Mondays, Traffic Lights, & Gyarus

I was on my way to school.

Woke up early for once.
Had a bite with Mao.
The usual: rice, miso, mutual existential dread.

Crisp autumn morning—not quite cold, but enough to sting the lungs if you ran for the train.
The sky was pale and cloudless. The kind of blue that felt like it had no opinion of you either way.

That’s when I saw them.

The twins.
Aka-chan, and her yandere older sister, Ao-sama.

Aka-chan was kindness incarnate.
She waited patiently. Glowed a warm red.
An anchor to life—a quiet promise that maybe, just maybe, I’d live through the day without getting isekai’d by thirty tons of homicidal steel.

Ao-sama, though?

Ao-sama was Truck-kun’s enabler.
Always watching. Always calculating.
The second you let your guard down at a crosswalk—bam.
You’re a red smear and a light novel protagonist with heterochromia.

My head darted in wide, practiced sweeps—
scanning for the growl of a diesel engine,
a honk of unnatural warning,
a whiff of cursed exhaust smoke curling like black incense from the underworld.

Under the humming green light of death,
cold and indifferent to my plight—
I somehow made it.

The destination: the monolith.

Rows of shoes lined the genkan like little soldiers, obedient but dead inside.
The halls smelled like chalk and institutional disillusionment.

The final floor of the grand dungeon.
My third and final year as a high school student.
That’s how I’d phrase it in a web novel.

Reality? Not nearly that dramatic.

I paused at the sliding wooden door to homeroom.
A small plaque read: Class 1-A.

1-A, huh?
It’s always 1-A.
What am I? A light novel protagonist?

The day passed without incident.
School bells. Chatter. Students pretending to learn.
Teachers pretending to teach.
The usual.

Third period rolled around.

That’s when I saw it.

A green vortex of light began to spiral into existence—
on my desk.

A crackling, pulsing swirl of interdimensional energy,
like someone tried to microwave a galaxy.

Naturally, I did what any rational person would do in this situation:

I picked up my literature textbook—
800 pages of weaponized existential despair—
and smashed the portal with the full weight of classical theory.
Kafka would’ve been proud.

Disaster avoided, I managed to sneak out my worldbuilding notebook.
Filled with notes on supernatural techniques, tragic rivalries, heroism, heartbreak, and the occasional food stall subplot.

Should Ryuji get over his broken heart before confronting the Master of the Crimson Fist?
Or after?

Still can’t decide if the love rival should die heroically... or just kind of fade away.

Wait—
what if he only unlocks his full ESP potential by forgiving himself?

...

Yeah. That’s got juice.

By the time I’d shuffled in my seat a half dozen more times and worn my pencil down to a tragic nub, the final bell rang.
Students yawned, stretched, and shuffled out like they’d just survived a war.

Not me.
I remained—enthroned in silent contemplation.

The longer I sat there, the more I could imagine my masterpiece, instead of actually writing or editing it.

At this rate...

I might have enough for two full chapters by the weekend.
Am I a genius?
Is my latent power awakening?

My self-reverie was cut short when I caught the swing of a familiar brown ponytail outside the raised classroom window.

Aiko.
The angel of normalcy. A reward for my brilliance?

The door slid open with a hopeful kachak—

And that’s when I realized my fatal miscalculation.

The window only framed things above 160 cm.
I hadn’t accounted for a far deadlier force.
A matchup I could not win.
The one weakness of all introverts everywhere:

An extrovert… at her side.

“Shuu-chiiiiiinnnn~!”

Tanned skin. Sparkling acrylics.
Gold hair and eyes no person of Japanese descent could legally claim.
Another reverse isekai heroine?

Worse.
A gyaru schoolgirl.

“Chitose-san. Hehhhh. How ya doin’?”

My face? Tired. Apprehensive.
Pale from long nights and monitor glare.

My vibe? Immaculate.
(It was not immaculate.)

Cool. Approachable. Senior energy.
Not a single tremble in my voice.

