Chapter 1:
Prologue: The Entropy of Youth and the Myth of My Sexuality
The Unwanted Harem
Normality is a matter of statistics. If you take a sufficiently large sample of high school students, most will fall into the center of the Bell curve: average grades, average ambitions, average love lives. I, Kaito, have always aspired to be the exact point in the center of that curve. The absolute median. The invisible man.
Unfortunately, my life decided to be a statistical anomaly.
My name is Kaito, I am seventeen years old, and I am currently sitting at my desk in Class 2-B, trying to calculate the speed of sound propagation in a room full of crazed hormones.
In front of me, I have an open book: "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics." In reality, inside the dust jacket is Volume 14 of "The Dark Slayer Reborn." It is my only refuge.
"Hey, Kaito-kun! Did you hear?" a mosquito voice echoed into my ears.
I raise my gaze three degrees. A generic classmate nobody is gonna calculate for the rest of the story, NPC #4, is talking to me.
"What?" I reply, trying to keep my tone as flat as possible.
"They say Nakamura-san has been staring at you for ten minutes. Look, she’s over there in the back."
I don’t turn around. I know exactly what is happening.
Rika Nakamura, the "Queen" of the school. Blonde, rich, and with a temperament that would make a honey badger on amphetamines envious. If she is looking at me, the logical options are two:I have something on my face.She is planning a murder, and I am the inconvenient witness."I’m probably reflecting sunlight with my glasses into her eyes," I reply to the NPC. "It’s a common refraction phenomenon. I should move to avoid damage to her retina."
I stand up, close the book, and head for the door. As I pass, I hear the whispers. Those damned whispers.
"Did you see? He didn't even look at her."
"So cold."
"I told you, he doesn't like women. It’s confirmed."
Ah, yes. The Great Misunderstanding.
-
It all started last year.
A girl asked me to meet behind the gym and I agreed to listen to her, but just as she was about to speak, I had a panic attack mixed with food poisoning from the cafeteria curry.
I told her: "Sorry, I have to run, there is unsustainable pressure in my internal piping" and I fled to the bathroom.
Then, voices told me that she cried.
The school interpreted my flight as a stoic rejection. And since I never look at another girl (because prolonged eye contact causes tachycardia and cold sweats), the collective diagnosis was unanimous: Kaito is gay.
Honestly? I never denied it. It is the perfect shield. If they think I’m gay, they don’t expect me to try to flirt. So I can stay alone reading my manga without the social anxiety of having to "be an alpha male." It is a flawless Darwinian survival strategy.
-
I exit into the hallway.
Objective: Library. Obstacles: 300 teenagers. Estimated time: 4 minutes.
As soon as I turn the corner, my internal radar detects danger. A mass of kinetic energy is approaching at high speed from the right side. The floor has just been polished. Reduced friction coefficient.
The object in motion is Sakura Hayashi. Captain of the basketball team, athletic, perpetually sweaty, and known for having no sense of personal space.
"Kaitoooooo!"
The Doppler scream gets closer. Normally, an anime protagonist would stop, turn, and be run over, ending up with his face in the girl's chest.
I am not an anime protagonist. I believe in physics, so I take a calculated side step of forty centimeters to the left.
SWOOOSH.
Sakura brakes with her sneakers, leaving a black skid mark on the floor and stopping three millimeters from my nose. She radiates heat like a broken radiator. "Your Reflexes are sharp as always, huh?" she says, panting with a thirty-two-tooth smile.
"Hayashi-san," I say, stepping back to maintain the "Sanitary Safety Distance" (1.5 meters).
"According to my calculations, you were running at approximately 12 km/h in a crowded hallway. The probability of impact with a first-year student was 85%. It is irresponsible."
She laughs. Why is she laughing? I just listed the risks of head trauma.
She runs a hand through her brown hair, tied in that ponytail that swings like a blunt weapon.
"Always so serious! Listen, after school do you want to..." She stops and then looks at me.
Is she blushing? Why is she blushing? Does she have high blood pressure from running? "...do you want to help me with physics homework? You know, since you’re good with trajectories and stuff."
My brain processes the request. Request: Tutoring. Location: Probably empty classroom or her house. Risk Analysis: Being alone with a popular girl -> Social Anxiety -> Possibility of fainting -> Stuttering -> Public humiliation -> Destruction of the status quo. Response: Negative.
