The world, as I knew it, had finally descended into literary madness.
"Senpai-sensei! I need your wisdom!"
Noa Hoshizuki, first-year menace and walking ball of caffeine energy, was once again blocking my classroom door with the tenacity of a lost puppy who mistook me for her owner. She shoved a handful of messy printouts into my hands. Crumpled pages. Smudged ink. The header read: "Chapter 3: Confession in the Rain (but with Ghosts)."
I blinked at the title like it personally owed me money.
"Noa," I said, already feeling the soul drain from my body, "We've talked about this. I'm not your sensei, and I didn't write this."
"But look at the narrative voice! The lonely introspection! The subtle self-loathing! It screams you!"
Wow. Nothing like a backhanded compliment wrapped in excessive punctuation.
From her backpack, she pulled another set of pages—this one older, yellowed, with ink blotches only someone desperate or severely sleep-deprived would tolerate. I recognized it. My old journal. How she had found it, I didn't know, but the resemblance was unnervingly spot-on. Sentences I thought had only existed in the privacy of my thoughts were mirrored line for line in her drafts.
"This is intellectual theft," I muttered.
"Or fate," she countered with stars in her eyes.
Across the room, Koharu peeked over her desk, her eyes narrowing like a cat catching sight of an unfamiliar toy. Mina, her ever-patient best friend, sighed like she'd seen this scenario play out a hundred times in her head—and always with tragic results.
"So," Mina asked, clearly fishing for information, "Who's this new kouhai and why does she keep calling you sensei like it's a kink?"
"It's not a kink," I said defensively, which of course made it sound like it absolutely was.
Yuki Shirakawa, my ever-judging seatmate, sipped her tea as though waiting for the final act of a tragic play. "Romantic delusions must be contagious."
Meanwhile, Makki—my cheerful otaku friend and unofficial chaos agent—slid into the conversation like a badly timed plot twist.
"You've unlocked the Kouhai Route, bro! Proceed with caution! Or don't. I'd love to see how this visual novel crashes."
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
As if the chaos of my daily life wasn't enough, the next disaster came wrapped in literary drama. Noa's Story Club—a small circle of overly ambitious underclassmen—had just posted their entry for the upcoming cultural zine. Problem: it bore uncanny resemblance to a banned book that got a former student suspended three years ago. The admin board was already stirring, red pens in hand and warnings ready to fly.
"We didn't mean to plagiarize," Noa said, lip quivering. "It's just that someone uploaded a copy to our cloud folder, and… we thought it was public domain."
Right. Because mysterious, angsty literature written in iambic pentameter just grows on trees.
To prevent a scandal (and because I had the misfortune of being labeled the "brains" of this generation), I got dragged into the investigation. It wasn't hard—just a few timestamps, metadata sleuthing, and some social engineering via guilt-tripping a sleepy third-year with poor password security.
I submitted my findings to the disciplinary committee like a reluctant detective solving a murder he never cared about. Case closed. Club saved. My sanity only mildly damaged.
Later, during lunch, I found Koharu sitting under the sakura tree again—our old spot. Her lunch sat untouched beside her, and her fingers clutched a cheap pen like it was a lifeline. When I sat down, she didn't look up.
"You're writing something," I said.
She flinched, then nodded. "Yeah. Maybe… maybe I should write my own story."
"What genre?"
"I don't know yet. Something dumb. Something real."
She didn't need to say it, but I knew she was comparing herself to Noa, to Mitsuki, to every other girl circling me like satellites caught in my gravity. The thing about Koharu was—she wanted to shine, but only if she earned it.
"You don't need to be a writer to have a good story," I said.
She chuckled, soft and bitter. "You sound like a protagonist."
"God forbid."
As if summoned by dramatic irony itself, Tsubaki-sensei approached, her presence always unnervingly serene. She looked down at me with a faint smile that held too much understanding.
"Kuroda," she said. "You should stop pretending you're not the protagonist."
"I'm more like an optional side quest," I muttered.
"Optional side quests always have the best lore," she replied, then walked away, leaving me with a thousand unsaid thoughts and the taste of dry sakura petals in my mouth.
Noa was waiting for me after school. Again.
"Senpai-sensei," she said. "Did you like my latest chapter? I named the character after you."
"Does he suffer?"
"He suffers beautifully."
…Okay, maybe this kouhai wasn't entirely wrong about me.
But as Koharu walked past, her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, and something twisted in my chest. The kind of ache you get when you realize you're not just part of someone's story—you want to be.
Even if it means letting go of the pages you once kept secret.
Even if it means being seen.
Even if it means being… the protagonist.
God help me.