Prologue
It was a dismal rainy day.
Raindrops pattered loudly against the ground as they descended from the sky. I stared vacantly at the crowded entrance, annoyed by the relentless sound of the rain.
The downpour had suddenly started in the afternoon. I didn’t have an umbrella on me—especially after forgetting to check the weather that morning—but I did keep a foldable umbrella at school in case of sudden rainy days like today. I walked over to the umbrella stand to go get it.
“It’s gone,” I stated flatly.
It was supposed to be there, but it wasn’t. Somebody probably took it. My conspicuous black umbrella was there in the morning, but it had seemingly vanished.
“Just my luck,” I grumbled.
I probably should’ve been angry, but I wasn’t in the slightest. I simply stood there slowly looking up at the raindrops that continued to fall from the roof of the school’s entryway. I don’t know whether it was the dampness in the air or the feeling that night was approaching, but for some reason that rainy day made me want to reexamine my life.
“School again tomorrow. Sure wish we had the day off,” I mumbled under my breath.
I was a regular student at school. I had my fair share of friends, decent grades, and I wasn’t too bad at sports. If someone asked me to list my strengths and weaknesses, nothing would come to mind right away, and I didn’t have any hobbies to speak of.
My name’s Ken Usato. Unlike my last name, Usato, which is admittedly pretty unusual, my existence can be summed up by my first name: Ken, the blandest name in existence. Everyone—including me—knows I’m nothing special.
I’m ordinary and I’m okay with it, but I was still far from satisfied with my life. Nothing was holding me back in particular, so I doubted that anyone would understand why I was so discontented. I was unsatisfied on a more fundamental level. The problem was that . . .
I’ve always admired the supernatural—the faraway world of fantasy.
I wanted drastic changes that would shake up my everyday life. It didn’t matter how it happened. I just wanted to break away from the status quo and do something that was different from the norm—to bid farewell to the ordinary Usato, who could only respond with a wry smile when people said that I was unremarkable, but still “such a nice guy.”
Sigh.
But opportunities like that don’t come around every day. I couldn’t escape my reality, and worlds of fiction and fantasy were far out of my reach.
People don’t change as easily as they do in manga or anime. They never change unless a dramatic event changes the course of their lives, and I was no different. I was doomed to take that ordinary life to my grave, whereas the perfect world in my head was anything but realistic.
But no matter how much I whined about life, reality wasn’t going to change. I was ordinary through and through, so I had completely given up hope.
“What am I thinking?” I asked myself.
Was I that far down the rabbit hole? How embarrassing.
I leaned back against the wall of the school’s entryway and sighed. Most of the students had already gone home. My breathing and the heavy rain were the only sounds I could hear.
“Guess I’ll stay here for a while. Don’t wanna get wet,” I whispered.
I stood alone at the school’s entryway and kept watching the rain. There was no rush to go home, so I wasn’t going to force myself to brave the harsh weather.
“How is it still raining?!” I asked, still talking to myself.
Even after an hour of waiting, the rain showed no sign of stopping.
It was just past 5:30 p.m. and students from various clubs had started packing up to go home. At this rate, it seemed that I had no choice but to head out in the dark and return home soaking wet.
I contemplated “borrowing” one of the items that were left in the umbrella stand, but I ultimately decided against it. I didn’t want the guilt and the trouble that would inevitably come with that decision. As fed up as I was, I was too chicken to do it and decided to wait a bit longer.
“If it gets any darker, I’ll . . . huh?” I faltered.
I was standing there alone when two students—a male and a female—appeared in the school’s entryway. The most succinct way to describe them would be to call them a “good-looking pair.”
The boy was Kazuki Ryusen—a classmate of mine. His name looked cool in katakana, but it was even cooler in kanji. He was tall and handsome and pretty close to perfect. A popular protagonist-type whose looks could put any virtual boyfriend to shame. His good looks and personality mesmerized all the girls at school.
Not only that, but he was also the vice president of the student council. He was an almost supernatural being whose backstory couldn’t be any more perfect. Honestly, I’ve always wanted to see him randomly blow up in class.
Oh shit, he’s looking right at me.
“Hey,” the girl said.
“What’s wrong, Inukami-senpai?” Ryusen responded.
“He . . .”
Suzune Inukami was the one who’d noticed me. She was an upperclassman in her third year, and the current president of the student council—a beautiful girl whose black hair framed her dignified face. She was a star pupil and athlete whose wit and beauty would make any fictional character blush. All the boys admired her. She even remained popular among the uppity girls on the student council.
Honestly, she was way out of my league. Not that it mattered, though, since I’d heard rumors that she and Ryusen were dating. In any case, she had seen me standing despondently by the shoe cubbies. Together they approached me.
“You don’t have an umbrella?” she asked.
“Um, well . . . no, I don’t,” I responded.
“I see. I guess you were waiting for the rain to let up, huh? Looks like school’s about to close.”
Is it that late already?
I peered outside as I checked the time on my cell phone. I considered asking my parents to pick me up, but I knew they couldn’t make it since they both had to work. After telling Inukami about my predicament, she frowned and crossed her arms.
“Sending a student home sopping wet would sully the student council’s reputation,” she stated.
“Senpai, I’ll lend him my umbrella,” Ryusen said.
He told me that it was foldable and then kindly handed it over. Now I understood. All the girls liked him because he was genuinely nice.
This was my first time talking to him since we became classmates. Despite this, simply talking to him felt like a breath of fresh air. I was also kind of touched that he happened to remember my name.
“Thanks, Ryusen-kun.”
“Hey, we’re in the same class, aren’t we? Calling me by my last name is, I don’t know, too formal. You can call me Kazuki. Should I call you Usato? Or Ken?”
“Usato works.”
There were already so many Kens at school and we didn’t need another. Besides, I was personally a fan of the name Usato and would much rather be called that over “Ken.”