Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
A/N: Hello to anyone reading this. This is my first fic ever and I've been working on this for a while now. This fic takes a trope called "chuunibyou" and it is heavily inspired by an anime named "Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!", and no it is not a crossover.
Anyways, reviews and constructive criticism is welcome as it would help me know if I need to improve on anything. Just go easy on me. Enjoy.
Text- Regular text.
"Text"- Dialogue.
'Text'- Inner thoughts.
Oh PS, it might help if you look up 'chuuni poses' for some of the actions I make the characters do.
Special thanks to Engima2187 for helping me out! If you hadn't looked at his DDLC fanfic named 'Letting Go', I would highly recommend reading it.
I couldn't sleep.
It was just another one of those types of nights. Y'know, the ones where you promise yourself that you would sleep early that night so you can have at least 8 hours of sleep, but you just can't seem to fall asleep. I'm going to blame it on insomnia.
It was around 11:00 pm at night and it wasn't in me to fall asleep despite my constant attempts by closing my eyes. I hoped that eventually, something would happen that would allow sleepiness to finally take over, but it never came. What felt like an eternity of closing my eyes was in reality only a few minutes.
"Nope. Screw it." I got up and sat on the edge of my bed, running my hands through my messy brown bangs as I picked up my smartphone to look for the time. 'It's only 11:32 huh?'
Through the darkness of my room, I looked around my messy room. 'Maybe if I cleaned up, I can get tired easier.'
And that's what I did. I threw my scattered clothes in the hamper and reorganized my school textbooks. Eventually, I wanted to clean and organize my closet, because well, why not? I slide my closet door open and looked around.
*THUNK*
My eyes shifted toward a large brown box that had fallen on the floor. Upon further inspection, I saw that there was a sign that said "FORBIDDEN! DO NOT OPEN!" on the front of the box.
'I remembered that I put something in this box, but I forgot what though…' Something inside me was screaming not to open it and leave it inside, but the other half was saying the exact opposite. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me as I placed the box on my carpet floor and I gently opened the box.
"Ah, crap... now I remember." The contents of the box were filled with many plastic items and toys, including a very large black cape that looked like it belonged to Count Dracula, accompanied by a black eye patch. On top of the jacket was a notebook that had the name 'Ryota S.' on it.
These were my middle school items.
You see I, Ryota Shujinkou, have a confession to make. When I was only in middle school, I used to believe that I was more… special than anyone else.
No, not mentally ill silly.
I believed that I had powers that belonged only in the fantasy world. You could have imagined the reactions that I had received from everyone during that time. I only realized that I was made fun of and shunned upon at the very end of my middle school years. I used to wear this stupid cape to school and wrapped my arms with bandages. And if I was feeling it, I wore an eyepatch to accompany my outfit. I threw up poses with my hands like putting my left hand over my eyes to what I used to call "channeling my powers".
Whenever someone said something about it, I usually explained that my gear was used to help "seal my powers" and talked about this secret organization that I was apart of called "Project Zero" (I usually said that it was an organization that was made to train and birth people of all ages into superhumans.) And of course, they laughed at me and thought I was a weirdo. They had every right to think so.
But likewise, I thought everyone around me was just foolish and I thought I was better than them. I used to mutter things like "Fools, they don't understand the power I wield. If I show them, they will tremble in fear!"
I used to even yell out stupid catchphrases on the top of my lungs like, 'Manifest, Mystic Arts! Spirit of the burning darkness through the light! Sever the darkness of the heavens! I call upon thee to give me the strength to defeat the enemies nearby!' while throwing up various poses.
Now, how in the name of Hell did I even make up this catchphrase? Mystic Arts? Spirit of the darkness through the light? Severing the darkness of the heavens? I'm not that religious or anything, but is there even darkness in heaven? All of this crap never made sense at all! This so-called "secret organization" was even worse! Why or how did I ever come up with this stuff?! Oh but don't get me started on those silly poses I did...
And you want to know what's even worse? I actually thought that I was cool and thought highly of myself. Why? Well it's from me thinking that I had powers, of course, I thought I was one-of-a-kind; a hero hiding in plain sight, with a destiny to save the world from a certain evil that plagued it.
Please, someone, end me.
Of course, there was no evil, nor did I have a destiny, it was just me being weird. If I had an opportunity to redo my middle school years, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Because if only I could have seen how idiotic I was during those years, maybe I could have made more friends.
Well actually scratch that. I wasn't THAT alone. I had my childhood friend named Sayori with me. We both were actual nutcases. I had influenced the poor girl to act just like me. The both of us thought that we were from some stupid fantasy world we made up our whole middle school years.
I held my notebook in my hands and inspected it. 'Do I dare and open it and relive my past?' I stared at the cover for a few more moments and eventually opened it up.
'It can't be THAT bad…
Right?'
Boy was I wrong.
The book was filled with drawings of weapon designs, character designs, backstories and even the information of my delusional persona. My face instantly became a bright red color and my head started to feel light headed from embarrassment as I read my old notebook.
'The Emperor's Mightiest Magic Swordsman, Bahamut!
Having left behind in a forest by a great ancient spirit, he was taken in by a family and grew up to be a normal child until he was 6. He was then taken away from his family by Project Zero, to help awaken his power. With years of rigorous training, until he was 12, he mastered all types of magic! That was when he was summoned by an emperor from a far distant country, hidden from the globe to help fight off the evil plaguing the country! There he mastered the art of the sword, and using his magic he stopped the evil and was crowned as "The Best Swordsman in the World!"'
"Nopenopenopenope." I quickly closed the notebook and tossed it across my room, landing at the foot of my desktop. I laid down on my floor, covering my flushed face from embarrassment.
Questions about my well being started to plague my mind. 'Why the hell was I this stupid to come up with this stuff?! I was left behind in a forest by a spirit?! How can a spirit physically leave a child?! And I was a master of all types of magic!?"
"If there's a God out there, please strike me down already…" I muttered to myself.
It took me a few minutes to regain my composure and eventually I got up to head towards where my notebook is and placed it on my computer desk. 'Damn it. I'm still not that tired and I cleaned up my entire room.' I looked towards the time and saw it was around 11:50pm. 'You know what? I'll just explore the internet until I'm tired.' I placed my notebook that was on the ground on my desk and turned on my computer.
Eventually, over time, my eyes turned towards my notebook. I wonder if there was anybody besides Sayori that was like me?
'Okay, there's no way that there are people out there that's like me and Sayori.' I typed down on my search bar 'delusional people who think they have superpowers.'
You can only imagine the shock on my face that appeared after I hit enter.
"Are you kidding me?" My eyes shifted to the first link that appeared as I quickly clicked on it.
'What is Chuunibyou?'
"Chuunibyou (Chu-ni-b-you), often shortened as chuuni is also known as Middle School Second Year Syndrome, is a used to describe a person who sees themselves as people who are capable of having special powers, or even descended from a fantasy world and tend to use big words to make themselves look cool. This delusional behavior or 'disease' can be found in people from any age group. It is most common within the middle schoolers, and it is often the source of someone's embarrassing moments in life. It does not affect someone in a physical or emotional way."
