Chapter 16 — Home
And thus begins Chapter Sixteen.
The final chapter.
Now, children.
We lay there.
Maximum Anime curled against me.
My arm around her.
Mattress beneath us.
Pillows everywhere.
Reality
optional.
The acid had settled us into that peculiar psychedelic territory where the world was very clearly behaving incorrectly,
but both occupants had enough experience to simply accept that walls may occasionally possess opinions.
No panic.
No:
WHY IS THE CEILING BREATHING?
Just
yes.
Ceiling breathing.
Anyway.
Conversation.
And somewhere inside that conversation,
Maximum Anime told me something
that shifted the beginning of the entire story backward.
Children.
Flashback.
Not mine.
Hers.
Because before Maximum Anime was Maximum Anime
she was
barista.
Pause.
The council looks offended.
A hippie with employment?
Yes.
Children.
Remarkable.
Student.
Full time hippie.
Part time barista.
An increasingly impressive resume.
Apparently,
before dual tone anime hair,
private psychedelic forests,
and casually carrying LSD stamps in bags
Maximum Anime had shifts.
Uniform.
Hairnet.
Coffee shop.
Capitalism had touched even her.
Tragic.
And while working there,
she had noticed
a customer.
A recurring one.
Children.
A man.
Kind.
Slightly unhinged.
Sarcastic.
Transparent enough that flirting occasionally happened by accident.
The council turns slowly toward Nuo.
Oh.
Yes.
And always
always
carrying a Golden Retriever puppy.
Not walking beside him.
Carrying.
In his arms.
Pause.
Children.
The description has become suspiciously specific.
The man?
Nuo.
Me.
The dog?
Bongo.
The council grows quiet.
Bongo.
Little Bongo.
Before the weight.
Before the collar in Kodaikanal.
Before grief became architecture.
Before he existed in stories as the dog I had lost
he was simply
puppy.
Alive.
In my arms.
And apparently,
I used to walk into Maximum Anime’s coffee shop with him.
Regularly.
Children.
Same order.
Every time.
For Nuo
hot chocolate.
For Bongo
ice cream cone.
The council pauses.
Dog gets ice cream?
Dog gets ice cream.
Simple.
I enter.
Bongo in arms.
Hot chocolate.
Ice cream.
Sit perhaps.
Talk.
Leave.
Repeat.
And Maximum Anime?
Behind counter.
Back then,
she knew me.
Not deeply.
Not:
name,
history,
family,
ambitions,
trauma.
No.
The casual kind of knowing.
The kind built from repetition.
Oh.
That guy.
The one with the puppy.
Children.
We talked.
Nothing profound.
No philosophies.
No declarations.
No:
One day we shall meet again in a pub and you shall mistake two bouncers for organ traffickers.
Nothing useful.
Just
“Want to pet him?”
Probably.
Sarcastic nonsense.
Random comments.
And apparently
compliments.
Because Story Nuo has never possessed subtlety.
If I think someone is beautiful?
I generally tell them.
The council sighs.
Immediately?
Often.
Children.
I do not understand why this requires complex strategy.
Person pretty.
Tell person pretty.
Done.
Now,
whether this is charming
or socially catastrophic
depends entirely on:
timing,
delivery,
relationship,
person,
context,
and perhaps whether they were trying to hand you a receipt at the time.
But yes.
Apparently somewhere during these coffee shop interactions,
I had said something equivalent to
“You’re very beautiful.”
The council looks at Nuo.
Subtlety?
Brick through stained glass.
Exactly.
Children.
No mystery.
No elegant seduction.
No three week buildup.
Maximum Anime attractive.
Nuo mouth reports findings.
Character trait.
Character flaw.
Depends on recipient.
And this recipient?
Remembered.
That
children
was the true beginning.
Not Dee Tee.
Not Maximum Anime dancing.
Not the grinding.
Not the hand.
Not:
“Let’s get out of here.”
No.
Our first chapter was
hot chocolate.
Ice cream.
Bongo.
The council smiles.
Simple.
Very.
Now.
Reasonable question.
If she remembered me
why the fuck didn’t I remember her?
Excellent.
Story Nuo’s explanation?
Slightly incompetent.
Slightly embarrassing.
Mildly racist in the extremely unscientific way Nuo’s classification department occasionally operates.
Children.
Back then,
Maximum Anime did not look like Maximum Anime.
Hair?
Black.
All black.
No white.
No split tone.
No anime character visual identifier.
And while working?
Hair tied up.
Bun.
Hairnet.
