The Unwilling Protagonist

Prologue: Expectations, Expectations...

One of the worst things a person can experience when they're born is the crushing weight of expectations. A baby born to a standard middle-class family isn't expected to do much; maybe graduate high school and do whatever it is they have planned. However, a baby born into a high-class family, where both parents are successful, and their parents were successful, and their parents were successful, etc., etc., is expected to follow in their footsteps and achieve similar, if not greater success.

Y/N L/N was unfortunate enough to be born into the latter of the two scenarios. His father and mother were both executives for your standard large company, and his grandparents were both successful designers for a sports car company. As you can no doubt see, Y/N has some very big shoes to fill. In his elementary school years, Y/N proved to be a smart child thanks to the efforts of his parents teaching him early at home. By 3rd grade, he was already reading at a middle-schooler's level, and by 6th grade, his parents started to teach him how everything in their company worked. In short, Y/N was destined to inherit his parents' company the moment he was born. He had no say in the matter nor could he say anything about it.

In his high school years, Y/N's father gave him a part-time job in the company, where he worked as a simple office worker, filling out forms, filing paperwork, and all that. It paid well, for sure, but because of his naivety and status, he was terrible at his job, which earned him the scrutiny of his co-workers, managers, and even his parents. No matter what he did, he felt as though nothing he did was ever enough. He had suffered burn-out as a result, not caring about anything anymore, just doing what he's told to satisfy those around him. It was the easiest thing for him to do at this point...

Y/N awoke to the sound of his phone alarm going off, and he promptly shut it off. He looked at the time on his phone and the time on his clock, both of which read 5:00 AM on a Saturday; time to wake up.

Y/N dragged himself out of his bed and over to his dresser. Ever since he started working at the company, he had saved enough to live in an apartment by himself; it was only in this place where he could be who he wanted to be: himself. Not the heir to his parents' company, not the latest child of the L/N family, just Y/N, and nothing more.

Y/N ate a simple breakfast of cereal and milk as per the routine he'd ingrained himself in. Soon, he would have to hide the identity of Y/N L/N, and be "Y/N, heir to the company".

After brushing his teeth and putting on his work uniform, Y/N stepped out of his apartment and made his way to the bus stop in front of his apartment complex. It was now 7:37, and he wasn't the only employee going to work at this time; others were waiting as well. Y/N looked at their faces again, as he did every time he waited for the bus to arrive. They all had the same look he did: burnt out, working just to get by, working until they can retire and die. Grunts, managers, executives, it didn't matter, all of them had the same face. Some of them were just better at hiding it.

The bus ride was quiet, save for the roar of the engine and the occasional horn honking, but Y/N reached his destination, the company where his parents were the executives for.

Y/N sighed, "Another day, another dollar, another moment where I feel that suicide seems more and more appealing..."

To tell you the truth, Y/N didn't want to work in an office, he wanted to pursue a more liberal career, such as cooking. He had experimented with various dishes he found on the internet, but it all felt worthless in the end when he realized that his parents would never approve of his hobby. Both of them thought that putting effort into something other than business and management was a waste of time. Why be the one getting paid for doing work, when you could be getting paid for telling others to do work?

"What the hell kind of thought process is that? Fucking geezers..." Y/N mumbled as he thought about it. At this point, he just wanted to live an easy life where he could be what he wanted to be, but slowly over the years, he felt his hopes and dreams slip away from him, which only made his burn-out worse.