Whoever said that your 20s are the best time of your life was either a liar or completely delusional.

Maybe both.

Let me tell you- my 20s up till now have been terrible and if you're telling me that this is going to be the best time of my life, then all I an say is- you know what, what I want to say I probably couldn't say while keeping this thing PG-13 rated.

So I won't say it.

Anyway, let's forget about that.

I'll instead concentrate on the huge weight I was carrying around on my back.

Granted, I was used to lifting heavy loads.

I have helped my family move lots of times and many of my part-time jobs involved heavy lifting.

But there was something about this particular load that I had crammed into my backpack which just felt heavier than usual.

Not a physical load so to speak, but rather an emotional one.

Ah, look, looks like I'm letting my inner poet out today. No clue why. Anyway, forget about that. Let me tell you who I am. My name is Naofumi Iwatani.

I attend a private law college in Tokyo, Japan.

No, not any college that you would have heard of- it's a no-name college, which pretty much anyone can get into as long as you can pay the tuition fees and have a pulse.

Yeah, yeah. I know, I probably should have studied harder in high school if I wanted to get into a better college. What can I say? I was an Otaku through and through and studying hard wasn't exactly one of my strongest traits.

My parents really weren't that much happy about seeing me go to a private college but I think ultimately, they're just happy that I'd managed to get into any kind of college. I ended it up. I ended up dropping two years in a row after high school to prepare for the exams with little fruit. So, I think they were just happy to see me do something with my life.

Unlike what I was doing right now, which was mainly wasting my life.

I started panting.

I was so reluctant to do this. Despite the fact, that I had made up my mind to do this early in the morning. And I had gone over this over and over in my head over the last few days.

It should have been easy. But I guess, no matter how much I try to paint myself as a cynical little prick-

-the truth is, I am kind of sentimental. And I guess that was my undoing.

Rather than go to the bus stop as I had intended, I decided instead to just look around, so you know, maybe I would find something to distract myself. You know kind of how like the day before you have an exam is right when you realize just how many chores there are in the house to be done and how you need to take out the trash, and how you should clean the dishes, and hey, you haven't cleaned out the attic in a while, you know?

And there I spotted it. It was that new restaurant that I'd wanted to try... it was called...

...McWendy's!

I had seen commercials for it on television. It was a foreign brand but it had just recently opened up a few branches in Japan and this was one of them.

Hmm, I couldn't deny that I just wanted to check out how it was. Strangely enough, this restaurant was mostly empty. Though this was likely because of the hour I'd walked in. I would imagine that the crowd would be bigger if I walked in during mealtime.

I looked at the prices, they were honestly far higher than I would have liked being a broke college student and all. My diet tended to consist of the cheapest instant noodles and rice more often than not.

Still, I figured I'd come all this way so I might as well try something. I brought one of their 'Joy-ful Meals' as they called it, at least, that's how I think it was pronounced. My English was no good really. I mean if it was good I probably would have scored higher on the entrance exam and I probably would have gotten somewhere better than where I was. But no point dwelling on that right now.

I kept my backpack which was stuffed to the seams on a chair. Looking at it, it was quite comical just how overstuffed my bag was, but hey, I didn't want to carry it and a handbag with me at the same time.

Honestly, I really wasn't all that hungry. Again, I was just looking for an excuse to put off what I was trying to do here. And I found myself trying to look away from my bag.

I realized I hadn't even brought my phone along with me, so I didn't even have that to entertain me. So, I just started looking around the restaurant and that's probably why I ended up catching it- I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

"Eeeek!" I heard someone shout. And out of the corner of my vision, I saw what had happened. A customer had grabbed the waitress's well- rear to put it into simple words. I was actually thinking of something starting with the letter 'a' and a bit ruder, but again, let's try to keep this thing PG-13.

The person who did it looked like a stereotypical creep you would see from an anime. Though, that described a lot of people I ran into. You know what? Maybe it was just me who thought of people that way.

Anyway, he was there with a friend who looked similarly pathetic, the friend piped up, "Hey there gorgeous- restaurant's empty, how about you take a seat and we all enjoy a meal together, huh?"

The waitress looked nervous, clearly not wanting to agree but unsure of how to respond.

Now, not a lot of things make me angry. (Okay- I should admit that my family, friends, and pretty much everyone who knows me will probably disagree with this but I like to think that not much makes me angry.)

This, however, made me fume.

I really couldn't take it to see these two people bullying this young lady- and she seemed like such a sweet girl. She looked to be about my age, meaning this was probably a job she had taken to help with college expenses. She likely had no idea how to handle a customer like that. And so I decided to go ahead and handle it for her.

Yeah, yeah. You all can type 'SIMP' in the comments as much as you want. I've heard it all but hey, sometimes a man's got to do what a man's gotta do, right

"Oi," I said, "Can't you see that you're bothering her and don't you two losers have anything better to do rather than harass random woman who have the misfortune of having to talk to you?"

At the moment I said that they, of course, glared at me and told me to buzz off in response to which I grabbed one of them by the color.

""Hey, hey, what are you doing?" the guy said.

I've been told I have a bit of a scary face. I don't know if that's true, but it has come in handy whenever I needed to bring my younger brother in line. One glare from me apparently was enough to make him shut up and behave far more times than I could recall.

Of course, I only use this power for good. (Disregard anyone who says, otherwise.)

"Either eat in peace, or scram," I said.

Now, I expected it to end there, but it looked like the guy wasn't that easily intimidated.

"Oi you," his friend got up and actually went ahead to try to strike me. Unfortunately, I was faster, hitting him right in the chest.

The man cried out.

It couldn't possibly have hurt that much- I wasn't really that strong being an Otaku and all but that was apparently enough to convince the two of them to leave. With them yelling at me all the while and how they'd have their revenge, yada, yada, you get the drill.

"Sorry about that," I said to the girl.

"No problem."

I felt rather good about myself until I noticed something out the window. I had apparently vastly misjudged what time it was.

My bus had arrived at the bus stop across the street.

I grabbed my bag and ran out of the restaurant, oblivious to the cries of the lady who was calling out behind me.

I had to get to that bus, I had to get to the bus, I HAD TO GET TO THAT BUS!

And of course, it left before I could catch up to it. That was it- the next one would be in the evening, and I wasn't going to wait until then.

I ended up going home, defeated and feeling rather ashamed.

It was only when I reached home that I realized that I had never even picked up my meal from that restaraunt.

The day had been a total disappointment.

Just what you can expect from a day in your 20s.

A/N: Thanks for reading everyone! A review would be quite appreciated- this fanfic is a new kind of experiment of mine, I tend to find myself writing long chapters and then ultimately being unable to finalize anything and dropping fanfics in the middle. This though, I want to keep writing, as such I'll be keeping the chapters short, close to around 1k though I'll try to update weekly to compensate for that.

Anyway, we met Raphtalia and Naofumi this chapter! I'll be adding more characters of course, though there won't be room for everyone- Filo, the other 3 heroes, Rishia, Melty, and Malty will all be there of course, however.