Please read this.
This is a prologue to a story that I am writing for you, especially, if you are a teenager going through a hard time, and I want you to stay here with me until the story is done. If you have ever cried at night and told no one this story is for you. If your friends have ever lied to you this story is for you. If you feel like your body is not yours or is not good enough or is strange or lumpy or ugly, if your body hurts because you hurt it this story is for you. I am telling you a story, and it is an important story, and I want you to listen. This is the story of two boys. These two boys exist in many universes. In one, one is a god, and shoots the other- another, happier- they elope at age fourteen, only to be brought home by their parents soaking wet after a storm- in another, one is older when they meet, runs a ramen shop- there are multiple versions.
But in each one, a boy named Neku Sakuraba discovers that the world is not so awful, and a boy named Joshua Kiryu discovers that he is not so awful. There is hope for even the worst of worlds, the worst of people. There is even hope for this world, and of course there is especially hope for you. That's what I want you to take away from this. I am writing as honestly as I can. I am only writing what I know for sure.
The first is named Neku Sakuraba: in this world, born in a big city in Texas to Japanese parents, speaks fluent Japanese and English. Fifteen years old. Works at Moe's, which is a small (both figuratively and literally) coffee shop, gets a paycheck every week which he mostly spends on art supplies and records. Looks up to Banksy like a mountain climber looks up to the Himalayas. Spends his free time indoors, sketching his messy room with whatever new indie folk record is much cooler than what you're listening to on full volume and repeat. In middle school he thought of killing himself, and now he is in high school with friends and is happy. He's fascinated by the way light affects a landscape, and wants to produce a piece that reflects that, but doesn't know how-
The second is Joshua Kiryu: Fifteen years old. Current residence: Texas, in a relatively artsy part of a relatively un-artsy city. Drops by Moe's on Saturday mornings. Hair color: "ash blonde". Refers to things as "snazzy", sarcastically. Refers to other things as "powerful," not sarcastically. Wears, over his lilac dress shirt, a vest with old-fashioned bottle caps pinned on. He sits like an eagle or maybe a vulture or a gargoyle, and he is afraid of a great many things, and he has thought of killing himself more than once.
This is the story of these boys, as I said; also of the winter that they met, and felt like they knew each other from somewhere- sometime, before. It is the story of two art kids, and also of every art kid. It is the story of two sad kids, and every sad kid. This is the story of not only one boy named Joshua Kiryu who sneaks Xanax to school in an Altoid box, not to sell but to soothe his panic attacks, but of every kid who sneaks Xanax to school, who cries at slam poetry recitals, who spends too much on acrylics and canvas, who calls their best friend after a suicide attempt sobbing, who drinks strong coffee like lifeblood, who falls in love recklessly and without discrimination, of every starry-veined kid out there with a universe beating in their chest instead of a heart and a mantra pounding in their skull.
Please stay here with me.