Chapter 25: This, Right Here, Is Your Run-of-the-Mill, Perfectly Ordinary Human Being 

My life alone began the moment I entered university.

Before that, I had not been a perfectly ordinary high school student.

I lived however I pleased, convinced that things would somehow work out no matter what I did.

Then reality hit me with painful force.

And the person I am now was born from that blow.

To spend four years at university as a perfectly ordinary student.

That was the mission now imposed upon me.

But as I mentioned before, I had never been ordinary to begin with.

Expecting someone like that to suddenly become “normal” overnight was fundamentally impossible.

And the one who helped me through that impossibility—

was Meiko.

――――――――――

“Ah, you’re awake?”

A rainy afternoon in June.

A certain lazy holiday.

With nowhere in particular to go, I’d been reading in my room while half-dozing, and apparently I had fallen asleep at some point without realizing it.

Outside, rain drizzled steadily.

The room was slightly humid without the air conditioner running, carrying the sticky warmth unique to the rainy season.

Through the screen window drifted a mixture of cool air and overwhelming moisture.

As my consciousness slowly resurfaced, the first thing I heard was that familiar voice.

“Meiko, huh.”

“Morning, Gouto-kun.”

“It’s already afternoon. Is ‘morning’ still correct?”

“When someone wakes up, it’s always morning.”

If Meiko said so, then perhaps it was true.

I lifted myself from her lap and suppressed a yawn.

A glance at the clock told me I’d been asleep for roughly an hour.

“So what’s going on? Did you need something?”

“Mmm, not really. You looked asleep, so I figured I’d stand guard?”

“You’re not even trying to hide it anymore, Meiko.”

When I pointed that out, Meiko laughed awkwardly.

Nekoyanagi Meiko.

My “childhood friend.”

And a modern-day kunoichi.

The hidden side of her I’d learned about through the information my hallucinations revealed.

…No.

Maybe “hidden side” wasn’t the right way to put it.

Meiko was simply Meiko.

Being a ninja was merely one aspect of who she was.

Calling someone a ninja or not was probably no different than saying some people were more or less “Japanese” than others—a matter of personality gradients rather than separate identities.

“So then, Meiko. Coming over to my apartment is one thing, but why the lap pillow? You’ve never done that before.”

“A powerful beauty suddenly entered the cast, so as the ‘childhood friend,’ I started feeling a little threatened. Figured I should push my archetype a bit harder.”

“I see.”

Indeed, textbook light novel childhood friends often casually engaged in behavior that hovered somewhere between friendship and romance with the perfectly ordinary protagonist.

A wake-up lap pillow was practically a beginner combo.

Apparently Kujima’s arrival as the “girl best friend” had caused Meiko to feel a crisis regarding her own identity as the “childhood friend,” prompting her to trigger an event.

I wanted to call it admirable dedication.

But hidden beneath her carefree grin, I could see traces of negative emotion.

Or rather—

my hallucination insisted on showing them to me.

──────────

『Nekoyanagi Meiko』

Combat Ability: Excellent

Childhood Friend Power: Still studying

※Currently feeling threatened regarding her position.

──────────

“Meiko, I’ll say this one more time. You are my ‘childhood friend.’ No matter what happens from here on, no matter what changes with Kujima, that fact won’t change. Stay by my side. I won’t permit you to wander off on your own. Understood?”

“Hehe… thanks.”

Meiko smiled softly.

Honestly, I still didn’t fully understand why a statement like that earned me gratitude.

Maybe I’d understand someday once I became more normal.

Though if I were being honest, especially in front of Meiko—

there were still many parts of “being perfectly ordinary” that I didn’t understand at all.

Of course, there was no doubt that everyone around me saw me as a perfectly ordinary university student.

Still…

At the very least, hallucinations definitely weren’t normal.

Even I understood that much by now.

──────────

『Nekoyanagi Meiko』

Regarding the Appraisal Skill:
You absolutely should keep it!

──────────

Fabrication.

I’m disappointed in you, hallucination.

“I still think a club is the answer.”

The one who suddenly declared that was Kujima, dressed in breezy summer clothes.

A woman who had sacrificed sunlight absorption efficiency in exchange for comfort.

Ever since that incident, Kujima had become my “girl best friend,” and now spent a great deal of time hanging around with me, Meiko, and Taketsuru.

Though since she belonged to a different department, we weren’t always together.

I honestly had no idea what her daily life looked like when she wasn’t around us.

“Friend groups are nice and all, but if we really want to strengthen our bonds—our sense of unity and companionship—I think we need the shared identity that comes from belonging to the same club.”

Kujima declared this enthusiastically, leaning forward with passion.

The people listening were the three already mentioned:

myself, Taketsuru, and Meiko.

It was late afternoon after classes had ended.

Just before we all headed home, Kujima had suddenly summoned us to our usual cafeteria terrace with a message—

only to launch into this speech immediately afterward.

“Mmm… I understand what you’re trying to say, but is there a specific club you wanted us to join?”

Meiko—still maintaining her sweet public persona—asked the obvious question.

