School Daze

I woke up with a sharp pain in my jaw. As I slowly opened my eyes and looked around, I could see that Trash-Chan had tossed and turned so much in her sleep she was now laying perpendicular to me. In her sleep, she had kicked in my direction and landed a blow to my face. I sat up while rubbing my jaw. My little sister had rolled to the wall away from us. At least she wasn't the one getting kicked.

Our little apartment wasn't big enough for a bed. Heck, it was barely big enough for one person. Two people were already pushing the limited space. We normally had a small table set in the middle of the room. When it was time to sleep, we rolled out a futon we had rolled up in the closet and moved the table to the side.

I knew that there wouldn't be enough space for all three of us. Our apartment was so small and worn that it might be more apt to describe it as a cardboard box. The only difference between it and a cardboard box is that the rent for the box was higher.

I stood up and carefully walked to the kitchen. It was only about two steps away. I grabbed a cup and began to fill it with water from the tap. The sound seemed to wake up my sister, as she started to push herself up.

"Good morning, big brother," she grumbled.

"Good morning." I looked over to Trash-Chan. She was happily sleeping away.

"What time is it?" my sister asked.

"Probably about time to get ready for school," I answered. We were both pretty consistent at waking up at just the right time to get to school. It was fortunate since we were unable to set an alarm. The neighbors had complained the last time the alarm went off and woke them. The walls were just too thin in the apartment.

My sister grabbed a change of clothes and her school bag and walked out the front door. She gave a small wave to say goodbye as she left. We had neither a bath nor room to change in, so we would go to the bathhouse every morning to bathe and head straight to school after.

I grabbed my uniform and school supplies. Trash-Chan was still sleeping peacefully on the floor. Should I just leave her here? I pulled out a paper and wrote a simple note. 'Went to school. Be back later.'

With that, I dropped the paper on the floor by her head and left. The door didn't want to close all the way and I had to shake it to get it shut. Trash-Chan still seemed to sleep through all the noise. She sure was a heavy sleeper.

My bath was uneventful. I quickly bathed and changed and began my walk to school. The walk was rather quiet at this time in the morning. I always made sure to leave early enough so that I could avoid running into people. My path was laid out for similar results. I avoided the main streets where people would congregate as much as possible.

"Main-Kun!" A shout interrupted my peaceful morning walk. I sighed and turned around. There was no one there. That was strange. I knew I had heard Trash-Chan's voice. I turned back around and there she was. She stood staring at me with a frown and her cheeks puffed. I jumped back.

How did she get there? I know I had heard her yell from behind. Did she run past me as I turned around? How she did it didn't matter that much. She was here now.

"What is it Trash-Chan?"

"How could you leave me and just go to school alone!" she asked. It was a fair enough question. Typically, a waifu would go with a person to school. Usually, once a child started going to school, the waifu would accompany them throughout the day instead of going with the parents. When I was much younger, my parent's waifu would typically accompany me to school. It certainly helped me get attached to her as a child... and only made it hurt more when she left with my mother.

"If you wanted to go to school with someone, why don't you go with my sister?"

"I can't do that, Main-Kun. Besides, Sister-Sama would just tell me to go with you anyway."

Trash-Chan was probably right about that. My sister had been surprisingly happy when she saw Trash-Chan. I could see her telling Trash-Chan to go to school with me. Still, I didn't consider Trash-Chan my waifu. I did not want to bring her to school if I could help it.

"Well, why don't you spend some time exploring the city? We have plenty of sights to see."

"Do you expect me to see the sights every day you go to school?"

"There's other stuff you could do after you've seen them all."

"Main-Kun, I'm going to school with you. You might as well get over it now," she said in a tone that sounded like she was teasing, but her face said she wouldn't back down. I might as well give up. She wouldn't be tagging along with me as my waifu for long. I just had to find someone willing to take her. It might be for the best. There were plenty of people without a waifu at the school that might be interested.

