Ch.2Chapter 1. A Familiar Year (2)

2004 was 20 years before the era I lived in.

And it was also a familiar year to me.

It was the year I became a middle school student, and also the year I started buying manga books with my saved allowance for the first time.

To be precise, I didn’t buy manga books from the beginning.

It wasn’t money I earned from part-time jobs, but with only about 20,000 won my parents gave me once a month, I felt uncomfortable buying manga books, so what I chose instead was light novels.

They looked like manga on the outside, but the content was novels. What’s more, they were easy to read since they seemed like direct novelizations of manga. My parents somewhat approved since they weren’t manga books.

Besides, novels took full advantage of the strength of “text,” so unless there were explicit sexual acts, most violent descriptions were included without much censorship, and the narrative density was higher than manga.

When spending similar amounts of money, novels provided longer enjoyment, so I quickly became absorbed in light novels.

Even now, if I could go back to my world and search my home, there would be plenty of dusty light novels in the corner of my bookshelf that hadn’t been touched for a long time.

I liked manga too and bought them often… but perhaps because light novels were the first thing I got into when becoming an otaku, I felt more attached to them.

And thanks to that, I could guess that I might have been reincarnated into one of those novels I had read.

Right after realizing my situation, my mind was too chaotic to think properly, but upon reflection, this uniform was both ordinary and unique.

Among the novels I had read, not many schools used such a drab sailor uniform design.

“Hanakawa High School…?”

I suddenly muttered again as I picked up the student handbook.

It was indeed Hanakawa (花川) High School.

…In the novel, it was described as a private high school with high deviation scores.

Naturally, the tuition was expensive too.

“…”

I looked around the room again.

No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t a place where a student attending an expensive private high school would live.

I rummaged through my bag again and took out my bankbook.

There was quite a bit of money. I didn’t know who saved it or how.

The problem was how long I could last with this money.

I didn’t know how much the tuition would be right away, but it wouldn’t be a small amount, and I didn’t know how much the rent for this place was either.

Moreover—

Growl.

“Ah…”

I put my hand on my stomach.

Right. I needed to eat to survive.

No, more importantly, where was I anyway?

*

Saitama Prefecture, Saitama City.

The nearest train station was Omiya Station.

Judging by the fact that it took a little over 40 minutes to walk here, I must have gotten quite lost on my way to the station.

Last night, I was so preoccupied with worrying that I didn’t sleep at all before coming out. I even realized I had forgotten to wash up only after I had already reached near the train station.

Even if I had thought about washing up, it was questionable how many bathing supplies were in that house.

After arriving here, there was still a problem.

Where on earth was Minato Ward?

I was a person who had never once left the Korean Peninsula in my life.

When I say I never left the Korean Peninsula, I mean it literally. I had never even been to Jeju Island.

I was born in Seoul, my family members were all Seoul people, and naturally, even when we traveled during Lunar New Year or Chuseok, it was within Seoul. At most, our ancestral graves were in Gyeonggi Province, so we would all go out of Seoul together to perform ancestral rites.

Well, I did visit Gyeongju on a school trip.

So while I could roughly recall how to get from Gangbuk District to Gangnam District, I couldn’t figure out how to get from Saitama to Minato.

Just because I watched anime doesn’t mean I studied Japanese geography.

Growl.

“…”

I put my hand on my stomach.

…I should eat something first.

*

I was about to enter any convenience store to buy some instant food, but then remembering that my financial situation wasn’t very future-oriented, I bought the cheapest bread I could afford.

The elongated bread, which looked like it had nothing inside, truly had nothing inside.

In terms of taste, it was like those long cream buns commonly sold at bakeries, but without the cream.

Wondering what kind of mindless person would make and sell such bread, I looked at the sticker on the package and saw that the product name was “Koppe bread.”

Ah, I see.

So this is the famous Koppe bread I’ve only heard about.

In old light novels, it was the only bread left at the school store, and now I understand why.

But thinking about it again, I’ll probably have to get familiar with this bread every lunch time. After all, I need to save money.

…Should I transfer to a prefectural high school or something like that now? Or maybe I should drop out and find a part-time job.

Even though I say it’s inside a light novel, something is bound to happen around that school.

Besides, light novels from the 2000s had some unrefined, extreme aspects, so there’s a risk of losing my life if I’m not careful.

This light novel also had a lot of talk about yokai, serial killings, and such explosive events.

“…”

As I sat on a bench near the station, forcing down the bread, passersby glanced at me.

Midday. Weekday. And not long after school had started.

Anyone would see me as a delinquent high school student skipping school.

I raised my left arm to look at my wrist again.

