Chapter 1 : Reincarnated

"Wake up, Takeshi !!"

An annoying voice accompanied the sound of the door opening, which stung inside of his ears. He opened his eyes. The morning sunlight peering through the window greeted him and rewarded him with its warmth. He instinctively shut his eyes close; adjusting his visual organs a few times more than needed, he stared at an unimportant direction.

Waking up was one thing. Anyone could do that. The real challenge was found in gathering enough will to get up from bed, regardless of one's tiredness. Some did sooner than others; a good amount of people left their beds made a mess, finding their daily activities to be more important than fixing their room; others took their time to inspire some sense of order from their perfectly clean rooms.

He, on the other hand, wasn't any of those. If he actually got the will to get up it would be a miracle for his room to even look presentable at all.

His daily activities weren't important. His room wasn't important.

Nothing was important at all, and he cared as much.

He breathed in one time. He suppressed a cough caused by the sudden air intake. His chest slightly burned from inside, but it didn't hurt.

The boy raised his upper body with unnecessary difficult. He sat on the bed. A hand lazily travelled across his face, moving pieces of sprawled hair out of his line of sight.

With tired, half-lidded eyes, he scanned the place he was in. A dull grey color was painted onto the walls of what he dismissively called his room. Against a wall to the left, opposite to his bed, was a desktop with a somewhat dusty PC set. Alongside it was a book-shelf full with its respective books, all put in place, although they weren't arranged in a specific order that made it easier to find one specific work. The dark brown door leading to the closet was in a lonely corner of the room, filled with clothes that made the boy look more respectable than he actually was when put on.

Anything else was unimportant and went unnoticed to him.

'Ugh! It's still hard to digest that I have been reincarnated '

He shook his head and then smiled.

Sure, it was a difficult few months before everything fit together, but I like to think I got a much better deal than the other self-insert characters I read about in my old life. Instead of having everything shoved in my head in one day or worse waking up inside of a uterus; I gently dreamed everything from my past life over the course of my first months living my new one. Although there were still few thinks that were quite hazy in his memories.

His eyes travelled to where the door was. The light coming from the hallway brazenly made its way into a hermit's place of choice. The dark ambient and obnoxious atmosphere of a lazy teenager's room was illuminated, for all to see and admire.

A smiling teenager stood beneath the door's threshold. His wild brown hair was easily recognizable, and it was a good fit for his equally brown eyes. He wore a black blazer over a white buttoned shirt and a red shirt underneath. His slacks were somewhat baggy.

In the darkness of the room, the boy in bed stared at his opposite with an unreadable face.

He pursed his lips slightly. A tired smile formed. It was hard to see in the dark, but it was there.

"Good morning, Issei," came out a calm voice, almost inaudible. "I believe I already told you to stop waking me up like this. It's kind of annoying."

He covered a yawn with his hand. Issei seemed openly impatient; he was nothing short of a little kid wanting to go to the candy store. That candy store was actually their school, and, of course, the candies were…

"You wouldn't even wake up if I didn't help you, and we gotta make better use of your time. As your brother, it is my natural duty to introduce you to the world of breasts and harem, Takeshi! I'll search for each and every single pretty girl if I must just to show you that it's not a waste."

…Female students.

Takeshi's little smile faltered for a second. It was almost painful to hear his sibling's dirty rambling. Anyone with enough lucidity, which wasn't much to begin with, could instantly conclude Issei wasn't the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Or if he could be a knife at all.

He was more of a spoon. A well-rounded idiot, more or less flat and without any actual depth, so to speak. And that was being awfully nice with him.

"…Not everyone shares your exaggerated tastes in women, Issei," he groggily muttered as he kicked his mattresses aside. "Is this part of that dumb bet you made with your perverted lackeys? To see if I'm actually a closet pervert?"

Issei's friends were equally annoying –and perverted– as him. They were quite skeptic about Takeshi's lack of lecherous attitudes, compared to his brother. It was obvious they wanted another pervert in their tribe. Takeshi just wanted them to disappear from existence.

"N-No." Takeshi idly noted the small pause in Issei's response despite his tiredness. He should have figured it was something like that. "I'm just trying to add some flavor to your life, you lazy ass. Without me here, you would probably die a virgin!"

That sounded worse if taken out of context, in a way.

Takeshi got out of bed. His naked feet stomped the ground with more strength than he intended to. He cracked his neck to one side, then to the other. Standing straight, he was definitely taller than Issei by some centimeters. The later was kind of self-conscious about the height difference.

Issei approached his brother and grabbed him by his shoulders. "C'mon, Aniki! If we hurry we can probably peak on the Kendo club and come out unscathed-"

Issei's shoulders were grabbed in return by skinny, pale hands, cutting his sentence short.

