Looking up from checking the time, 8:40, cutting it close, an involuntary gasp escapes me. I have to hand it to whoever designed this courtyard, it’s gorgeous. A fountain with cherry blossom petals drifting gracefully through the water. The blossoms were dancing along with an aesthetically timed breeze.

The tile surrounding the fountain formed the impression of a large flower blossom, and it spilled out in the cardinal directions towards the buildings on campus.

Private and church money being put to good use, alright.

Oh, there’s a large group of people shuffling into the… Gym I think. It’d make sense. The first day assembly is cliche, but it is absolutely grounded in reality. It’s dreadful, I’ve always hated them. I don’t even know anyone here to rag on the announcement with.

Blech.

As I hasten my way over to join the herd a portion on the edge of the crowd turn and stare, muttering to each other. Right. This was, until this year, an all-girl catholic school.

I’ve already been through high school. Sure, I wasn’t the most social, but I wasn’t an outcast. I can deal with this.

I walk up to the crowd… and wait, saying nothing. I’m not special, there are, like, a hundred guys in this school. I’m not special, I’m just the most visible for them at the moment.

“Umm…” a meek voice splits my attention from following the funnel. “H-hello? My n-name is Yamaka... ” She trailed off before I could actually hear the rest of her name.

Is she important? She’s obviously shy, but is that because inexperience, or is it her archetype? She looks good. Very pretty blue hair, gotta have blue hair, down past her shoulders, though I don’t know if it’s pretty because of anime physics or if she takes good care of it. I give it around an 80. Her eyes are dark, she has glasses, nothing special about her uniform. Is she a mook?

Wait, don’t minimize someone else’s life like that, she’s real. No matter if this is a simulation, treat her as a regular person. “Well, hello Yamaka-san,” I reply in good humor. Jokes are an excellent icebreaker. “Nice to meet you, my name’s Aoki Akio. How’re you doing?” She startled at me and flushed. Her face was rather red actually.

A voice from the middle distance behind her called out “You can do it Yamakawa-san!” I’m not sure if I was supposed to hear that. ‘Tis a shame.

“Ah, encouragement. How nice!” I smiled genuinely, I hope she wasn't pushed into this, but I'm not going to make this embarrassing for either of us. So help me God. “You weren’t forced to talk to me were you? If you were, I can hand you my number real quick and you can march home a hero.”

“No!” she shouted, then turned even redder. Somehow. “I-I mean, I wasn't forced to; I do want your number! But I want to talk to you more! Imeanifyouwanttosorry.” Alright, at this point I’m banking on legitimately shy. I can feel the waves of self-cringe coming off her. Lady, I can't stop you from being embarrassed if you embarrass yourself.

“Dude, no worries. Why! You're a solution to one of my problems too; I hate assemblies, if you sit next to me we can rag on the principal when they’re giving their speech. Cool?” This seems like a great way to make a friend! I turn us toward the door while giving a sly thumbs up in the direction of the cheerers. “So, is this a confidence exercise, or are you trying to pick me up? Cause you know, Yamaka-san, if it’s the latter you’re going to have to wine and dine me first.”

Fuck, did I actually just say that? This dude looked like she was about to explode when I suggested we should sit next to each other, but now she’s just stopped. I’m getting embarrassed. Please, I have self-confidence, but my self-esteem isn’t unassailable. If this descends into awkward silence I'll never recover because it’ll be my fault.

She’s gurgling. Is she ok? I think I broke her. Waving my hand in front of her face does nothing. Steam is coming off her head, and her face seems to have more blood than her brain. Totally blue screened.

I think… I think I’ll just let her calm down.

There’s a lot of murmuring surrounding us, people covering their mouths and shit. She just came over to talk to me, this isn’t gossipmonger worthy type shit. I’m not even holding hands, I just offered for us to sit next to each other. Ah, this is about her, I bet. Green-eyed monsters, she literally just said hi, I’ve been the driving force here. Don’t get into a conniption because the shy girl lucked out.

Success is suffering. I’m sorry Yamaka.

