"Sutekimeppou"

We now turn to the perspective of HAYASHI HANZO, a member of the HISTORY CLUB and all-around CYNICAL LOSER who feels THE WORLD OWES HIM SOMETHING with only TWO DAYS UNTIL THE CULTURE FESTIVAL.

Late in the evening, in a classroom filled with streamers, fabric, sewing machines, energy drinks, sexual tension, and all that other good stuff that goes into preparing a play for the biggest culture festival in the world-

“Hey, Yasuda!” two girls in our homeroom of 2-C say to the terror sitting at her desk across from me. “You read a lot, right? You ever read LNs?”

One of the girls holds up the first volume of Reincarnated Into Another World...With Unlimited Mustard???. Yasuda “the Wrath” Junko, laser-focused on cutting decorations out of thick poster paper, doesn’t even look up at them. “Fiction doesn’t count as real reading. To immerse yourself in fictional worlds is nothing more than adle-pated escapism. Light novels even more so. More effort goes into the title than the actual ‘contents’, if you can call it that, of the books. Don’t even get me started on web novels, especially that one web novel about a web novel club. I can only scoff."

The girls slink off, but a moment later, another pair of students approach. “Hey, Yasuda! We’re gonna go to karaoke after this to wind down, wanna come with?”

Yasuda’s fingers tighten around the pair of scissors in her hand. “I find singing shallow and pedantic. Mass-produced schlop designed for the lowest common denominator of society.”

Two more students walk away with their heads lying low. A brave one now approaches. “Um, Yasuda, my friend would like to meet you on the school roof at sunset. He’s a cool guy, I think you should give him a shot.”

Yasuda’s eye twitches. She's still focused on the decorations, but she does tilt her head this time. “Love is merely a construct designed to enforce social conformity. I consider myself a free-thinker, not someone wrapped up in emotion.” She narrows her eyes. “And besides, if your friend were to ask me out, and I were to say yes, the only two possible options are eventually breaking up or remaining together until we die. Can your friend accept the responsibility of taking care of me into my old age? I may age gracefully. I may not.”

This student looks significantly less brave now. “Uh…I’m not sure…”

“Then I will accelerate the inevitable and break up with him now.”

Another reject walks off.

Unlike the rest of the poor fools in my class, Yasuda never makes me leave her. There’s a reason why I get to stick around. 

It’s because my assigned seat in class is in front of hers.

“You really suck,” I remind Yasuda. It’s not the first time I’ve told her. “It’s a good thing you rock that sailor fuku, otherwise, you’d have nothing going for you.”

The Wrath simply snorts. “You are concentrated sexism, Hayashi Hanzo. Pulp in orange juice, rocks in a shoe, a red-headed step-child in a family of Alabama Evangelicals with an alcoholic father who lost his factory job in Birmingham due to international outsourcing.”

“That’s very specific.”

There’s a reason why I choose to stick around, however. It’s not just because my seat is here. It’s because she’s hot.

I first met Yasuda at the start of the semester - she sits behind me, after all. She’s short, the shortest person in the class in fact, with dark eyes matching the shade of her brunette hair, which she lets fall down to her shoulders. I, of course, immediately fell in love with her, as I do with any woman who makes eye contact and friendly conversation with me. Well, Yasuda didn’t do either of those, but her looks were enough. I'm thin and lanky and "fish-eyed" as the bullies in middle school called me, but I like to think my pure spirit will one day earn the heart of a manic pixie dream girl. Would Yasuda be that girl?

Approximately seven hours later, when I asked her out, I had already named our three future children, but I was flatly rejected by her on the school rooftop.

By the next morning, I had already written her off in favor of the lovable goofball first-year named Saito Michi (who also rejected me). Feeling adrift in a sea of loneliness, I decided to join a club (and because it’s mandatory). The History Club seemed alright - ideally, it would involve a group of quiet introverts led by a rambunctious, boisterous, femdom club president who would save me from own cynicism and reintroduce me to the joys of life I once knew, back when I was a gifted student, before the burnout set in. Perhaps there would be a quiet girl with glasses in the club as well, and I’d be torn between the two, forced to make a heart-wrenching decision over which girl to spend the rest of my life with.

