Dear reader,
Thank you again for reading this far. What do you think of the story so far? Though our protagonist struggled in the beginning, he somehow managed to pull through with the help of a bit of magic. However, two years still remain until the end of his degree, and the physics courses have only now just begun. I figure that at this point, after the last post about the second year of university, it would be the best time to post about high school. It’ll set the stage for the following posts. This is the Amen Origin Story, so to speak. From here on out, things are going to get serious. This is no longer a tale for the faint of heart. Consider this a warning.
-Amen
High school. It all began like I imagine most high school stories begin: with a lot of confusion. Most people from North America will already know how it goes, but for anyone else reading this, I’ll explain how it works. In middle school, you were stuck with the same classmates all day for the whole year, and you usually stayed in the same room. But in high school, the students in your math class could be completely different from the ones in your English class, and you have to travel from classroom to classroom for each subject. It was similar to university in that regard. Also, my high school was big. We were given maps and we actually had to use them to find our classes. It actually was similar in size to a small university. This was a big change, so it was very difficult to adjust to in the beginning. I may have accidentally walked into the wrong classes at some point, but my memory is vague.
For me, high school began in grade 9 (shortly after I turned 14 years old). I had been living in this town for 2 years already at this point, and had a good number of friends that all shared the same interests. Or rather, we all ended up developing these interests together, creating a special bond that can’t easily be replaced. Coming from a family that moves around a lot, 2 years was pretty good for me, and life was going good too. I was never really alone in any of my classes, and we all met up during lunch and hung out at a wall next to the school’s theater room. Eventually we even put up a flag and claimed it as the land of Japanada.
Japanada Flag
Another thing: in middle school, we were bound to the schoolyard during lunch, but in high school, we could go wherever we wanted as long as we made it back in time for class again. For example, there was a convenience store just down the road from the school. It was a 5 minute walk away, so people often frequented it. The cafeteria was alright, but the pizza at that convenience store was far better. Also, there was a mall about 15 minutes away. We had a full hour lunch break, so a 30 minute round trip was no problem. Me and one of my friends would often go there, eat McDonald’s or KFC, quite literally fill our pockets with candy skulls, and eat them in English class after lunch. Also, the year was split into two semesters, so classes did not last the whole year.
Skull Candy
Now, I don’t have anything to really say about the classes themselves – they were insignificant. But back in those days, me and all my friends were hooked on a free to play MMO called Mabinogi. I played an Elf named Amen, of course. Unlike most MMOs, this one had a lot of room for socialization. People often just hung out in towns and had chats, or you’d be training a skill and find someone else doing the same thing and you’d end up making a friend while farming resources. I met a lot of friends I still talk to today on that game, and at one point, I even got… an online girlfriend. Yep. Sounds kinda dumb when said like that. We couldn’t see each other in person, and sometimes that really sucked, but overall it was a good experience. Plenty of friends at school, two of my friends lived within walking distance just up the street from my house, and playing games with my friends and girlfriend after school. It was a relaxed lifestyle. Things couldn’t be better.
My MMO Character
Fast forward to grade 10, my second year of high school. Things were still pretty good. This time, we had a strange class. I can’t remember the actual name of the class, but I called it “lecture class,” cause all that happened was we’d get lectured. It was a class designed in order to counteract rising suicide rates. The teacher would just try to give life lessons and stuff. I never paid attention in the class. “My life is fine, I don’t need this class,” I thought to myself. That year was also the year I decided to learn Japanese. I knew it would take a long time to get good, but I was ready for the commitment. I knew it would pay off eventually, and I can say now with certainty that it really has. My other friends also tried to learn it but all gave up at one point or another. Studying Japanese was a good way to pass the time during class though. Oh, and I forgot to mention. During grades 9 and 10, all students were given netbooks. These were very tiny, and very bad, so we had to disable many needless settings and features in order to increase performance, however, they were good enough to run old games. Me and my friends would all connect to each other through the school’s network and chat and play starcraft. There was one period called “achievement period” which was just a glorified name for “study hall,” where you were supposed to study or do homework for an hour. Instead, we all (each of us in different classrooms) would pull out our netbooks and wage war in starcraft. I was a Protoss player, and one of the best of the bunch. You could also play Touhou on the netbooks too, so that was nice. At some point or another, all my friends had also gotten back into Yugioh – the children’s card game. During lunch, the cards covered the floor. We’d have Japanese music going, the Japanada flag waving, and we’d be dueling. I was also at the top of my classes – as in I actually had the highest marks in all of them without even trying. I was living the dream. But you have to wake up from every dream eventually…
Things weren’t going well between me and my girlfriend, for one. We ended up breaking up. Secondly, I learned I had to move away from my beloved town. I had so many friends, and we shared so much in common, and most importantly, our personalities wee very compatible. It’s not easy to find people like that, and I had to leave all of them behind. Not to mention, I’m not exactly the most socially skilled person. Honestly, I was pretty shy, so it was already a miracle that I made so many friends in the first place. Things were looking bad.