"I’m sorry, Hayashi-san. I have a non-deferrable engagement."
"Really? What do you have to do?" "I have to reorganize my highlighter collection in reverse chromatic order. It is a delicate process."
Sakura blinks. "Highlighters?"
"Yes. The entropy of my stationery has reached critical levels. Good day."
I walk past her, moving rigidly. I feel my heart beating at 120 bpm.
Christ, that was close. Her shoulders were bare. I saw too much skin. If I had stayed there another ten seconds, I probably would have started talking about the chemical composition of her deodorant to cover the silence.
I arrive at the library. Silence. The smell of old paper and dust. Paradise. I sit at my usual table, in the darkest corner, hidden behind the "Geographic Encyclopedias of 1990" section. No one ever comes here. I open my book. I inhale. Finally, peac—
SLAM.
A hand slams onto the table. It is not just any hand. It is a manicured hand, with perfect nails painted pastel pink, but which has just applied a force of at least 50 Newtons on the wooden surface. I slowly raise my eyes.
Rika Nakamura. The Blonde. The Tsundere. The Bettor (although I don't know this yet).
She is looming over me. Her blue eyes stare at me with an intensity I could define as "industrial laser."
She is flanked, strangely, by Mio Fujimoto, the goth girl from 2-C whom I have never heard speak a word, and by Yui Takahashi, the one who painted an unauthorized mural on the principal's car last week.
It is an ambush. My heart rate spikes to 140. Calm down, Kaito. Use logic. What do they want? Money? Notes? Or maybe I inadvertently offended the Nakamura clan?
"I found you," Rika says. Her voice trembles slightly. Anger? Probably anger.
"Technically, I wasn't hiding," I reply, adjusting my glasses. "I am in a public building, during school hours, sitting at a table."
Rika slams her hand on the table again.
Horizontal Kabedon?
"Stop acting superior! Do you think you're better than us just because you’re always quiet and reading those dusty books?"
Behind her, Yui (the art girl) is giggling and blowing bubbles with purple chewing gum.
Mio (the goth) is staring at me. No, she’s staring at my neck. Or maybe my soul. It’s unsettling. Her eyes are two black wells that seem to follow the flow of blood through my veins.
My hands are starting to sweat. Why is she looking at me like that? Has she read something in my medical records?
"Nakamura-san," I say, trying not to look her in the eyes to avoid fainting. "I don't feel superior. I feel tired. If I have offended you in any way, please fill out a formal complaint and leave it in the student council suggestion box."
She turns red. It’s a strange redness. It starts from the ears and goes down to the neck. Transient ischemia? Allergic reaction to library dust?
"I’m not offended, idiot!" she yells. "I just want... I just want to know why you ignore everyone!" She exclaims.
She leans toward me. Too close. I smell the scent of... vanilla? And expensive money.
My brain goes into kernel panic. In an anime, this would be the moment where I realize she is interested. In my reality, this is the prelude to a high-level act of bullying. She wants to intimidate me to take my spot in the library. It is the only logical explanation.
"Listen," I say, standing up abruptly, my voice dropped an octave without realizing. The chair scrapes loudly on the floor.
Rika takes a step back, surprised. "I don't ignore everyone. I select my interactions to maximize energy efficiency. And now, if you’ll excuse me, your presence is altering the microclimate of this corner. The temperature increase could damage the ancient books."
I gather my things and leave. As I walk away, I hear Rika huff in frustration.
"I don't believe it! It's impossible!" she yells to the others. "Did you see? He’s a wall of ice! But it won't end like this. I bet... I mean, I decided that I will break him!"
I don't hear the last part. I am already marching toward the only safe zone left: the boys' bathroom on the third floor, the one with the "Out of Order" sign I put there three months ago to have privacy.
As soon as I lock the cubicle door, I lean against it and slide to the floor. My hands are shaking. "My God," I whisper to the tiled ceiling. "There were three of them. Three girls simultaneously. I almost went into cardiac arrest."
I pull out my phone to check my pulse with the health app. 155 beats per minute. "I have to avoid that hallway," I mutter. "And I have to avoid the library. Maybe I should learn to blend in with the plaster."
Unfortunately, my life decided to be a statistical anomaly.