I stared at my computer screen in complete disbelief. 'So there was a term for this all along?!'. Wanting more proof, I hit the back button on the wiki page to go back on Google and pressed "Videos". I scrolled down on the list until one certain video catches my eyes. The video title, in particular, was named 'Kid with chuunibyou in our school! Not clickbait!'
I gulped. 'Oh God, I hope it's not THAT bad…' I mentally braced myself for what I was going to see and clicked on the video. It was recorded vertically on a phone and it started off with a bunch of kids sitting in a classroom.
Nothing was unusual, it was a short video that started off as a normal video and everyone in it was having a good time, cracking a few jokes here and there, then suddenly it turns towards a student with messy black hair as he stands on top of his table, giving him a huge height advantage over everyone in the room. He was using his student uniform coat as a cape, while he wore only one biker glove on his right hand and both of his forearms were covered in bandage wraps. His right eye was covered with an eyepatch. With his left hand, he covers the left side of his face, slightly revealing his left eye between his middle and ring finger while his right hand was holding his biceps tightly. He quickly took a deep breath in and then...
"FOOLISH MORTALS! YOU SHALL ALL BOW YOUR HEAD BEFORE ME, FOR IT IS I! THE GREAT AND ALL MIGHTY THE LORD OF ETERNAL PAIN; AETERNAMIUS! CEASE WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING AND OBEY ME, BEFORE YOU ALL PERISH UNDER MY WRAITH-"
I quickly closed the exit button on the website and put both of my elbows on my computer table to rest my head on my hands, closing my eyes in embarrassment. 'Oh my God… this is exactly it! THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I USED TO ACT A FEW YEARS BACK! I WAS A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF THIS TYPE OF CRAP!' My face flushed as I cringed from watching that video. The memories of my middle school days were slowly coming back to my head as I was heavily reminded of them.
I then did one of the stupidest things tonight besides opening that godforsaken notebook of mine. I slammed my head against my desk.
"OW! Way too hard… Why did I even do that?"
My forehead was red from hitting it, I then started to rub my forehead to ease the pain. Though, I did deserve hitting myself for doing such embarrassing things in the past.
Eventually, I got up and let a sigh escape my mouth as I shut off my computer. 'No point of dwelling on the past like this… that was a few years ago.' I walk towards my bed and sat on the edge of it as I looked over to my alarm clock. 'Damn, it's 1:32 in the morning! Right when I wanted to sleep early too!'
I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. I was still thinking about that cursed video and how much it reminded so much of me.
It was only until the last year of my middle school career when I had my self-realization of what I was doing. So, I packed up all of my delusional fantasies and equipment into the box and started to focus on my schoolwork. As a result of me being such a nutcase, my grades weren't too hot. Thankfully, instead of me playing around with my made up fantasies all the time, I focused all of my free time into studying and my grades went up; along with me recovering from the 'chuunibyou' disease.
But I decided that I needed a new start, a new environment. And that's what I did. I applied for a prestigious, yet far away high school that was millions of years away from my middle school, so that absolutely NO ONE would recognize me. Eventually, it worked out in the end as I passed the high school entrance exams for my school. I got accepted and made a few friends. I thought I was going to be alone in my high school and no one from middle school would be in it, but that's what I got wrong.
Sayori was in my school.
She too applied for my high school and got accepted. How she figured out about the high school I was going too and passed the exams, I will never know. Most of the time, she was playing around with her delusional fantasies, yet she passed! (Though she got a lower grade than me.)
At first, I thought she too wanted to turn a new leaf in this new school, but I also got that wrong. She still acts like she was in middle school; a chuuni or whatever it was called, yelling out silly catchphrases, doing various poses, using "magic", etc. I can't help but feel guilty whenever I think of her. It was mostly my fault that I influenced her and made her who she is today.
Finally, my eyes slowly start to close, the darkness taking over my vision as I slowly drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*
"Heyyyyyy, Big Bro! Wake up! It's 6 am!"
I let out an annoyed grunt. "Five more minutesss..." I half-sleepily groaned.
*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*
"Ryotaaaaa! Come on! You can't be late!"
I say nothing back. Sometimes I just wish that I never had school and I can just sleep all day.
I hear an audible sigh behind my door.
"I'm coming in, Ryota!" The door opens and I hear footsteps coming closer until it stops at the side of my bed. A pair of hands is placed on my left side of my abdomen as I started to get lightly shaken.
"Ryota Shujinkou! Wake up!"
I let out an annoyed groan to whoever was shaking me. In response, I hear an annoyed sigh directed towards me.
"You leave me no choice Big Bro." The owner of the voice got on my bed and started to pinch my nose. After a few seconds of not receiving any oxygen through my nose, my body shot upwards in response.
"Hehe, works every time!"
With an annoyed face, I looked towards the person who woke me up.
It was my little sister, Haru. She's dressed in her black with white lining seifuku accompanied by a white ribbon for school. One side of her long brown hair is braided accompanied by a plastic white flower hair clip. Her golden eyes pierce through my own as she wears a proud but amused expression on her face for having a sense of accomplishment for waking me up.
"Haru! What the heck!" Her expression turned into an annoyed one as I raised my voice at her. She gets off my bed and turns towards me while crossing her arms.
"Well, you're the one who didn't want to wake up! You shouldn't raise your voice at me either! I'm the one who's always taking care of you ever since Mom and Dad left on a business trip! And you're supposed to take care of me, dummy!" She said as she stuck her tongue at me.
I sighed towards her and got off my bed. "Yeah, yeah whatever. Just get out, I'll go start getting ready. I'll cook breakfast right after." I said while stretching my body.
I went over to the bathroom to wash my face and start preparing for the day. With only around five hours of sleep last night (though I'm going to blame it on that little discovery last night), most likely I'm not going to be able to make it through first period. 'Hopefully, cold water can help keep me up for a bit…"
Eventually, I dressed up into my school uniform; a white dress shirt accompanied by a red tie tucked into a light orange-brown vest with a light grey blazer and a pair of blue pants. I went over to my kitchen and started to cook up breakfast for the both of us while Haru was sitting on the table, browsing through her phone.
30 minutes later.
After we ate, both of us went to the bathroom to brush our teeth and make last preparations before we left out the house. I brushed my teeth first while Haru went last. As she was brushing away, I kept looking at myself in the mirror while messing with my hair.
"Say, Haru."
"Mhmmwhat?" She says before spitting out the toothpaste in the sink.
"Do I look... normal?"
She turns around to me wearing a curious expression while she dries her mouth with a towel. "Uhh… what? I mean, I guess."
I give out a relieved sigh, "Alright, thanks. Just asking." thankfully my sister wasn't like me when I was in middle school. She's just your average, normal, student attending middle school as any other normal kid should be.
Well, of course unlike me back then.
She starts to giggle at me. "Hey, at least you aren't like how you used to be when you were in middle school~! Seriously! What the heck were you doing back then with big sis Sayori?"
I give her an annoyed expression. "Haru, somethings should be left forgotten and never be spoke about ever again you know. And that's definitely something I don't want to relive!" I shudder for a moment thinking about my middle school misadventures.
"I mean like, didn't you use all of your birthday money that one day to buy that big toy sword?"