Naturally so.

If someone said, “Let’s all join a club together,” the next logical response was:

“What club?”

In response, Kujima puffed out her chest proudly.

“That’s what I’d like everyone to help me figure out now.”

“Well then, guess we’re done here.”

“Still got time before my shift starts…”

“I wonder what today’s grocery sale item was again…”

“Guys, at least listen to me!?”

Kujima’s eyes grew watery, so I decided to offer her some slightly harsh advice for her own good.

“Kujima. When you’re the one proposing something, the proper procedure is to present a draft proposal first and let everyone else evaluate it. If you’re the one saying you want to do this, how can you show up with zero ideas? What, are you the type who leaves all trip planning to other people and only complains afterward?”

“I’ve never had friends before, so I wouldn’t know.”

“…Right.”

I’d tried using an example to teach her something.

Unfortunately, the example itself was ineffective against someone with no friendship experience.

Though somehow it still dealt emotional damage.

Seeing Kujima visibly deflate, I decided to throw her a small lifeline.

“Well, if you suddenly discover some bizarre club, or decide to create one from scratch, then I might consider joining. From a perfectly ordinary perspective.”

As I may have mentioned before, the reason I belonged to the Going Home Club was because perfectly ordinary people tended to have an abnormally high probability of getting dragged into strange clubs or societies.

Though admittedly, joining some mysterious organization like that also risked starting an actual story, so choosing carefully would be important.

“I’ve thought this for a while now, but your definition of ‘perfectly ordinary’ really isn’t that ordinary.”

“And yet no one is more perfectly ordinary than me. Fine. Allow me to educate you.”

To begin with, the world is filled with books titled things like:

“How to Become ○○”

or

“Anyone Can Become Anything.”

There are countless books explaining how “ordinary habits can change your life,” or “how ordinary people can become successful.”

And yet—

I had never once seen a book titled:

“How to Become a Perfectly Ordinary Person.”

Even online, whenever someone asked, “What does it mean to be normal?” the answers were always vague nonsense like:

“It’s okay to be different,”

or

“You’re fine just the way you are.”

Nobody would ever plainly say:

“This is what a perfectly ordinary person looks like.”

The definition of “ordinary” remained frustratingly ambiguous.

Nobody knew the correct answer.

Everyone simply wandered around believing that their own vague image of “normal” was the true one.

That was the kind of world we lived in.

And amidst all that uncertainty—

the only things that ever clearly presented “perfectly ordinary people” were the textbook light novels Meiko introduced me to.

Characters in those stories constantly declared themselves “perfectly ordinary,” and everyone around them accepted that description without question.

Therefore, logically speaking, the fastest path toward becoming ordinary was to imitate them.

“In other words, the countless protagonists of textbook light novels collectively prove that I am a perfectly ordinary college student.”

“Mmm… I want to argue with that, but I genuinely can’t think of a proper counterargument.”

“More importantly, Kujima, someone who was literally cursed with chuunibyou until recently has no right to lecture others about normality.”

“Can we ban that line of attack by rule!?”

The fact that she couldn’t refute me properly meant she recognized at least some logic in my argument.

Beside her, Meiko nodded repeatedly in agreement.

As expected of my Normality Advisor.

“Well, Kirishiro being weird isn’t exactly new,” Taketsuru said lazily. “Anyway, Kujima-san, if you actually come back with a concrete club idea, we’ll probably go along with it. Isn’t that good enough for today?”

“Okaaay…”

And so the girl known as No-Plan Kujima was successfully persuaded by Taketsuru to go home and think things over properly.

Though the rest of us also ended up agreeing to keep an eye out for potentially interesting clubs ourselves.

After that, we spent some time talking about Kujima’s department relationships, learning that she was somehow becoming increasingly isolated in her own department again, and discovering that Meiko apparently had more friends in Kujima’s department than Kujima herself did.

Eventually, before Taketsuru’s work shift began, we decided to head home.

Or rather—

we tried to.

“I-I FINALLY FOUND YOU, MEIKO!!!”

Just as we exited the university’s front gate together, a loud voice suddenly called out.

We turned toward the source.

Standing there was a young man who looked vaguely familiar.

Or maybe not.

I definitely felt like I’d seen him somewhere before, though I couldn’t place where.

While I struggled to remember, Meiko looked at the boy completely expressionless.

“And you are?”

“Wha—!? Don’t mess with me!! D-Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me!!”

After striking several completely unnecessary poses, the boy dramatically declared:

“I am Inugashi Kaito! Your childhood friend!!”

The moment he said that, my hallucination popped into existence.

──────────

『Inugashi Kaito』

Age: 18

Gender: Male

Notes:

Descendant of a ninja lineage spanning seven hundred years.
In other words: ninja.

Nekoyanagi Meiko’s childhood friend.

To be blunt… he’s in love with Meiko…?

──────────

…I see.

That explained why he looked vaguely familiar.

We’d probably crossed paths somewhere before.

If this guy really was Meiko’s childhood friend, that is.