Unfortunately, rather than the girls of my dreams, I ended up with President Miyata Miyuki and Yasuda Junko.

“Look at this,” Yasuda commands, her voice radiating pure smugness. I have nothing better to do, so I look. She holds up a circle carved out of red poster paper. “A perfect circle. 360 degrees, exact. No compass, no contractor, only my talent.” She slides the circle onto my desk, then crosses her arms and looks off into the distance, out the window where a blood-red sunset is slowly marching forward across the sky. “Had I been born two thousand years ago, I’d be Julius Caesar. Had I been born five hundred years ago, I’d be Leonardo da Vinci. But since I was born now, I am Yasuda Junko.”

“Quite some company to put yourself with.”

“I have never told a lie, Hayashi Hanzo. Those are my equivalents in stature and skill, as are Tokugawa Ieyasu and Clark Gable."

I raise an eyebrow. “I see you’ve taken my advice about humility then.”

“The only thing you ‘see’ is me naked,” Yasuda complains. She gazes at me in disdain, using her index fingers and thumbs to form a square around one of her eyes. “I know whenever you sit there, you’re mentally undressing me. Feet-first, perhaps. You seem like you’re into that.”

“Whenever I sit here? I always sit here.”

“I know.” Yasuda grimaces. She squirms in her seat in disgust. “How pathetic. To desire me for my body, rather than my personality. To see me only as a piece of meat, rather than someone who’s intellectually stimulating.”

I shrug. I don’t deny the accusation. “There’s a reason why they call you ‘the Wrath’.”

“I am not without mercy,” thundered she who was notoriously without mercy. “Just don’t be stupid, and we’ll get along fine. Problem is, stupidity is epidemic nowadays.”

Perhaps that’s why I get to stick around. Perhaps that’s why I stick around. Because Yasuda and I can certainly agree on that. To quote a great thinker - I’ll be rich and famous one day, but for now I’m stuck in school with a bunch of morons.

I look around the classroom. The class rep and all her friends are practicing their parts in Romeo & Juliet. Of course, the most popular girl in class is Juliet, while the star student on the soccer team is Romeo. They’re not dating, but the class thinks they oughta be, so everyone snickers and tee-hees and blushes and pats them on the back in support of the class’s one true pairing. They’re all living their youth - but they just don’t get it. I feel like I’m the only one who gets it. All these stupid song-dance routines to have a golden high school life - it’s all so fake. These asshats would drop you at the drop of a hat if it made themselves look better. 

How people perceive you - it’s everything to them. Nobody’s real. To quote another great thinker - it’s all so phony.

In any case, nobody tee-hees louder than Saito Fumi, who leads a rival history club, but she’s cute so I hold no ill-will towards her. She’s working backstage, same as Yasuda and I, but she sticks to the other side of the room, orbiting around the class rep, pretending to be part of their friend group and feel like she’s not missing out on that golden high school life. I mean, it's clear that everybody acts fake towards her. Just look at what they say:

"Hey, Fuumi, wanna eat lunch tomorrow?

"Fuumi-chan, let's check out 2-A's haunted house at the festival!"

"What's the haps, Fuumi?"

Pathetic. They're nice to her now, but the second she does something stupid or act uncool, the second having her around threatens to hurt their reputation, they'd leave her behind, a problem best to be ignored. I speak from experience. 

"Saito Fumi..." the Wrath mutters under her breath as she watches her rival anxiously fumble through the conversations. "How I despise you."

"Why do you dislike Fumi again?" I ask. "I know you have a huge spiel about it, so if you could summarize it instead, I would appreciate it."

“Are you that simple?” Yasuda scoffs at me. “But in any case, regarding Saito Fumi, I am fortunate to have a reason for my existence, a true rival that I must conquer. But while Caesar had Pompey, and Churchill had Hitler, all Yasuda Junko has is Saito Fumi. Her destruction will be trivial. Nobody will sing songs of it.”

“Most people stop talking in the third-person by elementary school,” I point out. “And I thought you gave Fumi a big speech earlier today about destroying her and her club forever. Making sure nobody remembers it. But now you want people to remember it?”

