High school days seemed so distant now.
"I guess my chuunibyou phase is pretty much over," Aomatsu thought to himself.
During high school, he lived day by day in his own fantasy world, only to be jolted back to reality by the high school entrance exams — he was just an ordinary person after all, those things from manga weren't going to happen to him. But that day, on the rooftop, that mysterious girl... he couldn't forget how satisfying that moment was for his imagination.
"There must be other possibilities in the world, right?" Aomatsu pondered, with a mischievous smile, "But maybe I'm not the 'chosen one' after all. So, will high school bring different adventures? Should I look forward to them? Or should I continue pretending to be one of these clueless normies around me?"
"Hey, Tomoko, what are you thinking about?" His classmate Kuroki nudged him, "You've been absent-minded since a while ago."
"It's nothing. High school days can be embarrassing," Aomatsu shook his head and replied.
Tomoko Kuroki was a classmate Aomatsu met in his third year of high school. He joined the soccer club because he wanted to change his image a bit after occasionally reading "Football Knights" and thinking soccer seemed cool. It wasn't about wanting to try out something like in some anime where a club member challenges the club manager.
Their first conversation was after practice at a Western fast-food restaurant —
"Everyone, do you all aspire to be part of the U-15 Japan National Soccer Team?" Aomatsu, filled with mysterious confidence, asked. But his teammates looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Finally, Kuroki slammed his head on the table, saying, "You're such an otaku, aren't you? Too much manga, huh?"
There was quite a gap between Aomatsu and Kuroki, after all. Aomatsu was just a novice, responsible for pouring tea and water in the club, almost like half a club manager. Although he practiced with them for a long time and gradually developed some athletic ability, he was still just a substitute until graduation.
Fortunately, although the members of the soccer club would occasionally mock him with "you're so lame," overall, they were pretty easy to get along with.
"Well, this world of clueless normies who shine with their developed athletic abilities and are admired isn't suitable for me. I, with an IQ of 180 like Sherlock Holmes, thrive on intelligence. These guys with simple minds and developed limbs are really pitiful, they have no idea the world is about to face an unprecedented disaster, hehehe..." Aomatsu said to himself at the time. Of course, he didn't expect that with his genius-level IQ, he and Kuroki would end up in the same high school.
Humph, it's the mockery of fate! That's jealousy of talent! The ordinary world, ordinary Japan, ordinary education system, and the wicked examination system couldn't accept him. It must be the case.
"Uh... oops..." Aomatsu accidentally bumped into someone carrying books, probably a girl, and she let out a faint voice like a mosquito but reminiscent of a towering ancient tree.
"Sorry, are you okay?" Aomatsu asked.
"I... I'm fine..." she muttered and quickly ran away without lifting her head.
Huh? He felt like he'd seen that messy black hair and the school uniform skirt that barely met the required length somewhere before.
"Why are you standing there? Quickly, let's leave this cursed place!" Kuroki was exasperated, grabbing Aomatsu's collar and dragging him away.
"I... I got it!" Aomatsu shook him off discontentedly. Strange, why did Kuroki look like he'd seen a ghost?
Was it just his imagination? Aomatsu scratched his head in confusion. Or maybe there was some incredible campus legend, like there's a "non-existent" person in this class, and then one by one, the classmates disappear... something like that?