I wake up on the next day when someone is pressing my doorbell repeatedly like a complete nutcase. I made sure to take my time as I know exactly who’s beyond the door. I’m just glad that I don’t have any neighbours, or I’ll definitely be complained.

   I get up from my bed slowly and walk towards the door in an equally slow speed. All the while, the ringing never stops. By the time I reach the door, the ringing has become even more vigorous. Someone’s getting it if my doorbell ends up breaking. I open the door and what do you know? It’s exactly who I thought it was. The self-righteous shrine maiden Nagano Ai.

   ‘How did you find me?’ I ask her.

   ‘Good morning~! You cute girlfriend is here for you~!’ she says with a disgustingly bright and cheerful smile while completely ignoring my question.

   ‘You’re not my girlfriend. Not now. Not ever.’ I tell her bluntly.

   She starts to tear up. Seriously, how is every woman able to do this so easily? It’s like they have a hidden switch when they need to cry or something.

   She sniffs loudly. ‘how could you? After all the times we spent last night…’

   ‘You mean the time you tried to blackmail me?’

   ‘But that wasn’t blackmail!’

   ‘It is and you know it. Just so you know, I still have the recording with me, and I took precautions. Anything happens to me, and it’ll spread around the internet faster than a wildfire.’

   She stops her act at once.

   ‘You’re thoroughly disgusting.’ she growls at me.

   ‘Call me cautious. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare to go to school.’

   I proceed to close the door on her. She immediately stops me by blocking it with her foot.

   ‘Hold on a second. You’re going to make me wait outside?’ she asks me in disbelief.

   ‘Haven’t you learned from school that you’re not supposed to let strangers into your house?’ I ask back.

   ‘But, we’re not strangers!’ she claims.

   ‘Um, yeah we are. We only talked to each other for like, ten minutes last night and that was it. I’d say we’re pretty much strangers.’

   ‘Well then, we could deepen our knowledge about each other right this instant!’

   ‘I refuse. Goodbye.’

   ‘Wait wait wait~! I’m begging you, please let me come in!’

   In the end, I let her in since she was being really insufferable. I make her sit down at one of the chairs right in front of the dining table.

   ‘Right. Just sit there and don’t touch anything.’ I tell her.

   ‘Promise.’ she tells me innocently.

   Yup. She’ll definitely do something. I better be quick about it before she pulls it off. I get changed into my uniform, then I get the cereal box and a carton of milk from the refrigerator. I place them on the dining table and go to get a bowl and a spoon. Nagano raises her eyebrow when she sees my overly simple breakfast.

   ‘Is that all you’re eating?’ she asks.

   ‘Well, I can’t have a proper breakfast with you around, can I?’

   ‘Your lovely girlfriend will cook up the best feast you’ll ever taste should you ask~.’

   I pour some cereal into the bowl, then the milk. ‘For the hundredth and millionth time, I do not have a girlfriend.’

   ‘Come on, there’s no need to be shy.’

   I ignore her and eat my cereal in peace.When I’m done, I move on to my lunch. I’ve prepared it in advance last night, so all I did was taking out the lunchbox from the refrigerator.

   ‘Aww, you’ve already made your own lunch? To think that I got you one too!’

   She reaches inside her bag and takes out a lunchbox.

   ‘I would rather die of starvation than touch that thing. Who knows what you put in there?’

   She suddenly looks away guiltily. That just confirmed my suspicion.

   ‘Yup, you definitely put something in there.’

   ‘N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-No I didn’t!’

   ‘Whatever.’

   I didn’t take me long to finish the cereal and do the dishes. I then put my lunchbox inside my bag.

   ‘Right, let’s go.’

   ‘Okay.’

   From the apartment I live in, it’s only a ten minutes walk to Jindai. This is one of the various reasons I moved into the apartment in the first place. Usually, I would encounter at least five couples on the way to school. Ever since I made the wish, I no longer see such horrific scenery. The birds are chirping, everyone who’s not married is suddenly single again, and everything is rainbow and sunshine for me.

