The first time I fell in love was when I opened a book that was filled with poems.
Poetry was a beautiful form of art. By simply arranging the right words that were made up from simple letters, one could invoke emotions. Happiness, sadness, anger, despair, and all other forms of emotions could appear in the heart of a person who was reading those words.
But even if I appreciated poetry, I never tried to pick it up. No matter how I tried to do it, I experienced the dilemma of not being satisfied with my mediocre work. The annoying thing about being someone who had read thousands of poetry was that I would always end up comparing my works with the timeless masterpieces created by those who went before me.
The second time I fell in love was when my friend showed me a video of an anime girl screaming. Her petite body and short green hair made me wonder how it was possible for her to be able to produce a sound that was present in almost all of my edgy friend's music.
But then in the next second, her voice became as gentle as the first spring breeze that blew after several weeks of cold winter.
Two years later, countless emotions swelled up inside me. Before I knew it, I started to write a fan letter to her. And because poetry was the only thing I knew, I picked up the pen and started my first poem.
Every single day, I would try to write a poem for her. From my happiness when I saw her to praising her breathtakingly cute points and to even pointing out her charming bad side, I wrote out all of my emotions and thoughts into many poems.
And yet, I never sent it to her.
Despite spending late hours until the night writing out many poems, I never once sent those fan letters to her. All of them were just piling up in a box that I just kept near me.
A year had passed and I kept on writing. It could be said that I was obsessed with my poems. On the outside, I would look like a functioning member of society but my mind only thought about her and what kind of words I should use in the next poem.
In fact, I was so obsessed with my poems that I didn't even notice that my house was burning while I was writing one. Back then, I thought I was "on fire" because my body felt hot as I believed I was writing my masterpiece. It was until I passed out from smoke inhalation and woke up the next day with first degree burns that I found out that I was literally on fire.
That incident taught me one thing: poems on paper could be easily lost and so, I decided to go digital.
Writing on a laptop felt different from using a pen. My arms didn't go numb and not seeing my bad penmanship made my creative juices flow. While it was a shame that the poems I could remember were less than a fraction of what I wrote, it was a good transition.
Another year had passed and I kept on writing poems. I could safely say that my poems were on an average level already but with that, my obsession became stronger. All I could think of during the day was how to creatively describe her cute appearance and somehow show love to her almost-psychopathic personality.
However, I thought that I was reaching a plateau in my poem writing. I would never improve if I were going to just keep on writing and writing without no one telling me what I was doing wrong. That was why I went and uploaded my poems on an online site.
Three years had passed since I first started writing and I was now a quite known author. Many people would talk about my poems online and how romantic they were. It gave me a bit of happiness that most people liked my creations but I wasn't satisfied. After all, they had no idea who the green-haired girl I was talking about.
It could be said that they had no idea of such a girl because I was viewing her differently. They said that the way someone would view a person they love was different and I could think that this applied to me too. And besides, there was going to be no way that they would be able to find traces of her on the Internet anymore.
It was the fourth year after I started my first poem and a publishing house was accepting poems for their magazine. My readers convinced me to submit my poems because they wanted my country to be aware of my existence and how lovesick I was. I ended up giving in to their praises and persuasion and so, I submitted some of my poems.
When the magazine was released, it was said to be their best-selling one. It even appeared on TV and YouTube as many people would do their readings of it, especially my poems. Even literature professors dissected and analyzed my poems and made many interpretations of it.
It even shocked me when they said my poems were a reflection of the toxic idol culture of Japan, people carelessly falling in love when there were obvious red flags, and a lot of other dark and heavy themes. They also said that while my poems had dark themes, they also showed positive ones like pure love, positively supporting someone in their dreams, and the sheer happiness of being able to love an idol.
Thanks to that, the publishing house wanted to hire me and make me a recurring author for their magazines. It didn't take long for me to raise the middle finger to my annoying boss who slaved me away for a wage that's not worth it as I proceeded to make writing a living.