So, we moved, and I was now in grade 11. I spent my 16th birthday all alone. What a sweet sixteen. In my first high school, we’d take 5 courses each semester, for a total of 10 per year. In this new one, it was 4 per semester, for 8 per year. A bit of a downgrade, but whatever. But wait, there’s more. I was forced to take a careers and civics class. All the content here I had already covered in what I called “lecture class” the year before. This was a complete waste of time. The class was for grade 10 students, if I recall, so I was the oldest in the class by a year. This gave me cool points, at least. Things were going smoothly in this class, but one day, I went to type something in microsoft word on my laptop and accidentally had Japanese left on. A particularly loud girl was sitting next to me, and when she saw it, she yelled out “Hey everyone, Amen knows Japanese!” The whole class stopped, and everyone swarmed around me asking questions. Even the teacher forgot what she was doing and was completely amazed. Honestly, it was really overwhelming, but I got even more cool points for that, and one girl even became interested in me. She started sitting next to me. People behind would try to throw things at her like crumpled up paper, but I’d catch it stylishly before it hit her and throw it back at them. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Way to go trying to impress her, you try hard,” but I didn’t act for that reason. I just didn’t want to see that shit going on in my classroom, no matter who it was happening to. Once, I was playing touhou in class while waiting for the teacher to arrive or something like that. Again, I gathered a crowd and everyone thought I was hardcore. This never would have happened at my old school, but the people here were easily impressed. I was also taking chemistry, which was fine, and law class, which was quite informative. Not much to say beyond that, but at one point we had a mock trial, and I was the prosecutor. Whoa. I had never played Phoenix Wright at this point, but I was dying to slam down my hands and yell “objection!” I studied hard so that I would school the defense lawyer and it paid off. I won the case and sent the defendant to jail. And most importantly, I had an opportunity to do the “Objection!” thing. That was fun. At the beginning of the semester, I was supposed to be taking French too, but unlike my previous school, where French class was an absolute joke, it was the real deal here. I couldn’t do it; I was too far behind. So I ended up taking an art class in which I was absolutely lazy and did the minimum. The worst part of it all was that in order to graduate, we had to do 30 hours of “volunteer work.” Since it was mandatory, I called it “unvolunteer work.” Every week, I went to the library to sort books for an hour. It was alright at first, but within a few sessions I had sorted everything in the library. and the rate of unsortment was low, so I was left doing next to nothing for an hour each week.
Now, you might be wondering if I made any new friends. At first, it was bad. I’d just eat lunch in the library then read Lord of the Rings. As I mentioned earlier, a certain girl from my careers class became interested in me, so we kinda became friends. I’m sure she wanted to be more than that, and I would have dated her too, but there was one problem, which I’ll get to later. In the meantime, I met a guy in my law class. He was a member of the school’s geek squad. We talked, and I started to sit with them at lunch. Now, I say they were the geek squad, but they were not close to the same level as my old friends. They were entry-level geeks. Honestly, the whole school felt like I had traveled to the past. Everyone was so easily impressed with everything. So, I asserted my dominance and became king of the geeks. Every now and then, a certain girl would come by, and man, never before have I seen such a sad sight. These geeks were her slaves. They all put her on a pedestal and fawned over her. I couldn’t stand the sight of it. The saying “bros before hoes” was very unknown to them, as they would throw each other under the bus for her. Eck. Anyway, they weren’t as great as my old friends, but it was something. The guy who introduced me to the group had many personality problems. He would brag about how he threatened to kill his parents over trivial things. I visited his house once and he said he had a Death Note. “Cool,” I thought and opened it. Inside, I saw something I was not supposed to see. He had actual students’ names written in. Spooky. Once, during lunch, he was sitting next to me on his laptop. I heard him laughing, so I looked over. He was watching gifs of animals being killed. He wasn’t forcing the laugh either – this was the most genuine laugh. At this point, I became aware that I was friends with a maniac. One day he even said he wouldn’t kill me if he ever shot up the school. Nice. At least I was safe. Believe it or not, he got a girlfriend. Remember that girl all the geeks fawned over? She had a little sister who didn’t get as much attention, and dated this guy because he asked her out instead of her older sister for once. Geez, that’s not a very good reason.