   ‘Look at that cute kitty! Isn’t it the most precious thing ever?’

   …If only the pest right next to me would just make herself scarce.

   Right before we reach school, we bump into Kazuki and Masato. I guess they agreed to go to school together now that they’re officially broke up with their respective girlfriends. They look very surprised to see me with a girl.

   ‘What’s this, Takuya? You finally got a girlfriend? I guess it’s going to rain blood today!’ Masato laughs.

   ‘Hello there! My name is Nagano Ai. I’m from Class 1-5!’ Nagano introduces herself with that disgusting cutesy way of hers.

   ‘The name’s Asai Masato. This is Tabata Kazuki.’ Masato introduces them to her.

   Kazuki nods formally as a way of greeting. Nagano waves at him excitedly.

   ‘We’re not going out, alright?’ I clarify after their introduction was over.

   ‘Seriously? There’s a girl who’s into you and you’re still being nit-picky? No wonder you’re single for so long.’ Masato jibes.

   ‘If I recall correctly, you confessed to Takeuchi the moment you found out that she’s also an otaku. How did that turn out again?’

   Masato lost all his cheerful aura in an instant and proceeds to glare hatefully at me. I stare back impassively.

   The atmosphere between us got very tense until we got to the classroom. Nagano has to seperate from us for obvious reason, so it’s jut the three of us when we reach our classroom. Usually, Takeuchi would go to Masato like a puppy the moment she sees him, and Kazuki would go to where Murata immediately. But not today. Probably not even until we graduate high school. And the whole classroom still has a tense atmosphere.

   Seriously, making that wish was hands down the best decision I ever made.

   During lunchtime, Nagano appears like a vengeful spirit and invite me to have lunch with her. Since I definitely can’t eat lunch with the two idiots today, I have no choice but to accept. She brings me to her “secret spot”, which is behind the storeroom where the sports equipment are kept.

   ‘Do you always eat your lunch here?’ I ask her after we sit down. ‘If so, you are one sad, sad person.’

   ‘Unlike you, I have a near never-ending supply of friends. Speaking of which, did you apologized to that friend of yours that you offended? What was his name again? Asai-kun?’

   ‘No, and I never will. I never did when I pissed off one of them, anyway. And that goes to the two of them as well.’

   ‘You honestly should. I’ve seen way too many friendship being broken down because of some stupid pride.’

   ‘Look, the relationship between us is a weird one, okay? We would always mock each other in such a way we won’t be talking to each other anymore were we normal friends, but things always return to normal on the next day. Or it will in a few hours if the insult wasn’t particularly severe.’

   ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ she mumbles.

   ‘I won’t. Your advice is pointless anyway.’

   After we finish our lunch, she puts down her lunchbox and plastic chopsticks at one side and looks at me with a serious expression.

   Oh boy. Here we go again.

   ‘Why did you make that kind of twisted wish?’ she asks me. ‘You could have wished for something much better!’

   ‘Like the end of the world?’

   ‘What? No!’

   ‘World dominion?’

   ‘No! Seriously, what’s wrong with that thought process of yours? Can’t you wish for, I don’t know, world peace?’

   Wow. The girl right in front of me, Nagano Ai, is more insane than I thought she is. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

   ‘W-What’s so funny?’ she asks me with a shocked expression.

   ‘My bad. I never thought someone would actually wish for world peace in real life.’ I apologize after I got my breath back.

   ‘What’s wrong with that?’

   ‘Look, I’m not going to argue with you about that, of all things, so can we just leave it at that?’

   ‘Fine.’ she agrees grudgingly. ‘But we will continue to talk about that wish of yours!’

   ‘Speak for yourself. I got better things to do.’

   ‘Look, if you want me to stop pestering you, all you need to do is to say yes to my confession and become my boyfriend. Then the wish will be canceled, everything will be back to normal, and everyone will be happy.’

