Rentarou Kawashima

“Oh, how I wish that I could have been born at least a little bit talented in something,” I thought to myself as we were segregated into groups of six for Kotobuki High School’s school trip, and I landed in the same group as the person I like, Aya Yamamoto, who is the ace striker of our school’s girls’ soccer team, always ranks in the top five academically, and has received tons of offers for modelling gigs.
On the other hand, I am barely tall enough to qualify as a high school student, the only sports that I am decent at are inside video games, and I barely avoid a failing grade every single test. Yeah, let me spell it out for you, I am an entirely unremarkable person, so much so that the people in school call me ‘Background Noise.’ “Yikes! Why is the ‘Background Noise’ in Aya’s group?” asked Kei Sawamura, the ace pitcher of Kotobuki High’s baseball team, who had a thing for Aya despite having been rejected by her on multiple occasions, clearly unhappy with how the groups had been divided, or rather, seeing me in Aya’s group instead of him.
“Oh, please Sawamura, you know Aya wouldn’t want to be in your group anyway,” teased Aya’s best friend, Haru, and the class erupted into laughter. “Not to mention, the ‘Background Noise’ is surely not gonna try anything funny, so we will be able to enjoy the trip to the fullest without a single worry,” Haru added, looking at me teasingly.
“I do agree with that. I mean, not because I think that he is not manly or capable, but because he is more disciplined with girls than Kei,” Aya said with a giggle, her words almost making me cry. I mean, my crush just said something akin to ‘He may not seem reliable, but you will see when it counts,’ and fine, you may say I might have been overthinking things, but you tend to, especially someone as low on confidence as me. And maybe someone might think that I should try doing my best to improve; to focus on that one thing I admire the most. However, unfortunately, the one thing I admire the most in this world actually does not exist outside of fantasy books, which is magic.
“Oh, Gods, why did you not bless me with a single talent of my own? Did you really just forget, like how they say when they tease me? More so, why did you give me an inclination for a thing that does not exist in this world?” Those were my thoughts as the class chatted along, discussing the interesting school trip up ahead.

-----X-----X-----X-----

On the day of the trip, we were all seated in the bus and good to go. It was a trip to a mountain range in order to study the mountainous ecosystem. But the uninteresting part was the report we had been told to write after having observed the ecosystem on this trip.
Our group of six was sitting together on the bus when Kei suddenly appeared and pulled me out of my seat to claim it for himself, for the simple reason that my seat was right behind Aya’s. “Hey, at least have some decency to treat him like a human,” Haru scolded Kei. “We may make fun of him for his—well, unblessed talent—but that does not mean we start treating him like trash.”
“Come on, you know he wouldn’t mind letting go of his seat for a star like me, especially since my soon-to-be girlfriend is sitting right in front,” Kei retorted.
“Me? Your girlfriend? Not gonna happen, and even if it did, that does not give you the right to take away his seat forcefully,” Aya replied.
“Alright, fine,” Kei said, getting back up and, although with a scowl on his face, pulled me up too. “Have your seat, ‘Background Noise.’”

-----X-----X-----X-----

That afternoon, we were studying crevice-nesting birds on a cliff. It looked dangerous, but there was a thick railing making sure no one stooped too far forward and fell off. It was quite a hike, but there were rest stops along the way with all kinds of vending machines too. “Hey guys, I am gonna go get something to drink from the nearest resting spot, need anything?” I asked.
“An orange juice, please,” Haru requested.
“A soda for me,” said Aya.
“Alright, be back soon,” I said and ran off to get the drinks. But by the time I got back it seemed that Kei had approached Aya, and they were arguing about something, and Kei was getting more and more frustrated by the minute. “Probably another rejection to another proposal,” I thought as I continued to hike towards them, when he just lost it and shoved Aya backwards.
And then it happened. Aya hit the rusty railing, and it gave way, and Aya fell down the cliff. Shocked by the scene, I rushed towards the edge horrified, while Kei just up and ran away. When I peered over the edge, I found Aya hanging onto some overhang, so I reached out to her in order to pull her up.
With sheer willpower and determination to save my crush, I pushed through and managed to pull her up. But having lost my strength from pulling Aya up, my other hand on the edge of the cliff slipped, and I started to fall off the cliff, but the teacher, who had seen everything from a distance, reached just in time to catch me and save me from falling.

-----X-----X-----X-----

That night, the teacher had thoroughly reprimanded Kei for what had happened and what could have happened, and praised me for doing what I did to save Aya. Apparently Kei had some dirt on Haru, which made her leave Kei and Aya alone to ‘talk things through.’
Aya thanked me with a very generous smile on her face, and for the first time I had a proper one-to-one talk with her, even though she was mostly just thanking me. That is when Kei approached us and called out to me, “Hey, Background Noise, can we have a walk and talk? Look, I want to apologize for everything I have said about you. If not for you, I would be a murderer by now.” So here we were, walking along the forest path having a one-to-one, when I realized that we had reached a beautiful lake. We sat by the lakeshore chatting about how Kei could make up for all the horrible things he had done to me. I was admiring the lake’s beauty in the night light as we chatted when I felt a sudden pain in my stomach. Did I eat something wrong? And why does my back feel like it is suddenly sweating a lot? It had gotten so wet… and sticky.
That is when Kei whispered in my ear as I started to faint, “Aya is mine, and you don’t get to make her fall deeper in love with you. Not anymore.”

-----X-----X-----X-----

I was starting to drift deeper and deeper into the darkness. Was I dying? Was I fainting? Are fainting people capable of thinking to themselves? Well, if I am dying, then I just hope that the Gods will be kinder to me the next time. That, or they can just maybe send me to a world full of magic, a world of fantasy.
And where is that baby crying from? I swear there were no babies at the lake. None that I can remember.
That is when I heard a voice: “It seems you are finally ready.”
Was that God that spoke to me just now? Or was I just hearing things? I was confused and opened my eyes to find myself in the arms of a light-brown-haired woman about twenty-five years of age, and a man with red hair who looked like he was twenty-eight nearby. He approached the woman and me and gave us a gentle smile. “Hey, welcome to this world! Our son, Alex Redcliffe.”