There was still a clear magic circle-like mark drawn there.

“Haah…”

What kind of character am I supposed to be?

Even searching through my memories from 20 years ago, I don’t remember such a character existing. All I can recall are the faces of the protagonist and the heroines around him.

Thinking about it again, I’m not even sure if I finished reading that novel.

I dropped my arm again and was staring blankly with bread in my mouth when—

Beep—

My skirt pocket rang.

I took out the flip phone and looked at its small screen.

Unlike the internal screen, the external display was old-fashioned digital, with black dots on a green background.

It seemed to be an unregistered number, as only the phone number was displayed.

I was about to answer but hesitated.

What should I say when I answer?

Moshi moshi?

Hello?

“…”

While pondering over such things and experiencing another intense moment of clarity, I simply opened the phone and answered.

“Hello?”

Moshi moshi.

Even without making a special effort, my mouth automatically produced Japanese. I don’t know how it works. Probably similar to how I can read text.

[Ah, yes, hello.]

After calling me first, they seemed more flustered than I was when I answered.

The voice didn’t particularly sound like that of a professional expert or a cold villain, but in this kind of world setting, such a voice could very well belong to a mastermind.

You know, like those cases where a character appears to hesitate on the surface but actually slices people up with an expressionless face—a beautiful girl murderer character.

[Ah— Is this Kurosawa… san’s phone?]

…As I continued listening, it didn’t seem to be that kind of person.

“Yes, this is Kotone Kurosawa.”

I spoke again in a voice that sounded like a voice actor deliberately performing a gloomy character.

For reference, this wasn’t my intention.

[Yes, ah, um.]

After hearing my response, the person on the other end became flustered again.

[I’m Sanae Suzuki, a Japanese language teacher at Hanakawa High School, and… I’m the homeroom teacher for Class 1-B.]

“Ah, yes.”

Only after hearing that did I snap to attention.

[Since Kurosawa-san has become a student in my class… school started on April 6th, but you haven’t come to school at all until today, so I called.]

Now I understand.

This person appeared in both the light novel and the anime adaptation.

While not a major character, she was still treated as one of the “moe-type heroines” at the time.

For reference, she wasn’t the protagonist’s homeroom teacher. If this Kotone Kurosawa character had been in the same class as the protagonist, I would have recognized her.

[Is there something wrong?]

“Ah…”

There are many things wrong, yes.

The problem is that those “things” aren’t “Kotone Kurosawa’s problems.”

“…No, I’ll come now.”

[What? Ah, yes.]

As I stood up and answered, the teacher on the phone seemed a bit surprised.

Did she think I was a delinquent student who would respond more rebelliously for skipping school?

Well, whether I transfer schools or quit, I need to see the teacher’s face anyway.

I hung up the phone and stuffed the remaining bread into my mouth as I got up.

*

…And it took me two hours to get to school.

Well, it shouldn’t have taken that long originally.

However, since I knew nothing about Japanese geography, I had to ask people for directions to take the train, and since I’m not particularly extroverted, I spent a lot of time hesitating before asking.

I could reach near the school with a single train without transfers, but the journey took close to an hour.

Moreover… while the basic fare was 160 yen, the additional charges based on distance were terrifying.

Once again, I resented whatever had dropped me so far away from the school.

What was the thinking behind that?

After somehow making it to Minato Ward and getting off, I realized I still didn’t know where to go, and I thought I should have asked for directions when I received the phone call earlier.

But calling again felt a bit awkward, so after wandering around central Tokyo, I finally managed to reach the school.

The light novel described it as a private school with a long history, but from the outside, the building looked like an ordinary high school.

Still, the interior was quite impressive. Aside from its modest exterior, the school building itself was very large and clean.

How should I put it—compared to the high school I attended, the ceilings were higher. Anyway, that’s how it was.

Upon reaching the school entrance, I was confused again.

The large entrance hall had “shoe lockers.” It seemed I was supposed to change into indoor shoes here—

…But where was my locker?

Even if I found my locker, I hadn’t brought indoor shoes.

“…Haah.”

I sighed deeply and just picked up my shoes.

*

“…Kurosawa-san?”

When I went to the faculty office wearing only socks without indoor shoes, there was a teacher who recognized me at a glance.

And I recognized that teacher at a glance too.

A woman in her early to mid-twenties with oval glasses and neatly trimmed bob-cut hair.

She looked exactly like the illustrations in the light novel.

“…Hello.”

As I greeted her with shoes in hand, my homeroom teacher stared at me with her mouth slightly open.

Yes, well.

That’s how it turned out.

—With that thought, I decided to just brazenly look straight at her.

Though it did cost me some mental fortitude.