The day I mismatched my colored clothes with the whites happened to be the day our school brought all the second year students into the gymnasium. Dressed in a fashionable pink uniform, I pulled the attention of a lot of students in the crowd. Without many friends, I ended up isolated in the sea of students.

At the time, I held my precious book, belonging to the Mushoku Tensei series. Ever since I started reading the book, I’ve treated it with more care than I ever had for my own life. Any damage done to the book I felt ten times unto me; that is the rule I made. Though, I never actually took any damage, I say that to make myself sound cool. In the end, the most important thing to take from me having my book is that I have ten times my life there. That book helped me when I was alone after all.

I missed my parents.

While being comforted by the presence of my book, I witnessed a very frightening person. One of the many uncertain suspects chatted away with his group of friends, a small distance from me. His name was Harry Ballman. When I saw his face, I remembered how little progress my father made. So I resolved to confront him.

As I approached him, I thought about the way he was acting. I observed how freely he acted, with some goofy acts and only small spells of seriousness. He had a loud smile. I couldn’t describe him any other way. He talked so normally, he didn’t seem like the kind of person to kill someone. Then again, that’s how a lot of murderers look at first.

The closer I got to him, the more I gripped my book. I couldn’t let my precious book get hurt after all. Obviously, the book couldn’t get hurt, but I decided to be on the safer side. I was not going to let my book get damaged. If I sense any danger, I’ll just have to pull some martial art moves to save my book.

“Hey you! You! There with the slightly discolored uniform!” Discolored uniform? Who had- oh, it’s me.

Before I could reach Harry, a voice called out to me. The voice belonged to a girl, I could tell from the moment I heard it. I turned and looked, but I couldn’t tell who called out to me. It didn’t look like anyone called out to me, but I thought I heard someone.

Right when I began turning back, a hand clasped on my shoulder. I was not used to this sensation, my body tensed up.

“Your uniform’s pretty funny, you know?” Was she making fun of me?

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The girl’s face became visible when I finally turned to face her, when my eyes landed upon her face, I felt my heart skip a beat, or two.

Okay, fine, three times.

She dressed in the same red uniform as me, at least, before I washed my uniform with the whites. She had her hair just below the line of her shoulders, and her eyes locked onto me as if meeting a cute but fierce dog. I couldn’t smell any fear, even if I were a dog.

“I- it was a simple mistake,” I replied while I recounted how I mixed my red uniform into the whites when washing the clothes, “besides, who cares about the colors.”

“Well I don’t know,” the girl side-stepped her way in front of me, “I just find it funny to see a guy with such a tired face in pink.” She laughed to herself shortly after finishing her sentence.

“I said it was just a simple mistake!” I found myself yelling at her, how long had it been since I last raised my voice at someone? I didn’t actually mean to, but I couldn’t help but find myself flustered.

“Ahaha! Look, your face is matching the color of your clothes,” she was definitely poking fun at me, the way she was pointing made me feel like my heart was being poked with a wooden toothpick, “did you get mixed up with the laundry too?"

I found myself unable to speak, it was as if the air in my lungs were stuck. Is this really all because of my pinkish uniform?

“Ahaha… alright, here,” the girl handed me a piece of paper, “go on, sign your name.”

I looked at the piece of paper she gave me. She showed me the field trip partner sheet. What looked like a name sat on one side of the paper. Why would she give this to me, if my pink uniform was such an eyesore?

“Um,” I stood straight, deciding to ask her, “Why’d you give this to me?”

“You’d be alone if I didn’t, right? Hurry up and sign it, we’ll be separated when the buses come.”

With that, I rushed through the partner paper. It was true that I would have ended up either alone or with some teacher. I had enough of sitting with Mr. Yellow. He needed mints.

Once I finished, I handed the paper to the girl.

“You made the right decision, mister…” the girl leaned forward to try and see my nametag, “N-Neu- Nwier?”

She got my name wrong, most people didn’t think to pronounce the first part of my name like the German word, “Neue,” so I needed to correct her, “no, it’s-“

“Gather into our classes! Get in line, we’re boarding the buses!”

The teacher interrupted my correction, and we were separated.

I’m not Nwier as in Weird, it’s Neuire as in Neue Eire!

That girl was kind of scary, I hope I wouldn’t get forced to run into her again. My heart felt like it could burst. A chapter of Mushoku Tensei would help me out.