Coffee shop uniform.
Different environment.
Different silhouette.
Different everything.
And Nuo’s facial recognition department is heavily dependent on anchors.
Hair.
Clothes.
Context.
Distinctive feature.
Something.
Take away the dual tone hair,
put someone behind a counter,
then several months later place them in a dark pub with entirely different clothes
children
apparently my brain files them as:
NEW HUMAN.
Maximum Anime had changed enough
and context had changed enough
that I simply
didn’t connect the files.
She did.
Because her anchor wasn’t my hair.
It was
Bongo.
The puppy in my arms.
The man who kept coming in.
The same stupid order.
Hot chocolate.
Ice cream cone.
And then
one day
we stopped.
Pause.
The council quiets.
No warning.
No explanation.
From her perspective?
The man vanished.
The puppy vanished.
Children.
The shop simply stopped receiving
us.
Why?
Story Nuo knew.
Maximum Anime didn’t.
Semester Three.
Bongo died.
And whatever routines had been built around him?
Gone.
No puppy to carry into cafe.
No reason to buy Bongo ice cream.
No daily little ritual.
The boy and the dog
disappeared.
Children.
That is all she knew.
She didn’t know about the weight.
Didn’t know what happened.
Didn’t know that Bongo’s absence would become one of the central forces shaping the idiot she would later drag out of Dee Tee.
She simply remembered:
Kind weird guy.
Loved his dog.
Dog clearly adored.
Then
nothing.
Months.
Life.
Different shifts perhaps.
Different days.
Time.
And then
Dee Tee.
She saw me.
The council rewinds.
Wall.
Hoodie.
Cigarette.
Maximum Anime dancing.
Story Nuo seeing:
Japanese woman.
Out of league.
Supercar.
“Ooooo fancy.”
Maximum Anime seeing
someone else.
Not a stranger.
Not exactly.
She recognized me.
The guy from the coffee shop.
The guy with the Golden Retriever puppy.
The one who was sarcastic.
A little strange.
Kind.
Curious.
The one who apparently said whatever entered his head
including compliments he had no tactical reason to deliver.
And children
according to her
she remembered something else.
The way I moved through life.
Not dance.
Obviously.
We have established that failure.
The other kind.
That stupid
what’s there?
Let’s find out.
energy.
Children.
Present Nuo recognizes that immediately.
The core mechanism of Wandering.
The curiosity before I had a name for it.
The instinct to look at something unfamiliar and move toward it.
A road.
A person.
A stupid idea.
A shop.
A dog.
Whatever.
Maximum Anime had apparently seen that in coffee shop Nuo
before Nuo himself understood it as anything worth naming.
And so when she saw me again at Dee Tee
months later
she remembered.
The kindness.
The puppy.
The sarcasm.
The curiosity.
The disappearing act.
Perhaps mystery contributed.
Perhaps personality.
Perhaps she genuinely found my face attractive despite all available evidence.
Children.
Taste is personal.
Do not question blessings.
And she approached.
Not random.
Not dare.
Not organ harvesting.
Not even entirely:
cute stranger.
There was history.
Tiny history.
But history.
And that
was beautiful.
Not profoundly cosmic.
Not fate carved into stars.
Just
beautiful.
Because I had spent the entire night believing something very specific.
I had succeeded
without Bongo.
Pause.
Children.
Remember the Dee Tee lesson.
My premium bait.
Bongo Story.
The old boy’s posthumous wingman duties.
I taught Mith:
Deploy Bongo.
Mith did.
Woman approached.
Connection.
Success.
And then Nuo?
No Bongo.
Nothing.
I saw Maximum Anime.
Didn’t approach.
Didn’t deploy grief.
Didn’t deploy story.
Didn’t even fucking dance properly.
And somehow
Maximum Anime still chose me.
Children.
For once,
I thought:
Look at that.
Bongo Protocol unnecessary.
The council waits.
Incorrect.
Completely.
Because the true beginning revealed
Bongo had already been deployed.
Months earlier.
Accidentally.
Children.
No grief story.
No strategic pause.
No sad face.
No weaponized trauma.
Just
Bongo.
Alive.
Puppy in arms.
Want ice cream?
Of course you want ice cream.
Let’s get ice cream.
And because Bongo liked ice cream,
I repeatedly walked into a particular shop.
Because I repeatedly walked into that shop,
I talked to a particular barista.
Because that barista remembered the weird guy carrying a Golden Retriever,
she recognized him months later
standing uselessly against a wall in Dee Tee.
