From the Side

Hello. Hello there.

I am known as “I.” Sometimes I am called “he,” “she,” “they,” and many others.

I am the one that has to stare at the PDA that these “main characters” just have to share.

_____

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Slam down on the snooze button and sleep for five more minutes before the next alarm rings.

Another day. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and my neighbors are singing.

After cycling through roughly fifteen more alarms, I blearly blink at the window. It’s another day.

Groaning, I inch my way out of the blanket. Like sludge, I slowly slip down to the ground before crawling into the bathroom so that my morning breath — filled with bacteria — will not haunt everything that I eat.

But clearly some couples don’t get that memo since there’re moans and giggles coming from the adjacent wall.

I snatch my precious coffee mug off of the counter and fill it with my ambrosia: coffee.

Humming to myself, I fill the watering can as I stroll to the patio to water my plants and enjoy some fresh air.

I really need to learn my lessons.

Sure. I can appreciate a happy reunion hug or some hand holding.

But really? French kissing? Couldn’t you do this... I don’t know... NOT IN FRONT OF MY COFFEE?

“Uhh...” I mutter intelligibly.

“Oh!” one of the protagonists finally notices their accidental audience. Gently patting their partner... before they kiss again.

The protagonists are important, I turn away with dead fish eyes. Do. Not. Destroy the protagonists of the world.

I could almost swear I saw Buddha, Allah,... someone looking down at me with a saintly nod at my benevolence.

After sticking in earplugs, I quickly water the plants.

_____

That was not the first time.

Being reincarnated as someone who has to watch the protagonists’ lives can get overwhelming at times. And in some worlds, they didn’t even have coffee for me to survive off of.

My life was full of existential crises towards my singleness and their PDAness.

Why I had to be the one to witness all this in every world we went in? Probably some bet that went wrong. Really wrong.

_____

In this next world, I lay on the battlefield as an injured soldier. Because of my broken ribs, I'm unable to stand.

"No!" one of the protagonists cry out to the other. Sobbing, they clutch onto the other's helmet, hugging them so that there's hardly any space for them to even breathe.

"I swear I'll be back," the other protagonist sooths them, "I promise once everything's over we'll go over —"

As the two protagonists continue their talk about their honeymoon(s), the rest of us get flung around by the enemy like ping-pong balls.

The amount of deja vu I get from this job.

_____

The final straw was when I was reincarnated in a fanfic world.

And might I say that those tags did not look good.

_____

″— Aaannnd that is why I became a villain.”

″... You know what,” the protagonist of this world says, “Fair enough.”

_________

Author’s note: ANNND THAT’S THAT! Thanks for reading!