Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ My College Romantic Comedy Was Wrong, As I Expected ❯ My College SNAFU: 16 ( Chapter 16 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Solo 01

 

“I never found out if I won,” I croaked.

It was dark. I opened my eyes. It was my room. I sat up in bed and noticed I was shorter, smaller, and all that work at the gym was gone. So were several inches in height. I noticed this after using the upstairs bathroom I shared with Komachi. It was the middle of the night. I returned to my room and looked for my phone. A flip phone. I haven’t had one of those since… oh no. Middle school. The date confirmed it. 2008. This was my chuuni phase, around the time I made the mistake of confessing to Orimoto. I noticed my small boys manga collection, and some mecha posters I’d put away years ago in the prior life. Middle school was hell. How is it going to be when I’m weird because I’ve got a 26 year old brain in my head? It was too late in the morning to go back to sleep and I struggled to remember details of this time. It was there. The science of time travel is really weird. Memories are chemical states of neurons and it all meshes together with the new information from the older-self, with the older-self having more, so becoming the dominant self in the younger body. I’m still me, I’m just older me because I have all these memories of being older me.

I crept downstairs and made myself a big mug of coffee from my parent’s supply, returned upstairs and booted up my old desktop computer. It was slow, but it got there eventually. I started writing the novel I’d just finished writing. It wasn’t impossible for me to get this published and some pocket change going. Later I noticed it getting light and I saved the file and got ready for school. Black slacks, white button down shirt, same uniform as my sister’s school would be. I heard mom wake up Komachi and her sleepy voice rouse the house. She was in elementary at this point and loud. She also suffered from nightmares because Mom was working longer hours. This was around the time I dedicated myself to looking after her. I finished up dressing and went to the kitchen and started cooking breakfast for the family. Mom yawned and stopped to look, thinking it was cute. She sat down and sipped coffee, watching the news play with the weather and traffic report cycling. The Europeans had finally gotten their housing bubble and economy crash, just like Japan had twenty years earlier.

My phone did not ring. Haruno wasn’t waiting at the door with a big grin. I fed Komachi and Dad when they turned up and Mom and Dad rushed out the door to their jobs. I helped comb Komachi’s mess of bed hair and get her properly dressed and ready for school. She’s still a skinny kid and smaller than me. Always would be smaller than me. She will sprout when puberty hits, but that’s another year away. Right now she’s a needy kid whose parents work too much and is afraid to be alone. It was time to go. I helped her find her bookbag and got our lunches stowed away and I took her hand after I locked the front door with my key and led her to elementary school. It was near the Middle School, a couple blocks closer to the house. I dropped her at the front gate and she ran to join her friends, forgetting all about me. I allowed myself a nostalgic smile. So carefree. I turned and walked the rest of the way to school. In my locker I found hate notes. Apparently I’d confessed to Orimoto already. That answered that. And the school was having fun mocking me. I read each note, with most from other girls, and only a few from boys. I also emptied tacks from my school shoes. Joy. Must remember to do the same at end of school in case they try this with my street shoes. Which they will, because kids are dumb.

Idiot girls have written big hate messages on the chalkboard. And these are supposed to raise the next generation with stable marriages beginning a mere ten years from now? No. That isn’t likely, is it? I notice Sagami is one of the instigators, and Orimoto looks… uncomfortable. Hmm. If I wipe it away they’ll think they won. If I leave it there sensei will demand it be wiped clear. And he’ll either demand it of me or of the class rep, who also looks smug and is probably in with Sagami to “defend Orimoto from Bug-man”. I think I will just clean my desk of all the writing but leave the board as it is.

I used cleaning supplies from the back cupboard, walking past Orimoto with indifference and returned to spray and wipe clean the smeared hate messages and threats, leaving a clean desk once more. I was sure to do the same to the seat. They must have gotten here early to make this mess. How dull is your life if this gives you motivation?

Sensei arrived, saw my name on the board, and showed he had a room temperature IQ before he drank his coffee. I wonder if he’s hung over. He tried to order me to clean the board.

“Drink your coffee sensei. You can apologize to me after.” He glared.

“Detention. Go to the office, Hikigaya,” he ordered. I shrugged, picked up my bookbag and left the room. The class burst out laughing. He’d be struggling to get them under control for the rest of homeroom.

