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Kyouhei was gazing out of the window.
He wasn’t looking at anything in particular, and indeed, there was nothing in the spot where his vision was focused; he was just absently watching the familiar streets through his glasses.
It was peaceful.
Today, much like the day before it, the streets were as ordinary as ever. As one should expect from Japan, a center of public security. The retort of gunfire and the roar of explosions were absent from the air. Flames and smoke weren’t blocking his vision. It was simply the usual, completely ordinary scenery.
Kyouhei let out a long, satisfied sigh. A normal high school student would have tired of that view before even five minutes had passed... Kyouhei, however, had been gazing at the sight for close to 20 minutes. His expression could well be described as rapturous—or else that of an old man dozing off on a sunny veranda with a cat on his lap.
School had ended, and the students around him were already packing up to go home or getting ready for their various clubs. Amongst them, though, Kyouhei was savoring the enjoyment of looking out of the window alone.
He’d had an issue-free day at school, with nothing particularly memorable happening; he hadn’t been involved in any arguments, and nothing unusual had confronted him. He’d had a wonderful, completely ordinary day at school, working through his lessons and reaching the end of the day!
God, thank you so much!
This was Kyouhei Nanbu, a seventeen-year-old high school student.
He loved the ‘peaceful everyday.’
You could also call it ‘normalcy,’ but regardless, the three tenets of his existence were ‘don’t stand out,’ ‘don’t rock the boat,’ and ‘be inconspicuous.’ The word obsession wouldn’t be a poor fit for his insistence on keeping to those basic principles. Anyways... he spent his days paying close attention to his clothes and words, keeping track of his typicalness and averageness.
Well, amongst high schoolers, constantly overly conscious about themselves, his aim itself was strange, but he didn’t have the slightest concept of that.
This is how he spent his schooldays: with nothing particularly strange or odd, savoring the normalcy while gazing at the scenery out of the window.
“Let’s go, Kyouhei.”
That voice, along with the owner’s hand, thudded into Kyouhei’s head. He turned and scowled. The bane of his very existence stood behind him; an invader destroying Kyouhei’s peaceful, ordinary, normal time.
Said invader had red hair, green eyes, and dark skin. He had an appearance that would lead you to question just what country he was from... but even so, he was still a full-blooded Japanese, and Kyouhei’s classmate.
It hadn’t even been a year since Kyouhei had transferred to this school, and he still didn’t have many people he could call friends. Amongst those people he knew, this flashy boy from a gaudy country spreading his extravagance was the one he had interacted with the most.
His name was Mizuhito Hibiki, an over-exaggerated, flamboyant showoff.
That on its own fundamentally described the person ‘Mizuhito Hibiki’; his appearance and actions both came together to fit the above description.
He was part of the Light Music Club and played—solely because it was the most eye-catching instrument—the guitar. And not only did he play it, he carried it with him habitually, regardless of there being any need to.
Of course, his hair and eye colors weren’t natural; he used dye and contacts to change them to stand out. On top of that, his fingers and neck jangled with heavy silver accessories. He even had his eyebrows touched up and his fingernails painted pitch-black in a manicure. There was a pattern of some sort on his cheek that looked like some kind of tattoo. Of course, it wasn’t a real one, just a temporary transfer. He actually wore the school’s uniform as he should, but the sheer contrast from that made him stand out even more.
Shingyouji Academy was fairly lenient on uniform issues as long as the students maintained a decent grade, or perhaps it was fairer to say that they were live and let live with things. The teachers would give somewhat reluctant smiles and tell him to wind his neck in, but in most schools, his appearance would have resulted in the behavior officers and guidance counselors bursting a blood vessel.
On the whole, it was reasonable to call him the exact opposite of Kyouhei. Kyouhei based his life around the concept of being average and normal: he didn’t wear a single accessory, his hair wasn’t dyed or too long, he wasn’t tanned, and his uniform wasn’t modified at all. He was utterly unremarkable from head to toe.
And so, he turned to face Mizuhito properly, and gave a short sigh before he spoke.
“...Not with your club today?”
“Nope. Well, I’m skipping. I got work now.”
Of course, someone that just played rock because it was fashionable would be like that; his rock spirit was dreadfully soft.
“Oh, right... work hard. Bye.”
“Wah? So meeean! Let’s go togetherrr, Kyouhei-chan!” he sing-songed.
“Don’t call me Kyouhei-chan! Get off!”
“But I’ll stand out next to youuu!” he protested. “Let’s go togetherrr.”
He certainly wasn’t wrong. Putting someone as plain as Kyouhei next to someone as vivid as Mizuhito would make them stand out for better or worse, whether you called it a contrast or a synergy. They’d jump out at people, in fact.
But...
“...I’ve told you again and again,” complained Kyouhei as he pushed on Mizuhito’s arm from where he was clinging on. “Again and again and again! I like being normal, not standing out like you! Everyday! Normal! Peaceful! Common! Dull! And every other word for it! That’s my dream!”
“Man, you’re weird.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you !!” shouted Kyouhei at his friend, who was speaking completely earnestly. “If you want to stand out so damn much, just go and do a strip show!”
“Hmm, a strip show?” wondered Mizuhito, tilting his head. He got about 30 degrees into his rotation before saying: “I see, so that’d work?!”
“Don’t just go with it!!” Kyouhei yelled at Mizuhito as the latter eagerly reached for his belt buckle before giving an extended sigh. “...Why do I attract all the weirdos...?”
For whatever reason, there was a trend of eccentrics like Mizuhito who liked Kyouhei, leading to his surroundings being filled with folks that ran completely contrary to his desires for normalcy.