"Fine, come on." My voice sounded more defeated than I wanted to convey. I waved for her to walk with me. She happily walked along with me to school.

We walked through the quiet streets until we reached my school. It was nothing too special. I think the average amount of students in the school was around 400 to 500 divided between all three grades. That might be wrong, I didn't care to memorize the number.

"Wow, so this is your school?" Trash-Chan asked as we walked into the building. She seemed generously curious.

"Never been to a school?" I asked. She looked up and down the halls and closely at every small detail. She had clearly never been in one before.

"I haven't, how did you know?" she asked in a surprised tone.

"Just a guess."

We walked to my classroom. She eagerly looked at everything along the way. She looked at every poster. She looked into every room. She looked out every window. Trash-Chan seemed like she was about my age, so it was a little strange that she never saw a school. A waifu retained memories from the source they originated from. Trash-Chan should be no exception. Does this mean she didn't go to school in whatever her source was?

I did spend most of the time after we won the war trying to track down where Trash-Chan had come from. I had no such luck in finding anything, no matter where I looked. I looked at anime, games, manga, etc. I could find nothing with a character named Trash-Chan. Yet, she shows up in the waifu app. She was certainly an enigma. I debated posting a picture of her online to ask where she came from, but I decided against it.

We entered the classroom. She happily charged in and began to look around the room. She looked closely at the chalkboard. She looked closely at the desks. She pressed her face against the window. Trash-Chan bounced around the room looking at everything there was to look at.

My desk was in the back corner of the room, closest to the window. I walked over and sat in it while Trash-Chan continued to happily look at everything. The desks in school were designed to sit two. They were like the old school desks, with a table that contained a place underneath to store school supplies and a hard chair to sit on. However, the tables were about twice as long as they had once been, and a small bench was provided to sit on in place of a chair. This, of course, was to allow for a waifu that had come to school to have a place to sit as well.

I sat on my bench and Trash-Chan quickly slid in next to me.

"This place is amazing!" she said with sparkles in her milky white eyes.

I looked down at Trash-Chan's attire. The same garbage dress that she had worn when we met. I had not considered it before, but I should have stopped at the faculty office to get her a uniform. It would probably be for the best. The other waifus in class would be wearing our schools' uniform and I did not want her to stand out.

"Wait here a moment."

I slipped out of the bench and walked out of the room. Getting the uniform was easy, they had extras set out so that students could pick them up for new waifus whenever they needed. They just laid them out in front of the office, I didn't even have to go inside and awkwardly talk to a teacher about why I needed one. I returned and handed the uniform to Trash-Chan without saying anything. Her eyes lit up when she saw it.

"Go-" I started to say, but I didn't get to finish. Trash-Chan appeared to look like a blur for a moment, then she was sitting at the desk in the school uniform. Her old clothes were neatly folded and placed on the desk.

I looked at my now empty hand. She had pulled it from my grip and changed in a matter of microseconds, perhaps nanoseconds. She now wore our school uniform. The uniform was a simple white sailor uniform with red accents. A black bow was tied around the top and a green, short skirt completed the uniform. She kept her green hair tied up in the same ponytail held in place by the bread clip. The boy's uniform was similarly colored with a white and red top, a black tie, and green slacks.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"You look... fine." I wasn't exactly sure how to reply to her question. I only looked out the window as I slid back into the bench. I suppose she looked good in the uniform.

People were beginning to walk into the school from the front. It was about the normal time for people to start arriving. I was the only one strange enough to get here this early before the school day.

In no time at all, the other students in my class began to walk into the room and take their seats. Some with waifus and some without. Our school was one of the few that accepted students with all tiers of waifus, or even none at all. There were plenty of schools that accepted only people with S or A tier waifus or B and C tier. There were of course schools that only took in people with no waifus or only the lower tiers.

