Please Give Me Back My Ordinary Life
Here I am, a first-year high school student, sixteen years old — and I can say without exaggeration that I'm facing one of the greatest crises of my entire life.
"Otonashi, if you keep staring up at the ceiling like that, you won't be able to see me at all."
"Um... Peace... could you please take this towel first and cover yourself up...?"
"...? Cover...? Oh...?"
Only then did Peace understand why I couldn't bear to look at her and kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling instead.
"So you do have a surprisingly gentlemanly side to you. If it had been... the Celestial King, the Demon King, or the Dragon King, you would likely have been devoured on the spot."
I had absolutely no desire to learn how exactly they would have devoured me. Still, I did learn that aside from the Celestial King, the Demon King and the Dragon King were also women.
Truly, thank you so much...
'Yes, you feel gratitude toward this body! Be all the more thankful!'
...That's not gratitude, it's a desperate will to survive.
"Please... stop talking and just cover yourself already..."
"It matters not to me, but it seems the humans of this era feel shame at the sight of bare flesh."
"GRAAAH!! This person has zero common sense!!"
"And you're one to talk?!"
With that, Peace began to approach me, and I panicked.
"Hyaaah! I said don't come near meee!!"
I retreated into the bathtub first, trying to collect myself. But there was no relief to be found — because Peace had settled in right beside me, perfectly composed.
"Um, Peace, do you really need to sit right next to me?"
"Of course. You are a human this body has acknowledged."
"May I ask how exactly you arrived at that conclusion?"
"I came to this era to gather information. Every creature that laid eyes on my true form fled in terror without exception."
"And yet you found me fascinating and invited me into your home. Granted, you were a fellow whose common sense had been thoroughly shattered."
...Being told I lack common sense by a woman I've just met is a fairly novel experience.
Wait, no — Lucia said the same thing about me once. I retract that remark.
"You acknowledged me over something that trivial?"
"The deciding factor was the purity of your soul."
"Pure, you say...?"
"To be precise, your inner self is in a state of hollow emptiness, devoid of anything. What you see before you now is my original form. Though my power is at roughly half its strength."
"...Is it alright if I look at you directly now?"
"Of course. Avoiding one's eyes is a breach of etiquette."
I turned my head to look at her. Whether it was the warm steam of the bath or something else, Peace's cheeks were flushed a soft pink.
"Every being who has ever seen my true form coveted me with their vile desires."
"Partly because the flow of time and space had warped, I suppose, but it was those wretched gazes I despised that kept me wearing the shape of a beast all this time."
Peace was so beautiful that even by my own eyes she was almost blinding. If the creatures governed by pure instinct ever beheld her like this... it was a scene I had no desire to imagine.
"Yet you do not seek to dominate me as an object of desire. Instead, you treat me — blushing as you do — as a woman, as a person."
Peace paused, as if carefully choosing her next words.
In truth, she was flustered herself. She had reigned above countless living beings for thousands upon thousands of years.
And yet she could not fathom why, before this small human boy, her heart would soften so completely — why it would throb in strange, intermittent beats.
'Why am I feeling these emotions toward this human?'
"Hold on, one correction. Not a beastkin — a furry."
"......You're saying that at a time like this?"
"Classification matters in this era. Slip up, and you'll get called a 'freaking racist.'"
"......You truly are a consistent creature."
Peace let out a snort of laughter, feeling an odd tickle in some corner of her heart.
Paradoxically, it was that absurd remark that brought her defensive walls crashing all the way down.
"So, what exactly are you? You command the flow of time itself, and you mentioned beings called the Celestial King, the Demon King, and the Dragon King..."
"Would you believe me if I told you they were my friends?"
"No. That would be unrealistic."
"...You consider me, who twisted the currents of spacetime to annihilate creatures of the beyond, the realistic part of that?"
"You exist right in front of my eyes, so I'd say that makes you the reality."
At my answer, Peace's eyes trembled faintly.
The quiet resolve in my offhand words. The detached yet unwavering way I looked at the world. And the way I faced her not as a 'monster,' but as a 'person.'
It was because, even if she tried to forget it, she couldn't — a warmth she had yearned for so desperately was overlapping with it all.
Peace's hand reached out slowly and came to rest gently on Otonashi's cheek.
"......You remind me, at times, of the one who was once this body's everything, long, long ago."
"What does that mean? Your Master? What does that have to do with me?"