We finally step into the gym, and it’s a huge cavernous space. Thousands of chairs are already filled up, facing the stage which has a podium with a few chairs set up behind it. Probably for the student council or something.

I hope we get itineraries and maps. or... Gasp! I can say I don’t know the school at all and ask for directions like a normal person!

Still need the schedules though.

Wait, Japanese classrooms are a sit down and wait out the day type thing instead of blindly walking the halls, aren’t they? Sweet.

“Well?” I stand expectantly, waiting for Yamaka. That is her name now, I’m going to get her full one, but I'm calling her Yamaka from now on.

She starts and turns to me, “Eh?”

I gesture to the expansive room, “Where are we sitting?”

“Eh? Eh!? Ah, umm, well,” Come on, take your time. There’s no rush just calm down and choose a place. “Over there! We can sit over there,” she shouts, pointing to the left wing of seats near the back. She then blushes, then repeats herself, looking around. Probably to see if her shouting attracted anyone’s attention. It didn’t, the ones who would notice were already staring. It’s rather loud in here. She noticed that they noticed and got embarrassed again.

God, I’m so sorry I got you this out of your depth, you look like you're about to die. This isn’t that extraordinary, but every single thing you do seems to make it worse. It’s so obvious. I'm trying everything I can, but my back hurts from all this carrying. At least we’re sitting down.

I let a moment of silence pass

“So what’s your-”

“So why are you-”

We both speak up at the same time. Welp.

“My apologies.”

“I’m sorry.”

We say at the same time, again. “Jinx! you owe me a soda. So, what’s your name Yamaka-san?”

She stops and blinks. “Hai?” Please don’t bluescreen again.

I wait a beat before doing a ‘carry on’ gesture.

“Ah, um, my name is Yamakawa Ayako.” She doesn’t trail off this time. Hurrah! “What is your- ah, Why are you here? In this school, I mean. If it isn’t bad to ask.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Well, apparently, I’m in here on academic excellence, or something like that, but really I’m banking on nepotism because my sister’s in the middle school next door. So what was up with the cheering?” I give an easy pass back to her.

“Um, well, um, you see?” Ok, I understand you’re having trouble, but I can't help but be annoyed at the continual flustered anime noises. I’ll try to stop it from showing up on my face, though. “I was complaining about how I wouldn’t meet any of the boys coming in, because there were so few, and Okamoto-san and Ishii-san saw you at the back of the crowd, and then got me to go up and say hi.” Yamaka seemed to curl in on herself when she said that last bit. “I wasn’t expecting you to do… This.” She gestured, expansively.

“Fair enough” I conceded, “I don’t know anybody here at all, so I just jumped at the chance to get to know at least somebody. Thanks for volunteering, by the way. I wasn’t expecting you to just… shut down? I mean, you seemed shy from the start, but not ‘go brain dead at basic interaction’ shy.” Ooh, that was a bit insensitive. “My bad, I meant that I didn’t think you’d get so overwhelmed.”

“Sorry,” she cringed, “I’m not used to people, or boys.”

“Bah, men and women aren’t that different, I think.” I replied, “People are people, so why should it be? You and I should get along so awfully? Uh uh uoh.”

Yamaka’s giving me a rather bemused look. “What? Don’t like Depeche Mode?” Hold on… “Oh! Oops. People are people so why should it be? You and I should get along so awfully? Uh uh uoh. Sounds so much better in English, right?”

“No, well, uh, yeah it does. But, why did-? you know English?” Well, it’s not like it’ll hurt telling the truth.

“Yeah, actually I hear everything in English, just for some reason my speech in English is automatically translated to Japanese unless I focus on it. It’s why I speak so strangely, it’s no thing. Anyways what’re your favorite songs?”

She blinked, dumbfounded maybe, “I…” she hesitated, then lowered her voice and leaned in “I like kawaii metal music, I can’t listen to it a lot at home, but I really enjoy it. Have you heard of Ironbunny?” Huh. I can honestly say that I wasn't expecting that. And I'm surprised. Good on you, Yamaka.

