Harem. It is something any man would find favorable. Isn’t this a heaven to be pampered with numerous women and men all of whom are drop-dead gorgeous and deeply in love with you for a reason as flimsy as wet paper? It can even be called a god’s intervention in its simplicity. Hmm, “paper” and “god” even sound close, so my little theory cannot be wrong by any means. I must be a genius.

That said, what we call a harem is a flawed, rotten to the core concept that adolescent teenagers created to stroke their egos and feel great about themselves. We fear to be abandoned and this wish-fulfillment fantasy grants an outlet for this. A typical harem member would be better off sacrificing her life, if the alternative somehow would displease her loved master.

And yet, a real love is different. It is a matter of temperance, understanding and compromises to the end. Actually, it was more of a power-struggle and fighting for dominance in my case. In addition, it is impossible to find a woman willing to share her husband with someone else. In other words, a mere idea of harem is a pile of unburnable trash in their eyes.

In conclusion, I call the idea of harem a fraud of modern media, used to suck money out of loveless boys in girls. I am a victim of this monster, too. I have committed a sin of infidelity by playing a visual novel called “Lovely Stars” and getting a super-rare harem ending, which earned ire of my girlfriend – my yandere girlfriend. It was a fun game I enjoyed greatly and unrealistically naïve in its depiction of love that I wanted to laugh.

In short, I was violently murdered with a box-cutter after which I somehow bypassed all important parts to be reincarnated as a toddler with the memories of my previous life intact. It was not the best part of my both lives: I was nothing more than a whining maggot of kid, and fortunately my parents were against breast-feeding.

However, when my eyesight finally developed enough, I realized that the world around me felt alien, as if seeing a robot wearing a human’s mask. Hmm, what a strange metaphor to use. I believe the proper term was uncanny valley. I felt this kind of paradox because of all the technology my parents’ house contained – from virtual screens to a flying car my father used to go to work. It was too technologically-advanced for the time of my death.

Even their calendar was strange: according to the thing, people started to use a new system, called post-reformation era, or P.RF. for short. For your information, I was born 46 P.RF. It took me six years as an infant to understand something horrible. But before this, I need to tell you something about myself.

Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Izumo Shou, born to the pair of Izumo Satoru and Amano Miyuki, two Japanese genius inventors of cutting-edge weaponry and armor. I like traditional tea ceremonies and light music. My hobbies include gardening and cooking. I am also knowledgeable in the giant robot construction to a degree. And at last, I am a support character in the visual novel titled “Lovely Stars”.

Shou was the type of characters who remains intact through the whole story, providing the protagonist with information about his capture targets and tips about various events. He was the protagonist’s dear childhood friend and a hopeless pervert, known through the campus as “Bio-Trash Izumo”.  As a son of two genii, he was expected to be as intelligent as them, but became a muscle-brains instead, choosing to pilot his giant robot alongside his friends.

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However, despite being an enemy of the womankind, he still had a great heart and sense of righteousness. Shou saved the protagonist from bullying when they were little and became his first friend. Oh, and he also died in every route, sometimes in brutal ways, just to give the protagonist a motivation to finish off the main villain and get the girl.

It was a maneuver praised by the critics for its unpredictability and harsh realism. For example, in one of the routes his robot’s live support system got damaged in the battle, Shou slowly suffocated to the death but not before his death cries were heard by the protagonist through the radio communication. In short, being this guy was suffering…

And I am this guy, or inhabit his body at least. Shou had short, trimmed brown hair and honey eyes, and so do I. However, because of my extreme reading habits, I already need a pair of glasses to see. And yet, my parents only encouraged me to read more. Isn’t this sad?

So, in order to survive, I decided to not become close to any of the main characters and live a happy life. It was important for Shou to enroll into a military academy for pilots, but I don’t want to be one. Yes, I am a Japanese person without a weird fixation on giant humanoid robots. Deal with it. Instead, I want to follow my parents’ footsteps and become a scientist. In the game, Shou showed some great intelligence behind his idiotic attitude, so I have some resources to work with.

That said, it’s hard to ignore the plot when it comes knocking at your door. When he was ten, Shou was visiting a station where his parents worked and there he saved the protagonist from bullies, who accused his family of being a bunch of traitors. Naturally, so did I.

“What are you doing here? Everybody knows that the Kazama Family are nothing more than stinking deserters who refuse to follow orders”

Here he is, Kazama Ren, the hero of “Lovely Stars”. Born into a disgraced family, he faced numerous hardships his whole life because of the infamy that came with the name of Kazama. However, he was the only one able to pilot the prototype armor “White Warrior” and was forcibly enrolled into the military academy. Or, in this case, will be enrolled.

And yet, now I could only see a weak kid, getting accused of crimes he and his ancestors) never committed in the name of so-called justice. It would be easy to pretend that I never saw him, but even though I was reincarnated, I still had my morals. And if I abandon a person in need like this, I am not sure I could live with myself.

Now, it’s my survival against my morals. What should I do?