In Which My Asshole Friend Becomes God, and I Have to Keep the World Sane
Life was routine. I got up, washed myself, ate food, and went to school. A simple pattern formed from a simple life.
Waking up with a yawn, I stumbled out of bed and made it to the shower, waking up slowly as I stood there with the water pouring down. After finishing my shower, I got out and put on my uniform, going through the motions with more muscle memory than actual thought. Step 1 and 2 of my morning done.
Going down the stairs to the first floor, I opened up the fridge to check what we still had and found myself being greeted with some primordial sludge that immediately leaped at me and latched onto my face.
"Mmmmrffh!" My muffled screams cried out. Stumbling around blindly in a panic, I relied on scraps of my memory as my hand pulled open a drawer and took out a lighter, and set the monster on my face ablaze. It's dying shrieks were painfully sharp, and I shook the remnants of its body off my face.
Scowling, I turned to the red-haired guy dozing at the couch. I looked at the lighter in my hand contemplatively, before sighing and putting it away. I filled a cup to the brim with cold water, and walked closer before splashing it all over the other man.
Naturally, only a single drop lands on him before the rest of the water simply floats in midair, frozen in time. He stirs awake and looks at me questioningly, and pushes the water to the side, floating and still.
"You forgot to deal with your last bio-experiment, Void." I said tiredly. "Would it fucking kill you to make sure they die before you stuff the cheese or whatever you experimented with into the fridge again?"
He shrugs. "Sue me. I felt like taking a nap after trying out biokinesis, and so I just put it back in after I got drowsy. I'm not a god yet."
Ah yes.
Another part of my daily routine in life involves trying to make a lazy and annoying person who has received unlimited potential with superpowers actually give a shit about others and life.
After eating a heavenly breakfast, I put on my shoes, grab my bag and start to leave. Looking back into the living room, I see a small black ball floating in Void's hands and warping my perception of everything.
I close the door on my way out and take my bike out, prepared to go to school.
Just another day in my life.
There is little that gets in the way of a wrathful god and his vengeance.
There is little that can withstand the workings of a benevolent god.
But an apathetic god…
"Damnit all Void, would it kill you to go outside and stop the war on our doorstep with your fucking powers?!"
"No, I still have to beat this level. Talk later. Focus now."
An apathetic god is a little fucking shite.
This is the story of how my asshole of a friend became a god, and how I was left running damage control.
Zipping through the streets on my bike, I felt the breeze against my body and smiled as the Japanese heat was slightly relieved. Screw going to school during the summer, I wanted to live in my air conditioned room.
Grumbling slightly at the stuffy summer weather, I got off my bike and walked through the school gates, leaving the bike at the parking area unlocked or chained.
Humming a small tune, I made my way into the main school building, took my shoes off, and put on the indoor shoes the school provided. Going into my classroom, I plopped myself down in my seat, tired from the thought of another day in school and dealing with Void once I got back home.
"Oh, hey Jin." I heard a voice call out. Perking up, I turned to face the voice, and found one Murakami Ryouta.
"Yo, Murakami." I lazily waved. "You doing fine?"
"Yeah, the astronomy club's doing good. You look dead tired though." He responds.
I shrug at his concerned voice. "Housemate was keeping me up most of the night. Wish he'd learn to keep his experiments quiet. The only reason we haven't gotten any noise complaints so far is because we don't have any neighbors." He gives me a sympathetic look, before going to sit in his own seat as the teacher came in.
"Settle down, settle down. Now, all of you, we have a new student joining us today." Whispers began to break out immediately from the classroom. It was pretty obvious why, the test to get into this high school was a pretty difficult one for anyone to take. If it wasn't for the fact that I already knew most of the material and that Void had somehow made me able to understand Japanese with ease, I probably wouldn't have gotten in myself.
"Her name is Kuroha Neko." At that, a girl with jet-black hair that fell to her waist walked into the classroom, wearing some sort of odd uniform that obviously wasn't the school's standard issue. I didn't recognize what school it was from, so it probably wasn't from around here.
A loud bang shook me out of my musing, causing me to snap my head towards the sound. Murakami was standing, frozen in shock and gaping at the new arrival.
Murakami? Be shocked by a girl? I knew he wasn't some hormonal moron, in fact he was almost a step away from being a misogynist. He really didn't care for girls, so what surprised him to act so out of character?
I thought for a little bit. Transfer student after the beginning of the school year? Odd clothes, good figure? Yup, this was obviously a manga plot. Probably a harem romcom too, if another one comes.
I take an eraser from my case and throw it at Murakami's head powerfully, rebounding off his thick skull and landing on the floor. "Mura, I know you want to show off your amazing boner to the new girl, but that's sexual harassment. Siddown already, would ya." Murakami reacts a bit slowly, turning bright red at my words and cautiously returning to his seat, his eyes still on the transfer student. Heads turn toward me, and I suddenly take great interest in the number of tiles on the ceiling. Damn if Void hasn't been rubbing off on me.