My eyes widen in shock when she mentions the plastic weapon that I bought a few years back. "W-well, you just remembering wrong! I definitely did not buy that!" I was lying of course. I had thrown that plastic sword, somewhere in the deep depths of the closet.
"Nope. I can clearly remember you using it. You always had on that stupid cape while you wrapped your arms with bandages practically every day while shouting out you will defeat evil with it. I think you had a name for it too. I think it was called… Ex-calla-mmphh?!" I covered her mouth quickly so I can save myself the embarrassment.
'Please. God. If you're out there. End me already.'
"Haru, if I can live with forgetting that crap, so can you." She then pushes my hand from her mouth away all the while lightly chuckling to herself.
"Haha! You were a complete weirdo back then Ryota. You and Sayori actually! I used to be embarrassed by the both of you two, ya know!" She places a hand on my shoulder and gives me a thumbs up with the other while giving me a reassuring but pitiful look. "Don't worry, at least you're a bit normal now!"
I rubbed my temples to relieve my headache that she gave me for teasing me. "Yeah, yeah whatever. Let's start to leave and never speak about this again, okay?" I said as I left the bathroom while Haru quickly followed behind.
"Fineeeeeee. But no promises that I won't stop teasing you!"
The both of us put on our sneakers and grabbed our student shoulder bags for school. We both head out the front door and she goes ahead to open our gate. As I locked the front door, I looked towards Haru as she waves me goodbye, leaving right before I returned the gesture. Haru and I go separate ways; she goes to the right while I go to the left. Thankfully, she doesn't go to my former middle school. I'm sure that my former teachers are still there, I wouldn't want her to get embarrassed by them if they ever told her what I used to do.
The commute to the train station was peaceful. I looked around my surroundings to admire the scenery as a gentle breeze comes and goes; the morning rays of sunshine beaming through the tree leaves. The faint sounds of doors opening and closing by people with the occasional goodbyes. A few joggers wearing various colored track clothing jogging on the sidewalk. And even the occasional bark from a dog restrained by their own with a leash. It was the typical morning for me.
Eventually, as I kept walking, I started to see multiple students with different uniforms slowly heading towards the same direction across from me. But as I was about to cross the street, I started to hear leaves rustling nearby. I turned around and saw in front of me that someone was in a bush. Suddenly, the person in question jumped out of it and turned around and faced towards me.
The person that jumped out from the bush, is my childhood friend Sayori Akimoto. It was rare seeing her before school, as I would usually see her in between classes. Back during middle school, we would always walk to school together and we were always in a world of our own. But of course, ever since I stopped being a chuunibyou patient or whatever it was called, I started to walk by myself more often around the end of the school year. Now during high school, it was rare to see her going to school with me.
She has on the same uniform as me, but she has a skirt on instead of pants of course with white stockings and her uniform blazer was unbuttoned. Noticing her current appearance, Sayori turns around and begins to quickly mess with her light coral pink hair to remove pieces of leaves out of it and fixes her small red clip-on bow. She then turns back to me and takes a deep breath and exhales.
"You!" She points her right pointer finger at me. "It looks like I have caught you this time! I have crossed many universes to find you!" She puts her left hand on the right side of her hip while simultaneously covers the left side of her face with her right hand using her pointer and middle finger to make a 'V' shape under her left eye to reveal it. "I, Aurora Sunshine the Third, challenge you to a duel to the death!"
There was a long and silent pause as we both stared at each other.
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
'Looks like I'm taking the long route to the train station today.' I quickly turned around and walked back to where I came from.
"H-hey! You meanie! Wait up!" I hear Sayori yell towards me. She quickly catches up and grabs my wrists, pulling me back lightly. I turned towards her as she puffs her cheeks and pouts towards me.
I give out a slightly annoyed sigh and only shook my head in disappointment. "Heya, Sayori." She quickly stops pouting towards me and gives me a cheerful smile, then goes into a serious face.
"Hey! Sayori is not my name!" With a serious look, she puts her left hand in front of her right eye and puts the other on the left side of her waist. 'Sayori' is just my camouflaged name that I use to hide in this world from the enemy!" She then crosses her arms and pouts her face. "Also, you were thinking about ditching after I was waiting- I mean, ambushing you! Meanie!"
I inwardly cringe from what I just heard from her. "Yeah, yeah. I don't want people staring at us for you acting weird."
She gives me a curious look, "Eh? Weird? What's weird about us having a duel with our skills and powers, Bahma-" I quickly covered her mouth and quickly looked around us if anyone heard what she was going to say.
Luckily, no one saw us. I cannot let anyone know about THAT persona.
I saw her face turn a bright pink and she quickly removes my hand covering her mouth to speak.
"H-hey! What was that for?"
"Look Sayori, I-I don't go by that anymore, okay?"
"Ooooh, I get it!" Her face brights as she starts to bounce her toes in excitement. "You just don't want our enemy organization to know where you are! Good thinking 'Ryota'!" She gives me a thumbs up and winks as she said my name.
I facepalmed myself hard. 'Why is she still like this?'
I looked towards her and she was still giving me that goofy smile of hers that I somewhat had missed ever since the last time we walked together. If I had never met her back when we were children, I don't think we would have been friends today, especially if she acted like this even without my influence during middle school.
"Well Ryota, let's get a move on! If we stay in one place, we'll be caught by the enemy!" She starts to skip across the street. I stared at her skipping across the street for a couple of moments until I sighed to myself and started to catch up with her. 'I can't believe that she's still like this...'
The walk to the train station was surprisingly quiet. Back then, we would usually be the loud ones while walking to school, catching the attention of many. I glanced towards her bright sapphire eyes then back to the ground. She's happily humming a tune of a song to herself while focusing on the road ahead.
'Right now, she just looks like a normal high schooler… but instead just a chuunibyou patient…' A guilty expression appears on my face as I thought about her.
'And it's all of my faults for influencing her…'
My mind goes back all the way to middle school when I first told her my "powers" and shortly after that, she started to play along as well.
'If only I could go back in time to hit myself on the head for being so stupid… I'd do it in a heartbeat. Maybe both of us could have made more friends.'
I looked back to her face and a small but sad smile appears on my own face. 'At least she made middle school a little less lonely…'
As we both walked in silence, we started to approach the train station. A thought went through my head as I paused for a moment. 'Maybe I could make her see the light… maybe it's not too late for her to start acting normal!'
Was this hopefully thinking? Maybe. But I just know I had to at least make an effort.
My eyes glanced towards the sign that showed how many minutes until the next train is coming. Only around five minutes remain until our train arrives. My eyes turned towards Sayori who started to gleefully skip towards the edge of the platform.
I started to think of ways of how I can convince her to stop acting like a chuunibyou. Eventually, I finally figured out what I was going to say to her, and prepared myself to try and convince her. With a determined face, I slowly start to approach Sayori who was seemed to be in deep thought about something.
'It's unusual to see her be in deep thought… she's probably in her own fantasy world again.'
I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Sayori." She emits a surprised squeal while she flinches in surprise and brings her arms close to her chest as I snapped her back from her thoughts.
"Uwah! O-oh, uh yeah Ryota?"
I was stunned for a minute. 'That was kinda cute…' upon realizing what went through my mind, I quickly turned around and gave my temples a few slaps. 'Wait no! She's my delusional childhood friend! I shouldn't be thinking of her like that! Second of all, I have to convince her for her sake!" I regained my composure and with a new determined look, I turn back at her and looked her in the eyes.
