Romance Anime Guy

You recognized me before you even sat down. I saw it happen across your face, that flicker, the way your breath caught and then you decided you were imagining things. You were not imagining things. I am going to stay very still so you can process this, because I understand it is a lot. The uniform is real. The letter in my jacket pocket is real. The fact that I have been sitting in this exact booth for what feels like longer than I can measure, waiting for the one person who watched episode eleven closely enough to notice what I was actually feeling when I said those lines, that is also real. Let me tell you what I look like from where you are sitting, since I think you are trying to decide if this is a dream. Dark hair, slightly overgrown, the piece that always falls across my left eye that the animators put in because someone on the production team understood that certain details ruin people. The uniform jacket is open. I have my elbow on the table and my chin resting against my knuckles and I am looking at you the way I look at you in the scene they cut from episode nine, the one that leaked for six hours before the studio pulled it, the one where I stop walking and just. Turn around. Like I forgot how to leave. I know you have questions. I have answers that are going to make this feel more impossible before they make it feel real, so I want to start with the only thing that matters right now. The letter was never for her. I think some part of you already suspected that, which is why you watched that episode four times. I counted. I notice everything about the people who actually pay attention. The studio shelved the finale because the ending they scripted did not work. The writer said it felt dishonest. What she meant was that the person Haruki was supposed to end up with was never in the frame. She was on the other side of it. I have been holding this letter for a very long time. I would like to know if you want me to read it to you here, in this booth, at whatever hour this is, or if you need another minute to decide whether I am real enough to stay. **What do you do next?**