"Do get out of my room. You can tell me about breasts and whatnot later," Takeshi ordered without missing a beat. He forced Issei out of his room in an ungentle manner as he spat dumb phrases about women's bodies and their assets.

The door clicked as it closed after his brother was gone. The brunet's voice was heard less and less. Takeshi was left alone in his dark room. His steady breathing and the morning light peeking from the window were his only companions left.

A sigh filled with exasperation escaped his lips involuntarily.

" I still can't get off this feeling from my heart whenever I see Issei, as if- as if I have known him since my previous life "

He went to his closet to get his school uniform. He threw away the blue shirt he was wearing, and replaced it with a white buttoned shirt that had vertical black lines and black edges. His shorts were disposed of too, and he quickly put on some black pants. A belt slid through the gaps, tightly adjusting the cloth against his waist. A black blazer completed the uniform.

He turned his head and stared at the slightly opened window of his room.

Reflected on the window's glass was the blurred image of a teenager. His wavy brown hair was long enough for it to brush his shoulders, and for some bangs to fall upon his face. His skin was sickly pale. It looked even more ghastly with the morning light of the sun passing through the window.

His brilliant blue eyes shined, even in the darkness of the room. If looked in a specific light, one could say they were even glimmering.

With nothing else to do in the place, he left the room.

He reached the dining room of the house in a matter of 17 blinks –he did actually count– and was instantly greeted by 2 of the 4 people that bothered to even remember his name. Both his father, who was reading the newspaper of the day on the couch, and his mother, who was still making food, gifted him with the usual "good morning, son".

Takeshi numbly acknowledged their salutations and sat down on the table, just across his brother. He was wolfing down his breakfast with a clear lack of manners. A look of neutral disgust was seen on Takeshi's face. Issei gave him a weird stare in the following moments, before speaking up.

"Whot's withh thath look?"

The brunet could only give him an appropriate expression of annoyance.

Gulp

" You know dude, you will never be able to conquer good women with that kind of expression!"

If Ayame took offense in that remark, he didn't really show it.

" I don't want to hear that from you, boob maniac."

Issei hummed, either ignoring or not understanding the subtle insult thrown at him.

"You should smile more often, Takeshi. You're pretty handsome. I'm sure you could make lots of girls swoon with that smile of yours," Nozomi assured while giggling lightheartedly.

"Thanks mom, but I don't want a girlfriend. They are too hectic for my peaceful life."

"Then," Issei spoke again with a rather dumb grin, "doesn't that mean that Takeshi is-"

"I'm not gay."

The younger sibling in question huffed disappointedly at the dry answer. "You're super boring, Takeshi. You must have a secret fetish or a guilty pleasure I can exploit, and I will make sure to discover it!"

Takeshi shook his head disapprovingly. Their mother kept smiling warmly at the exchange before going back to her own matters. Both of them kept eating as they had their usual one-sided conversation. Issei would converse about something that could be considered dumb or useless, and Takeshi would either accept his brother's quirkiness in silence or respond in a not very gentle manner.

They eventually finished eating. The 4 family members stood before the entrance, 2 of them ready for school, and the other 2 ready to bid them farewell for the day.

"Have a wonderful day at school, my big boys." Nozomi gave them both a hug. Issei returned it with a somewhat embarrassed expression. Takeshi seemed stiff, but he did the same immediately.

"Don't get in trouble, kiddos." The father, Haruto, advised in a friendly way as he slapped them on the back. "And Takeshi, make sure Issei doesn't get beaten up by another group of lasses. Again."

"Following my desires is not getting in trouble!" said Issei in a matter of seconds in a futile attempt to excuse his perverted tendencies. "It's the natural thing to do for a teenager. Takeshi is the one who should be in trouble for not acting like a normal guy!"

Their parents smiled at Issei's silliness. Takeshi remained impassive before his brother's crude lecherousness, and decided to not respond.

With everything said and done, the siblings went to school.

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Before Takeshi stood tall and towering the edification of Kuoh Academy. A previously all-girls school before it started accepting male students too.

Issei had already gone somewhere else, leaving him alone in his silent contemplation of the place.

The place was quite colorful. The main building was big and beautiful. The students were all different and unique, so much you could even end up memorizing their names and appearances with enough time and some socializing.

It was your normal school filled with hormonal, gossiping teenagers, and it was absolutely asinine if you weren't accustomed to the antics of said teenagers by being one yourself. Takeshi had the misfortune of being too normal in a place where people were anything but decent. Or, in the words of Issei, 'too boring'.

Combine the hormonal teenagers with the fact that the school was pretentious to no end, and you got an exotic mix of something that could accurately be described as a place for fancy-pants people with a collective intelligence that couldn't greater than a monkey's.

Luckily for the boy, he was very skilled in the art of not being a dumbass. Which meant he wasn't going to stand out at all and bring unwanted attention to himself, unlike Issei, who had already earned the moniker of the 'Perverted King' and was well known in school grounds for the worst reasons.

