Author's Note: Yep, this story is my first attempt at a publicly available fanfic. At the time of writing, the only knowledge of the School Days franchise I held included the plot of the anime, the plot of the manga, a few routes of the game, and a general outline of the second sequel Cross Days via its respectable manga.
I am just like you.
Probably.
I hope.
My name will likely fail to impress, but you can remember me as Rupert Hudson, and I managed to stumble upon another world. This world should not exist, not in our plane of reality. However, I have peered into it from afar, ignorant of its truth. Perhaps you have as well.
In most people's eyes, I carry the label of "nerd", and I am not at all adverse to the idea. It has occurred to me that maybe I do play a few too many video games, talk to too few people, and watch more than my fair share of Japanese animations. I would never go so far as to refer to myself as an "otaku", though my knowledge of the term may prove otherwise to those less privy. The only outward giveaway of my nature takes the shape of the small pair of rectangular spectacles sitting lightly on the tip of my curved nose, and even this should not stand as enough to judge a person. Physically, I appear only a few inches over five feet and in terms of weight I haul around only about a hundred and a score of pounds.
I will refrain from disclosing more boring details concerning my life than necessary, and state that I had simply spent another school night in front of my computer, studying the plot of another show rather than calculus. Every year I would begin to feel a sudden urge that takes over only in fall and lasts for just a month or two. Well, I use to anyway, during my less than eventful years in high school.
My brain felt the urge this month though, nearly two years since it last hazed over my mind. Instead of partaking in a new batch of anime, however, I reviewed an old favorite. My jaded younger self became fascinated with the bloody ending of a show entitled School Days. Years had gone by since I last thought of this show.
Long story short, the drama follows a young man in high school with two girls pining for him. He started innocent enough, with little knowledge in romance, trying to woo the heart of one girl with the assistance of another. He succeeds, but the girl who's aid he benefited from began to succumb to her own feelings for him. Eventually, his tale turns down jackass street and he becomes a sex fiend, hurting both girls, driving them to violent insanity. In the end, the girl he had once been closest friends with drove a knife through his stomach more than a few times, and she in turn died at the end of a saw held by the second girl. An unforeseen twist of the highest degree, and many believe he deserved every gut-rending stab. Plus some.
The story also took form in the shape of an interactive novel, a popular sort of game in Japan. As you observe the plot unfold, you make decisions for the main character, steering him either to a bright future with a loving companion, or a painful end that will leave him with more than butterflies in his throat. Or neither. I played a few routes in this game, trying my best to keep him from acting like a completely unfeeling nymphomaniac. I will just say that it took more effort with this thick head than it should with any sensible human being on this planet. The game, interestingly enough, spawned a couple sequels, but I digress.
I should keep in mind that I lack even the most basic romantic experience, so maybe I had a difficult time fully relating to this guy's situation. Having all these pretty girls grab at you sounded like the dream of every guy my age, but do many really know just how nightmarishly such a situation could end? I know I would hate to break a girl's heart, it pained me just to break their virtual ones in the game. Though, I may just be a wuss.
Anyway, back to that horrific world I entered unwillingly. I dozed off in my chair that night, having read a few summaries concerning a few more alternate endings to the game. If I had known that night had been my last in my room, I would have slept in the comfort of my untidy bed. I loved that bed more than anything in my life.
An unfamiliar screech shredded my ears and I fell from a cushiony perch down onto a hardwood floor. My eyes locked onto a cube shaped alarm clock sitting on a nightstand and I immediately slammed my fist down on its snooze button. As I knuckled sleep from my eyes, a growing sense of peculiarity chilled my spine. I fell asleep in my chair, not my bed.
My gaze shifted lazily around the rest of my room. Something about the outlines of every object seemed off. Hold on, do things normally have outlines? Absolutely not. The colors of my room appeared plain yet brighter than ever. The sun peeking through the curtains lit the room with a synthetic looking light, providing strange contrasts between darks and lights, as though the colors had limited ranges of tints and hues.
"Rupert! You're going to be late for school if you don't get up!" shouted a voice that pierced the paper thin walls.
I twitched dramatically, sending my head into the wooden bed frame I lay next to. Never in my life have I come to school tardy, minus any absences due to illness. My legs scrambled to my closet and just before my hand palmed the smooth surface of my closet door, a thought struck me into paralysis. The voice of my mother hurrying me to class had not ruptured my ear drums since high school, and the disclosure of my college schedule has never left my lips, so she could not possibly know when I needed to wake up. Often times, my feet had skirted out the front door long before she even rose from bed. Also, the woman outside my room sounded nothing like the high-pitched shrill my mom emitted.
