the week, and Chris was back to being faithful to his routine. He didn’t have to worry about getting deleted from the story when he’s been a regular who got to see the plot through the end. He wanted to live, even if it was just a tiny made-up fictional universe.
Unfortunately, the rest of the week felt so bland. It made him feel uneasy—not the pimple-on-your-butt kind—instead, it was something that felt foreign to him. The bacon and egg didn’t look as appetizing as before, but it was the only thing he had left inside his fridge for the day. The chicken teriyaki started feeling like a weekend meal to him.
It didn’t make sense, but his head was all over the place.
But it’s not like he needed that sophomore boy to spice up his life. He just needed to do his role as an extra, and extras don’t need plot twists.
He felt uneasiness pooling at the bottom of his stomach.
“I don’t even know him,” he whispered to himself.
Chris—or maybe his character type in the stories set in schools—loves staying in the library for break time. Sometimes, he read books, but most of the time, he tried catching up on what’s happening in the manga’s plotline. The stories have been his only form of entertainment through the years.
Yes, the author’s works were just there in the libraries, but for some weird reason, Chris was the only one who noticed the books. Even when the truth came to him as a glowing floating book with pages endlessly flipping in the middle of the day.
At first, Chris was horrified after learning the truth that his whole existence was nothing but a collection of lines—a collection of lines that was made by somebody else, and that he was and will never be his own person.
Somehow, he’s curious if those lead characters in the romance stories liked their co-leads for real. Do they even have a concept of emotions when their whole lives are nothing but a show?
He has been included in a lot of the author’s works. In the manga Karma Cassette, a story about childhood friends who became lovers but broke up in the long run, Chris was one of their neighbors who would just sigh whenever the couple fought on the streets.
As for the manga Change Me, a high school romance about finding oneself, he was the classmate who was just there hanging out in the background, erasing the writings on the board along with the main character who remained unmoving on his seat while deep in thought. Chris is yet to be written with even a little bit of character depth outside the very detailed routine, but he has read a lot about emotions and he'd like to believe he understood them well. The author’s forte seemed to be exploring their characters’ feelings, so it made sense that this manga became his favorite.
He had the most lines in The Stealer, a manga surrounding a series of heists, where he was a security guard in one of the target banks. Well, it wasn’t a lot of lines really. But he got featured in four pages where he wasn’t drawn as just another faceless dude in the background.
The other side characters, or even extras, got recycled back into the author's universe by getting major roles in the plot, while his feet were still in the same spot where they left him. He couldn’t remember what happened in between the stories. He’ll disappear and just pop out in a new neighborhood, in an outfit he couldn't remember having inside his closet. And that’s how he knows that a new story has begun.
What was his beginning? He wasn’t sure. What is his destination? He wasn’t sure either.
In the other titles that he could remember, his character was basically the same, but he couldn’t make up which one he started from.
“Chris-senpai!” a voice interrupted his thoughts.
What he was sure of was: hearing that voice once again made all the uneasiness building up inside him disappear.
“Let’s get Bacon and Egg McMuffin and McFlurry with double fudge.”
Bacon and egg weren’t something he would have on an afternoon. And he would never ask for double fudge on the already sweet McFlurry.
But somehow, the extra kick of sweetness felt right. And he felt thankful that the boy finally came to bother him again. He was still trying to figure things out, but he started wishing more of this.
“Who are you?” Chris blurted out, halfway through his ice cream.
The boy just smiled, his eyes full of longing, telling a lot of stories that Chris could not comprehend yet. “If it’s you, you will eventually remember.”
I want to know him. Chris said in his thoughts.