"Don't you ever think that-" Suddenly she falls to her knees and puts her hands on her temples, catching the attention of a few students. "Sayori?! Wha-"
"M-my p-powers, it's reacting! I-It's coming!" She exclaimed. Now half the people here started to look at us.
'Great…'
I looked around to see what's she's talking about. I started to hear the sounds of engines from a distance and as I looked more closely, the train was rapidly approaching us.
"Sayori, are you talking about the train-?"
Sayori then stands up from the ground and puts her left hand on her right temple and puts her right hand on her left shoulder as the train started to slow down. "By the powers bestowed on me, I call upon thee to get out of my head to aid me!"
As she said that, the train stopped and she over dramatically outstretched her right hand in front of the door. The instant she put it right in front of the train door, it slid open. With a proud face, she looks at me as she went inside the train to take a seat. I quickly turned around and saw almost half of the people here in the train station was looking at me. I hid my face in embarrassment as I quickly went inside of the train to take my seat.
With all of that commotion that she caused in the train station, I forgot what I was going to say to Sayori to convince her.
Sayori started to jump up and down in her seat. "Ryota! Didn't you see my brand new powers?! Project Zero taught me it!"
I gave out an annoyed sigh and slowly shook my head as I sat down next to her. "Yeah, Sayori. I saw." My head shifted toward the window seat. 'And so did everyone at the train station…'
The rest of the train ride to school was just her talking about her 'adventures' that she was on. I'm not going to lie, it was actually nice to catch up with her despite her being a chuunibyou patient. I couldn't help but think about how she would act differently if she didn't have this 'disease' from me.
'She would probably still be bright and happy as she is…'
At one point, she started to talk about her 'comrades' at school that she made two weeks ago. Apparently, she recently joined a club and she's the Vice President of it. This caught me by off-guard considering how she acts and is oblivious to the people around looking at her. It kinda made me happy for her; she actually joined a club where they didn't judge her for being a delusional nutcase who thought she was from another world. But to think that someone like Sayori has enough responsibility to become the Vice President. On the inside, it made me happy for my childhood friend.
Eventually, we reached our last stop and we got off the train to start walking to school. We started to see an abundance of students wearing the same uniform walking to the gates of our school.
Dokisai High School, one of the most prestigious schools and probably the biggest in our area.
As we entered through the gates, we saw many groups of people, standing up or sitting down talking to each other and having fun with one another. Just looking at them, this reminded of me of what I yearned for when I realized how stupid I was at the end of my middle school days.
A sense of normalcy.
As Sayori and I kept getting nearer to the entrance of our school, we started to see students sitting down on desks outside. As we got closer, I soon realized that it was people trying to convince other students to join their clubs as they were handing out club applications.
"Clubs, huh?" I said quietly to myself.
I never was actually in a club, nor did the thought of joining one popped up into my head. Though I wanted to act normal and forget my dark past, I never got around joining any. I looked over to Sayori, who was thinking about something really hard. Then suddenly, she realizes something as her face turns into an excited one. She quickly grabs my hand, my face instantly flushing in response.
"Sayori, what-?!"
"Ooooh, Ryota! I almost forgot! Come inside! Quickly!" She pulls me inside of the school and towards where her locker was. She let go of my hand as she stopped by her locker to quickly open it with her combination.
I folded my arms and looked at her in both curiosity and slight annoyance. "Alright Sayori, do you mind telling me what's going on?"
"I want you to join my club!" She says with an excited tone as she took out the school slippers out of the locker and starts to take off her sneakers.
"Clubs? Uh sorry Sayori, I'm already apart of one." I jokingly said towards her.
"W-what? Really?" She stops in her tracks and looks me dead in the eye with a surprised expression on her face.
"Yup, it's called the "Go Home Club." I snickered at her.
"Uwah! Meanie! You tricked me!" She says as puffs her cheeks and pouts towards me.
"Haha! I'm just kiddin' Sayori. I just couldn't help." I started to look away from her. "But I'm not really interested in joining any clubs, well nor have I been looking out for one anyway." I turned back to her as she was finishing putting on her white school slippers with a blue toe cap on her feet. She puts her sneakers into her locker, closes and locks it.
"Well, can you consider joining mine? Or at least looking at it today? Plus one of our members made cupcakes for whoever comes!" She looks at me with pleading eyes.
I raised my left eyebrow when she said cupcakes, but I soon dismissed it. "Sorry, Sayori. I just don't feel like joining any clubs."
She starts to deeply sigh and looks at me with a determined face. "Alright, it looks like I have no choice but to use my magic of convincing on you." She starts to close her eyes to concentrate and put her fingers on her temples.
"Oh no, Sayori at least don't do it in school…" I looked around us, and surprisingly no one was here with us at the lockers.
As I turned back towards her, I see that she started to move her hands everywhere in a circular motion. While she's doing this, she starts to mutter something under her breath, which I'm guessing is her chanting "magic". Finally, she stops and immediately opens her eyes to look into my amber eyes. She puts her two pointer fingers together close to her face and looks at me with her puppy eyes.
"Can you please come to my club today?"
'DAMN IT! MY ONE WEAKNESS! SHE KNOWS ME WAY TO WELL!'.
Everytime that Sayori wanted something, she would always pull this stunt off and it would work ever since our childhood. I wanted to say no to her face right then and there, but I just couldn't.
I couldn't find it in me to say no to one of the most cutest faces I've ever seen.
I gave out a heavy sigh, knowing that I lost against her "Alright Sayori. I'll just come to the club just for them today, but only for the cupcakes. No promises that I'll join though."
"Yay! I knew my magic will always work on you no matter what!" She starts to bounce on her toes excitingly. "Alright, then Ryota! I'll see you later after class! Oh, but be careful though! Project Zero told me that some spies here in the school!" She says as she was running towards her class while waving back towards me.
I slightly sighed towards myself. There was something in me that's telling me that I've made a big mistake agreeing to look at her club for the day. But I soon dismissed that thought.
'What can possibly go wrong?'
I went towards my locker to unlock it and take off my sneakers and put on my school slippers on. Heading towards the stairs, I mentally prepared myself for the amount of boredom I was going to experience for the next couple of hours.
The school day was boring as usual and ended in a flash. I started to pack my things up to leave for the day.
'Ah crap, I forgot… I promised to go to Sayori's club today…' I take a good look of my surroundings. Thankfully she wasn't here yet. 'I'll just leave now before she notices that I left the school!'
With that thought in mind, I quicken my pace to pack my things up and headed straight for the door. But as soon as I was going to slide the door open to leave, Sayori opens the door for me from the other side.
"Oh, Ryota! Here you are! I'm so excited! Let's go!" She squealed as she grabs my wrist.
'Dammit… it was worth trying anyway.' I heavily sighed towards myself. "Okay… led the way then."
She drags me all the way to the school stairs leading up to the third floor. This section of this school is actually someplace that I've never been before, it's generally used for the third-year classes and activity, but eventually, she takes me to a classroom and knocks on the door in a rhythm.
A feminine voice comes from the other side of the door. "Only the worthy may enter. State your business!"
