The Odd One Out

Chapter 1.1 - Dilemma

Today marks the start of April, and the start of my new school life at the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School.

I am currently riding the bus to school, lost in my own thoughts. Over the course of my education, I've always only had my own thoughts to keep me company, but hopefully, that all changes today.

The chances of that happening are quite slim though. After all, my identity had been leaked to the entire population of Japan.

The Demon of the Fourth Generation.

A monster among humans.

An empty shell.

An artificial genius with no emotions.

Needless to say, I've become quite the celebrity, although for rather unfortunate reasons. People on the internet started calling me names. Some people were scared of me, while others, on the other hand, wanted to meet me in person to see what I'm really like. Luckily for me, they know my name but not my face. For now, I'm not the center of attention... yet.

I remember reading some comments on the internet about me.

"Isn't society in danger if he's outside now?"

"Kukuku... I want to meet him so I can beat him up with my own two fists and make him suffer even more"

"What an interesting story, an artificial genius they say fufufu..."

The internet sure is a weird place filled with weird people, to say the least.

Not only that, it seems like the news haven't died down. In the bus, everyone seems to be talking about it.

"Have you seen the news about the White Room?"

"I can't believe something like that existed for 20 years..."

"Have you seen the files about that Ayanokouji guy? He seems scary... I can't help but think of him as a demon."

"I mean... he is called the Demon of the Fourth Generation."

"If I were to guess, he's probably really ugly in person."

Looks like school is going to be a lot tougher than I would've imagined. But I've already made up my mind, there's no going back now.

I've always been curious. I've always wanted to further my knowledge and to know what life outside the White Room was like.

Curiosity is like the engine of the human body. Science would say it's the heart. Psychology would say it's the brain. But curiosity is what pushes us to experience new things, feel new feelings and new emotions, see new sights, absorb new information, and invent new technology. Remove curiosity from humanity, and we'd still be living in the Stone Age. As some people would say, curiosity is the engine of achievement.

One of the reasons why I initially wanted to attend here at Tokyo's elite high school is to see for myself what it's like to be a normal high school student, and to see how society works with my own eyes. I've only ever read about these things in books, so I've never really had first hand experiences when it comes to these things.

Up until two and a half weeks ago, my initial plan was to enter this school as an average student with no particular talents except piano, calligraphy and tea ceremony, but fate decided to give me a friendly reminder that I can't control my own life, I guess.

The truth is that I'm not particularly happy nor sad about these news, I'm indifferent like I always have been. If I were to pick one positive outcome though, it would be that that man is currently serving life sentence in prison, and I'll probably never see him ever again.