This town was a fairly common place for military families like my own to move to, so I nicknamed it “The Town of Fallen Angels” after all those who were pulled here from the places they belonged. Chuuni, I know. But one day, I met someone who had been at my old school. This guy had also been infected by the yugioh craze that started there, so I got a small taste of old times and got to duel. At my old school, my friends and I were always improving, trying to be the best, so I had an unorthodox yet fairly decent deck, so in this school I was the king of games. I never lost once, and this guy would actually bow to me whenever he passed me by in the halls. Things weren’t as good as my old school, and some days were spent in sadness that I wasn’t with my old friends, but it wasn’t too bad. I could live with this at least. And that’s when it happened. Not even halfway through the year, I learned I had to move again. Though they weren’t as great as my old friends, I still got lucky with these ones. I even had a girl interested in me, but nothing would ever come of it. Everything was in vain. All the effort I put in was futile. I’d have everything taken from me again. You ever play a game and get really far without saving, then the power goes out or the game stops working? It’s a really bad feeling, having to start all over again. Now imagine that happening twice. I’d just give up on the game, and that’s how I started feeling about life. What was the point of even trying if I’d just lose everything again and again? I only had a year and a half left of high school, so why even bother when everyone will have to leave again for university. On top of that, mysterious happenings began to occur that made me think I was targeted by some sort of conspiracy. For our law course, for example, we had a final project that was mandatory for completion of the course. We worked on it in the computer lab, and at the end of class, none of the computers were able to save. That was extremely bizarre, but not a problem. Just email the file to yourself. Except as soon as I had that thought, the internet went down too. Luckily, I had a USB and it would save to that. Another incident was during the final exam of law class. I had to take it early since I was moving, so I went in, and the people at the office guided me to a small room. Oddly, they let me bring my backpack. Never have I been allowed to have more than a pencil and eraser near me at a final exam. But, well, they wouldn’t have a hard time supervising me. But the person who guided me to the room left. What? They left me in a room alone with my personal belongings to write a final exam. On top of that, a textbook was on the table. We weren’t supposed to have that. At this point, my suspicion was through the roof, so I look around the room, and bam, everything makes sense. There was a small camera in the top corner of the room. They were trying to tempt me into cheating. On the same day that I went in early for the exam, I saw the girl who liked me one last time. I couldn’t bring myself to say that I was leaving for good. In careers class, sometimes she’d notice me feeling down and ask what’s wrong, but I couldn’t tell her the truth, so I’d just lie and say something dumb like “I’m just bored.” Perhaps I should have said the truth.
So, I moved uneventfully mid-December. What a great Christmas gift. Things were already looking bad, but I learned that things can always get worse. For one, we wouldn’t have internet for a month. This is one thing when you actually have a life, but in this situation, being unable to even message my old friends online or have any contact with the outside world was painful. At that time, I learned true loneliness. However, I was still haunted by everyone I used to know. Every time I walked through the halls of my new school, I would see old faces in the corner of my eyes. I would quickly look, but it wouldn’t be them. Even when I knew it was my brain playing tricks on me, it didn’t end. I would constantly be tormented by seeing my old friends and given false hope. When I registered with the school, I had trouble even transferring credits since my last school was being difficult with sending my transcript. A similar thing happened before. And even after they received the transcript, it didn’t make any difference. I had to take another careers class. The past 2 I took didn’t count. I had to do unvolunteer work for this school too. All the unvolunteer work I had done before didn’t count. I asked to be placed in the highest level of math they offered. They threw me in the second lowest. We were forced to go home for lunch, so I didn’t even have an opportunity to really talk to people and make friends. To make matters worse, this school wasn’t semesterized, so I came in smack in the middle of everything and wasn’t allowed to take any real courses like any of the sciences, which I was looking forward to. Instead, they did 7 courses for the duration of the entire year. I went from being the best in every class, at the very top, and taking 10 classes per year, to taking classes at the bottom of the barrel and only taking 7. I had English, basic math, cooking class, two gym classes, social justice, and careers class. Yes, two gym classes, back to back. That should never happen, and it was exhausting. I normally enjoyed gym classes, but this was painful. Once, after a couple weeks of attending cooking class, the teacher just looked at me and told me to get out. She said I don’t belong in there. I was speechless. I couldn’t say anything. I could barely even register what she just said. That’s not the kind of thing a teacher should just say to a student for no reason. Other people in the class defended me and I had to show her my schedule to prove I belonged. After all that, I was allowed to stay. Still though, what the hell was that? I didn’t ever receive an apology either. The conspiracy against me had succeeded. With my life spiraling completely out of control and looking hopeless, I soon fell into a deep depression. I’d throw up every day before going to school, I’d have panic attacks in the middle of class and have to rush to the bathroom to calm myself down. I’d sleep a ridiculous amount because dreams were the only place I could feel normal. I tried telling myself that it was all in my head, and I can just quit being like this, but I couldn’t. I wanted to do some sort of science at university, but that was looking impossible, so I had no present and no future. Nostalgia was my only glory. When I did get internet, I’d spend my few waking hours just binge watching anime without even really enjoying it. I ended up watching an average of 5-6 whole anime a week (assuming 12 episodes per anime). In class, I’d just think about the different ways to die. I was particularly inspired by Cassius’ death in the play “Julius Caesar.”