   ‘Yeah, everyone except me.’

   Nagano tries and fails to look innocent, so she has to look away.

   ‘Whatever do you mean?’

   ‘Seriously, how stupid do you think I am? I’ll bet you anything you want that you’ll dump me the moment my wish has been “granted”.’

   She finally looks me in the eye again.

   ‘Of course. I don’t have a single shred of affection towards you, after all.’

   ‘Then what’s the point of being your boyfriend for 0.5 seconds?’

   ‘It’s to clean up the mess you began. Your will in this is irrelevant.’

   ‘Screw you! Why should everyone else be happy when I’m still miserable?’

   ‘Don’t you get it? This is never about you. Do you have any idea what you have done? Love is the fundamental emotion in starting up a family and building a proper society. Without it, the human race will have a bleak future!’

   I have to hold back my laughter once again.

   ‘So let me get this straight. You must love each other in order to have babies?’

   ‘That’s right.’

   Wow. She’s not embarrassed one bit. I guess that’s what proper sex education will do to you. But that’s not important right now.

   ‘If that’s the case, how do you explain my existence?’ I ask her.

   She looks dumbfounded at my question.

   ‘What do you mean? Didn’t your mother gave birth to you?’

   ‘Oh she did, all right. The thing is, my parents don’t love each other at all.’

   ‘How could you say that? Did you ever bothered to ask-’

   ‘My mother was the daughter of a billionaire.’ I interrupt her. ‘She was the only child in the family, so she was supposed to become the heiress of the empire her father has built up over his decades of hard work and eventually marry a random stranger for business gains. However, she refused to walk the path of a soulless puppet that her parents had arranged for her. She was prepared to do anything to get out of that life, and that’s when she met my father.’

   I pause for a second to take a breath before I continue.

   ‘My father was-no, is an absolute good-for-nothing. He spent his days swindling gullible folks for their money just so he could survive another day rather than working earnestly like a proper human being should. Naturally, even someone like him has a big dream. He wants to become rich, but without working for it. When he met my mother inside a bar, he had an idea. If he could pull it off, he could be rich for the rest of his life.’

   Nagano gulps nervously, obviously entranced by my story.

   ‘What kind of plan?’ she asks.

   ‘You see, he lied to her that he was a thriving businessman who’s not really doing well. However, if he got her family to support him, he would definitely go far. When that happens, he’ll have his own empire, and her parents will no longer pester her to marry someone they chose for her, which means that she can finally get away from their shackles. My mother wasn’t the brightest person, so she fell for his scheme. To show her determination, she even gave up her virginity to that silver-tongued conman. Of course, things got very wrong after that.’

   Another pause.

   ‘It didn’t take my father long to be exposed like the fraud he is. To make things worse, my mother was pregnant with me after that one time on the bed. Her parents were so angry with her they disowned her and chased her out of the family, and wouldn’t you know, my father abandoned her without a second thought.’

   I have to pause here again. Not because I’m out of breath, but this part of the story is extremely traumatic for me.

   ‘Left with nothing, my mother was so poor she couldn’t even get enough money to have an abortion. She had to work like a slave to earn her living despite being pregnant, and things got worse for her after I was born. I mean, there’s one more mouth to feed. And guess how she relieved her pent-up stress?’

   I pull up my shirt so that she could see the numerous scars and wounds I have on my body. Her eyes widens in horror, and she gasps loudly.

   ‘Eventually, she got arrested for child abuse. I heard that she’s serving her time in a prison, but I don’t know which one. I don’t care either. My father’s parents, who are much more humane than their counterparts, took me in and raised me. Finally, I could taste some normal childhood, though it’s a bit too late.’

   ‘What about your father?’