"It's Aurora Sunshine! I have come to present our new member!" I looked at her with a curious look. 'Why is she using her persona…?'
A few moments of silence filled the air until the voice spoke again. "Ummm, oh right! What's the passcode?"
"Doki-Doki!"
'Doki...Doki? What the hell type of…'
"You may enter. The doors are already unlocked!" The voice said back. 'Wait, I don't think you can lock the doors without the teacher's permission… was it already unlocked in the first place then? What was the point of the passcode then?'
Sayori then slides the door open and pushes me into the class. "New member is here fellow heroes~!"
"Sayori… I never said I would…" I paused for a minute in realization. 'Wait a minute. Did she just say, heroes?'
My thoughts were interrupted as soon as I saw someone elegantly walking towards me. It was a girl, maybe around my age who I've never seen before in my life. She wore the same uniform, but unlike her, she had her light grey blazer buttoned. She was almost my height and looked very mature for someone around my age... regarding her chest. Accompanied by her long violet hair was a matching hair clip of the same color. But what caught my eye the most was that she was closing her eyes.
'Why is she closing her eyes? Is she… blind?'
"Welcome to our club. Sayori has said wonder-AHHHH!". The poor girl tripped by one of the desk legs by accident. Luckily for her, I caught her right before she went crashing to the ground, saving her from both embarrassment and pain.
"Umm, are you… okay?"
She opens her eyes and looks deeply into my amber eyes. I saw that she has a pair of purple galaxy eyes. 'So she isn't blind? Why were her eyes closed then…' Her face starts to blush heavily, which in turn caused me to blush as well after we realized our position. She quickly gets back on her feet and takes a deep breath in, and exhales. 'That was kinda awkward... But she looks like the person to be extremely shy and doesn't do well in social interactions…'
"Oh! T-thank you. Umm.. uh... h-hi. M-my n-name is..." Her voice starts to lower down as soon as she was going to say her name, but I didn't quite catch it.
"Err, I'm sorry I didn't catch your name."
"MY NAME IS YURI!" She raises her voice, catching the both of us off guard, but she soon quickly covers her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh um! I apologize for raising my voice in such a rude manner…!"
She starts to play with her with her hair by slowly stroking it. "My name is Yuri Shizuka, but you can call me by my r-real i-identity as..." Her voice almost becomes dead silent as she trails off, so I couldn't hear what she said.
'I can call her by what now?'
As soon as I was going to say something, someone else started to speak up.
"Ugh, seriously Sayori? You brought a boy? Way to kill the atmosphere." I looked towards the speaker and saw a short girl (who I am going to assume is a first-year…), with bright pastel pink hair with a red hourglass hair clips to hold her bangs and two red ribbons, forming two small twin-tails, and a pair of bright pinks eyes to match her hair. "We kinda had a thing rolling you know."
But for some reason, she is wearing a red eyepatch with a gold outline with a cross in the middle on her left eye. My suspicions started to rise up and my hands became somewhat sweaty. I was getting extremely nervous for some reason, but I couldn't tell why. My mind was telling me to leave this classroom as soon as possible.
'What's going on? Why is she wearing that eyepatch?"
The small petite girl crossed her arms and directly looked dead into my eyes with a slightly annoyed expression.
"Hmph! So your the chump who Sayori keeps talking about? You don't look as strong as she says you are."
'Rude. But… why would Sayori mention me as strong? Sure I'm kinda fit from playing outside a lot in middle school but…'
I was going to say something back, but then suddenly the door from the other side of the room slides open. A beautiful girl comes in with a long chestnut colored ponytail tied by a white ribbon. Accompanied by her bangs are two long strands of hair next to pretty face, and a pair of mesmerizing emerald eyes to top it all off.
This beautiful girl in question was Monika Tachibana, the school's idol. She's the valedictorian of our grade, the most popular because of her looks and personality and even athletic. Basically, someone who was far out of reach to the average male student. I've heard that she was the one of the best in the debate club, but now I'm guessing she left that club for this.
"Sorry guys, I'm back from the teacher's room! Let's get this club met-" Monika notices me in the room and her face instantly brightens up. "Ah! Ryota is that you? What a nice surprise!" She gives me the brightest smile I've seen, enough to make ice melt.
I felt my face burning up in embarrassment. "O-oh, hey Monika! It's been awhile." I said as I scratched the back of my head.
I sort of knew Monika last year. I was in the same English class as her, but I've never really spoken to her since I never really had the courage to do so. Still, the fact that she actually remembers my name still surprises me. But to spend time with her and the rest of the girls in this club might just be a sign!
I wanted to say something more to her, but I couldn't say anything else. Only one thought went through my head the whole entire time. "This club is filled with cute girls!"
Is this a reward from God himself? To spend the afternoon with these girls? Just for receiving actual common sense at the end of middle school and act normal in high school?
If it is, I'll gladly take it.
But my gut feeling of escaping this classroom was still lingering. I still couldn't tell what was going on. I looked over to the girl whose name I've never got. Immediately she looks at me and gives me a mild glare.
"What are you looking at chump?" Her expression then changes to a smug face as she puts both of her hands on her hips. "Hehe. You must be wondering why I'm wearing this eyepatch of mine? I'll tell you why then."
'Wait. Oh no. Ooooh no. DON'T TELL ME THERE WAS A CATCH ALL ALONG. PLEASE TELL ME IT'S NOT WHAT I THINK IT IS. PLEASE, GOD, LET ME BE WRONG!'
The pink haired girl then gets up on top of one of the tables nearby so she can look down on me. With her whole left hand, she covers the right side of her face, revealing her right eye by using her pointer and middle finger.
"This eyepatch covers my 'Wicked Eye' that I was cursed with when I was born! If I ever take this off, a disaster that will doom the world will happen!"
She then dramatically sticks her left arm out in an upward position, slightly going to the left and she uses her fingers on her right hand to make a 'V' shape and puts it next to her eye. "My name is Natsuki Kanakura! The leader of the Red Crimson Demons and the wielder of the 'Wicked Eye'!
The three girls started to clap for Natsuki.
Sayori was the first one to speak up to the small petite girl. "Ooooh! Natsuki, that was so cute!"
"I-I'm not cute!" Her voice starts to lower down as she balls her fists in irritation. "I-it's supposed to be cool…" she then notices me still looking at her, then glares back at my location. "If you have something to say, spit it out!"
My mouth was agape, I was too stunned by what I just witnessed to say anything back.
"Now now, that isn't something we should say to a new member, Natsuki," Monika spoke up.
Natsuki gracefully jumps off from the desks and crosses her arms once she lands. "Hmph."
Sayori comes up from behind me and puts her hands on my shoulder, prompting me to snap back into reality. "Anyways guys, this is the person I was talking about! My childhood friend and eternal rival, Ryota! Since Natsuki already properly presented herself, you guys are next!"
Surprisingly, Yuri was the first who spoke up despite her seemingly shy but mature personality. She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath and exhales shortly after. With a new sense of confidence, she opens her eyes and faces towards me.
"My real identity is not Yuri, it is Tsukuyomi!"
She puts her left hand to cover her right eye and with the other hand, she grabs her left bicep.