The secretaries put me in one of the chairs to wait so I went over my prior night’s homework and fixed several errors I found. This classwork is easy when I was most of the way done with my college degree only two subjective years ago.

Eventually the Principal deigned to see me. I explained, in small word so she would understand, about asking out a girl and being rejected and all her “friends” retaliating by making a mess of the classroom. She agreed that this is not my fault and sent me back to the classroom, which by now had the history sensei starting his lecture. I handed him the note, took my seat, which was already marked again so I got the cleaning supplies and cleaned it, again, then dried it while the students whispered about the stink and glared at three girls for doing this disruption, and the sensei insisted I was disrupting his class and sent me to the office. I shrugged, took my bookbag and went back.

I noticed homeroom sensei left the principal’s office looking angry. He did not apologize. What adult apologizes to a student? I knocked on her door.

“Again?” she asked.

“Filthy desk again when I came back to class. I cleaned it, and got yelled at by the history sensei over the smell and sent here. Maybe I could go to the library to study because I think this is just going to keep happening. There are three girls who seem to be enjoying this like a hobby.”

“If this continues we’ll need to transfer you to another homeroom class.” Because why would a teacher in a school system stop bullying? It’s just disruptive to the students educations.

“Fine, try the library for now. I’ll let the librarian know you’ll be there until lunch,” the Principal decided. I left the office with my hall pass and was stopped a couple times before getting to the library, checked again, and found a study table. There were a couple computers in the lab for the research station and library catalog, but it was pretty typical for this time period. I found some books on quantum physics and picked the introductory text to start reading.

Eventually the lunch bell rang so I found the roof access and went up there for lunch. It was a blustery day, which it often is in Chiba, and ate alone. I was used to this in my first life. Middle School was not a good time. I knew what to expect was petty insults and hatred from the students, mostly over my fish eyes. Kids look for weakness and attack it. They’re very honest that way. As adults they try and distract people from noticing they’re still doing this same tactic. Sagami would grow up into a useless piece of trash who hid her base stupidity and laziness and neediness behind a layer of idiotic friends she created and abused and discarded until she would one day end up alone and confused about how she’d gotten there. She would never rise above this, and I’d lived multiple lifetimes. I actually know this. She was so forgettable that I had forgotten she was the main instigator of the Orimoto defense league in middle school, that she’d even been behind this by the time I had to deal with her again at Soubu. She must have been smart enough to get in, but only just. She was her own worst enemy. And Orimoto, even if she’s not behind this, she wasn’t stopping it either. I was wrong about her as a kid. She wasn’t a nice girl at all. She was weak. She pretended. There wasn’t any honesty in her. With an adults eyes I can only pity her briefly and move on.

Still no call or text message from Haruno. The number she would have one day isn’t hers yet. This is too far in the past. I don’t even have a Lines account. I created one with my preferred handle 8Man and waited. No friend requests.

I returned to the library after lunch and read from history until it was time for PE. I went to that and chose to stretch with Yoshiteru who was thinner, shorter, still had thick glasses, and was trying out the accent and going for enabled Chuuni. I suggested the value of writing carefully organized light novel fiction instead of blaring it out to the ungrateful children of the playing field.

“But why, my fated companion!” he boomed.

“Because writing pays. It’s a job. There will be money if you’re good at it. These trash don’t understand or like it.”

“Ohoh? You find us casting pearls before swine?” he tried.

“Indeed. Let’s funnel our energies into novels, quietly, and try for the Debut Novel contest each year. Eventually one of us will win, and getting into the top 50 gets interest by publishers.”

And so it was we created the unofficial literature club which met at lunch in the library, after eating. No food in the library, after all.

My transfer to a different classroom improved things, and the idiot girls eventually gave up on the hate messages and tacks in my shoes after a week. Orimoto attempted to confront me.

“Don’t apologize, Orimoto. I was wrong about you. I see that now. I’m sorry to have disturbed your preferred way of life.” And I went on without another thought about her.