This day I breathed first: time is come round,
And where I did begin, there shall I end;
My life is run his compass.
So, I wanted to kill myself on my birthday after I went to university. It would be a sunny day, in a relaxing, green forest. I didn’t want a tragic death. I wanted something peaceful. But oftentimes, I just wished I’d die in my sleep. Once, it almost happened. I was lying in bed, when suddenly my heart felt like it was being pulled out of my chest. I couldn’t breathe. My mind went blank. Not only was my heart being pulled out, but it felt almost like it was vibrating out of control. But within moments, everything was back to normal. I wasn’t scared. I didn’t think to call a hospital. In fact, I was happy. “So this is how I get to die. Something painless and effortless.” When confronting suicidal people, one common line is “Things get better – you’ll be happy that you didn’t go through with it” but I can honestly say that even now, as things are much better, I would be fine with having died then. It was a nightmare, and my parents didn’t help either. They just made things worse. “Acting like that just makes everyone around you sad,” or “No wonder you don’t have any friends.” At some point, I tried playing MMOs again to try to find some sort of joy. It gave me something to do, at least. But soon my laptop broke, and the next one I got was too shitty to play games.
The next year came along and I was finally taking science. Grade 11 physics, grade 12 chemistry and biology, English, robotics, geography, and more shitty math since at this point I was locked out of higher levels. Some of these classes weren’t so bad and didn’t feel like a waste of time, so that was nice, but there wasn’t much to say about them, except that the physics class inspired me to major in it at university. It was around this time I had really gotten interested in Alstroemeria Records. As you could imagine, the emo lyrics (ex. End of Daylight) really resonated with me. I got more interested in touhou music, and more interested in their lyrics. Usually I’d find videos with subtitled lyrics on youtube, but every now and then there would be a song that I couldn’t find lyrics for. Since I had been learning Japanese, I decided to try translating some. Eventually, inspired by Kafkafuura, I even ended up making this site. Back then, I was admittedly pretty bad at it, but it was a learning experience. Eventually, the site started getting attention. Seeing my views grow felt really cool, and seeing comments thanking me felt so nice. “There’s actually something only I and few others can do. There are people who need me. My life isn’t pointless,” I thought. I spent nearly 2 years just wasting my time with nothing to show for it, and there was nothing I could do about it. But now, I finally had a purpose. That, and perhaps that alone, had saved me. Little by little, my depression began to lift as each post would get more views. As I would receive more kind comments. As I’d see people uploading videos with my translations. In addition, my Japanese skills were getting better and better.
By the end of the school year, I think I had mostly recovered, though a few aftereffects remained for many more years. The dream was to get back to my old friends, but I didn’t have enough money for that. I’d have to go to a local university instead of the one they were all going to. My attitude towards death was still not normal. University for me was quite literally win or die. It’s either pass university, then get back to my friends, or fail, drop out, and end everything there. This threat of imminent death may have been the source of my magic during my second year. The aftereffects of the conspiracy also remained. They had succeeded in setting me back. Though I decided I wanted to do physics, I didn’t have the math required. I would have to start at the very bottom. Just catching up on math alone took my full first year plus a spring semester, and my second year just consisted of the two basic first year physics classes. Excluding those two classes, I would basically have to do a full physics degree in 2 years. Easier said than done.
That about concludes it for my high school experience. I warned you things would get serious. The fun slice-of-life university story is over. Stay tuned for the tale of my third year, which includes stories such as “The Quest to Become a Normie”, “The Rise of the Tauboys”, “I got the best mark in the class at 57%”, “How MMOs taught me microeconomics”, “I can’t believe my life became an H-doujinshi,” and more. And then, there’s the clown fiesta that was my fourth year… Thanks for reading. You can find the next chapter here.
Amen 