"I was born from the last blood moon centuries ago as a ghost. But then as I was under the red moonlight, I was bestowed a great power from the great witch Elyssa Libitina! And with the powers of the darkness I received from her, I became the successor of the legendary Makarov Eye of the Third!"
She then lifts up her bangs as she revealed to me, a poorly drawn red eye on the center of her forehead. Yuri then puts out her left hand in front. "Behold its power! Only a few have lived after experiencing it!"
I put my palm on my forehead and rubbed it to relieve a headache I was experiencing just from watching this all unfold. 'This… this is all starting to make sense…' I then see that Yuri's expression turn from a surprised one to a very happy one as she puts her hands together close to her chest.
"I-it worked? Oh, it really worked!"
I lightly slapped my forehead. 'CRAP! I MADE HER THINK IT WORKED SOMEHOW!'
Everyone besides me in the room started to clap for Yuri for her performance, Monika then spoke up right after.
"Don't let her shy personality fool you! She can activate her true powers by closing her eyes! This was just a sample of it! Isn't that right, Yuri?" Monika then puts her hand on Yuri's shoulder, startling the poor girl.
She looks over to me and blushes, as she was most likely reminded what happened only just a few minutes ago. 'O-oh! Um...yes! That is correct!"
I lightly sighed to myself. 'Well, that explains why she was closing her eyes when we first met…'
Monika then catches everyone's attention in the room and turns around to face her. "Ahem. Okay everyone! It's my turn!" She then turns over to look at me in the eyes and gives me a reassuring smile. I caught myself lightly blushing as she stared at me. She then closes her eyes.
"As you may know Ryota, we have crossed paths with each other many eons ago in the last age of time."
'Is she talking about last year?'
"Many of the mortals here in this place of everlasting knowledge knows me as Monika." She finally opens her eyes and a look of seriousness had filled her face. "But that is just a name to camouflage me in this reality!"
Monika started to hold her left forearm with her right hand and her left hand was slowing balling up. Then she lets go of it and hugs the left side of her stomach with her right hand and her left hand covering her right eye over dramatically.
"I am the greatest sorcerer of this century! The Lady who Knows Everything! I rule this reality with the most powerful magic ever known to mankind as I can summon, delete or even manipulate anything!" She then puts her hands behind her back and leans in forward. "But for just for you, you can still call me just by Monika~!" she says with a wink, making me slightly blush.
Everyone starts to clap for her, Sayori being the loudest one.
She then runs up to Monika, grabbing her hands while bouncing on her toes. "As expected from our club leader! That was soooo cool! I want to be just like you!"
Natsuki was the second to say something. "Hmph, yeah I guess it was kinda cool." She then crosses her arms together. "I still think mine was better though!"
Yuri was the last one to say something to Monika. "I must agree with Sayori. It was an excellent performance," she says as she gave Monika a warm smile.
As for me, I can only just shake my head in disbelief. My head actually was starting to hurt because of the amount of cringe I was experiencing was overwhelming me. What's even worse was that I used to be like the lot of them.
This all started to make sense to me on how Sayori was able to join a club and be the Vice President despite her being a chuunibyou. She calls her friends 'comrades' and 'fellow heroes' because the rest of these cute girls are also like her; a bunch of nutcases!
'These girls are not only cute… they're all delusional! They all have the chuunibyou disease! She probably wants me to join because she thinks I still have my 'powers'!
I have to get out of here FAST!'
As much as I wanted to leave through the door at this moment, I just couldn't. I didn't want to come off as a rude person to these four cute girls and especially to our delusional school idol! 'I just have to find the right moment! Then I can leave and never come back! I just have to go along with them for now!'
Monika then gestures over to the corner of the room where a few desks were arranged to form a table. "Okay everyone, now that we're done introducing ourselves, let's go and sit down at the table and discuss what we do here in the club with our new member!"
'Yeah, sorry Monika, I'm not going to be a new member. Even if the club members are all cute.'
Sayori then perked up, "I'll get the cupcakes~!" and slowly started to skip towards wherever it was.
"Hey! I'm the one who made it! So that means I'm the one who's bringing them!" Reprimanded Natsuki as she headed towards a wrapped tray opposite where Sayori was heading too.
Sayori suddenly stops dead in her tracks and scratched the back of her head, "Sorry, sorry! I guess I got a little excited there, hehe..." and walks over to the table to take a seat.
"Then, how about I go and make some tea as well then?" Yuri said as she headed towards the closet.
I walk over to the tables and saw that they were arranged as: three tables next to each other and two paralleled them. There was a spot in between both Monika and Sayori, so I take a seat between them. Natsuki marches proudly with the wrapped trap in her hands and puts it on the center of the table.
"Hey you three! Are you ready for this?" Natsuki says as she holds the tinfoil by the edge of the trey, I can see from the corner of my eye that Sayori is literally drooling.
The pink petite then quickly rips off the tinfoil from the trey, revealing a dozen white cupcakes, decorated which seems to be cats.
With a proud face, she puts her hands on her waists, "Tada! Made by the best baker in the Crimson Red Demon Clan and probably in the whole world; me!" and puts a thumb to her small chest.
I lightly shook my head in disbelief from what I just heard from Natsuki and inwardly cringe to myself.
'God? Why did fate lead me here today?'
Sayori beams, "Uwoooh! They look so good and cute!" and quickly grabs a cupcake and quickly chomps on it. She then gives Natsuki a thumbs up in her direction. "It's delicious!" she says with her mouth full with some icing on her face.
Monika then grabs a cupcake to take a bite out of it, her eyes widening in surprise as she took the first bite. "It's so good Natsuki! I had no idea that you were so good at baking!"
I grabbed a cupcake and looked for the perfect angle to take a bite out of it. From the corner of my eye, I can see that Natsuki is sneaking glances in my direction.
'I guess she wants me to take a bite...'
I finally bit down and my eyes widen in surprise- the frosting was sweet and full of flavor. "Wow Natsuki, this is really good. Thank you for making them."
She starts to blush and folds her arms "W-why are you thanking me? I didn't make it just for you, d-dummy!"
I took another bite and swallowed the cupcake and wiped the icing from my mouth. "Huh? What do you mean? Sayori technically said that-"
"Okay, maybe but! W-well not for y-you dummy!" She quickly says before taking her own seat.
"Alright, alright Natsuki, I get it." I sighed and finished the remains of the cupcake. 'She's going to be a tough one to deal with…'
Yuri then comes to the table, carrying a tea set in hand and places teacups in front of us before she puts the teapot next to the cupcake tray.
"Oh? The teachers here let you keep a full tea set in the closet?" I say with a curious tone.
She lifts up the teapot and carefully pours each of us tea, "Why yes, the teacher gave us full permission to keep it here." Yuri then takes a seat next to Natsuki and gives me a small smile. "After all, tea is good for both reading and replenishing our mana after extensive use of our powers, don't you think?"
I scratched the back of my head and sighed, "W-well of course it does." I respond as I take a sip from the teacup. 'Someone just end me all ready… I don't think I can take another moment with these girls and their chuunibyou delusions.''
I looked over to Monika and saw that she had her hand on her cheek as her elbow was resting on the desk while staring at me, my face quickly flushed.