Fools claim that girls are attracted to mature boys. This is nonsense. Girls are stupid creatures. Their maturity halts between 12 and 20, when they get a bump, and then halts again until 28, when they mature a bit more into a full adult. Between 20 and 28 women look mature but aren’t, which explains a lot about their behavior and terrible life ruining decisions. Between 12 and 20 girls are physically maturing but their brains are a mess of instincts without very good reasoning. And boys continuously mature from around 12 onwards, either learning from their mistakes or dying from them. This is also why men are feared. We don’t keep making the same mistakes like women do.

This is also probably why the recursive time travel is especially awful for Haruno. She’s getting her mistakes over and over with a chance to change them, only trying to overcome the fact she hasn’t reached full woman’s maturity and stuck as the young woman with a 20 year old’s hormones blasting her mind and wrecking whatever attempt at wisdom she can never reach. So Haruno was in hell, of a sort. I was going to surpass her, probably.

As for myself, I don’t know any of the specifics about her communication device to reach The Culture, I don’t know anything about particle physics to get into CERN and stop the LHC test in four years, and I seem to be the only time traveler here right now. Maybe their solution worked. Only I’m back here, in the worst time of my life, starting from scratch.

Classes ended. I went to the elementary and picked up Komachi to walk my excitable sister home. She told me about her day and I did not share the sad reality of my life with her, just smiled for her sake and kept her company so she wouldn’t break down in lonely tears at being home alone. I got her settled with some healthy snacks, and cup of barley tea, and afternoon cartoons about magical girls. I went to my room and worked on my novel some more, saving when it was time to start preparing dinner. I did that with Komachi setting the table, and we ate together, alone, and she told me about the shows brightly. She was happy. I got her to work on her homework and did my own assignments quickly, perfectly, with no wrong answers. I have the internet. It’s easy to find the answers when you have a college brain. I wrote some more and went to bed. Repeat, day after day. My new class ignored me for the most part, only muttering as I kept taking the top score on everything. Eventually the teachers cut me some slack. I finished my novel and submitted it to the Debut Novel contest. I won a couple months later, during summer break. I was contacted by several publishers and some journalists wanting interviews. I opted for one of the publishers who hadn’t shafted me in a prior life and allowed both light novels and full novel publishing. Light sold better and makes more money, ironically, so I stuck to that format, co-publishing both versions, and negotiating for an illustrator. Their original choice was the one from that first life with the overly loli-slut designs I wasn’t happy with. I asked for someone with a little more appropriate style and selected a choice that captured the feelings more accurately. Those went to press and sold reasonably well. My bank account, started with Dad’s help, started to gain money from direct deposits by my publisher. The taxes will require an accountant. I got a better computer to write with, and paid to upgrade us to broadband. And a smartphone. Lines installed, but still no Haruno. I was still alone her, with all these sleeping people going about their lives.

Yoshiteru and Dad are the only ones who know I write. I haven’t told Komachi or Mom. I haven’t told my teachers. They showed they’re thoughtless trash by how they failed to deal with Orimoto and company. I am only famous as a reclusive author. I steadily produced light novels and less frequently heavy ones that were getting literary credit.

I still have a college graduate’s brain and memories. I could go to any university at this point and do well, though what I want to study doesn’t really matter. I still have to attend high school at least a year before any university would touch me with a ten foot pole. There are limits to what responsible educational institutions will put underage geniuses through, even if that’s just their opinion. At this point I look like a shota, and I don’t have the hormones and body to satisfy women like I will one day. I’d been too profuse with my attentions and looping others also meant I’d accidentally created dependency in several women (Saki), ruining their current lives with memories they would be happier without. How could a current spouse measure up to the advanced lovemaking I’d been capable of at Share House Kitayama? And I wasn’t even that guy yet. That was a good 6 years away.

It feels like being Ikari Shinji living with Misato and knowing he could make her lose 30 IQ points in bed, but also knowing the world would end before then as they all dissolve into red goo… except Misato would die in an elevator professing her love with a kiss and never returning to his life, ever. A super harsh ending. EVA is a classic for various reasons, despite all its flaws in production and outrage over many aspects. Misato dies and doesn’t get to join the immortality ocean. She’s just… gone. Man, how did I get locked onto that thought? Oh, I’m at that tender age and my old self was hooked on tragedy like a junkie. That’s why.

