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You lay in your bed, lazily tapping your index finger on your phone. It’s only the afternoon and yet your lights are off, hiding the mess in your room and signs of depression. The fictional man on your screen grunts at your tapping, moving closer to the screen before saying the same line he always does:
“All this patting and tapping. What’s next? Are you gonna hang me out to dry?”
The only person you want to hang right now is yourself—if you would even be considered a “person” anymore. You never go outside, can’t function around humans for long without having some kind of anxiety or panic attack. You’re lonely. Maybe you’ll talk to an online stranger in a video game or on social media for a while, but you don’t have anyone you’d really consider a “friend”. No one who would want to talk with you for hours in their free time. No one who would want to deal with all the trauma that comes with you. No one who would love you for who you are…
Well, no one except the fictional man on your screen.
Caleb is his name. An otome game character you fell in love with after he was reintroduced as a love interest in an announcement one morning.
All your life you yearned for someone like him. Someone who would fight for your love and never give up on you no matter how hard being with you may seem. Someone who remembers your birthday, what you like and dislike, your hobbies—everything about you. Someone who would give you the entire world if they could.
Your soulmate turned out to be a fictional man.
You learned to live with this terrible fate of yours. It wasn’t hard to grow an attachment to him anyway. A lot of what he felt, you felt. His possessiveness and obsessive tendencies is something you can heavily relate to. While everyone else hated Caleb, you loved him as soon as he released as a love interest, and your love for him only grew more obsessive as the months went by. The days when you needed someone to lean on the most but didn’t have anyone—you at least had Caleb. When you were bored out of your mind with no distractions left, you’d click on the Love and Deepspace app and just stare at Caleb, maybe mess around with portrait mode if you had any energy left in you.
Caleb was—and still is—your anchor, the only reason you haven’t ran into traffic and hoped some truck would finally end your miserable existence.
“I wish you were real…real humans suck,” your mutter, idly tapping at the screen.
But his reaction is strange. While you were ready to hear another corny one-liner, instead he just…stares at you. You see his smile slowly turning into a frown. He doesn’t stare at you with pity in his eyes, but its more apologetic, as if he’s feeling guilty about something. Then he moves closer to the screen, not blinking the whole time as he stares at you, parting his lips to whisper:
”I’ve been wanting to take you away from that chaotic world for a long time…”
You pause at his words. Was this a glitch? A line he normally says in Floating Floraletter, he accidentally said on the home screen?
You brush it off as a glitch and let out a yawn. You look at the time and realize that it’s 5a.m. now.
“Well, not like you’d love someone as pathetic as me anyway, yeah? I’m no MC.”
You see a glimpse of Caleb’s puppy eyes staring at you before you turn off your phone and finally go to bed.
It is true, though, you aren’t anything like MC. You aren’t strong, athletic, attractive. Caleb wouldn’t love someone like you. Someone who is unstable, paranoid, a shut in—everything she isn’t.
After about thirty minutes of spiraling instead of going to sleep, you finally manage to doze off. In your dreams, you see Caleb reaching out to you with a smile in front of a white background, promising that you’ll finally live in the paradise you’ve dreamed of living in for years—with him. You reach for his hand and grab onto it tightly, never letting go as he takes you away to this “paradise”.
---
You awake from your slumber with a very mean headache. You groan, reaching out for your phone to check what time it is. If it was past 1p.m, you’d stay awake, preferring not to sleep any further and risk starving yourself to the point of nausea.
But you don’t feel your phone as you reach, so you look over and realize how different your room looks.
Your eyes dance around the unfamiliar room you’re in. It’s very minimalist and neat, a huge contrast to the amount of clutter and trash you’ve accumulated.
You sit up now, anxiety suddenly filling every bone in your body as you realize that something isn’t right. Were you kidnapped? No, there’s no way you didn’t wake up at all if that was the case. Maybe you’re dreaming? But it feels too real…
You hear footsteps approaching the room you’re in. You freeze, eyes darting over to the door as you slowly watch it creek open.
“Pipsqueak?” A familiar voice calls out.
And then his gaze meets yours.
“Ah, you’re awake!” Caleb smiles as he rushes over to you, not at all subtle about his excitement. You start to relax, realizing that this is just a lucid dream, and you smile at him in return when you watch him kneel at your bedside like an obedient golden retriever.
Caleb suddenly narrows his eyes at you. His hand moves to rest on the backside of your own hand before pinching your skin, letting go when he hears you yelp in pain.
“W-What was that for?”