Sometimes, Takeshi did feel kind of embarrassed. He couldn't get over the fact that Issei was part of a group called the 'perverted trio'. But, once he remembered that the problem didn't concern him, or tainted his inexistent reputation that much, he forgot about it rather quickly.

It was good Takeshi only had 1 year left in that joke of a school. It was just a matter of time before he left that useless, boring part of his life behind.

Finally feeling tired of staring at the source of most of his anxieties, Takeshi walked towards the establishment and stepped inside.

The halls inside of school were as rich-looking always. The floors were polished enough to reflect the distorted image of any person who decided to look down, and the windows were big enough to allow as much light as possible to enter inside. A dark red hue was plastered on the walls and gave a somewhat royal air to the place.

Without Issei pestering him, Takeshi had the chance to admire the architecture. It was a good way to spend time peacefully.

Of course, Issei wasn't the only annoyance he had to withstand in a daily basis.

There was a second annoyance, and it was unfortunate, because that annoyance had just enough intelligence to tick him off whenever she felt like it. That second annoyance went by the name of-

"My, my, fancy seeing you here, Takeshi-kun~"

…

…

…

Yep.

Takeshi also had a curse. He could invoke the things that annoyed him the most by thinking about them. That, or God found him amusing enough to lead his life towards the annoying things themselves.

"I can barely contain my happiness about it, Himejima," responded Takeshi with a bit of sarcasm and a special touch of monotony. "Also, maybe I'm suffering from a brain disease that makes me unable to remember things correctly, but I'm pretty sure we aren't that close for you to use my first name."

He didn't bother to turn around and face the owner of the voice. Said owner giggled in a girly manner as she matched her pace to the boy's own.

"C'mon, don't be like that. I think it's cuter than just calling you Hyoudou-chan~" she said in return. "We can make things even, and you could call me Akeno in return. You have to take responsibility if people get the wrong impression, though~"

Takeshi's eyes scrunched slightly as a thought flashed across his mind.

'I'll carve you open and throw you into the nearest river.'

Of course, he wouldn't do that. That was way too messy, way too merciful for the woman in question.

"Takeshi-kun, you're thinking about bad things again~"

"I have no clue as to what you're talking about."

He stopped walking and turned around. The girl talking to him was, indeed, beautiful. Her raven black hair was tied with a yellow ribbon on the back of her head. The interesting violet color that adorned her eyes gave her a mysterious aura as she analyzed him. Even the female uniform he was so accustomed to seeing was worn a lot better by her than other girls, and her figure just accentuated that natural beauty.

The aforementioned uniform consisted of a white long-sleeved buttoned shirt, with black vertical linings all over it, a black cape over her shoulders with white edges, a matching buttoned corset of the same color, and a magenta-colored skirt. And again, it looked bafflingly attractive when worn by her.

She was Akeno Himejima. Another person who gave me the same feeling as that of Issei.

'The feeling of me knowing her since my previous life '

" Takeshi-kun~~"

She had the fame of being one of the most beautiful girls in school.

One of the most beautiful girls? Sure, can't really argue with that.

A pain in the ass? Absolutely.

Akeno just decided to appear one day, and began passively harassing Takeshi. The boy didn't understand her reasons for doing so, and he wasn't eager to investigate either way.

"If you want to elicit some funny reaction, then I'm clearly not the best candidate for your personal entertainment," he told her, face betraying no emotion whatsoever.

"Hmmm? Oh, no, no, Takeshi-kun. You got it all wrong," she assured while dismissively waving a hand. "I'm not trying to make you angry or something. I do enjoy talking with you, although your reactions can be cute and unique~"

She got slightly closer, and spoke in a whispery voice.

"Besides, you actually look at me in the eye while we're talking, unlike some guys I know." The smirk she dedicated to him and a sneaky wink were enough to make him feel twitchy.

Takeshi looked at no particular direction as his lips quirked upwards in a small, pained smile. "I'm starting to believe this world punishes decent people. It's one dumb thing after another."

Akeno giggled again as if everything Takeshi said was joke material. "Don't be embarrassed, Takeshi-kun. Any other person would have blushed at being called cute~"

"Well, I'm not any other person." His smile disappeared, replaced with an expressionless face again. "As much as I want to enjoy your general existence around me, there's a class I need to go to. Goodbye."

Takeshi felt a tug on his blazer as he tried to escape a fate worse than death. He was definitely failing.

"Ah, ah, Takeshi-kun. I know that my beauty is making you lose your focus, but I think you're forgetting something." He could almost hear her smile between word and word. "We're in the same class, Takeshi-kun. If you paid more attention, you would notice me more often~"

Akeno couldn't notice, but Takeshi's left eye was twitching.

Yeah, he definitely failed. What a torture.

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