“Nope! I have a vague idea of what kawaii metal is from its name, but other than that, I’ve got no clue.” Why wasn’t kawaii translated into cute? Translation asshattery. I need to learn the mechanics of it sometime in the future.

“Oh they’re really good, you should listen to Lightning Speed, it has some very good guitar solos. They formed when Ediee Ironbunny, a super cyborg guitar hero, slipped back to our time from 2300 AD in order to save rock music from pop. Their vocals are really good too!”

Now it was my turn to blink. “Did. That actually happen, or is it just lore?” Honestly that would make a kick ass anime, so you know what? I don’t actually care. “Fucking Lightning Speed, by Ironbunny. That’s fucking metal as shit, I’ll be honest. They can take my money.”

“I can’t believe it! You really think so?” I nodded, though I was a bit taken aback by her sudden enthusiastic squeal, which quickly turned into embarrassed face-hiding when people turned to look at her, again.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Poor thing, bless her heart. She just can’t get a break.

A medium pause later, the lights dimmed as a spotlight turned to the podium, in the meantime of us talking the significant figures of this private educational venture had arrived. “Oh, I can’t wait.” I can’t say I'm surprised our principal was such a well-endowed, rather young-looking, fifty year old, but I can say I wasn't expecting it. Does the universe have a thing for older women in authority?

“Will she preach to us the lord and savior Yesus Chrits? She doesn’t look priestly, but she could have a Word of God background.” My grandmother would listen to preachers over the radio all the damn time in the car. But it was that, or new Christian rock. Eugh, I shudder just thinking about it. Gospel music is damn good though.

“What? Who?” she tilted her head. A bit of hair curled with an eddy in the circulation to look like a question mark.

“The principal.” I state.

“No. That person, Yesus Chrits?” Strange phrasing, but alright. Maybe it sounds weird in Japanese.

“It’s a mutation of Jesus Christ. To mock Evangelical preachers.” To be fair, I wouldn’t expect a Japanese person to know about southern Christianity or its quirks.

“Who is Jesus Christ?”

“Pardon me?” The fuck? “We’re going to a Catholic school.” I…

“What does that have to do with him?”

“He’s literally the seminal figure of the Christian faith.” I know Christianity is rare in Japan, but he’s literally right in the name. “Who do you think Catholics worship? Not trying to make you feel stupid, but if this is a genuine case of ignorance it needs to be fixed.” She was making an increasingly worried and confused face as I continued.

“The… Cross?”

I hold a breath for a second before letting it go. Ok, I can see that, and how it fits together, what else would nuns and shit be carrying it around for, right? “Yeah, ok.” I’m exasperated. Why? “Did you go to the middle school for Umehana?”

“Yeah, all three years, what has made you so angry? Are you ok?” Well, at least she’s concerned I’m having an aneurysm. It’s just.

I’m from the Bible Belt, ok? Even if I theoretically know that some people don’t know about Christianity.

No, you know what. No. She went to Catholic school for three fucking years, she’s fucking with me. I get it.

It’s worth a large chuckle, but no more.

The principal has been giving a long winded bureaucratic sermon in the background, congratulating us for being here, she’ll probably mention integration or something.

“Man, they didn’t teach you theology at all, did they. How’d they get away with that?”

“Why would we learn theology at school?” Umm…

“Because this is Catholic school. It’s supposed to teach religion. Specifically Catholic Christianity. What was taught instead? Don’t we have a priest here?”

“We have a nun.” I can’t believe it. I’m betting fucking Sister Nun-loli is this school's religious figure.

Somebody is fucking with me. Maybe God is real, and he hates me. Am I going to be surrounded by people who don't know Christian lore in a Catholic school?

“We’ll... talk about this later.” I declare, a girl in a student uniform has taken to the podium, and I’m guessing she’s the student representative. What happened to the principal, she was there a second ago.

“By God, that hair is really pretty.” She had raven black hair that fanned out behind her as she walked, it went down to the middle of her thighs. I couldn’t see much else of her, since we were near the back of the gym, but her hair gleamed in the light.

