## Volume 1: A World Without Balance
### Chapter 1 - "Life of a Nobody"
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My name is Kaito Aoyama, and my life is, to put it simply, absolute garbage.
Not the dramatic kind of garbage where you'd get some tragic backstory that makes people feel sorry for you. No, no. I'm talking about the boring, mundane, "why do I even bother waking up" kind of garbage. The kind where you're just... there. Existing. Taking up space and oxygen that could probably be better used by literally anyone else.
I'm seventeen years old, a third-year high school student at Sakuragawa High, and I have exactly zero friends. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The big goose egg.
And girlfriends? Don't even get me started.
Actually, you know what? Let me tell you about my morning. It perfectly encapsulates the disaster that is my existence.
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I woke up at 6:47 AM to the sound of my phone alarm blaring some generic J-pop song I'd downloaded months ago and had been too lazy to change. My room smelled like old cup ramen and the faint musk of teenage despair. The posters on my wall—some anime girls in questionable poses—stared down at me with their dead, two-dimensional eyes, as if judging my life choices.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," I muttered at them, rolling out of bed. "You don't have to look at me like that."
I stumbled to the bathroom, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and immediately regretted it. My hair stuck up in seven different directions like I'd been electrocuted, and there was a lovely red mark on my cheek from where I'd slept on my keyboard the night before. Again.
"Peak performance," I told my reflection, giving myself a sarcastic thumbs up. "The ladies must be lining up."
Spoiler alert: they were not.
After the bare minimum of personal hygiene—brushing teeth, splashing water on my face, and praying that was enough—I threw on my school uniform and headed downstairs. My mom had already left for work, leaving behind a note on the kitchen counter: "Breakfast in the fridge. Don't forget your field trip permission slip."
Right. The stupid field trip.
I grabbed a rice ball from the fridge, shoved the permission slip into my bag without reading it, and headed out the door.
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Sakuragawa High School was a fifteen-minute walk from my house, which meant fifteen minutes of watching happy couples holding hands, groups of friends laughing together, and basically everyone else living their best life while I shuffled along like some background NPC in someone else's story.
"Morning, Takeshi!" a girl's voice chirped from across the street.
"Morning, Yui!" a guy responded, way too enthusiastically for 7:30 in the morning.
I glanced over. There they were—Takeshi and Yui, the school's most nauseatingly perfect couple. He was tall, athletic, probably smelled like cologne and success. She was cute, bubbly, and had that effortless "I woke up like this" thing going on that I'm pretty sure is a lie perpetuated by society.
They met in the middle of the sidewalk, and I watched in horror as they did that thing. You know the thing. The "good morning" hug that lasts just a little too long, followed by the giggling and the hair-twirling and the—
"Oh my god, Takeshi, you're so funny!"
I stopped walking. I couldn't help myself.
"Oh my god, Takeshi, you're so funny!" I mimicked under my breath, twirling an imaginary strand of hair and batting my eyelashes. "Takeshi, you're literally just breathing and I find it hilarious! Takeshi, please, tell me more about your gym routine! I'm so fascinated!"
A salary man walking past me gave me a weird look.
I cleared my throat and kept walking.
But I wasn't done. Oh no. Because now they were doing the *other* thing—the hand-holding-while-walking-to-school thing. And not just normal hand-holding. No, this was that fingers-interlaced, swinging-their-arms-like-they're-in-a-shoujo-manga kind of hand-holding.
"Yui, you make every day brighter," Takeshi said, his voice dripping with sincerity that made me want to gag.
"Takeshi, you're my sunshine," she responded.
I made a gagging motion behind them, sticking my finger in my mouth for emphasis. A couple of pigeons on a nearby fence seemed to judge me for it.
"You're my sunshine," I whispered mockingly. "Bro, it's 7:30 in the morning. The actual sun has barely been up for an hour. What are you even talking about?"
I spent the rest of the walk to school imagining increasingly ridiculous scenarios where couples said things like "You're my photosynthesis" and "You're my mitochondria, the powerhouse of my heart."
By the time I reached the school gates, I was snickering to myself like an idiot.
At least I could entertain myself.
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Homeroom was the usual exercise in social isolation.
I sat in my assigned seat—back row, second from the window, because of course I did; that's where all protagonists sit, except I wasn't a protagonist, I was just a guy who happened to sit there—and watched as everyone else chatted and laughed and existed in their little social circles.
Takeshi was in my class, naturally, surrounded by his posse of athletic buddies who all looked like they'd stepped out of a sports drink commercial. They were talking about some game last weekend, slapping each other on the back and being generally loud and confident in a way I would never understand.
Yui wasn't in my class, but her best friend Mika was, and she was currently giggling with a group of girls near the front, probably talking about Yui and Takeshi's latest "adorable" moment.
And then there was me. Alone. Staring out the window and wondering if birds ever got lonely.
"Alright, settle down!" Our homeroom teacher, Nakamura-sensei, walked in carrying a stack of papers and looking perpetually exhausted. I related to him on a spiritual level.
"I hope you all remembered your permission slips for today's field trip," he said, and about half the class groaned.
Right. The field trip. To some science research facility. I'd completely forgotten about it until this morning.
"We'll be visiting the National Temporal Research Laboratory," Nakamura-sensei continued, adjusting his glasses. "They're going to show us their work on theoretical time manipulation. It's a rare opportunity, so please be on your best behavior."
Time manipulation. Sure. Like that was going to be interesting. I'd probably just end up standing in the back of some boring tour group while some scientist droned on about particles and dimensions and other things I didn't care about.
"Kaito." Nakamura-sensei's voice cut through my internal monologue.
I looked up. "Yes, sensei?"
"You did bring your permission slip, didn't you?"
"Uh... yes?" I patted my bag. "It's in here somewhere."
He gave me a look that suggested he didn't believe me but was too tired to argue. "Make sure you stay with the group today. No wandering off."
"Sure thing," I lied.
I had every intention of finding the nearest vending machine and spending the entire field trip eating snacks.
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To be continued...
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