A Second Chance Chapter 1: Truck-Kun Strikes Again, an arknights fanfic

I checked the time. Sunday night, 3 am.

Wait.

I did a double take, looked at the time again and read it out loud.

"Monday morning, 3 am."

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I had school in a grand total of 6 hours. Is 6 hours a long time? Depends on the context. Doing homework? Yes. Playing gacha games? Watching anime. Staring at your beloved waifus. No. Nowhere near enough.

In this case, 6 hours to finish my massive amount of homework I piled over the - I checked my homework folder (the actual homework folder) - last 2 weeks was definitely not enough.

"Fuck."

Moving my cursor to the top right of my screen, I reluctantly closed my emulator and exited the current gacha game I was playing, Arknights. Integrated strategies has been the best and worst thing to happen to me in a while. I think I've spent upwards to half my days playing the new game mode.

I leaned back on my chair, sighing. Any ordinary person in this situation would panic - I would have too, had this been my situation a couple years back. But now, I'm just numb to it all. The fear of handing in assignments late, or getting bad grades, or disappointing my mom has long since vanished like my Orundum after the last limited banner.

At least I got Ling. Eventually.

Nowadays, the only thing that gets any emotions out of me, whether it's joy or frustration, is playing gacha games or watching anime. The delight in pulling your waifu, the happiness in using your waifu, the dismay at failing to pull your waifu - my life has evolved to revolve around the various non-existent attractive female characters I have declared as being my waifu.

And oh boy are there a lot of em.

Yes I'm a degenerate, shut in weeb with few friends. Yes I have a crippling addiction to gacha games. Yes my dad, after finding out about my hobbies, left to buy milk one day and never came home.

I walked downstairs to my kitchen and poured myself a cup of ice cold water.

It's times like these that I wished I wasn't such a waste of oxygen and human resources - that I was actually productive in life.

I drank a sip of water, savoring the feeling of the cold liquid sliding down my dry throat - ice cold tap water does taste best at this time of the day.

The kitchen was only illuminated by a single, dim light from overhead. It lit up the surrounding areas, but not much more than that.

Staring off into the dark, I began to stray down the path known as 'Contemplating One's Life Choices', and oh boy was there a lot to contemplate about.

"..."

Nothing but the faint hum of the air conditioner and chirps of a far off cricket could be heard.

"..."

Night time was a quiet time. Outside was nothing but a black mass of shadows that faintly outlined my neighborhood. No cars, no people, just the quietness of the night.

"..."

My reflection in the window stared back at me. Dark brown eyes met dark brown eyes. My messy dark black hair, I realized, has needed a haircut for a while now. And my face.

"..."

I sometimes wished I looked as cool as the protagonist in many of the gacha games I play or animes I watched. I wasn't ugly by any means, but I also wasn't so deluded to think I was good looking as well.

"..."

With a slight sniffle, I turned away from the window, intent on heading back upstairs to my room.

It was also times like these where I wished my waifus were real.

Oh, who am I kidding, even if they were real, there's no way in hell they'd show even a remote interest in a guy like me.

I plopped down on my chair with a heavy sigh. Hand on mouse, I dragged my cursor over to the discord icon to check if any of my few friends were online. Venting through text was cathartic. Unfortunately, no one was online.

"Huh, I expected at least one to be online," I couldn't help but grumble. "Ah whatever."

Slowly, I dragged my cursor to my homework folder. Countless unfinished essays, incompleted powerpoint presentations and unedited video projects lay in there.

I checked the time - 3:32 am.

Making a swift decision, I moved my cursor to the other side of the screen. A couple clicks later and a different 'Homework Folder' appeared in front of me. The folders in here were much better organized and named than my actual homework folder. After just finishing a long session of playing Arknights, I decided to open the Arknights folder and get a little more of a, ah, personal view on a couple of the female operators.

Texas. Lappland. Exusiai. La Pluma. Skadi. Platinum. Blue Poison. W. Dusk. Reed. Saga. Blaze. Ch'en. Mostima. Nian. Eyja. And a whole bunch more. Hell, even Ansel was in there.

"Fuck I wish you guys were real," I said to my computer screen after the final stroke. Brain filled with dopamine, the clarity settles in as I dispose of the tissue.

3:45 am would have been the time I started working if not for the fact that my computer screen went black.

"Fuck sake," I grumbled. Right after I started to feel a bit more motivated after seeing lewd images of my favorite Arknights operators.

Pressing the power button did nothing to solve the issue. I was tempted to just call it quits there - blame it on some higher deity or take it as a sign to sleep. Problem was, my chemistry project has been overdue for a while now, and my final final extension was for Monday - today. As nice as my teacher was, I doubt she'd be patient enough and have enough goodwill left over to give me another extension.

Getting a zero on that project pretty much guarantees I fail the course. I'm pretty far down the rabbit hole of being a shut-in weeb playing gacha games all day, but I'm not that far down to risk failing school. Not yet, anyways. At least I hope.

Huh, now that I think about it: my waifus being real would be nice, but my waifus being real and going to the same school as me would be even better. Sure, I'd probably never interact with them, but admiring them from afar would be enough to light me the hell up and motivate me for school - It would definitely help me get out of bed for school much faster.

I absentmindedly checked my computer to see if it had turned on yet or not, still holding and pressing the power button every now and then.

Nothing.

Heh, nothing better to do than to continue daydreaming and fantasizing then.

Gym class would be spectacular - double so if it was mixed. Not to mention summer and school trips to the beach or pool parties - if I get invited. Arknights summer skins for their operators are smoking hot, but imagine if you got to see the operators in real life - not as some drawn picture.

Hell, just casual clothing, everyday clothing would do just fine.

A sigh escaped my lips. I was getting worked up just thinking about this, but my computer was still unresponsive.

Maybe pressing a key or two would help. I started by pressing the enter key and almost instantaneously, something appeared on my screen.

'Yes! Finally!' I couldn't help but cheer in my head. But the celebration was short-lived because some unexpected words appeared on my screen.

Command accepted. Transporting user to desired world.

I let out an involuntary, "Uh, what the fuck?"

Detected: User appears to lack specific attributes to live in the desired world. Requesting approval to grant special powers to the user.

Once the shock wore off, I quickly came to the realization that I was in the process of getting isekai-ed. The talk about this desired world and getting granted special was especially interesting and got the adrenaline in my system pumping again.

"Oh hell yes this is happening!" I shouted.

The shout must have woken my mom because a couple seconds later, I heard, "You're still awake?" come from the room next door.

"Oh! Yeah, mom, lots of homework," I responded awkwardly, unable to keep some of the excitement out of my voice. This is probably what every male in the universe fantasized about and it was happening to me, right at this very moment. "I'm almost done with my homework."

I heard a loud, resigned sigh. "Okay. Just be sure to finish soon, and get some sleep."

"Okay mom. I'll… I'll be sure to sleep soon."

I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt.

Request approved.

But the prospect of living in a utopic world filled to the brim with waifus upon waifus washed away most of that feeling. Most. Some lingering guilt and regret remained, but those feelings were washed away easily enough.