And because she remembered him
she approached.
The council looks at the chain.
Wingman.
The best.
Children.
Absolute fucking legend.
Alive?
Wingman.
Dead?
Still wingman.
Not even through the grief this time.
Through the life.
That was the part that changed the entire night for me.
Bongo hadn’t helped because he died.
He helped because he had lived.
Pause.
The council becomes quiet.
Children.
That mattered.
There had been so many times where Bongo’s place in my life was defined by the ending.
Loss.
Weight.
Grief.
Absence.
But here?
No.
The chain begins with
puppy wants ice cream.
That’s it.
A happy thing.
A stupid little routine.
A Golden Retriever receiving dessert
while his human drank hot chocolate and accidentally flirted with the barista.
And months later,
long after Bongo was gone,
that routine reached forward
and touched another night.
The council smiles.
Now.
Did Story Nuo sitting on psychedelic mattress formulate all of this elegantly?
Children.
Absolutely fucking not.
Story Nuo’s immediate realization was probably closer to
BONGO GOT ME LAID.
The council collapses.
Protect immediacy.
Always.
But yes.
Broadly.
Bongo.
Wingman.
Again.
I looked at Maximum Anime.
Probably laughed.
Probably told her some version of:
That motherfucker.
Still working.
And she,
now knowing Bongo had died?
The conversation perhaps carried a little more weight.
But the Archive does not need to invent what was said.
The fact is enough.
Our story started with him.
Not at Dee Tee.
Not with LSD.
Not with the lake.
With Bongo.
Children.
Flashback complete.
The timeline snapped back.
Room.
Mattress.
Maximum Anime curled against me.
Acid still moving reality around like furniture.
And now
context.
Full context.
Finally.
She knew why I vanished from the coffee shop.
I knew why she had actually approached me in Dee Tee.
The entire night suddenly had an earlier Chapter One.
And after that?
Peace.
We talked.
Maybe for hours.
Maybe time had stopped being a useful measurement.
Acid.
Remember.
Eventually
sleep.
Children.
Passed out.
Beside each other.
Comfortable.
Perhaps holding each other initially.
Arm around her.
Her against me.
Then sleep does what sleep does.
Bodies move.
One turns.
Other sprawls.
Pillow stolen.
Blanket redistributed through unconscious warfare.
Archive does not preserve final sleeping geometry.
Only
we slept.
Together.
Not dramatic.
Not:
And thus love blossomed beneath psychedelic stars.
No.
Just
good night.
Then
morning.
The council wakes.
Nuo?
Alive.
Organs?
Still present.
Maximum Anime?
Still there.
Excellent.
And then
mandatory bonk.
The council sighs.
Mandatory?
Children.
Not legally.
Contextually.
We were both there.
Comfortable.
Interested.
It was convenient.
Why complicate breakfast?
Bonk.
No additional review required.
Family show.
Moving on.
Eventually
leave.
Maximum Anime and I exited the psychedelic forest building hippie compound whatever the fuck it was.
Children.
Even after spending the night there,
I still could not provide architectural classification.
Forest?
Building?
Compound?
Sanctuary?
Party space?
Hippie DLC?
All acceptable.
She took scooter.
I got on.
This time?
No organ theory.
The council celebrates.
Growth?
Don’t push it.
The route back passed through roads that now looked considerably less murderous in daylight.
And eventually
my apartment.
She stopped.
I got off.
Now?
Goodbye.
Not final final.
Just
for now.
We hugged.
Tight enough.
Then
kiss.
One more.
And that was it.
No grand speech.
No:
What are we?
No:
Where is this going?
No relationship contract signed on scooter seat.
She had a final semester.
I had another year ahead.
The future could deal with itself when it arrived.
Children.
Story Nuo was excellent at delegating responsibility to Future Nuo.
Future Nuo hated Story Nuo.
But the system persisted.
Maximum Anime left.
I turned toward apartment.
Walked in.
Stairs.
Floors.
Eventually
door.
Unlock.
Open.
And inside
Mith.
Pause.
Children.
Mith.
Alive.
Safe.
And
not alone.
The council smiles.
The woman from Dee Tee.
His potential bonk partner.
Still there.
Children.
Graduation had apparently progressed into postgraduate studies.
Excellent.
Mith looked at me.
I looked at Mith.
No words necessary.
There are conversations men have
that require elaborate emotional vocabulary.
And then there are
this.
One question.
“Bonk?”
The council waits.
“Bonk.”
Pause.
Children.
Simultaneous mission complete.