Something felt strange, or warm and smothering rather. I peered down, the length of my body garbed in the matching shirt and pants of a set of pajamas. Never in my life have I owned pajamas, let alone slept in any. Unsteadily, I shuffled to the door of my room, floated my hand onto the cold brass of its knob, and cautiously pried it inward. The action worked in slow motion, and my mind raced for the possibilities of what the hell was going on.
I gawked at the lack of stairs outside my room. As I tip-toed through the hall, I failed to repel from my mind the fact that I lived in a two story house. Am I dreaming? That would explain the surreal yet believable style the world had taken on. Everything in dreams made sense until the morning tore them away from you. To my right I could make out the innards of a quaint little kitchen, unfamiliar to my memory. A head of dark, velvety strands leaned at the edge of a stove, slender arms visibly occupied with whatever sizzled in that pan.
"Excuse me," I called, knocking on the kitchen archway. "Who are you?"
The woman paused from her cooking for a brief moment to send me a funny look. Her eyes gleamed enormously, deep and brown bowls of infinity set in the fair skin of her face. Human anatomy could not possibly account for this intruder's enlarged features.
She rolled her eyes and returned to her previous work, humming a tune I could not recognize.
"Very funny, Rupert," she sighed. "But did you really have to come down here in your pjs just to be amusing? Go get your uniform on, you're going to be late for your first day. Won't make a good first impression of your home country, will it?"
I could only scrunch my eyes in complete confusion as I turned to take in the rest of the house. The walls brimmed with portraits depicting scenes I found hauntingly familiar, but I knew not how. Most contained that same woman in the kitchen, often accompanied by a slightly shorter boy with glasses, also with eyes as big as his face.
But that hair, those glasses... Even behind the unreal veil of this world's strange style, I knew right away that the boy in these photos could be no person other than myself.
This is a weird dream, it was the only conclusion that made sense, and I wandered it with my awareness fully intact. This could soon blossom into the greatest imagined experience of my sad life. I quickly slammed my eyes shut and thought of that cute girl I never had the courage to approach in school. I opened my arms, ready for the most tender and loving embrace I would ever have the pleasure of not really experiencing.
I took a few steps forward, opened my eyes to the blankness before me, and busted my honker in a less than satisfactory hug with the vanilla painted drywall. Wow, alright, dreams do not hurt nearly this bad. Oh, okay yeah that almost feels broken. Tears streamed over my reddened cheeks as I tried not to cry over my failed fantasy. I tenderly dabbed at my bruised nose as I returned to "my" room. Hopefully I had a mirror.
The shiny brown orbs in the closet mirror stared back at me in silent disbelief. Before me stood some kind of sick caricature of my normal self, drawn without my permission. I found my glasses sitting next to the rude alarm clock. I think my hair gleamed a little lighter in color, but I honestly could not truly tell. Ignoring the mess on my head, I nudged the closet open and set my sights on the neatly hung coat and slacks that stuck out from a jumble of random clothing.
At least this uniform looked snazzy, not those cheap private school uniforms that consisted of only a collared shirt and dark pants. It even came with a red tie, talk about formal. I feel like one would find these clothes on a schoolboy from an anime. Wait...
That woman in the kitchen spoke like I had just moved here. Something about representing my home country?
I threw my eyes around the room, I needed to find something that hinted at my location. Next to a computer sat a smug looking shelf, generously endowed with more books than I could ever care to own. I did most of my reading electronically, not that I have anything against physical texts.
I plucked a hardcover from the top shelf, no title on its faded blue cover or spine. I cleaved the print open with little regard to the poor thing's health, and stared slack jawed at the scribble I viewed on the pages. Characters clearly of an Asian alphabet, but I could not pinpoint exactly which dialect. I may have once cared deeply for anime, but I delved little into the language's written form.
I skimmed through a few other books before throwing them all down in defeat. I could hardly wait for the language barrier to rise and strike me in the face when I met any students at whatever crackpot school I must apparently attend. How do I even get there?
The sluggish task of slipping on my new garments took a good ten minutes. Why did I feel so compelled to follow through with this? Curiosity? Stupidity? Am I drugged? My brain felt like it had taken a quick dip in a blender, I needed to calm down with these question before my feeble understanding succumbed to insanity.
A backpack leaned against the wall next to the door, odd bulges indicating, to my distress, more foreign books. I hefted it onto my shoulders, took a deep, unsure breath, and squeezed out of the bedroom door.
The kitchen seemed to have gone mute. Sure enough, when I hazarded a fleeting glance around the entrance, the woman from before had vanished. I noticed a small box, a note taped to its side, sitting on a small table. I ventured a few more glances around the area before snatching the note up in my hands. Gibberish. Blasted bloody boggle-brained scribbles. The note mimicked the language in the books I had perused. A little heart dotted what I deduced to be the end of the message, but I recognized nothing else. I put the paper into my pocket and lifted the lid on the box.