I got shushed by a few of the people surrounding me, accompanied by glares. Fuck off, I’m missing mine, allow a guy some envy. Great hair seems to be the norm, so why can’t I have some, huh? I’ve been relegated to stubby tendrils with no personality! I’ll appreciate what hair I want.

Yamaka is scowling at me, too. I owe you nothing!

Wait, no. I owe her a phone number. I owe you one thing! How dare you try to be jealous, “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” I talk lowly “ your hair is a good 83, but that woman’s is fucking off the scale for hair beauty. It takes a lot of work to do that, and I appreciate that.”

She flushed and looked away with a hmph. I sighed, hoping that was just an anime hmph and not a tsundere one. If she hits me we’re not going to be friends anymore. “Remind me to give you my phone number after this.” That should smooth any ruffled feathers, and fits well in my plan anyway. A small ok was given in reply.

Ms. Raven smacks the podium with both hands, and the sound reverberates through the gym. The acoustics in this place, damn.

“Greetings, my peers of Umehana Academy,” she begins. “My name is Hirayama Kameko. It is my pleasure to be this year’s student council president. I would like to thank those of you who have voted for me, and I promise that despite my freshman status I will fairly represent and diligently work for the student body…” she continued on, but I’m stuck on that detail.

She’s a freshman? What about the president Akane mentioned? The school year literally just started. How has she been voted in already? What’s with all these strange developments throwing me through loops?

I know I’m in an anime. It’s a 95% thing at this point. But, what the fuck. A Catholic school that doesn’t teach Jesus or theology. Strange and eldritch school elections. A yandere. I’m getting so much fucking whiplash you’d think my brain’d be spaghetti. I thought I wouldn't be thrown off because, you know, I know tropes. I know how stories and shit work, but all these small details. It’s like they're designed to fuck with me. A Catholic school! That doesn’t teach Jesus!

Fucking anime!

The nun freezing was a rather obvious thing, but there have to have been other things like that, right? I mean, that was such obvious foreshadowing, maybe she’s a robot or something.

This is hurting my brain, let’s just tune back in.

“I would like to address our school’s integration, and the expectations for both genders.” How convenient that I tuned in right at this point. “I would first like to make it absolutely clear that the previous president’s comments about the male population were prejudiced and unacceptable.” Alright! Fuck yeah, you go, dude. Set the example for the general population. “The men that were accepted into this academy are going to be held to the same standards as the women. All of you are expected to treat each other with basic decency and etiquette. I will try my best to uphold these values personally and will hold all of you to them as well.” She has a strong speaking voice, too.

I appreciate her egalitarianism, though I bet she’s going to be the only competent person in power. Nothing like this ever goes over smoothly and the men are massively outnumbered. The speech continued for another minute or so, rounding out with a call for school pride and hope for the new year.

Then another woman stepped up and gave her speech. Then the assembly ended. Every time I tried to comment I'd get shushes. Even from Yamaka! I sat next to you for a reason, yet you betray me! Damn people, and their respect for authority.

I clapped, but only because I liked Hirayama’s speech, the other two I can’t even remember the names of.

They were half-assed claps, too.

I walked out with Yamaka and, after getting the slip of paper with our classes on it, (it was a whole thing, line up at a bunch of alphabetically designated desks, get a slip, that's your class) wrote my number on hers. She, of course, blushed and stumbled over her words. Then I said my farewells and she ran off to her friends. After standing there for a couple of moments.

I’m actually really flattered now that I think about it. Sure, I’m a rarity in this school so demand is high, but it makes me really fucking happy that a girl asked my number. Almost as good as that one time a girl said I looked cute in the hallway.

Ah, shit. I didn’t get her number. ‘Tis a shame.

All of the buildings here are in a sort of faux-European style, I can’t tell you the exact details because I'm not well versed in architecture, but walking through the halls there’s a slight dissonance to everything that I can’t place.

The doors are sliding ones, I can tell you that. That’s weird. Everything has wood lining too, with the walls being white.

