Chapter 1: Nagumo Miyabi’s Soliloquy

Chapter 1: Nagumo Miyabi’s Soliloquy

Chapter 1:

Nagumo Miyabi’s Soliloquy

B EFORE I KNEW IT , I was number one, in both academics and sports.

Before I knew it, I found myself surrounded by people who wanted to enjoy the benefits of my good fortune.

It wasn’t as though I had put in a lot of effort.

Even though I had learned the same things others did, in the same span of time, it was my ability to learn that was head-and-shoulders above.

It was…it was like a prerequisite for becoming unexpectedly popular.

Popularity is a talent.

From an early age, I had the talent to become popular.

It wasn’t as if everyone liked me, of course; I knew that. Some people saw me as a rival—and the more intense that feeling was, the more they loathed me. But that didn’t really matter. Good or bad, I was happy as long as the common riffraff recognized that I was special. It had always been the same for me—I’d followed the dazzling path of Mr. Popular all throughout elementary school and junior high.

Even so, I’d never been able to shake off this odd, niggling discomfort I sometimes felt, like something was wrong. A feeling of unease that I couldn’t answer. My life had always been free of inconvenience, and that feeling was the only thing that had smoldered there in the back of my mind for all this time. Even after being recognized by so many, after being followed by them, that feeling that something was off wouldn’t go away.

But I had decided not to care. Everything was fine, regardless of this feeling of unease, as long as I was still popular, still number one. That was how it was supposed to be…

But things changed completely once I entered high school. I couldn’t stop that sense of unease from boiling furiously to the surface.

Horikita Manabu. That student was one year older than me, and he had commanded the respect of many. He outshone me by far; he was much wiser than I was, and he had conviction, too, without ever seeming fickle.

Then there was another person. He was different from Horikita Manabu, but he had special talents. Ayanokouji Kiyotaka. He was an unusual guy with a cocky attitude, but even so, his abilities were undeniably the real thing.

My own accomplishments weren’t any less impressive than the achievements of those two were.

But, along with that feeling of unease I couldn’t banish, there was something that I sometimes thought about.

Am I really that good?

Or am I simply the emperor with no clothes, unlucky enough never to have been graced with a real opponent?

The thought plagued me. It was the source of my unease.

That was why I needed to settle things—in order to eliminate that feeling. I had to defeat Ayanokouji, and become someone truly gifted.

Otherwise…