My school was originally a school that only accepted people with D or higher tier waifus. My sister and I were originally enrolled in the lower grade portions of the school. That was when our parents had their waifu. When she left, we were at risk of being kicked out. Fortunately, we had some friends within the school that supported us, so that we could stay in. Eventually, the school board decided to allow people with all tiers, or none, to enroll. The change was not due to me, however, but rather the declining enrollment rate for the school.

The class was beginning to fill up. Among those that walked in, was an old friend of mine. Osana Tomo was a girl I had known since grade school. She had long black hair that fell to her shoulders and a laugh that could kill you with how sweet it was. I felt a jab in my side. I looked to Trash-Chan, who smiled at me with a twisted, devious smile.

"Who's she?" she asked me in a playful tone.

"No one." I turned away and looked out the window.

"A friend of yours perhaps. Or maybe, someone you're interested in?" Trash-Chan kept going on. I couldn't see her face, but I knew she still had the same smile.

"An old friend, Tomo-San, we haven't talked in a while..."

"Oh, a childhood friend." I felt Trash-Chan starting to stand up from the bench. I quickly turned around and grabbed her arm.

"Trash-Chan, don't," I said firmly. She sighed and settled into the bench.

"And here I was trying to help you."

I looked at Tomo-San again. As usual, she was accompanied by Estouls. I had known Estouls for a long time as well. Estouls was the perfect image of what a waifu should look like. Long, pink hair was braided down into a ponytail with a black bow tied at the end. The only thing about Estouls was, he was a husbando. A very pretty husbando.

"Tai-San!" A voice caught my attention. I turned to look in the direction it had come from. Shin Naka came running across the room, catching the attention of everyone in the class. He banged a hand on my desk and intensely pointed at Trash-Chan with the other.

"Who's this?" He practically yelled.

"Uh, her name's Trash-Chan," I answered Shin-San.

I suppose Shin-San could be described as my best friend. He was my only friend. He was a tall guy with short, spiky blonde hair. He did have a waifu, but she was not here at the moment. She would alternate who she went to school with between him and his four other siblings. Of his siblings, he was the oldest one. We had first met and gotten along since we had little sisters in the same grade that were also friends.

"Is... Is she your waifu?" Shin-San could not hide his disbelief. It seemed he, like my sister, was surprised that Trash-Chan would bother being with me. His outburst had gotten the attention of the whole class, who all now looked in my direction. Trash-Chan happily waved at them and I looked away to the window.

"Excuse me. Naka-San. Juyo-San. Could I start class?" Our homeroom teacher had entered the room without anyone noticing. Shin-San made a polite bow and returned to his desk. Before he did, however, he whispered:

"Introduce me properly later."

It was clear that I would have to introduce Trash-Chan to Shin-San later. By some of the looks I continued to get, there were plenty of others interested in her as well. I began to focus on what our teacher was talking about. For a second, I thought I saw Estouls looking in our direction in addition to all the other eyes on us. I decided to ignore it.

The class went fairly fast. It was already lunch before I even realized it. I was immediately surrounded before I could escape.

"Who are you?"

"What's your name?"

"What tier are you?"

"Why did you want to be his waifu?"

"Where did you find a waifu?"

"Was there a recent draft?"

"Isn't this guy a loser?"

"Are you going to compete in the wars?"

"What abilities do you have."

We were bombarded with questions all at once. I think some of them may have been insulting, but I couldn't make out a word as they all went at the same time. Trash-Chan chuckled. She jumped onto my desk.

"Hello everyone, I'm Trash-Chan, the trash tier waifu. Main-Kun and I will be getting to the top of the waifu wars together!" she proudly declared with her hands on her hips.

The crowd began to mutter to themselves. I caught some words like "trash tier" among the murmurs. Then the crowd dispersed. Only Shin-San stood there with his arms folded behind his head.

"Hmm, Trash-Chan. You sure found an interesting waifu, Tai-San," he said. He stretched out his hand to Trash-Chan. "Nice to meet you, I'm Shin Naka. I guess I'm this guy's best friend," Shin-San said with a smile. Trash-Chan happily jumped off my desk and greeted Shin with a handshake.