Yasuda blinks, then ponders that. She starts whipping around the pair of scissors on an index finger that seems ominously pointed towards me. With her other hand, she rubs her chin. “For once in your life, Hayashi Hanzo, you make a good point. The totality of my conquest will be absolute, so absolute that the conquest itself will be forgotten, since it will seem like things have always been that way.”

The scissors move even faster around her finger now. With her eye-lids halfway down, she gives me a dangerous look. “Perhaps you’ll sing my song, Hayashi. Perhaps I’ll grant you the honor of being the only one.”

The look is dangerous, the scissors are dangerous, her words are dangerous. But implied violence from a mentally unstable woman is “in” nowadays, and I’m certainly not opposed.

“I’m into it,” I say. “This is like the verbal equivalent of being stepped on.”

“I’d bet you’d like that,” Yasuda says as she holsters her scissors.

I roll my eyes. “Maybe I would. Maybe you should do it right now, but I know you're all talk at the end of the day.”

Yasuda rubs her chin, then does something unexpected, completely unexpected. She climbs atop her desk and kicks off one of her indoor shoes, revealing the black sock underneath. I can only sit there, jaw agape, as she plants a foot on my face.

Her sock feels like a sock and her foot feels like a foot. I’m not exactly sure how to react here. I think I’m so scared it wraps around into being excited, and so excited it wraps around into being scared.

The conversations and merry-making in the classroom come to a slow halt as everyone stares. I’m sweating now with all this attention on me, but Yasuda doesn’t care. “They call me the Wrath, yet everyone still tries to befriend me. Isn’t that odd? It’s because my family is so important to the conglomerate. Head technicians for the reactor. Power brings beggars nipping at its heel. Nobody truly desires to be my friend. They only want connections and favors. How many times has somebody asked me for lunch, only to request a job? How many times has somebody asked me to go shopping, only to request a letter of recommendation from my father?”

She smears my face with her foot. “I’m tired of it, Hayashi Hanzo. I’m tired of the fakery. The phoniness. I desire genuine connection, but the only physical contact I can ever make is by stepping on someone.”

I might be scaroused at the moment, but sadness creeps alongside it. I’ve never heard Yasuda opening up like this, even if it involves…whatever it is we’re doing right now.

“Hey,” I realize, speaking into her foot. “Isn’t this the part where I say something like, ‘well, you got a genuine connection with me?’”

“Not at all,” Yasuda simply answers. “You only want me because I’m crazy enough to do something like this.”

I shrug. I don’t deny the accusation. Perhaps, at the end of the day, this is truly why I get to stick around/choose to stick around.

"Um, Yasuda..."

All eyes turn to a red-faced Fumi, who grows only redder and redder as she continues.

"Maybe people are just being nice and trying to hang out with you, even though you've been mean to us in the past. In the spirit of the culture festival and all. You've probably been a little mean because of parental pressure or something, since your dad raised you for the sole purpose of, you know, destroying a high school club. But we understand that. It's okay."

The pressure of Yasuda's foot on my face increases. For the first time, I realize that during this entire time, it's been Yasuda and I on one side of the classroom, with everyone else in 2-C on the other. They look like they want us to join them.

"Saito Fumi," the Wrath finally says.

"Yes?"

“Fuck you.”

“...oh.”

“And the rest of you,” Yasuda barks out. “What are you looking at?”

I think it’s kind of obvious what they’re looking at, nor do I blame them for looking. But when the Wrath speaks, the class obeys, so they all go back to their business.

Then the door slams open.

“Ya-hallo!” President Miyata Miyuki and Naruto Juro greet in unison. Neither bat an eye at the sight of Yasuda stepping on me. Instead, Miyuki just claps her hands. “Let’s go, you two! No time to play footsies, we got an HRC to destroy!"

Taking us by the hand, Miyuki and Naruto drag us out of the classroom, all the way down to the shoe lockers. What Fumi said earlier sticks with me.

"Miyuki," I say. "I know why Yasuda wants to destroy the HRC, but why do you?"

Long-legged and black-haired, Miyuki gives Naruto a sympathetic backrub while the fat kid wheezes and sputters.

"Like any good anime character," she says with a sad look. "I require a flashback to explain. It's a tale as sad in the telling as it is in the hearing."