13th August
BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Ugh..." Shigure slammed the alarm. His blanket slid off.
'Five more minutes,' he muttered, pulling the blanket over his head.
"Ja..."
His brow creased—something didn't sound right.
His brain latched onto the sound before he knew it.
"JAMES." His eyes shot open, followed by sitting straight up.
"Oh good, you're finally up." He found a black-haired, middle-aged woman standing with a ladle in her hand.
"Mom?" He tilted his head.
"Your results are out today, right? Check them quickly."
"Right... Why do you have the ladle in your hand?" Shigure asked with his eyes twitching.
"Cooking, obviously." She said before the door closed, leaving Shigure, no, James alone in the room.
The first thing James did was look at his phone.
13th August.
"Why do I feel deja vu?" He walked towards the dressing table.
He stared into the mirror. The face felt like his… and also not.
"How paradoxical." His gaze shifted to a steel bottle lying on the dressing table.
He picked it up—and dropped it.
Thump.
The bottle hit his left foot.
"No pain? Dream? Or drugged?" He stroked his chin, curious.
CLICK
The sound snapped him back. Everything returned at once.
"Interesting. I didn't know dreams could be like this, " he thought while looking back at the memory this dream represented.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
His chest thundered—too fast, too real.
"That... is surprising. The emotions...are raw...so raw... How long has it been?" A melancholic look appeared on his face.
He couldn't remember the last time he felt anything this real.
"I remember now. The last time I felt this...was when this wasn't a dream, but a reality."
He didn't feel such emotions when he was reincarnated.
He didn't feel much anger when he had to deal with kids.
He didn't feel... anything this intense until now.
"Well, let's get this over with."
He moved through the motions, just like he had that day— freshening up, followed by breakfast.
"The website is not working, probably because so many people are checking it." He muttered to his parents, eyes glued to the screen.
Understandable—150,000 students were crashing the site.
'It should be accessible around the afternoon. To be honest, this really was a rat race. This many people just after Round 1. During the Round 1 result, you might have to wait for more than a day to get the result, even if you are lucky.' He shook his head at his previous life's choices.
Round 1 had more than a million students around his age competing.
People spend their whole 3 years of high school on this exam, and sometimes some people even spend their entire middle school and high school to crack it.
A person's rank would determine the college and the branch they would get. Most of the colleges were decided based on the rank of ROUND 1.
The top 10 percentile are eligible to sit for Round 2.
The colleges that you can get from the ranks of Round 1 are the most elite in the entire country. Only the top 0.5 per cent of the entire 1 million students get seats in these colleges.
James had been a hard-working student... at least until his final year in high school. His rank had been deteriorating in the mock tests since the last few months of his second year, and when the vacation came, he became distant from his studies.
Late second year? Just manhwas. Then web novels. Then fanfics.
The only thing he did was go to classes at his cram school... Well, it's not like it was an option. His parents didn't know that their kid was not studying the whole day, but was doing this.
He kept it hidden. They had not liked him playing games or watching fiction in general before he got to high school.
For the middle class in his country, studying was the only safe and sure way to leave the middle class.
So, he didn't blame them.
James stared at his roll number, waiting for the hit. He looked at the time.
'It's about time.'
He didn't remember exactly when he got the result, but his gut told him it would be successful now.
So, he did just that.
Then it hit the screen.
Rank- 18XXX
Score: 34 per cent.
He exhaled. His face didn't move.
'This year was fucked. If only any other institute made the paper, I would have gotten around an 11 to 12k rank and would have gotten into one of those colleges. I shouldn't have told my expected rank in the first place to my family otherwise, they wouldn't have been disappointed this much.'
To get into the lowest branch of the worst college(Which was arguably comparable to top colleges Round 1) with his Round 2 rank required, James had to have 3 or 4 more marks. And to get a "decent" enough college with the worst branch required around 20 more marks.
Some of his friends with around a 10k rank had later chosen colleges from ROUND 1 for better branches.
Unfortunately, He'd screwed up Round 1. Leading him to be in the worst position possible.
'What did I say to console myself at that time?... hmm, that at least I am in the top 1-1.5 per cent despite not studying in the last year...Perfect lie, right?'
He got up and decided to tell the results to his parents.
This—this was the moment he feared.
To this day, despite traversing a world, having more than a century's worth of memories, Shigure still vividly remember the first and the only time he had heard his father's voice tremble.