The windows are big panes instead of tiny ones with cross-cross patterns with the supporting beams.

As I was checking for more discrepancies on my way to my classroom, E-7, I made the mistake of walking around a corner absentmindedly. Such a foolish fool I am, displaying such hubris; I heard the rushing footsteps as I stopped whistling to take a breath, and felt the strangest mixture of dread and resignation.

Not a second later I literally fell into the most horrid, my most hated, trope. A glimpse of red hair and a surprised face later and we were falling.

My hands were in my pockets and when I reflexively tried to pull them out to catch myself they got caught. My elbows were out behind me because of this, and so, were the first thing to hit the floor.

“FUUCK!”

“Kyaa!”

The pain! It’s lancing up both my arms and across my shoulders! Numbness is warring with the huge new bruises and the wrenching my shoulders got. I somehow hit both my fucking funnybones at once. Is this my punishment for not groping someone?

Worth it.

“God, why? It feels like I’m being stabbed with Sprite; I can’t even feel my arms move.” I, in fact, can’t even move my body, as there’s another one on top of me pressing its tits into me.

This’d usually be where the main character goes on a soliloquy about how soft and fluffy and bouncy and big said tits are.

I, however, will complain!

Other than my arms, the back of my head hurts from hitting the ground. My ass hurts, my back hurts. And I can’t breathe because there’s a body on top of me that knocked the wind out of me. I probably have a concussion since I'm sort of blacking out. My brain feels like spaghetti. I’ll have to go to the nurse.

Go to the nurse…

“God damn it. I can’t catch a fucking break today, can I?” I croak before I accept the embrace of sweet, sweet trauma-induced unconsciousness.

Catch ya on the other side. You ginger bitch.

…

The flip side of trauma-induced unconsciousness is, unsurprisingly, a massive headache. A massive, splitting, Trotsky of a headache. I’m not even going to try to sit up, I'd probably sick all over the place and I wouldn't even have the capacity to aim.

And there is, of course, the bruises that are acutely where the loadbearing is for when you lay down.

This is the true consequence of a crash-hello, all because I had my hands in my pockets. I’m glad I didn’t die though. Or get hentai-slapped unjustifiably.

My headache didn’t stop me from speaking though. “I swear to Jesus fucking Christ, if their’s that redhead here I’m gettin' a rail spike and driving it through her skull.” Eugh, just saying that hurt. This is worse than a migraine.

Though, then again my migraines are weird and only hurt as a prelude. Really they just fuck with my balance and cognition. The eye-stabbing pain as an envoy does suck, though.

“Yare yare,” not ara ara? I’m disappointed. “I understand you may be angry, but that doesn’t mean you should threaten somebody like that. You’re rather seriously hurt, there’s a big knot on the back of your head.”

“You know what? I didn’t notice.” I snark. I really don’t want to see the Ginger Bitch again. I know the exact thing that’ll happen. ‘Gasp! You!’ causing rumors to abound as people speculate how we know each other.

But for that to happen we have to be in the same class...

Fuck you anime.

“You didn’t?” the nurse sounds shocked. “Ara ara! The concussion must be worse than I thought if you can’t feel the back of your head, I’ll call for an ambulance” She is. Legitimately, it seems.

“No, it was sarcasm. Debilitating pain makes me snarky.” Opening my eyes, finally, I get a look at the nurse.

Purple hair, grey eyes, glasses, lab coat, and very stacked. The lab coat is open and her bra is peeking slightly above her top. I can’t even bring myself to be annoyed.

“Debilitating!?” She gasps “oh no-”

I cut her off before she can pave her good intentions “No, it’s fine! I was exaggerating, I’m only getting nauseous from moving my head; I don't need a wheelchair.” A movement catches in the corner of my eye.

I- is that a sweat drop? I move to poke it (ow, my everything) and it pops on contact.

“Did you see that?” I’m concerned, that can’t even be chalked up to coincidence like Yamaka's hair.

“See what?” Was it just head trauma?

“The giant sweat drop I just popped. It was, like, the size of my fist and floating right there.”