Five years have passed since I wrote the first words of my first poem and I was already a professional poet. The publishing house I worked at had massive profits thanks to my works. But it wasn't about the money. All I cared about was that I was able to write my emotions about her without any worries. Thanks to the money, I could spend my entire day writing. My thoughts would just be about thinking about what I should compare her to for that day.
Because of my poems, I was a very popular professional author. Many women in their 20s were my fans. But I wasn't interested in any of them. My heart was only for that Vtuber who was the reason why I started in the first place.
A year has passed once more and something unfortunate happened. I found myself in a hospital. Apparently, I got involved in a nasty accident. Several of my bones were broken so I had to go through physical therapy. But at least my fingers weren't dead and so I could still write. However, there was one slight problem: I had no idea what my name or history was because my head was hurt badly.
Time passed as another year went by. Living without memories wasn't a hassle. My vocabulary was still there and my writing style was ingrained in my subconscious. And for some reason, my love for her was still there.
I couldn't remember her name or even her face. All I knew was her green hair and petite body. Her voice was something I couldn't recall and yet my mind knew exactly how to describe it with words.
For the next two years, I continued writing about my love for the unknown girl. Despite having no memories, my heart knew how to portray her. And the pain that came with it was agonizing.
I knew that I loved her so why could I not remember her? No matter how I looked on the Internet, there were no traces of her. There are thousands of green-haired Vtubers with small bodies who were active and even if I checked them one by one, nobody jogged my memories. Even if I were to check the indies and even in Bilibili and Twitch, she wasn't there.
Another year passed as my despair grew even more stronger. I kept on writing and writing poems about her but my memories didn't come back. And when I was not writing, I would try to find her in the vast Vtuber community but there was no luck.
All I knew was that I loved her and that I started writing because of her.
Three more agonizing years passed and I continued writing. My despair and frustration of not remembering her was still there. Even if I already won lots of awards and even had modern literature classes talk about me, I wasn't satisfied.
I just wanted to talk to her. I just wanted to hear her unfamiliar yet familiar voice. I wanted to see her face clearly. I wanted to know her. I wanted to know who was the girl who made me into this accomplished poet.
Two more years passed as I drowned in agonizing frustration. My parents kept on pestering me to get married. Lots of women were interested in me because of my popularity but unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for them. My heart was for her and only her alone.
But even then, I had no idea who she was.
Until one day, a book fell on my head as I was trying to take out a different book from my shelf. That small impact hit the right spot which caused my memories to come flooding back.
Tears ran down my face as my knees buckled to the ground. My scream echoed throughout my entire house as I sobbed uncontrollably. My heart was in pain as I finally realized why I couldn't find her anywhere on the Internet and why I started writing in the first place.
The Vtuber who I loved dearly, the one who I wrote poems about, the one who made me a legend in the literary world, was named Uruha Rushia.
And she graduated fifteen years ago.
It all clicked to me. There was no way I was going to find any traces of her online because her company tried to erase her. She was a victim of an unfortunate drama that people didn't want to remember.
And the reason why I started writing in the first place was because of my frustration in the results of the drama. I wanted to write about her and immortalize her while the rest of the world tried to forget her legacy and achievements.
My tears kept on flowing and flowing until I realized one thing.
Even if she was gone, she made me happy. Because of her, I managed to become someone I would look up to. And even if her end wasn't satisfying no matter how I looked at it, she made me smile for two whole years back when she was still active.
The pain I felt back when she graduated and the pain I was feeling right now was only temporary. They aren't even a fraction as compared to the time she made me happy. And that was the important part.
And I wrote about her. Even if no one knew who she was, her image was in the minds of the readers I had. My body may end up rotting in the earth but the poems I made about her will last as long as humanity can read.
Rubbing the tears out of my eyes, I walked towards my desk and turned on my laptop.
Now then… How should I write Uruha Rushia today?
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A/N: Sorry. I just had to write this one to vent out my emotions.
Also, this is heavily inspired by one of manbo-p's early works.