"Nice to meet you, Best Friend-Kun, I'm glad to see Main-Kun has such a good friend," she said with a smile.

"Best friend-Kun? Main-Kun?" Shin looked at me questioningly.

"It seems to be how she is, just let it go," I said. I had picked up on it before, but Trash-Chan never had said my name or my sisters' name. Based on what she was calling Shin-San, it seemed like she just addressed people in her own way.

"Wow, Juyo-San. I can't believe you got a waifu." I felt a friendly smack on my back. It still stung a little though. I turned around.

"Estouls!" I exclaimed. I had not seen when he got behind me. I turned back to where Tomo-San was sitting, she was turned so her back was toward me while slowly eating her bento. I looked back to Estouls' smiling face.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Should you be talking to me?"

"Oh, it's fine now. I just wanted to say congratulations on finding a waifu, and an interesting one no less." He smiled at Trash-Chan. She smiled back.

"Nice to meet you, how do you know Main-Kun?" she asked.

"Oh, the Miss and he go way back."

"Ah, do you have any good stories then?" Trash-Chan leaped out of the bench over its back and eagerly looked at Estouls.

"Hmm, you want some good stories. Like what?" Estouls asked while pretending not to understand what Trash-Chan was after. His smile gave him away.

"Like something he would want to keep secret."

"Oh, well. There was this one time..." Estouls leaned over and began to whisper to Trash-Chan. She had a devious smile as he spoke, and she started uncontrollably giggling when he finished.

"He didn't... haha... I can't believe you Main-Kun." She continued laughing.

"Hey. Tai-Kun, you didn't tell me you knew Tomo-San." Shin-San leaned in close to whisper to me as Estouls began to whisper another story to Trash-Chan. I probably should not have let those two meet.

"Yeah, we used to get along back in the day... but that was a couple of years ago."

"Man, you never told me. Do you think you could introduce me sometime?"

"I don't think I can, it's been years since we last spoke..."

"Ah, that's too bad." Shin's head hung down. Tomo-San was a popular girl in our school, so I could understand his disappointment. Trash-Chan began to giggle as Estouls finished another story.

"Excuse me, you... four. Could I start class?" Once again, our teacher had entered without us noticing. We all politely bowed and sat down in our respective seats.

The rest of the school day went on relatively quickly. The bell rang before long and I was the first out of the door, pulling Trash-Chan along with me.

"Wait- Wait Main-Kun. I wanted to talk to Estouls more about your past," she complained as we went down the hall.

"All the more reason to leave right away."

I exited the school building with Trash-Chan behind me. It was still no use. They were waiting outside again. The two of them with their F-tier waifus. They gave a twisted grin when they saw me.

"Look at this, he went and got himself a waifu."

"Hah, looks like some weak ass waifu on top of that." They chuckled to themselves.

"Hey, Main-Kun, who are these bald and ugly looking delinquent fellows."

"Ugly?"

"Bald?" They apparently took offense at what Trash-Chan said. To be honest, who wouldn't.

In this situation, I should say something along the lines of 'now, now, we don't want any trouble'. I wasn't sure if I wanted to though. I kind of wanted to tell them off and leave. But it would be foolish to stand up for me now that I had a waifu here. If I wanted to stand up to them, I should have done so long before I ever met Trash-Chan. Still, I was feeling a little defiant today.

"Trash-Chan, don't interfere." I walked up to Ugly and Baldy... was Trash-Chan starting to rub off on me? Ugly grabbed my shirt and held me in the air.

"Glad to see you still get the routine," he spat in my face.

"Sorry, Ugly, but I can't give you any money today," I said calmly. There was no going back now.

"No, Main-Kun, that one's Baldy, Ugly's the other one."

"What are you talking about? Ugly here only has a shaved head, Baldy over there is clearly the one with a receding hairline." I turned my head around to look at Trash-Chan while being held up in the air by Ugly. Baldy had begun to cover up his hairline with his hands.