My name is Kaito, I am seventeen years old, and I am currently sitting at my desk in Class 2-B, trying to calculate the speed of sound propagation in a room full of crazed hormones.
In front of me, I have an open book: "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics." In reality, inside the dust jacket is Volume 14 of "The Dark Slayer Reborn." It is my only refuge.
"Hey, Kaito-kun! Did you hear?" a mosquito voice echoed into my ears.
I raise my gaze three degrees. A generic classmate nobody is gonna calculate for the rest of the story, NPC #4, is talking to me.
"What?" I reply, trying to keep my tone as flat as possible.
"They say Nakamura-san has been staring at you for ten minutes. Look, she’s over there in the back."
I don’t turn around. I know exactly what is happening.
Rika Nakamura, the "Queen" of the school. Blonde, rich, and with a temperament that would make a honey badger on amphetamines envious. If she is looking at me, the logical options are two:I have something on my face.She is planning a murder, and I am the inconvenient witness."I’m probably reflecting sunlight with my glasses into her eyes," I reply to the NPC. "It’s a common refraction phenomenon. I should move to avoid damage to her retina."
I stand up, close the book, and head for the door. As I pass, I hear the whispers. Those damned whispers.
"Did you see? He didn't even look at her."
"So cold."
"I told you, he doesn't like women. It’s confirmed."
Ah, yes. The Great Misunderstanding.
-
It all started last year.
A girl asked me to meet behind the gym and I agreed to listen to her, but just as she was about to speak, I had a panic attack mixed with food poisoning from the cafeteria curry.
I told her: "Sorry, I have to run, there is unsustainable pressure in my internal piping" and I fled to the bathroom.
Then, voices told me that she cried.
The school interpreted my flight as a stoic rejection. And since I never look at another girl (because prolonged eye contact causes tachycardia and cold sweats), the collective diagnosis was unanimous: Kaito is gay.
Honestly? I never denied it. It is the perfect shield. If they think I’m gay, they don’t expect me to try to flirt. So I can stay alone reading my manga without the social anxiety of having to "be an alpha male." It is a flawless Darwinian survival strategy.
-
I exit into the hallway.
Objective: Library. Obstacles: 300 teenagers. Estimated time: 4 minutes.
As soon as I turn the corner, my internal radar detects danger. A mass of kinetic energy is approaching at high speed from the right side. The floor has just been polished. Reduced friction coefficient.
The object in motion is Sakura Hayashi. Captain of the basketball team, athletic, perpetually sweaty, and known for having no sense of personal space.
"Kaitoooooo!"
The Doppler scream gets closer. Normally, an anime protagonist would stop, turn, and be run over, ending up with his face in the girl's chest.
I am not an anime protagonist. I believe in physics, so I take a calculated side step of forty centimeters to the left.
SWOOOSH.
Sakura brakes with her sneakers, leaving a black skid mark on the floor and stopping three millimeters from my nose. She radiates heat like a broken radiator. "Your Reflexes are sharp as always, huh?" she says, panting with a thirty-two-tooth smile.
"Hayashi-san," I say, stepping back to maintain the "Sanitary Safety Distance" (1.5 meters).
"According to my calculations, you were running at approximately 12 km/h in a crowded hallway. The probability of impact with a first-year student was 85%. It is irresponsible."
She laughs. Why is she laughing? I just listed the risks of head trauma.
She runs a hand through her brown hair, tied in that ponytail that swings like a blunt weapon.
"Always so serious! Listen, after school do you want to..." She stops and then looks at me.
Is she blushing? Why is she blushing? Does she have high blood pressure from running? "...do you want to help me with physics homework? You know, since you’re good with trajectories and stuff."
My brain processes the request. Request: Tutoring. Location: Probably empty classroom or her house. Risk Analysis: Being alone with a popular girl -> Social Anxiety -> Possibility of fainting -> Stuttering -> Public humiliation -> Destruction of the status quo. Response: Negative.
"I’m sorry, Hayashi-san. I have a non-deferrable engagement."
"Really? What do you have to do?" "I have to reorganize my highlighter collection in reverse chromatic order. It is a delicate process."
Sakura blinks. "Highlighters?"
"Yes. The entropy of my stationery has reached critical levels. Good day."
I walk past her, moving rigidly. I feel my heart beating at 120 bpm.