"Our Master was the only human who ever took me in as a 'person' — who never feared or coveted this body the way you didn't — when I was left utterly alone in this world for the first time."
Peace's voice was trembling almost imperceptibly. It wasn't merely that she thought he resembled her Master.
The firmly rooted eyes that seemed utterly hollow, yet capable of embracing everything within them. The stubborn lingering echo of someone who seemed somehow fragile, yet still tried to protect her.
Peace understood. This boy didn't simply resemble her Master. After thousands of years winding through time, he was her old Master, finally returning to her side.
"To go that far just because someone treated you like a person... that's..."
"No. You're wrong."
Peace cut off Otonashi's words. Overwhelming emotion spread across the surface of the water brushing against her cheeks.
"Your face, your voice, even this strange yet familiar feeling that wells up inside me when I'm near you... all of it. You are to me..."
"......?"
"...Never mind. It would be too soon for you to bear."
Just as the heartwarming atmosphere seemed about to carry on, disaster struck. My gaze had drifted, entirely of its own accord, downward.
"Uh... incredible... curves... so big..."
Whether it was the heat of the bath or some other cause entirely, the inside of my nose burned hot. A thin red stream of liquid began spreading through the water.
"Huh?! Otonashi?! What's happening to you all of a sudden?! Heatstroke?! If you collapse now we're in trouble — snap out of it!"
Panicked, Peace grabbed my body and shook it. Her touch did nothing whatsoever to stop the nosebleed.
The part of my brain responsible for finding efficient solutions to problems had completely shut down.
"...L-Love... and Peace......"
My brain had gone numb, and nothing but incomprehensible gibberish was spilling out of my mouth.
Peace's eyes went wide, clearly not understanding what I'd said — and then she stopped shaking me, her face burning scarlet.
"Wh-what did you say?! Why is peace coming up in a situation like this!"
"Otonashi~? What's going on? Why is it so noisy in he—"
Yuzuru had stumbled upon me mid-collapse. But the moment she saw Peace, she forgot what she'd been about to say.
"Peace?! No, wait, Otonashi?! Are you okay?! Calm down!! Breathe, breathe!!"
Yuzuru, too, registered my condition — sprawled on the floor, nosebleed streaming, gazing blankly at the ceiling.
"Wait!! Peace!! Over there, first!! This idiot's resistance to women is basically zero!! I thought we were safe because he's covered in fur, but..."
"...Yuzuru. Have you no apology for me?"
"Right, Yuzuru, that last remark of yours was deeply rude to Pea—"
"Where exactly are you looking?! Eyes closed, NOW!!"
SLAP!
And so I received a slap on the cheek from Yuzuru — a hit I'd never taken before in my life.
I didn't even look this time, and I still got slapped. Unjust. Truly and genuinely, I had recovered the emotion known as injustice.
After that, events spiraled completely out of control. Washing Peace fell entirely to Yuzuru, and I was left unconscious in the living room, eventually coming to, bathing alone, and going to bed.
The problem came afterward.
There were no clothes that could fit a body like Peace's — the figure of a grown woman — so we lent her Yuzuru's clothes. That was the seed of our ruin.
Yuzuru's clothes clung to Peace quite snugly. From a man's perspective, it was an outfit that flaunted a dangerously efficient... efficiency.
"......The clothes are a bit small, aren't they..."
"......They are. And I thought I'd lived quite seriously myself... hng... this is what it feels like to lose as a woman."
Yuzuru stood before the mirror, despairing as she looked at Peace's curvaceous figure. I hurriedly looked away with an awkward cough.
"What on earth is happening before we even leave for school..."
Ruminating on the lingering sting from the undeserved slap, I looked at Peace sitting on the living room couch.
"So, Peace, what's the plan now?"
"First, I intend to visit this place you call 'school,' Otonashi. Though I imagine that if I go looking like this, you'd say it would cause a 'catastrophe,' yes?"
Peace ran her hand along her own arm, her face oddly flushed.
"But if I wish to keep the beings of this era from carelessly guessing at my true identity, the most efficient course is for me to blend into your daily lives."
Peace had a point. But the thought of bringing a mysterious beauty (or furry?) to school on such short notice made my brain feel like it was already screaming under overload.
Would my peaceful high school life really manage to begin unscathed? I stared at Peace's tail and heaved a deep, silent sigh.
It was around the time Otonashi had collapsed after taking Yuzuru's slap. Yuzuru had been in the middle of washing Peace.