"Hmm, I guess you're right." Trash-Chan agreed with me after giving it some thought.

I was thrown onto the ground. The duo backed up and their waifus stepped forward.

"Make sure they can't walk again."

"Drag out how long they hurt." The duo of Ugly and Baldy yelled from behind their F-Tier waifus. Trash-Chan laughed and began to step forward. I put my arm out to stop her. I did not intend to rely on her after aggravating them. I would have to face the consequences of my actions here. It was long overdue. I struggled to make rent payments a couple of times due to these two. I couldn't afford to get my sister a new bag when she needed one due to these two. I was late to work on multiple occasions due to these two. I should have stood up to them long ago, Trash-Chan or no Trash-Chan.

The F-tier waifus started by each throwing out a capsule. An orange winged salamander appeared out of one and a blue ninjutsu frog out of the other.

I see. I had not known what source they were from before, but this was a dead giveaway. I hadn't recognized them, so I imagine they were some side characters that only appeared in a single episode. This made it somewhat easy to win, however. All I had to do was land a blow on the waifus themselves. Since they relied on monsters to fight, they should be physically average, compared to a normal person at the least.

To be honest, Trash-Chan could probably defeat them before any of us even had time to process it. It would only take one word from me. I shook my head. I would not give in so easily.

"Hah, the fool intends to fight them alone."

"That waifu of his must be weak. I guess being his waifu, she'd have to be." The duo goaded me. I took a deep breath as a crowd was beginning to form.

I charged forward at the monsters. The orange monster shot a stream of fire at me from its mouth. The blue one threw water kunai at me. I slid across the ground, like sliding to home plate, to avoid the attacks. The monsters were not prepared as I quickly pushed myself from the ground and ran between them.

I charged at one of the waifus with my fist held close to my chest, ready to strike. I threw it forward using all of the momenta of my charge, the waifu simply ducked to avoid my fist. In a fluid motion, she spun and delivered a kick to my chest. I fell back and landed on the ground.

"Did you really think that would work?" Baldy laughed.

"He thought he could take on a waifu." Ugly added.

"I know some waifus are weak, but you're mistaken if you think we are as well." The waifu that had kicked me said.

"We kind of have to be, to protect these idiots." The second waifu said in agreement.

"Hey, don't say that." Ugly exclaimed.

"I mean they always go around and start fights; you don't think you're the first person to try attacking us directly do you?"

"I see," I pushed myself off the ground. I turned back to look at the monsters who simply nodded in agreement. I hadn't had any sort of winning strategy; they probably could have hit me directly from the beginning but only missed on purpose. I was only human. "So, you don't want to fight?" Maybe they would be willing to let us go.

"No, we don't mind beating you up."

"We just wanted to make sure you understood that you had no chance." The waifus turned back to the duo who gave thumbs up of approval. They turned back to me with clear killing intent in their eyes. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Should I turn to Trash-Chan? I looked back at her. She had her Trash-Whip out, ready to strike when I gave the okay. I sighed.

"Don't worry, Tai-San! I've already called Junkers; she's flying over right now!" Shin-San broke through the crowd to yell to me. It would be of no use. Junkers was not going to be able to get here in time, no matter how fast she was. Still, I had not expected to get any help if I ever faced these two. It made me happy to see he was a good friend in these final moments before I was brutally murdered by these waifus.

I looked back at the two waifus. I was ready to go down, but not without a fight. I would get as far as I could and let Trash-Chan take care of the rest. I put up my fists as their monsters walked up directly behind me.

"You don't learn, do you?" One waifu said with a shrug.

"It's a shame, he has one of those cute, bland protagonist faces. I didn't want to bloody it up too much." The other waifu said with a sigh.