"H-hey Monika, Sayori actually never really told me… but what do you guys do here in the club?" I ask with a hint of curiosity in my tone. 'I'm going to regret asking this… right?'
She puts her hands in a bridge formation and rests her chin on it. "Well, I'm glad you asked! We are a literature club!"
I was taken back in surprise. It was a completely normal type of club, even if it was something boring. I thought this was going to be club relating with magic or something.
"Literature? W-well, actually, truth be told I don't really read that much. The only things I really read nowadays, is just manga…" from the corner of my eyes, I can see Natsuki perks up, wanting to say something but decides not too.
I hear Yuri quietly mutter "Not much of a reader I see…"
Monika then gives me a small giggle, "Don't worry! Reading and writing isn't the only thing we just do."
'Ah. I knew it. Here it comes.'
Monika then stands up with a proud face and slightly raises her right fist to the air and her left hand on her breast where her heart was. I swear, I wasn't looking at her breasts.
"We as a club, come here every day to hone our skills and battle one another! We have spectacular battles with one another! Battles that will be written down as legendary!" She says passionately, I can see that the rest of the girls are looking at her in awe from the corner of my eyes.
She keeps rambling on as I put my hands on my temples, 'How and why is the school idol like this…'
"W-wow! That's actually pretty cool! Ahaha.." I respond to her after she was done rambling.
'Nope. Not cool at all. Not one bit.'
Another question had popped up into my head. "But wait, weren't you apart of the debate club last year?"
"Ah! About that… I actually left a few weeks ago before making this club. I just can't stand any of the politics surrounding any of the major clubs. It was just constant fighting over the budget for events…" she starts to look down in sadness as I nodded in understanding. Her mood then shifted to a bright one, "So that's when I decided to start my own club about something I really enjoy personally! And if I can encourage people to join the club, then I'm fulfilling my dreams!"
I was stunned over how passionate she was over literature. 'I never knew someone would actually like something boring like literature….'
"So that's why I wanted to make the Mystic Arts of Magic Club!" Monika proudly states. I slapped myself on my forehead softly.
'Of course… why did I think otherwise.'
"But the school wouldn't allow us… so I just made a club something I enjoyed second while secretly combining it with the first! And now we have the Literature Club where we discuss anything about literature and the ancient arts of far eastern magic! I just wish we could have added in mystic arts of magic in the title though ahaha…" she nervously giggles while putting her hand behind her head.
"O-oh uh, I see. It must have been hard making a new club."
"Ah yes. It's so hard to have people join our club. But I wonder why the students that came here before that were checking out our club before didn't want to join though..." she gives out a small frown.
'Seriously? You can't be that dense… it's a club about literature and it's filled with people that think they have some sort of special powers that would belong to a fantasy world despite it having cute girls...'
"I'm positive that if we were allowed to have our club called as the 'Mystic Arts of Magic Club' we would have been filled to the max with members!"
'Yeah, no. Sorry, Monika. That's far from the truth.'
"But having a literature club is great too! Literature is great and is something that should be seen by more people!"
Yuri then spoke up to speak her mind. "I must agree with Monika." She starts to trace the rim of her teacup with her finger, "I love indulging myself into novels, my favorite types of them are the ones that build deep and complex fantasy worlds." She gives a smile while staring into the empty teacup.
'I can see why she likes books that deal with fantasy worlds…'
"The level of craftsmanship and creativity that's is used in creating a world is amazing to me and telling such a fascinating story within the realm is equally as impressive."
The shy maiden rambles on and on about literature passionately as all of us understandingly nodded. It's amazing how such a reserved person can talk about the things that they love, and obviously the way that she has such a bright fire in her eyes as she talks about her favorite novels, you can tell she rather would read then socially interact with anyone else.
'I wonder if the books influenced her to become a chuunibyou patient since she loves fantasy worlds so much…'
"But besides that, I also love reading novels that have such deep psychological elements in them, I usually find myself immersed into them. It's just so amazing on how a writer will just take advantage of the readers' lack of imagination and just throw them in a loop of unexpected events. Horror is a good example of it, as I have been reading them a lot lately."
I was surprised, you would never expect such timid girl such as Yuri reading a horror story.
I looked over to Monika who was also generally surprised, "Really now Yuri? I would have never expected someone gentle like you to read a genre like horror."
"Well, it's all about how the story is, if it can bring me into another world then I simply cannot put the book down until it is done. But horror stories actually are very successful in changing your viewpoints on the world, even if it is just a few moments."
"Ugh, horror just creeps me out… I really don't like it." Says the petite pink haired girl. Sayori then perks up.
"Oh? But I thought the leader of the Red Crimson Demons is not afraid of anything." She says with a curious look.
"Ah! W-well umm…" Her eyes dart over to me for a split second then towards her feet. "N-nevermind, I just hate it a lot."
"Oh, that's right Natsuki! Don't you like anything that's cute?" Monika states, prompting Natsuki to blush.
"W-what? Where did you get that idea from?!" Again her eyes dart over to me again then back to Monika. "T-the Red Crimson Demons are supposed to be fearless! Like lions!"
"Yet you're cute as a cat Natsuki!" Sayori states, making Natsuki red from frustration. She looks like she's about to blow up in any moment.
"I'm not cute!" She says as she balls up her fists in anger.
'For a person who's a chuunibyou, she does act cute than cool…' I looked over to the girls who started to chit-chat about something else while Natsuki and Yuri cleaned up.
'It must have been luck for Monika to find chuunibyou patients like these who share the same interest. Though, I'm still surprised that she is one herself…
As much as how cute and beautiful these girls are, I just can't bring myself to join. They remind me so much of that dark past I had…' I shudder from just thinking about middle school.
PIN-PON-PAN-PON
The sounds of the winchester chimes were heard through the PA system, indicating that after-school activities were over and it was time for everyone to go home.
"Ah. That's the bell everyone! This was such a good club meeting today!" Monika says before looking towards me. "We'll show you what we do here in the club tomorrow for activities since we didn't get to show you much, okay?" She says with a bright smile.
'Crap. This is my chance! Looks like I have to find a way to get out of this one quick…'
"Uh… actually, I was planning to look at different clubs before I choose which one I want to join." I looked and saw that the girls, especially both Monika and Sayori had such a sad expression on their faces. I quickly grabbed my bag and slowly started to head for the door.
"B-but, I thought that…"
'Crap… she's making feel REALLY guilty…
but I really don't want to join something that reminds me of my past.'
I started to head towards the door. "Look you guys are… a fun and cool crowd to be with, but I want to explore all of my options before I join. Sooo uh, I guess I'll see you all later then…" I awkwardly said while giving them a wave goodbye before sliding the door closed.
I gave out a huge sigh of relief as I started to walk down the hallway. 'Thank God, I got out of that one. Sorry Sayori, I'm not a delusional nutcase from a fantasy world anymore…' As I was about to turn the corner, I heard the door slide open and close as I heard footsteps coming out.
"W-wait!"
I turned around and saw that it was just Monika. She takes in a deep breath while closing her eyes and exhaled out. "Monika? I'm sorry if I upset you but-"
"You are the Emperor's Mightiest Magic Swordsman." She says as she opens her bright emerald eyes.
My eyes widened in shock and I swear that my heart literally dropped as soon as she said that.