The council erupts.
MITH:
SUCCESS.
NUO:
SUCCESS.
THREE DAY FREE TRIAL:
DAY ONE ALREADY EXCEEDING TARGETS.
Beautiful.
Mith had come to Manipal with one objective.
Experience the Manipal way of life.
I had taught him.
He had graduated.
He had succeeded.
And apparently
from his perspective
I had performed some form of advanced sorcery.
Because remember what Mith actually saw.
He did not see:
Maximum Anime recognizing an old coffee shop customer.
He did not see:
Bongo origin story.
He did not see:
organ conspiracy.
He did not see:
lake yeet.
He did not see:
near drowning.
He did not see:
bouncer rescue.
He did not see:
private hippie compound.
Dreadlocks.
Bone tag.
LSD.
Any of it.
Children.
His information ended at Dee Tee.
Professor Nuo teaches student.
Student succeeds.
Professor observes.
Then
an extremely attractive woman with dual tone anime hair
walks over to Professor,
dances with him,
takes his hand,
and leads him out.
That
is Mith’s version.
And apparently it survived.
To this day.
Children.
He tells people.
With reverence.
The council laughs.
The story of the night Nuo found him a woman
and then casually walked out of the bar
holding hands with what appeared to be
an anime character.
Maximum Anime.
Of course.
And in Mith’s retelling?
Nuo
legend.
Infinite game.
A master.
A creature with secret knowledge.
The man who can apparently stand beside a wall
and summon attractive women through aura alone.
Children.
I have never corrected him sufficiently.
Why would I?
The council gasps.
Historical accuracy!
Fuck historical accuracy.
Some myths are useful.
Let Mith believe.
Because the truth?
Children.
The truth is much better.
I had no game that night.
None.
My greatest contribution to Maximum Anime acquisition was
standing there.
Bongo had done the groundwork months earlier.
Maximum Anime did the approaching.
Maximum Anime did the dancing.
Maximum Anime took my hand.
Maximum Anime took me out.
Maximum Anime drove.
Maximum Anime got me into the party.
Maximum Anime supplied acid.
Maximum Anime invited me to her room.
Nuo?
Children.
Nuo followed instructions
and tried not to die.
Sometimes unsuccessfully.
The council nods.
Yet Mith sees legend.
Yes.
And perhaps
let him.
Because friendship deserves mythology too.
Now.
The day eventually continued.
Mith’s visit had more hours.
Perhaps more days.
But the Wandering?
Children.
Done.
This was it.
A single day.
Roughly.
One evening into morning.
No train across states.
No weeks away from home.
No grand road.
No mountains.
No ocean.
No pilgrimage.
I lived there.
Manipal was home at the time.
And still
Wandering.
Because duration?
Irrelevant.
Distance?
Irrelevant.
Intent?
Irrelevant.
Did Nuo wander?
Children.
Look at this fucking night.
Of course.
We began with
doorbell.
Mith.
Hug.
Then weed.
Dota.
Dee Tee.
Student ID corruption through bouncer brotherhood.
Old Monk.
Fisherman training.
Bongo Premium Bait.
Mith graduation.
Then
Maximum Anime.
Story begins?
No.
Story appears to begin.
Dance.
Grinding.
Hand.
Scooter.
Mystery.
Two giant men.
Organ trafficking.
Stealth escape.
Lake.
Important forgotten fact:
Nuo cannot swim.
Rescue.
The revelation that nobody wanted my kidneys.
Kiss.
Exclusive party.
Psychedelic forest.
Dreadlocks.
Bone tag necklace.
Bone tag acquired.
LSD.
Massive psychedelic bonk.
Then
the real beginning.
Coffee shop.
Hot chocolate.
Ice cream cone.
Bongo.
Children.
A Wandering that began before I knew it began
inside a larger Wandering I didn’t know was a Wandering
during an era where the concept of Wandering did not yet exist.
The council opens chronology.
Immediately closes chronology.
Correct.
Do not attempt.
And somewhere in all that
the tag.
Pocketed from Dreadlocks.
At the time?
Cool object.
Nothing more.
Years later?
One of twenty two.
A relic from Manipal.
A little piece of bone carried forward into an archive that did not yet have a name.
Children.
That is what excavation does.
You find objects first.
Meaning later.
Sometimes decades later.
And Manipal
what an era.
My third college.
Premium subscription to pubs.
Bongo.
The weight.
Axe.
Mith.
Weed.
Dota.
Bonk.
Friendships.
Idiocy.