I would use myself as a distraction and call on Trash-Chan to finish it. This was the only way I was getting out of here. Honestly, it pained me to rely on Trash-Chan to clean up my messes, but I would have to rely on her here. I sighed and began to charge forward at one of the waifus. They smirked as I came forward. I picked the other one, that I had not tried to attack before. She readied herself in a defensive stance, only for me to run past her.

It was made clear before I would not be able to hit them, but I would have a chance at Ugly and Baldy behind them. I connected my fist to Baldy's face. He went down with a single blow while Ugly began to back away. I turned to Ugly and took a step forward. In an instant, the monsters were between him and me. All attention was on me. Now I only needed a way to signal Trash-Chan.

It occurred to me that I had no way to signal her. Perhaps I should have come up with a signal that only we recognized. Perhaps I should have let her fight to begin with. It was too late to worry about all that now. I opened my mouth to yell but was interrupted before I could speak.

"You all look like you're having fun!" A gust of wind came from the sky. We all looked up. Estouls was sitting atop a griffin, and he was holding a large, golden lance. "Do you care if I join in?"

The griffin landed on the ground and Estouls slid off. He patted it while sliding off, then pointed his lance at Ugly.

"Who are you?" Ugly stammered.

"I just saw this fight and thought it was a lot of fun. Do you not want me to join? Don't worry, I will only pay them back twice as much as they gave my friend here? How much did they hurt you by the way?" Estouls spoke with a smile.

"I got kicked in the chest," I said without thinking. What was he doing here? I was not sure why he had come to my aid.

The waifus returned their monsters to the capsules. They ran over and each picked up a member of the duo. They didn't say a word as they ran off but gave a nasty glare while they carried them away.

"Well, looks like that is taken care of," Estouls said as he smacked me in my back, "Good to see you finally standing up for yourself too!"

"Ow... Estouls, what are you doing?"

"Hey, I was just acting on orders. I couldn't help you out until you tried fighting back."

"Orders?"

"Estouls, it's time to go," Tomo-San appeared out of the now dissipating crowd. She didn't look at me as she walked past me.

"I'm glad you're okay," I thought I heard her whisper, but I couldn't be sure. She climbed onto the griffin. Estouls gave me a goofy grin as he jumped onto the griffin as well. It flapped its large wings and flew into the air.

"Hey man, glad to see you didn't die." Shin-San came up behind me and gave me a thumbs up.

"I'm glad I didn't die either..."

"Idiot!" I heard a shout as I felt a sudden blow to my head. Trash-Chan had just chopped me.

"Ow, why did you do that?"

"Why would you try to take on waifus alone? I never want you to do that again! I will do all the fighting from now on!" She shouted at me.

"If you were so worried about it, why didn't you step in sooner?" I shouted back.

"Well... it seemed like you needed to fight for yourself for a little while, I figured I would step in before they hurt you too bad..." she said softly while pressing her index fingers together. I sighed and regained my composure.

"Alright, thank you for letting me fight. I promise I won't fight any more waifus." I said calmly. She smiled and embraced me in a hug.

"Tai-Kun!" A voice yelled from the sky. The sound of approaching plane engines came toward us. We all looked up as a waifu came flying straight down to us. She wore a yellow and military green pilots' uniform with long, silver hair. Around her body was a sort of small mecha looking device that resembled WW2 era aesthetics. The device disappeared and the waifu gracefully landed right next to Shin-San. Her tall and thick frame towered over him.

"Shin-Kun, where are the people causing trouble for my Tai-Kun? I'll take care of them myself." She began to crack her knuckles as she spoke.

"Actually Junkers, it was already taken care of..."

"Eh. Ehhh! But I came all this way to bust some heads!" Junkers exclaimed.

"Let's just go home for now..." Shin-San gently pushed Junkers along. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said with a wave goodbye to me.

"Main-Kun. Who was that?"

"I'll introduce you later..." I said with a sigh. I didn't want to introduce Trash-Chan to Junkers, but it seemed like it couldn't be helped. "Let's just go home for now. I'm sure my sister has started dinner already. Trash-Chan and I headed home.