"Yuzuru."
"Yes? What is it, Peace?"
"Otonashi's body bears... scars that one could never imagine on a human being."
Yuzuru's hands stopped for an instant. Her expression, reflected in the mirror, hardened faintly before relaxing again.
"......Honestly, I don't know the details of how those scars came to be either."
"From the very first day we brought him in, he was covered head to toe in wounds. They've faded quite a bit by now, but still."
"I heard he was an orphan whose birth registration had only barely been filed."
"Yes. He lived at the orphanage for a few years, but... it collapsed in a terrible accident. And for the year or two after that, we have no way of even guessing how Otonashi managed to survive."
"All we can do is piece it together from the marks the scars left across his body."
Peace cast a glance over Yuzuru's shoulder, her eyes carrying a shade of quiet sympathy.
"......Forgive me. That was an unnecessary question."
"No, it's alright. If anything... seeing how much you care about Otonashi makes me..."
Yuzuru let her words trail off and stole a careful look at Peace. The magical energy radiating from her body, freed of its beast form, soared far beyond the realm of any mere 'high spirit.'
It was a vast, transparent presence — as if nature itself had been distilled into a single being.
"Peace......"
"What is it, Yuzuru?"
"You're really not just some ordinary beastkin, are you? No — even high spirits couldn't possess a wellspring of magical energy this deep. It's almost like..."
When Yuzuru faltered, unable to finish, Peace answered with a faint smile.
"So now you begin to glimpse, at long last, a fraction of this body's true worth."
"Don't tell me... the guide of nature... the one spoken of only in myth...?"
"It seems in this era I am treated as nothing more than a legend from mythology, but your guess is correct."
"This body is the one in harmony with all of nature. I am what you would call the Spirit King."
Her identity confirmed against all hope, Yuzuru's breath caught in her throat.
"I can't understand it. If you truly are the Spirit King, then why — of all people — would you pour so much attention on Otonashi?"
"At first, it was mere coincidence. But......"
Peace gazed quietly out the window at the night sky pouring down beyond the glass.
"Within that child's hollow, empty soul, I saw the shadow of the one who was this body's Master long, long ago. And then......"
Peace turned her gaze and looked Yuzuru directly in the eye. Under that stare, Yuzuru found herself swallowing dryly without meaning to.
"You, too, are rather ill-suited to being called human, Yuzuru."
"...!"
"I already know the demonic energy dwelling within you. However, despite carrying the bloodline of a highest-ranked demon, you are far too human for me to feel even the slightest urge to purge you."
The calm in Peace's voice sent Yuzuru's heart sinking like a stone.
"You are less a demonkin than... an experiment — a human consumed and reshaped by demonic energy before your birth, I'd wager."
"The work of the current head of the Shiota family, is it? Ethically speaking, it is an unforgivable thing......"
"And yet, paradoxically, it is the very reason you exist in this world at all."
Faced with a being who laid bare both the secret of her birth and the dark underbelly of her family with such flat composure, Yuzuru could do nothing but bite her lip in silence.
"Rest assured. I have no intention of harming either of you. Quite the opposite......"
Peace continued, waving a hand lightly.
"If I am to protect Otonashi — and, further still, to keep the head of the Shiota family in check from their own stronghold — then seeping into your daily lives is the most efficient path for me as well."
"Starting tomorrow, I shall be entering what you call the 'Academy' alongside you."
"The Academy... you say?"
"I do. And perhaps, if this body lends you a measure of its power, you may even find the clue to the lost family you seek."
A small flame of hope flickered to life in Yuzuru's eyes, trembling.
"......Do you truly mean that?"
"When has this body ever spoken falsehood?"
Just as the air in the room was beginning to loosen after all those heavy truths, Yuzuru narrowed her eyes and looked Peace up and down, slowly.
"By the way, Peace."
"......Why are you looking at me with those eyes?"
"As Otonashi's older sister, I feel the need to properly verify whether this dangerous(?) guest who's moved into our house really is on our side."
"W-wait a moment......! Where do you think you're touching! Kyaaah......!"
And so, on that quiet night, a 'secret alliance' and a conversation Otonashi knew nothing about were deepening between the two women.
Cookie (Extra Scene)
While the women were busy forging their ironclad(?) sisterhood, Otonashi was cooling off alone on the living room couch, cradling his stinging cheek.
Would the school life beginning tomorrow really manage to go off without a hitch?