only A way out

Vol. 1: Chapter 2.1 - A disappointing bus travel

"Excuse me, but shouldn't you offer up your seat?"

If I'm really in this universe I suppose that the first scene is the iconic bus scene, the introduction of the main characters, Kushida, Horikita, Koenji and Ayanokouji, there is no point in making myself known to any of them or interrupting anything at this moment so it's best to just observe.

"Yes, sorry oba-san for not realizing it sooner, go ahead."

What?

For a moment, I opened my eyes that were about to close.

Hey, by any chance, was I right when I was referring to the other universe?

That's what I thought at first, when I panicked a little I abruptly got up from my seat and turned my head towards the place where the tiny commotion occurred.

There I could see it, and that's how I finally understood.

I wasn't on the protagonists' bus...

If you think about it a little it makes a lot of sense, a bus with a maximum capacity of around 40 people, with more than half of them being adults, means that there are many more buses that probably have different routes or go at a different time, it would take around 8 buses to cover the 160 first-year students at Advanced Nurturing High School so the chance of me being right on the bus where the first event occurs is only one in eight.

Boring...

The moment I sat back down in my seat as if I had lost a part of my soul, I realized that there were some people looking at me strangely, mostly other students, I guess the fact that we share a uniform and I behave strangely affected them more.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I turned my head to the left, towards the direction of the voice, there, right next to me, was a very pretty girl with black hair and the same uniform as me, I don't really recognize her from any illustration I've seen, so I guess It's just another extra.

"Yes, everything is fine, I was just a little alarmed" I tried to say as calmly as possible.

"Nightmares, huh."

I tilted my head for a moment, I didn't understand why she mentioned nightmares, but I realized that before making strange stretching movements and standing up abruptly from my seat I was sleeping, although in reality I was spending some time in that void.

"Yes, it was a horrible dream, apparently I was in a place I couldn't get out of"

Oops, I hurt myself with my own words.

"I see, it's normal since we are about to enter a school that we won't be able to leave for three years," she said with a cute chuckle.

I nodded my head, I didn't know how to deal with her since we may be in different classes and the friendship could get complicated, doing something like Ichinose who can be friends with anyone is definitely impossible for me.

"Ah- by the way, my name is Nishimura Ryüko, nice to meet you"

"My name is... is..."

Should I use my real name, or in this world do I have another name? This is all very confusing, I don't even know what class I'm in!

Trying to look around to find a clue of what to say I could see the cover of the notebook where the riddle was written.

"TRUE! My name is Isao, Matsukuma Isao" I just managed to avoid stuttering to avoid more awkwardness.

But it seems that it didn't help, I saw that she started looking at me strangely.

"Sorry, I'm a little nervous about all this change of environment and everything."

"No, don't worry, I'm a little nervous too, I never expected to be accepted into this kind of school you know," she said, letting out a longing sigh.

This is the right time to ask I guess.

"Nishimura, what class were you assigned to?"

"I'm in class D, what about you?"

"Oh... well... I forgot to check where... you know... they tell you the class and all that."

"It seems like you're quite clumsy Matsukuma-kun," she chuckled cutely.

I laughed in an embarrassed way, at least that proved that it's not something completely crazy not to know what class you were assigned to so I don't think I'll have much trouble getting that information if I ask someone on the staff. It would have been worrying if not knowing your class had been something so absurd that it was worthy of some kind of punishment.

"Well then, nice to meet you, Matsukuma-kun. I hope we can be good friends during the next three years that we will share school."

"Yes, I hope so too."

Then we had a calm conversation, we talked about things like hobbies, where we came from or why we chose this school, I mostly answered truthfully but there were also a few times that I had to tell a few small lies, all so as not to sound too strange, first of all I don't know much about this school, or this country in general, my original self is not from Japan or even Asia so common knowledge is something I lack, luckily the second language I studied at university was Japanese so I have no problems speaking, writing or reading things, although customs and manners will definitely be a problem.

Not long after our talk, the bus ride came to a halt as we reached the gate of the campus.

This is it. This is the start of my second high school life... I shouldn't be here, but now that I am I may as well enjoy it right? Although the priority is to graduate in class A, I can't really think about what to do until I at least know in which class I'm in.

Stop, take a deep breath.

OK, let's go!

"Matsukuma-kun, do you know where the staff in charge of answering our questions or guiding us when entering the school is located?" Nishimura asked with a teasing smile.

I stopped instantly wondering whether to accept the help she seemed to be offering me or to complain to her about how she stopped my moment of cheering myself up.

"In the e-mail they sent us, apart from telling us the class we were in, they also mentioned a few guides about how to get around the campus and the special locations, remember?" Nishimura mentioned with increasing certainty that I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Please and thank you, Nishimura" I tried to bow as much as I could to express sincerity or something, I'm not sure, it's something I saw a lot in other novels or mangas.

"Oh, no, don't worry, I was thinking of helping you anyway, so just stop! you're embarrassing me."

Yep, manners and customs will definitely be a problem.

Author notes:

As I wrote in the last chapter, there will be some scenes that won't be here, this a prefect example, after all, always being in the main scenes will change things too much, it also lets me modify some of the events with the main characters according to the course of the history and leave the changes like a mistery for the readers to solve.

About the name of the OC, I just searched for a japanese name generator and choose one that sounded unique and also isn't similar to other character names. Feel free to give me recomendations if you think of a cooler name, I may as well change it in the future.

With this chapter I hope you can see more or less how this story is going to be. Hope you like it.