“So you’d know you aren’t dreaming,” Caleb responds sternly, taking your hand in his and holding you gently this time. “That the Caleb in front of you is real.”
You stare at him blankly, processing his words slowly. Was all of this really…real? But—
“How?”
Caleb chuckles at your perplexed expression.
“I don’t know either. All I remember was suddenly being in your dream, and when I grabbed your hand and pulled you closer, you had returned with me—in my world.”
Caleb moves to sit beside you on the edge of the bed, giving you time to process everything that just happened. His thumb caresses your knuckles as you clench your fists, offering quiet reassurance.
“I’m…happy…” you murmur, a genuine smile slowly appearing on your face. “If what you say is really true, that none of this is a dream—”
“It’s not a dream, baby. I promise you that all of this is real.”
You feel something wet hit your cheek. Tears. You try to wipe them away with your hands, but Caleb beats you to it, using his thumbs to capture any tear that escapes your eyes.
“I know, I know. It’s all so scary, yeah?” Caleb’s voice is gentle, comforting, soft. “Caleb can finally take care of you now. He can finally make you happy.”
You croak, jumping into his arms and holding him tightly as he wraps his arms around you as well.
“I can finally show you just how much you deserve to be loved. You can finally be as clingy and obsessive with me as I will be with you.” Caleb’s voice grows hoarse as he tries to fight back tears of his own. For so long, he’s been wanting to comfort and shield you from the pain you’d receive daily. He’s been wanting to drown out all your negative thoughts, to protect you from your harmful ones, and to remind you that you are still worthy of love.
And now he can, and it fills him with so much incomprehensible joy.
“You won’t ever feel unloved again. You won’t ever be alone again.” Caleb’s chokes on his own tears as he tightens his hold on you. He buries his face in your hair, trying to calm himself down. “I promise you that.”
“Because I love you. And when you truly love someone, you never let them go.”
---
You both sob in each other’s embrace for about an hour until there were no more tears left to shed.
The two of you decide to cuddle in bed for awhile. You feel warm and secure in Caleb’s arms. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt this safe. Your eyes look up and meet his staring down at you in awe.
“I’m not as perfect as MC, y’know…”
Caleb raises a brow at you. “MC? Who’s that?”
You look at him, confused, poking his cheek as you pout.
“The woman who’s been making out with you for almost a year now. Your sister?”
Caleb's eyes wander. It’s like your speaking a whole different language to him. He stares at you like you’re an alien.
“You’re my only family, pipsqueak…besides Gran too, I guess.”
You pause. But…that doesn’t make sense? Who was he interacting with this whole time if it wasn’t her?
“The stories, the cutscenes…if you’re the Caleb I was seeing this entire time on my screen, then you should know who MC is.”
And finally, it clicks. Caleb lets out a sigh as he scratches his hair in annoyance.
“Oh, her…” He cradles your face gently, squishing your cheeks with his palms and giggling at your puckering lips. “I knew who my real pipsqueak was whenever you’d log in and see me. The one in the stories—the one I was forced to love—I always coped by telling myself, ‘This is just an extension of them,’ but I knew she wasn’t you.”
You blush deeply at his words, suddenly embarrassed by how jealous you are. Caleb notices and squishes your cheeks again to keep you from suddenly spiraling.
“What’s wrong? Mad she stole all of my firsts?” Caleb’s voice lowers to a whisper as he moves closer to you, his lips grazing your ear. ”You enjoyed watching and listening to us, though, didn’t you?”
You let out a gasp, not used to having someone so close to you like this. You push him away, but he pulls you closer, laughing as he ruffles your hair.
“Sorry, Sorry. ‘Was just teasin’ ya.”
You pout at him. You try to ignore the arousal suddenly creeping in. You clamp your thighs together as you glance away from him, hoping he wont notice.
“Hungry,” you mutter, pulling at his tank top. He lets out a playful sigh before getting out of bed.
“Want me to carry you to the kitchen, hm?”
You nod, and he obeys, pulling you into his arms with ease as he carries you over to the kitchen.
“…I meant it, yknow. About how I love you.” You meet his gaze again, falling in love with his complexion all over again, and how beautiful the galaxy in his eyes are. “I love everything about you. Your body, your personality, and all the trauma you carry with you…”
“…And I love you too, Caleb. Everything about you…”
Caleb becomes bashful at your reassurance. The tips of his ears turn red, and he finds himself pausing his steps and staring at your lips. It’s tempting, but he knows you’re not ready for that kind of intimacy yet, so he leans down and kisses you on the forehead instead.
“I would be a fool to let someone as precious as you go, my love.”