“Are you being ‘sarcastic’ again? You just wiped away some sweat from your head. It’s good to see that you can move again, though! You’ll make a full recovery soon enough!” she cheered and wheeled away “I’ll get you some ibuprofen, don’t go anywhere!”

My god, there are so many things at play here, setting aside the nurse’s saccharine literalist personality. Head trauma causes me to see things that aren’t there? Trope. Head trauma causes an unveiling of the true ongoings of the world? Trope. This is going to be a cause of much suffering, especially if other people can’t see it. I'm going to be the only sane man, aren't I?

I’m not counting the nurse, I'm pretty sure she’s going to be a special case for just about everything.

That she saw me wipe away sweat instead of poking the air is interesting. Perhaps I'll be able to interact with the behind the scenes without people noticing because of the veil?

No, The Veil. it’s, I’m betting, the underlying thing that makes everything anime, or at least part of it. So it gets to be capitalized. Along with The Translation, I've decided. There’ll be at least one more, I'm betting. The Rule of Threes is important in all fiction. I’m betting it’ll have to do with how people get slotted into roles that fit their appearance. Or are slotted an appearance that fits the role? So many more questions to be answered… Excellence.

“What’s got you smiling so much? I’m glad you're happy that you’ll make a full recovery!” Hmm, I can already tell answering her own questions is going to be a thing with her. She handed me a cup of water and a few red pills. I gratefully quaff both down, rather excited with the idea of the pain being lessened.

“You’ve inadvertently taught me a whole lot about the world, Ms. Nurse,” I announce, raising my fist. “With this knowledge I’ll work towards living as unencumbered a life as possible.” I then wince hard. God damn it, why’d I have to land on my elbows.

“Oh that’s wonderful!” she clapped her hands together. She then paused and tilted her head, a purple question mark flying out of her head, and her face getting more simplistic “What did I teach you?” Holy shit, her entire face changed

Her face looked more anime-like than the others I’d seen, yet, now that I noticed. Her eyes were huge on her face, her hair had more obvious bold lines and a lighter streak across it to show lighting. I could barely make out her nose, which held her glasses, which had two diagonal light streaks across them.

Looking around, slowly, the entire world looked less like reality and more like a drawing. Not completely of course, but it looked like hyper detailed drawings, instead of slightly drawn reality. A very important distinction. I have crossed The Veil.

God, that was cool to say! Even in my head.

“Don’t worry Ms. Nurse, just know that a lot of things have been unveiled to me.” hehehe “Say, could you tell me who brought me in here? And what class they’re in? Knowing their name would be helpful, too.”

“Oh, do you want to thank them? That’s so chivalrous of you, I’m glad you’ll make the effort to be polite.” No, I want to avoid Ginger Bitch at all costs. Red hair means tsundere. But I’m not going into battle unprepared. “Her name is Yamazaki Akane, she’s in class E-6.” Ooh, close but no cigar. Wait, she can’t have that name, that’s my sister’s. Ginger Bitch it is.

“Thanks, I’ll make sure not to run into her again.” Ah ha! That’s a knee-slapper. “And no, I don’t mean literally running into her. She already did that to me once.”

“I know.” she pouted, stuck her lip out and crossed her arms, and everything. “I wasn’t going to take you literally.” She said petulantly.

You know what, lady? I like you, keep up the good work. And please don’t turn out to be an evil bitch that’s using a dumb front to fool everybody. It’d hurt my feelings.

“You know, as much as I'd like to go to class, I actually really don’t. Could I just sleep here ‘til it’s time to go home?”

Holy bright beams of happiness! “Yes! Your health is the most important! I’ll make sure to write up an excuse of absence form for you!”

She’s the sweetest thing to ever exist, I don’t care if it’s The Veil influencing me here, I’m protecting her. May your bra straps never dig into you, Ms. Nurse.

"Oh, before I go to bed, do you know who Jesus Christ is?"

Ms. Nurse turned back to me still smiling, "Nope! Who's that?"

I’m going back to sleep.