He still didn't know whether it was due to his father waking up from sleep.
Though he thinks that he already knows the answer.
His dreams wouldn't let him forget.
"It is what it is. I would support your decision on whatever future path you choose. Decide on your college carefully."
James found himself alone in the room.
Drip.
His eyes burned.
"I am sorry."
He looked silently at the table.
|| "If everyone is not..." ||
James looked up, his eyebrows furrowing.
'What's this sound?'
|| "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10…" ||
Shigure's eyes opened frantically, his hand instinctively going towards his phone, already turning off the alarm.
His other hand went towards his chest, already feeling his heart beating fast.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
That ringtone. From his old life. His panic switch.
A primal fear.
It was his magnum opus, and he only used it if something important was going to happen and he needed to be awake at that time.
"It used to be one of my favourite songs... At least I learned my lesson, never use your favourite songs as alarms."
He got up from the bed and walked towards the mirror.
"Oh." He calmly looked at his reflection, his face wet due to the dream.
"I feel... nothing," he whispered.
'Despite knowing the possibility that I won't be able to see my parents anymore, I don't feel anything.'
8 years ago, the same thought had made him feel a slight sorrow, but overall, it was not that much different from what he is currently feeling— indifference.
His lips curled into a mocking smile.
"Hahahahahahaha"
He laughed.
"HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA"
And laughed.
"HAHAhaha"
and laughed.
"hahaaahahahha"
He laughed until the tears came. And then kept laughing.
'Can I really not love anyone? I knew this already, didn't I?
If I can't love the people who gave me everything—who loved me without asking—
Then how the hell could I love some stranger I barely know?
Love... maybe it's just a story people tell themselves.
Maybe I was never built for it.'
"WHY?! WHY CAN'T I FEEL ANYTHING?!" He threw the phone in his hand.
THUD
The phone met the wall.
Shigure, or more specifically James, had an insecurity of being unable to make meaningful relationships.
He found it hard to connect with people on a deeper level.
Yes, he had some friends, but none could be considered a "best friend" from his perspective.
He thought that with time, such people would come into his life, but now it seems it really was just his wish.
His new life had just solidified that belief, and all his attempts to deny it had just been used as fuel for it.
Shigure had always tried to ignore this flaw by using anime and manga—fictions as a coping mechanism. However, after a point, he reached a roadblock.
He was out of fiction to explore.
So, he decided to divert his attention somewhere else.
He had taken Computer Science as his major, and AI was becoming interesting popular, so he spent all his energy in that direction.
Even in this life, he had used his quirk to mainly focus on that field.
It was the only thing he could call a speciality.
That was his initial motivation when he decided to walk on this path.
Whooosh
Shigure took a deep breath.
'If that's who I am, then it's fine. I don't need a deeper level of relationship to enjoy my life. Just a pretence of a relationship is fine as well. People are just tools for me to make me feel emotions. I don't need to love anybody.'
He came to terms with his real self.
He had already come to it a long time ago.
He then made his way towards the bathroom.
"I am a mess." He directly took a bath.
'It's a shame that I can't repay them. If in future I get the chance to repay them, I would definitely do it.' Shigure made a note while thinking about his parents.
Though he might not feel much emotion towards his parents, he is still grateful for their giving him birth and raising him.
He doesn't know whether it was good or bad parenting. He didn't care. If not for that specific way, he wouldn't be Shigure Hatsune, he is today.
That is one of the deepest wishes of his previous life, and had even survived the time dilation to the current him.
He stepped out, towel-draped, and walked to the phone.
It lay there without a scratch.
'N*kia baby. Maybe I will ask Hawks to do a drop test from the stratosphere. I won't be surprised if it survives without any scratch.' Shigure chuckled as he opened the phone.
21:37
He looked at the notifications, 9 out of 10 to be reminders: "Mission with bird head."
"Fuck, I am going to be late." Shigure cursed.
***
A/n- Lol, the exams James gave were inspired by the JEE exam. One of my friends had given that exam, and I decided to use that for James's backstory. Though James is from US... Maybe should have thought about the background before. Anyway, this means that his previous world is kind of weird, let's just go with that... I am not freaking going to use my brain cells to flesh out that world T_T. Maybe
Anyway, I was going to add this back in ch3, but decided against it until now.
What you witnessed is the biggest flaw of Shigure.
***
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