Perfect delivery. Absolutely flawless.
I was definitely not sweating through my uniform.

“Hehe. You always look like you're gonna die, Shuu-chin. I love it~.”

Only Rei Chitose could get away with looking like that.

An intricately layered hime cut, braided in ways that defied time, gravity, and maybe causality.
Long, stylized socks hugging her legs just enough to remain within school code—barely.
Her skirt? Exactly the legal limit. Any higher, and the Moral Committee would've triggered a citywide raid.

And then there was the hoodie.

Black. Oversized.
Frayed pink sleeves like sakura petals in full rebellion.
On the back, a bold “00”—stamped in a font I couldn’t name but felt disturbingly familiar.
Arcane. Yet somehow retro.
Like the name of a long-forgotten console, or the title of a VHS tape that doesn’t exist.

“I do not,” I muttered. “I’d like to live at least another seventy-three years, if I can help it.”

“...Why so specific?” Aiko blinked, finally remembering she was in the scene.

“Ninety-one’s more niche than ninety,” I said, slipping into my lecture voice.
“Like how obscurity creates its own gravity. I mean—if you think about it—doesn’t niche art mirror the human conditi—”

“SHUU-CHIIIN~!”

Rei's voice hit me like a glitter grenade.

I flinched.
Both physically and spiritually.

“Right!” I coughed, hastily realigning with reality. “You're here.”

“You’re sooo dramatic.” She pouted, spinning on a heel. “That’s why you’re cool, though~.”

I stared at her.
Then at Aiko.
Then at the hoodie again, still trying to decode the glyphs of the 00.

Maybe I was overthinking it.
Or maybe I was having a stroke.

“So, what’s the deal?” I asked, blinking the headache away. “You coming back with Aiko today, Chitose-san? We all walking home together?”

Rei threw up her arms in an exaggerated X in front of her face and shook her head.

“Bzzzt! No can do! I’ve got my little sister’s piano recital.
Had to shave an hour off my part-time just to make it!
I just wanted to say hiiii to Shuu-chin with Ai-rin~!”

She beamed like this was a perfectly normal way to drop in.

Despite appearances, Rei Chitose was top of her class.
A sports savant to boot. The apple of the eye for many a sports club.
And, apparently, a painfully responsible big sister in a family with too many kids and not enough hours in the day.

I’d never have believed it—if I hadn’t learned it from Aiko.

Rei turned to her with a knowing grin.
Then looked right at me.

“Aiko, huh? It’s easy to forget you two have always been on first-name terms~,” she said, cupping her cheek in faux surprise. “That’s sooo cute. I’m totally rooting for you two~!”

I choked on my own soul.

Aiko didn’t dignify her height-challenged friend with a reply.
She simply smiled and waved her off.

“Rei’s a good girl,” she said, tone soft but amused.
“Try to put up with her.”

I stood with a yawn, stuffing my notes and barely legible worldbuilding progress into my bag.

“Yeah, yeah. I know that much.”

Aiko huffed—half approval, half playful reprimand—then gestured to the door.

“Shall we?”

“We shall. Your mom always gives me a pastry on Mondays. I really wanna marry he—”

THWACK.

My head rang like a temple bell.

Aiko’s school bag had collided with my skull mid-sentence, disproportional to both its size and her moral outrage.

“Creep.”

We passed through the swinging front doors and stepped into the afternoon air—warmer now, the bite of morning replaced by the buzz of freedom.

And that’s when I saw her.

Standing there like she’d never left.

Same green eyes. Same pointed ears.
Same expression of judgmental smugness with a side of oblivious confidence.

The girl I’d abandoned at a police station a week and some change ago.

At least she wasn’t wearing the forgotten concept of modesty anymore.
But she was, in fact, staring directly into my soul.

This isn’t happening right now.

Right?

Next Time: The Abandoned Elf-san & Endless Misunderstandings!
(Also, maybe an apology. Probably.)