   ‘Oh, him? He appeared before my when I was ten. He sneaked inside the house when both my grandparents were out working at the rice field and revealed his identity to me. He was all apologetic and gave me all kinds of excuses on why he left my mother and I for all these years. After that, he told me he wanted to make up by having a toast. While he was inside the kitchen, I noticed that he was acting very suspiciously, so I pulled out a metal bat and knocked him out.’

   Nagano’s eyes widen in horror once again. ‘You hit your own father’s head with a bat? Just like that?’

   I shrug. ‘Hey, he didn’t act like a father at all all those years. You expect me to start respect him? Stop joking.’

   ‘But, what if he died?’

   I shrug again. ‘Accidents happens. Anyway, after he was out cold, I tied him up with the thickest rope I could find. Before that, I found him holding a small packet containing some kind of white powder. Just as I’m trying to figure out his plan, his phone rang. I took it out of his pocket and answered it. The call was from a loan shark company that he borrowed tons of money from.’

   ‘Wait, please don’t tell me…’

   ‘Yup, he was trying to drug me and sell my organs so that his debt can be paid off. I don’t see the point of selling the organs of a small kid, but I guess he was desperate. I told the person on the phone that my father’s plan has failed and he’s currently being tied up. I also told them that they could come over and deal with him however they like.’

   ‘What did they do?’

   ‘They forced him to sign a contract that binds him to their service for the rest of his miserable life. The loan sharks were so happy that they got a new slave they even gave me a cash reward. Thankfully, my grandparents weren’t back until those loan sharks were long gone, so they didn’t have to know anything.’

   ‘What did you do with the cash reward you received?’

   ‘I took up Muay Thai classes. The money was only enough to cover for two months, but the instructor was kind enough to teach me another ten months for free after hearing my circumstances.’

   ‘I see…’

   She went silent for quite some time. I don’t blame her. My background isn’t exactly normal.

   ‘I sympathize with you. I really do. But just because your childhood was terrible, it doesn’t mean it’s fine that every other unborn children should suffer like you do.’

   ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’

   Now she looks confused at well.

   ‘I wasn’t thinking about my terrible childhood at all when I made the wish. I was just sick of seeing happy couples.’

   ‘...Can I punch you?’

   ‘Sure. But don’t expect me to take it just like that. I’ll also hit back.’

   ‘You’ll hit a girl?’ she asks in a loud voice.

  ‘I’m all for gender equality.’

   She sighs in exasperation.

   ‘Back to our topic at hand. Even your friends are affected. Strangers aside, don’t you care about them?’

   ‘Don’t get me started with them. They in particular were even more annoying after they got themselves girlfriends. You can’t know how happy I was when they stopped rubbing it in my face.’

   ‘No. No I cannot.’

   Now Nagano’s having a thoughtful look. She’s probably trying to think up new ways to persuade me to give up on my wish. But she gives up in a flash.

   She growls in frustration. ‘I don’t have anything right now, but just you wait. I’ll definitely get you a girlfriend so that your wish will be canceled.’

   ‘Look, you probably didn’t realize this since you were too busy thinking up ways to seduce me, but my wish actually has a loophole.’

   That got her attention. She crawls disturbingly close to me.

   ‘Seriously? It does? Does that mean that I don’t have to nullify the wish by getting you a girlfriend?’

   ‘If my theory is correct, and you don’t mind spending lots of time, but yeah.’

   ‘So what is it? What’s the loophole?’

   Her face is right in front of mine. I have to push it away.

   ‘Close close! You’re being too close! Just calm down for a bit, will you?’

   ‘Oh, my bad.’ she crawls back to her original position.

   ‘As for the loophole, I’ll tell you about it after school’s over.’

   ‘What? Why wait that long?’

   ‘I need to confirm the theory of mine first, just in case I got it wrong. Besides…’

   As if on cue, the bell that signifies the end of lunchtime rings.

   ‘...Fine. But you better not run away!’

   ‘I won’t. It’s not like I can, anyway. You know where I live, right?’

   With that, the two of us go back to our respective classroom.