Years dense enough that multiple Wanderings could hide inside them unnoticed.
This one?
Perhaps the strangest single night among them.
Not because it hurt.
It didn’t.
Not because it healed me.
No.
Not every road needs to perform emotional surgery.
Sometimes
a Wandering is simply an absolute fucking story.
And this?
Children.
This was one.
A worthy one.
A day long Wandering
that somehow crossed enough events to become one of the longest files in the Archive.
The council laughs.
Efficiency.
Yes.
The Manipal method.
Compress three seasons of television into one night.
And the final joke?
Bongo.
Always Bongo.
At the beginning of the chapter,
I believed Maximum Anime was the rare woman I had somehow met without deploying him.
By the end?
Children.
Turns out the little bastard had been wingmanning me for months.
I just hadn’t received the report.
The council looks toward where Bongo’s memory lives.
Good boy.
The best.
Thus concludes Chapter Sixteen.
And thus concludes
the Eighteenth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Manipal.
The Third College.
The Premium Pub Subscription.
The Mith Arrival.
The Hug.
The Rejection Of Emotionless Masculinity.
The Three Day Free Trial.
Weed.
Dota.
Legal Council.
The Hulking Monstrosity With Baked Bread Energy.
Dee Tee.
The Student ID Requirement.
The Spiritual Brotherhood With The Bouncer.
Old Monk.
The Fisherman.
The Lake Metaphor Before The Actual Lake Became Unfortunately Relevant.
The Bait.
The Normal Tier Curriculum.
The Premium Friendship Source Code.
Bongo.
Mith’s Look Sad Protocol.
Graduation.
The Woman On His Lap.
Proud Nuo.
The New Quest Marker.
The Asian Looking Woman.
The Tight Hoodie.
The Splits.
The Unscientific Japanese Classification.
Out Of My Fucking League.
Maximum Anime.
The Grinding.
The Hand.
“Let’s Get Out Of Here.”
Mith’s Dangerous Overestimation Of Nuo’s Game.
The Scooter.
“Somewhere Special.”
The Giant Men.
The Organ Trafficking Theory.
The Fear Subtitles.
The Stealth Migration.
The Lake.
The Yeet.
The Forgotten Inability To Swim.
Inventory Retrieval.
The Bouncers.
The Discovery That There Was No Organ Market.
The Idiotic Potato Face.
The Actual Explanation.
She Thought Nuo Was Cute.
The Blush.
The Kiss.
The Private Party.
The Blue Hallway.
The Psychedelic Forest.
The Vibe Preservation.
The Dreadlocked Boss.
“Broski, Why’d You Jump In The Lake?”
The Management Level Incident Report.
The Joint.
The Bone Tags.
The Extra Tag.
Relic Acquired.
The Hippie Room.
The LSD.
The Formal Introduction Arriving Several Hours Late.
The Massive Psychedelic Bonk.
The After.
The Quiet.
And
The Flashback.
The Barista.
The Customer.
The Puppy In His Arms.
Hot Chocolate.
Ice Cream Cone.
A Sarcastic Comment.
An Accidental Compliment.
A Boy.
A Dog.
Then
one day
nothing.
Months later
Dee Tee.
Recognition.
Approach.
The True Beginning.
Children.
I thought I had met Maximum Anime without Bongo.
I was wrong.
I thought she found me in a pub.
She had found me months earlier
carrying a Golden Retriever puppy into a coffee shop
and buying him ice cream.
Bongo had been the wingman
before I ever needed the story.
Before grief.
Before strategy.
Before I knew enough to weaponize his memory.
He had simply existed.
And somehow
that was enough.
Morning.
Mandatory Bonk.
Scooter Home.
The Final Hug.
The Final Kiss.
The Apartment.
Mith.
His Dee Tee Companion.
The Look.
“Bonk?”
“Bonk.”
Simultaneous mission complete.
And somewhere in Mith’s memory,
Nuo remains a mythical creature
who taught him how to acquire a bonk partner
and then casually left Dee Tee
holding hands with an anime character.
Children.
Let him keep that version.
Mine is better.
Because mine has
a lake,
two bouncers,
imaginary organ trafficking,
acid,
a bone tag,
and Bongo eating ice cream.
The council closes the file.
The Eighteenth Wandering ends.
Manipal.
One day.
One night.
Far too many chapters.
Absolutely worthy.
And at the true beginning of it all
not a pub.
Not a woman.
Not even Nuo.
Just a Golden Retriever puppy
in my arms,
very happily receiving
his ice cream cone.