Christ, that was close. Her shoulders were bare. I saw too much skin. If I had stayed there another ten seconds, I probably would have started talking about the chemical composition of her deodorant to cover the silence.
I arrive at the library. Silence. The smell of old paper and dust. Paradise. I sit at my usual table, in the darkest corner, hidden behind the "Geographic Encyclopedias of 1990" section. No one ever comes here. I open my book. I inhale. Finally, peac—
SLAM.
A hand slams onto the table. It is not just any hand. It is a manicured hand, with perfect nails painted pastel pink, but which has just applied a force of at least 50 Newtons on the wooden surface. I slowly raise my eyes.
Rika Nakamura. The Blonde. The Tsundere. The Bettor (although I don't know this yet).
She is looming over me. Her blue eyes stare at me with an intensity I could define as "industrial laser."
She is flanked, strangely, by Mio Fujimoto, the goth girl from 2-C whom I have never heard speak a word, and by Yui Takahashi, the one who painted an unauthorized mural on the principal's car last week.
It is an ambush. My heart rate spikes to 140. Calm down, Kaito. Use logic. What do they want? Money? Notes? Or maybe I inadvertently offended the Nakamura clan?
"I found you," Rika says. Her voice trembles slightly. Anger? Probably anger.
"Technically, I wasn't hiding," I reply, adjusting my glasses. "I am in a public building, during school hours, sitting at a table."
Rika slams her hand on the table again.
Horizontal Kabedon?
"Stop acting superior! Do you think you're better than us just because you’re always quiet and reading those dusty books?"
Behind her, Yui (the art girl) is giggling and blowing bubbles with purple chewing gum.
Mio (the goth) is staring at me. No, she’s staring at my neck. Or maybe my soul. It’s unsettling. Her eyes are two black wells that seem to follow the flow of blood through my veins.
My hands are starting to sweat. Why is she looking at me like that? Has she read something in my medical records?
"Nakamura-san," I say, trying not to look her in the eyes to avoid fainting. "I don't feel superior. I feel tired. If I have offended you in any way, please fill out a formal complaint and leave it in the student council suggestion box."
She turns red. It’s a strange redness. It starts from the ears and goes down to the neck. Transient ischemia? Allergic reaction to library dust?
"I’m not offended, idiot!" she yells. "I just want... I just want to know why you ignore everyone!" She exclaims.
She leans toward me. Too close. I smell the scent of... vanilla? And expensive money.
My brain goes into kernel panic. In an anime, this would be the moment where I realize she is interested. In my reality, this is the prelude to a high-level act of bullying. She wants to intimidate me to take my spot in the library. It is the only logical explanation.
"Listen," I say, standing up abruptly, my voice dropped an octave without realizing. The chair scrapes loudly on the floor.
Rika takes a step back, surprised. "I don't ignore everyone. I select my interactions to maximize energy efficiency. And now, if you’ll excuse me, your presence is altering the microclimate of this corner. The temperature increase could damage the ancient books."
I gather my things and leave. As I walk away, I hear Rika huff in frustration.
"I don't believe it! It's impossible!" she yells to the others. "Did you see? He’s a wall of ice! But it won't end like this. I bet... I mean, I decided that I will break him!"
I don't hear the last part. I am already marching toward the only safe zone left: the boys' bathroom on the third floor, the one with the "Out of Order" sign I put there three months ago to have privacy.
As soon as I lock the cubicle door, I lean against it and slide to the floor. My hands are shaking. "My God," I whisper to the tiled ceiling. "There were three of them. Three girls simultaneously. I almost went into cardiac arrest."
I pull out my phone to check my pulse with the health app. 155 beats per minute. "I have to avoid that hallway," I mutter. "And I have to avoid the library. Maybe I should learn to blend in with the plaster."
---------
The poor Kaito didn't know, at that moment, sitting on the cold floor of a school bathroom, that his logic wouldn't had saved him. He didn't know that Rika had just lost 50,000 Yen in a preliminary bet with Sakura on who would make him blush first. He didn't know that Mio Fujimoto had decided his "dark aura" was perfect for her rituals. He didn't know that Yui Takahashi had just decided he was her new blank canvas.
He thought I was a simple student with social anxiety, mistaken for gay.
But, In reality , He was about to become the protagonist of an Unwanted Harem, and his only weapon would be his total, desperate inability to understand what the hell they were trying to do.
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