I was the best student in Middle School. Top ranked, and I ignored most of the students because they don’t matter at all. I studied, wrote my novels and became a rather focused person. I cared for Komachi religiously, became a better cook and did the household chores because she’s a little kid who is just entering puberty and is happy, and her happiness is worth protecting. My parents work constantly, and I really notice it this time, more than before. I was oblivious in prior runs but they’re really miserable at their jobs, and Mom is increasingly angsty about us. I’m cold. Because why bother faking happiness when I’m alone in this world?

I eventually finished the string of light novels on time travel through high school and the light version of college. I wrote the heartbreak ending with Yuuko and Yoko both crying rejection tears and my hero going off to college. I also wrote two versions of that. The light novels were adventures in college with vanilla romance without details so it would keep the audience open. I also wrote full novels of adult college romance and all the details, which sold very well. I got contracts on the manga and a coming movie deal for events in the future and the names barely changed is somewhat amusing. Not revealing myself as a Middle School student left many doors open. I also filled my bank account. The actual movie a year later was slightly hammy, but they weren’t working with a huge budget and Okami Arts was part of the production, which both lowered costs and some of the quality because they were students. I was quite amused at the actress they cast as “Kamako” doing Boob Hat to Imatsuda in the Lawsons fridge scene.

Getting the whole year in the novel down to a two hour movie was a good effort by the editor and director. They did a good job showing the arrival of Sakai and Matsuri as the love interests for the triangle and the shrine for ghost sightings joke actually got a webcam on the house, mostly as a joke, which was funny until they started seeing the ghosts on video. Then the accusations of tampering and jokes on the scientific community and UFOlogists etc began arguing online. And this while I’m studying math to get a better entrance exam into Soubu. I’d probably qualify for 1A at this point.

The movie did pretty well for a low budget love comedy, so they made more than it cost to make. It also got me an invitation to a full ride scholarship to Okami Arts. I will probably take them up on that. I’m alone in this world of sleepwalkers. They’re drifting through their lives, utterly unaware of consequences, not remembering before things happened. Not able to understand the context of every decision. I’m the one-eyed King of the land of the Blind. That’s how it is for me.

And there were no messages from Haruno. She was sleeping too. I am alone here.

Soubu entrance exam results did indeed place me at the top of the list, in 1A with all those international students and Miss Yukinoshita Yukino. Several of them were primary English speakers, which I learned on Day One of classes. Yukino was there in the class too, very withdrawn and earning jealous glances from the girls in class. If I talk to her that’s going to get worse.

I talk to the English students, asking about their backgrounds and understand several are embassy kids, attending here rather than Tokyo because Chiba is much more affordable and livable for foreign students used to bigger houses with normal amenities. Some were ambassador’s daughters returned from places like Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, and the USA. Other students were children of staff from those same embassies, rotating back to Japan after years abroad. Some were genuine foreigners or halfs, here in Japan for the first time. Their Japanese was limited, so they get extra lessons and were excited about my mastery of the language.

Surrounded by happy girls did not make me happy. It did make Yukino angry. I think she sees Hayama in me. I opted for the cool polite guy persona, with eyeglasses to partially cover my evil eyes, if only to keep down the reactions. I’m Clark Kent. Nobody realizes I’m superman. If only I owned a hospital chain, or possibly a zaibatsu hostile takeover fund I’d been assembling for years with my older brothers, to take control from our father who had gone mad. That would justify the effort I’m putting into this, but these children know nothing of Honey and Clover or even Ouran High School Host Club. My Haruhi is sleeping, and the ribbons in her hair do not correspond to days of the week, nor are they color coded.

Without all her memories of centuries of loops, Haruno is a dutiful daughter of a powerful family, and Yukino is the spare, the younger daughter with some issues and some freedoms. They make their public appearances, they look like a proper family. The life is gone from their reality. Even my hidden half sister I haven’t yet visited in this life quietly raises pigs, attending a university up in Hokkaido to get better at it. Maybe she’ll find a nice young man and get married and never know her father is on the Diet, or that her Auntie is her mother. My mother. All perfectly quiet. Normal. I left this as it was. Haruno messes with me. I don’t mess with her.

“I don’t like you, Hikigaya,” Yukino announced to me one day in an empty hall.

“I see. Any particular reason?” I asked her.

“You’re fake. I despise fake people.”

“Mention my name to your mother sometime, in private.” I smiled then and continued on my way.