My bound chest was painfully tight. A chilly breeze swept through the city and swayed my long, twin-tailed hairstyle that spilled down my chest. A brown curtain of hair blocked off the left side of my vision.

I pushed up my glasses to adjust my mindset and shoved my hands into my hoodie. I found myself standing on the sidewalk of a crowded street. Several students in Saint Freya uniforms walked past me on their way to school.

I forced down the small part of me that was uneasy in my new body and took a deep breath of cool air. My chest was really bound too tight.

A familiar feeling of panic welled up within my heart. I knew from experience that if I gave myself a chance to think, then my mind would go pure white like it did whenever I interviewed for a job.

If I just waited for an opportunity to fall into my lap, then nothing would ever change. Months of fruitless job searching taught me that I had to reach out if I wanted anything to change.

I put on a bright smile and armored myself with cheerfulness. Mustering up my courage, I planned to approach the first girl that entered my line of sight.

My eyes landed on a pair of girls holding hands as they walked. One had shoulder length, curly ice blue colored hair while the other had her teal hair tied in a short ponytail. As expected, it was impossible for me to enter the cheerful space the two created.

I waited for another student to approach me. The next girl that crossed paths with me had a dark, gloomy aura that screamed ‘Do not approach me.’

As a loner myself, I knew that I would only be a nuisance if I talked to her. The third girl looked like a delinquent. Pass. The fourth girl had her eyes glued to a smartphone. I didn’t want to be rude. The fifth girl…

“H-Huh?”

I came to myself with a jolt. Over ten girls had passed me at this point and I hadn’t called out to a single one. That wouldn’t do. I psyched myself up. Regardless of what kind of girl showed up next, I would call out to her.

A girl with short, black hair entered my vision. This was my chance. My heart pounded in my chest from nerves. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.  I couldn’t say anything. A familiar sensation of everything falling apart filled my chest.

Despair sank its teeth deep into my flesh. No, this was different. I wasn’t being interviewed. My future didn’t depend on this. All I was doing was talking to a girl! Yet no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t speak up at all.

The pressure built and built as the girl drew closer to me until I couldn’t take it anymore. My mind went pure white.

“Ah…”

I came to my senses a few minutes later. In the end, the black haired girl had passed me by and continued on her journey to Saint Freya Academy. I hadn’t been able to call out to her at all.

“Hahaha…”

I chuckled bitterly to myself. That was right. I was this kind of person, after all. I didn’t know why I thought my life in Violent Evergarden would be any different from my life in Terra. Making new friends was impossible for a shadowy, loner character like me.

I set out for Saint Freya Academy, no longer entertaining any thoughts of talking to the others. We lived in different worlds. There was no point in getting closer to people who were inevitably going to die during the first demon invasion in a month.