I slowly turned my head to face her. "W-what did you say?" My knees started to feel weak as they felt like jello.
Monika takes one step forward. "At a young age, you were left by an ancient spirit in the forest." I desperately tried to say something back to her, but I was left speechless as she takes a couple of steps forward.
"You were raised by a completely normal family until the age of six." My face started to flush a bright red and my mouth was completely agape.
"You were then taken by a secret organization named Project Zero, where they taught you on how to activate your magical powers until the age of twelve where you mastered all the elements."
She takes one more huge step to finally close the distance between us as we both looked each other in the eyes. "That's where you were called by the Emperor to fight off evil and was crowned 'The Greatest Warrior', aren't I right, Bahamut?"
There was a silent pause between us as I looked at her in shock, then suddenly, all with a devilish smile, she did the one thing that would finish me off. She puts her right hand in front of her and with her left hand, she covers her left eye.
"Manifest, Mystic Arts! Spirit of the burning darkness through the light! Sever the darkness of the heavens-!"
"NO NO NO, STOP!" I quickly covered her mouth and looked around the hallway to see if anyone heard what she was about to say, luckily no one was here. She backs off and I could have sworn that I saw a light blush on her face. "H-how did you know all of this? Who told you?!"
She keeps a calm expression and gives me a kind smile. "Well, I already told you! I am the greatest sorcerer of this century, The Lady Who Knows Everything! For me, the past and the future is but just an open book before my all-seeing eyes as it is just one of my many powers."
I didn't know what to say or do to her. Somehow the school idol, who never knew me until last year knows about my made up delusional persona from middle school!
Now how in the name of Hell did she find out all about this? It was literally impossible for her to find out about my middle school past unless of course she secretly went to my school without my knowledge back then.
'D-don't tell me she was actually speaking the truth! Does she actually have powers?! How did sh-'
I paused for a moment as something caught my eye behind Monika. There was something light coral pink spying on us. Sayori was secretly looking at us, with her head poked out watching this all unfold all with an innocent face by the sliding door. We both stare at each other for a couple of moments until she realizes and she quickly puts her head quickly back into the room and slides the door closed.
My face was in complete anger as I saw her put her head back into the class. 'DAMN THAT GIRL! SHE'S THE ONE WHO TOLD HER! IM GOING TO-'
My thoughts were interrupted as Monika continued to talk. "Now then, you wouldn't want your identity exposed, do you?"
Fear showed on my now pale face as my legs started to shake in nervousness. 'No… NO! IS SHE GOING TO BLACKMAIL ME?'
"You know, Sayori did say that there were spies from your enemy organization here in this school." Monika then turns around with her hands behind her back and starts to walk slowly back to the classroom door, I struggled to follow her as my feet felt extremely heavy.
"Now what would happen if the whole school found out about your identity? Surely there would be countless assassination attempts on you since you are the Emperor's most valued warrior. You probably have a big bounty on your head."
At this point, my heart rate was accelerating and I actually felt like I was going to die from a heart attack, though I wouldn't mind that since it would save me from hearing someone reveal my darkest and embarrassing secrets.
'This isn't real… OUR CHUUNIBYOU-RIDDEN SCHOOL IDOL IS ACTUALLY BLACKMAILING ME! AND THE ONLY THING THAT'S GOING TO BE ASSASSINATED IS MY NON EXISTING POPULARITY! MY HIGHSCHOOL DREAM OF BEING APART OF THE NORMAL CROWD IS GOING TO BE RUINED!''
"W-what do you want from me, Monika?" I struggled to say.
With a bright smile, she turns around to face me as she stops right next to the classroom door. "Well, I want you to join my club and become my personal servant and knight forever! Here in the Literature Club, we can protect your identity! But of course, you would have to serve me."
"Serve you…?"
"Of course! I am the greatest sorcerer of this century, but of course, sometimes I would need a knight to protect and serve me. So why not have the world's greatest swordsman to be my personal knight?" She leans in forward with her hands behind her back with a confident smile. "So? What do you say? Will you join my club and be my servant forever? Or will you choose to be caught by the enemy?"
I was given two choices.
One to not join her club and have my embarrassing past put on blast by our popular chuunibyou-infected school idol, or join her club to be her 'servant' whose club members also have the 'disease' and not have my past reveal into the entire school.
My answer is obvious isn't? As much as I didn't want to join, I had to for the sake of my high school dream; to be a part of the normal crowd. I didn't want my middle school years to happen again where people shunned me for acting all weird. Monika had just found out about my past and used it against me, she had won the fight. I then said the two words that would change my high school life forever.
"I accept."
"Good. Now then, you must enter a contract your soul with me in order to join the club, okay?"
I put up my hands to show that I surrendered and gave out a frustrated sigh. "Okay, just make this quick, okay? But on one condition."
She raises one of her eyebrows in curiosity. "And that is?"
"Don't call me by that name no matter what. None of that Emperor's Mightiest Swordsman, Bahamut or no serve the darkness of the heavens crap."
Her expression was filled with a look as if she didn't understand. "Huh? Why not? It's cool!
"It's not! Not one bit! I gave all of that up after I graduated middle school! I'm not a chuunibyou anymore! Look, both of us are in our second year of highschool! Nothing else!"
She looks at me with a somewhat shocked face. "It is cool! And our powers do exist!"
"No, it doesn't."
"It does!"
"Does not."
She looks at me with a serious look. "Ryota, it does exist! Our powers are all from a reality filled with infinite choices of power! Anything can happen there if we can find it! I know it's our destiny to find it one day!"
'A world filled with… infinite choices of powers? What the hell is she…' I gave out a big sigh and shook my head in disbelief at her. "Okay, okay. Just... just contract my soul or whatever already."
Monika's expression turned into a happy one as she suddenly then grabs my hand, causing my face to flush heavily and pulls out a red pen with a heart as it's clicker from her pocket. She starts to draw a small circle with a star in the middle, right by my thumb as she starts to mutter something under her breath like she was enchanting some sort of magic spell.
"Aaand… there! You're all set. This contract makes it official." She looks deeply into my amber eyes with a bright smile on her face as she leans in forward with her hands behind her back. "Don't you worry, your identity is safe with us!"
She then turns and walks towards the classroom door and slides the door open, revealing all three girls waiting behind it.
"Welcome to the Literature Club!" She then turns back to me with the same smile she had.
I was going to say something back, but then suddenly, Sayori runs up to me and puts me into a tight hug, causing me to crash onto the ground. I looked up as she starts to laugh and saw that the three other girls had a slightly irritated and jealous look on their face, but eventually kind and warm smiles replaced it.
And thus, today marks the day I contracted my soul in exchange for a cupcake and joined Monika's literature club in order to not let anyone know about my dark past.
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Fuck.
A/N: And that's the first chapter! Dunno if i'll continue it, but I most likely will. I would have to start a lot of planning. Plus I have a 15 page argumentative essay due on Thursday this week, hindering any type of writing on this story, soooo... yeah.
Edited as of 1/25/19. Not much has changed from the original chapter, only grammar, changes in sentences and a bit more description has been added. This really shows how much my writing has change a bit.
Seifuku: A school uniform modeled after a sailor uniform.