The school day passed by remarkably quietly after that. A few people crowded around the transfer student, but nothing strange happened much. The only real oddity was Murakami's intense gaze, and how he kept stewing all day, his mood growing more intense to the point that everyone could feel it, and quickly got out of his way when he went to talk to the girl during lunch.
"Oi. You're Kuroneko, aren't you?" Ah Murakami, such forwardness is bold and certainly better than most harem protags, but respecting personal space is important.
"I don't understand." And Murakami's pet name is shot down! Houston, we have a situation! Mayday, mayday!
"Don't mess around! We knew each other back then, and I can prove it!" I slowly took out my lunch. This was a nice drama to watch as I ate.
"What are you talking about?"
As the two went back and forth, I felt my container shake a little as I held it in my hand. I frowned and focused on it, the strange slap noise not registering to me. A shaking lunch container...and Void had forgotten to kill his last experiment as proven by this morning's events…
I swore loudly, drawing attention to myself once more as I stuffed the box into my bag and grabbed the bag with me and began to walk out of the classroom. Once I got outside and reached the back of the building, I took out my lunchbox and set it on the ground, away from the leaves and everything else.
Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out a decently sized can of hairspray and a lighter. Flicking the lighter to make a flame, I held the thing in front of the hairspray and directed the spray at my lunchbox, resulting in a gout of flame, torching my poor box. I repeated this until the plastic was melting and I could see the unnatural thing inside die. Phew. That was an issue. I took my water bottle and emptied its remains over my now deformed lunchbox, causing some steam to rise into the air. After wiping off the water, I stuffed it back into my bag and walked back inside for class. No reason to skip classes, I didn't want to be kicked out just yet.
-x-x-x-
"I'm home." Finishing my half of the traditional Japanese ritual, I step inside and hear the clank of metals being moved. "Void?"
"Up here," he calls from the second floor. "Finishing up something. Make sure to pick up your hard hat."
Sighing, I drop my bag on the couch, and pick up one of the many hard hats lying about as I go up the stairs to Void's room and studio. As someone who's growing on the path to becoming a god, he has to have his own little space for his creativity. There's a few plots of land that house some of his old creations, and I never visit the basement anymore because that place is a literal maze.
Stepping into his room, I put on the hat and peer in. "So, what'choo been up to today?" I ask, scanning the room. All seems normal, until…
"Yeah, I got bored, so I decided to make Memetic Bikini Armor. Inertia cancellation for blunt damage and more protection than plate armor. Because I'm that good."
I stood there, speechless and remembering why I tried to rein him in and make him a good person. "...Okay, I won't ask why, but I do need you to do something. Work on your tech tree would ya? A transfer student came in today and we both know the chances of that happening in a non-anime setting. I need info."
Void simply shrugs and cleans up his mess with a snap of his fingers. "Alright, I'll get to it. That said, how was your lunch?"
My stomach grumbling is enough of a response. I sigh and take off my hard hat, leaving it on a hanger as I went down to my own room. Void got on the computer, grumbling a bit under his breath about bullshit hollywood hacking but partaking in it himself. Ah, how thou hast fallen, former IT man.
As I took a soothing shower, Void formed the ingredients for dinner from thin air and began to cook. It'd been a few hungry days before he'd learned how to conjure things that could stay, and a bit longer until he could make the finished meal appear altogether. Now, he cooks because it's interesting to him and because he never wants to eat anything but the best food ever again.
We ate the meal in peace, enjoying the seafood menu. I'd seen some of the prices for a few of the things on our table tonight, and all of them combined would probably have been enough to pay off a politician.
"So," Void began. "I think your gut hit it dead on this time."
I scowled. "Hey, my gut is perfectly capable of making good decisions. Somewhat."
He shrugs in response. "In any case, Kuroha Neko. Information listed is probably mostly bullshit, except for the obvious things like physical features. Background is definitely suspect, seeing as the listed address shows some wooden platform in the mountains when viewed from a sat-cam, not a house. But here's the kicker- there's a death certificate going back years ago for one Kuroha Neko. So, there's definitely something odd going on here." He muses.
I let the information sink, in absorbing it as I chewed on the salmon on my plate. "Childhood friend long thought dead? Explains Mura's shocked response and the drama that went on during lunchtime. Too bad I couldn't catch all of it because somebody left my lunch as an alien monster instead of as actual food." I pointedly stared at Void, who smiled and nodded. Prick.
"Anyway, I'm gonna take a nap. As it's the first night after the first girl transfer student introduces herself, it'll probably end up in typical cliche harem ecchi antics. I'll talk to him tomorrow in depth about this, might be out late visiting Mura's observatory." Void snickers at the mention of the observatory, and I roll my eyes and begin to clear out the plates. Void looks at me, a question in his eyes, and I steadily ignore it. Stacking the used kitchenware in the sink, I turn on the water and begin to do the dishes by hand, going through the entire process by hand, scrubbing the things down as much as I could.
With my work done and my questions answered for now, I went to my room and collapsed into my bed. Surely nothing too bad could happen in one evening.