00. Losing Heroines

The instant replay of a fictional girl’s tears.

That’s what Gordon Whiteberg was watching at 3:47 AM on a Tuesday, surrounded by instant ramen cups and the smell of undone laundry.

The web novel had been brutal. Three volumes. Three heroines. Three different ways to have your heart ripped out and stomped on by the "destined couple" narrative.

"This author must be a sadist..."

The childhood friend who had been there since page one was rejected in a rain-soaked confession scene that the author probably thought was poetic.

Then there was the tsundere who finally dropped her walls and confessed too late. She watched the protagonist walk away with the "proper" heroine.

Even the crazily devoted girl who died protecting the protagonist... her dying words were "I’m glad I could be useful to you." And the protagonist just cried for exactly one paragraph before moving on with his life.

He slammed my laptop shut.

"That’s the ending you give them?!"

His tiny apartment trembled under his voice.

No response. There never was.

His sister once called him "the world’s most useless therapist." She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t save anyone. He couldn’t even save himself from his own life. Twenty-six years old. No job. No girlfriend. No future. Just a stack of light novels and a heart that broke a little more every time he read about another heroine who gave everything and received nothing in return.

"But I understood them, you know?"

The losing heroines.

They weren’t just plot devices. They were people. People who loved deeply, hoped desperately, and lost everything because the narrative demanded it. Because some author decided that their pain was "necessary for character development."

He scrolled through the comments. Thousands of readers. Hundreds of "LOL" reactions. A few "she deserved better" comments that were quickly drowned out by "but the main couple is so cute!"

No one cared about the losing heroines.

No one except him.

He opened the novel again. Read the final scene. The losing heroine, the childhood friend, watched the protagonist’s wedding from the back of the crowd. She smiled through her tears and thought: "I’m glad I could see him happy."

And then she went home. Alone... forever.

He closed the laptop again. This time, more gently.

"If I were there..."

He whispered it like a prayer from his soul.

"I’d treat them better. Every single one of them."

He fell asleep. The tears were still wet on his face.