Clouds of steam blanketed out before I had cleared away the lid. Inside, separated by strange little walls, boiled an abundance of freshly cooked meats and vegetables. It all appeared unrecognizable, but delicious all the same. The compartments that separated the portions reminded me of an office complex filled with cubicles.
I replaced the lid and sighed. Obvious enough, this food would satisfy my need for a lunch. Under normal circumstances, the contents of this box would disappear down my throat in a heartbeat, having not partaken in breakfast. My unsettled stomach had other plans. I hope this thing fits into my backpack.
Oh hell, who do I ask for directions? I had planned on consulting the lady responsible for this gourmet bit of boxed lunch, but from the looks of is note, I doubt she...
"Rupert?" floated a voice from an uncomfortable proximity to my rear. "Are you finally ready to head off to school? I hope you haven't missed the train."
A couple awkward missteps later and I finally managed to face my near-killer, who wielded mini heart attacks. Questions surged forth from my every pore, but I needed to pace myself.
"Who are you?" I repeated for the second time that day.
"Would you cut that out?" she huffed, expressing an exaggerated look of comical anger. "Just because you're in high school now, doesn't mean you're too old for me to ground you."
"Yes, of course... mother," I ventured.
"Mother?" she laughed. "Why are you being so formal? You're acting very strange today, more than usual."
"Uh huh," I murmured, less than enthused. My analytical eyes scanned for signs of acting or tells. I failed to spot a single twitch or fidget. She arched an eyebrow at my conspicuous gaze, clearly disturbed.
"Sorry, I guess I'm a tad nervous about my first day of... high school?" I continued. "Won't I have a difficult time learning in a foreign language environment?"
"What do you mean?" she asked with a hint of concern. "Your Japanese sounds fine to me."
Well, I should have expected this inevitable addition of questions while I wallowed in a scenario that made less sense than a donation bowl for rich and famous billionaires. She could not possibly be implying that we were currently speaking Japanese, could she?
"You mean right now?" I asked, my skepticism nearly punching her in the face. "We're speaking Japanese at this moment? Currently?"
"No, silly, we're speaking in Latin," she scoffed, sarcasm bringing a refreshing change to her tone. "Are you going to continue wasting time or are you going to get to the station?"
"One more quick question," I jabbered, settling my eyes on the front door. "Where's the station?"
"We just took it yesterday to visit the Sakakino Academy. You know, your new school?" the woman sighed. "It's just a short walk down the street. Geez, are you really so nervous that you're looking for excuses not to go?"
"Nope, I think I'm suddenly feeling better now," I smiled. "I hope I didn't fool you too hard."
Before another word left either one of our mouths, I had slid by and snaked out the door. I needed to get out of here.
Not a cloud in the sky, yet everything appeared so dreary. A crisp wind pulled slowly along the air and the morning sun sneered at me from behind the tall apartments across the street. Homes and office structures lined every inch of the road. My whole life centered around a small town with few buildings higher than five stories, so this picture jumped straight out of a movie to me. I squinted down the sidewalk and, sure enough, I could just make out what looked like a large platform with a simple roof.
The station did not interest me. No, my quarry stood approximately seven feet high, looked like a vertical coffin, and contained a phone. I think it was about time I call my real home. Or the police.
The route to the train station lacked any sight of a phone booth, so I began backing up to search in the opposite direction. I had just begun to align my head with my rotated body when a blunt force knocked the wind from my lungs and sent me sprawling. A scream, that could have come from a mouse judging by its volume, brushed at my ears and I heard the small tap of my glasses hitting the cement.
I groaned and looked around for them, apologizing the entire time. I reddened with embarrassment as my fruitless grasps searched in vain. Without my glasses, my sight range cuts off around a foot and a half from the tip of my nose. Just when I thought this day had reached its quota on heart pounding events.
"Wait," floated a soft voice, more serene than the most tenderly stroked stream in a renaissance painting.
My arms froze and I stood unsteadily from my kneeling position, attempting to cover up my blushed cheeks by rubbing an imaginary sore under my right eye. The prod of familiar plastic greeted my unoccupied hand. I hesitated in surprise, slowly pinching the glasses from the victim of my blundering stroll.
"I am so sorry," I spouted frantically. "That was totally my fault. I was just..."
As I placed the sight-blessing windows against my face, I strained to hold back from gasping at the beauty I had so heartlessly bowled into. The girl's large, violet eyes watched me with a mixture of fear and concern, hovering over pale cheeks dashed with scarlet. Long, flowing locks reached down to her waist, tinted in what looked like a shade of purple that matched her eyes. From the color palette of her uniform, consisting of a dark skirt, blouse, and red bow tie, I knew right away we shared a similar destination. And she looked so familiar...