I woke up hungry. A piercing gurgle erupted from my abdomen. My eyes drag themselves open to the same roof as the one I went to sleep under yesterday. My head aches and my arms hurt. In fact looking at them they’re a dark blue. Fuck, how did I not break anything?

As it turns out sleeping for half a day and forgetting to eat dinner is not something your body will accept without protest. Especially if you try to ignore it. A sharp stabbing pain shot through the bottom of my sternum. I really hope the mother decided to cook today as well.

I go about my morning routine, though it encounters the same complications of ‘I'm living in a completely different house with a different body,’ and flashback to yesterday. Tsk. tsk tsk tsk.

God I was such a dumbass. I’m sorry Akane, I’m going to apologize as soon as we’re out the door. Then I’ll give you decent answers and hopefully not be insensitive again.

I’m not going to let that hang over our heads, that’s just asking for drama in the future, even without The Narrative.

After all the getting ready for school and such, God, I thought I put that behind me, I made haste to the downstairs, from which the wonderful smell of food was emanating. I was reminded of the cartoon thing where the food turns into hands and pulls you to the source, though there aren’t any wisps like that here. Still, the completely explicable urge to rush to the source was there.

Casually and measuredly walking down, I’m treated to another salmon for breakfast, frosty ignorance by Pinky, and far away small talk by Tits McGee. It may seem unfair to reduce her to that name, but they’ve only gotten bouncier and she’s shown no other defining personality.

Shit, actually that’s bad, wasn’t there a divorce? Maybe she’s very depressed, I mean the dude did seem to just yoink himself out of the family.

Ah, the classic single mother being abandoned for a young ditzy blonde gold digger story. The specifics are probably different, but I’m going all in on it being abandonment for… This dude. Even leaving out the kids, who in their right fucking mind would nope out on this for sex?

Shit, I'm staring too much.

Back on track. I’m changing my bet, it wasn’t abandonment. He was a huge narcissist and thought he wouldn’t get caught cheating. I’ve seen enough hentai to know that fucking ntr trash is a huge thing in Japan, and he just wanted a side piece while barely maintaining his marriage because he thought he had it in the bag.

Expounding on this prediction, McGee took a severe blow to her self-esteem, became depressed, and the only things keeping her together are Pinky and… me. God damn it.

Fuck, why did I have to take over a dude instead of just being dropped in a fantasy world or something, at least then there’d be a semblance of choice in killing people. This woman’d probably fall apart if one of her children got hospitalized, let alone finding out her son’s gone and been replaced with this dipshit.

I’m glad I’m wearing this jacket, those bruises look fucked.

Damn it, I’m staring again! Those things are like magnets. How did I only look once yesterday? Is it something with The Veil? Makes sense that Anime-vision™ would gravitate towards fan-service.

“So why didn’t you eat dinner last night Aoki?” A much more pointed question than usual comes from the mother. “I worked so hard making it. In fact why did you come home so late?” ah. Right. Of course she would pay attention to the one thing that makes it trouble for me. This is a story after all, so therefore conflict. I glance at Akane. Nope, no help there.

Improv time. “I’m sorry Kaa-san, I forgot to eat dinner because I came home so late,” I say casually. I don’t have anything else. Fuck.

“And why was that? Are you trying to worry me?” oh ho, dear. “I spent so long making dinner and you didn’t even eat it, won’t you have any sympathy for my poor nerves?” There’s no purple, but I'm still feeling pressure. Wait, that's not pressure. This isn’t an anime thing, it’s guilt. Goddamnit, why couldn’t I have guessed her backstory after this conversation? All the things are lining up to fuck me!

Well, motherly fussing is going to be less bad than motherly anger, consequence wise. What was that thing that people did to apologize in anime? The head to floor kneeling thing. Kowtow’s Chinese. Bah, let’s go with kowtow. I slowly got up and kowtowed to Empress Mom “I’m sorry but I was in the nurse's office sleeping until five because I had a bad concussion in the halls.” And not one word more. Explanations are for people who aren’t trying to hide their personality.

Instantly her tone changed. She gasped “Oh no! get up off the floor and let me see, this isn’t something for dogeza! You should have called me immediately!” Fussing wasn’t the right word for this. I was being manhandled, she got me up quickly, ow, checked my head for the bump and touched it, ow, then hugged me. Into her tits of course, ow. And then took off my jacket and saw the bruises. Ow. “Aoki? Why didn’t the nurse call me? Were you pushed down, these are horrible! Are the people in the school useless? Should…” Motherly fretting ensued. Ten minutes of me trying everything I could to limit her influence on my school life, which was basically nothing since I was barely keeping my breath.

Who holds someone in their tits for ten minutes!? Or at least, it felt like ten minutes. Either way, Fuck ten minute ago me, motherly fretting is better than anger in real life, but this is anime!

Fucking anime!

Also, why did I end up as a fucking Lucky Pervert!? This is twice. Twice! In two days I've had some sort of facial contact with tits! I didn’t consent to this! Did I die and sign some sort of no memory thing? I want a contractual review! I know I never would have chosen this hell with informed consent.

Except I did, because I felt guilty about taking over this woman’s son and didn’t want her to be angry at me. Be still my bleeding heart.

After she stopped my suffocation she held me at arms length. “Aoki, what if you’re brain damaged?”

“Well then I guess I'll have to deal with the IQ loss.” I shrugged. She looks shocked.

Fuck you tongue, and your glibness!

“Aoki that’s not something to joke about! I-”

“Mother, that’s not something we can control, same thing with other symptoms of brain damage. Some may be permanent, others may not be, you just have to wait them out.” Hey, that’s the first time I think I’ve called her mother. It- it’s a nice thing.

“But we should-”

“We can't control it.” I state firmly “I just have to work with the symptoms, ok?” I comfort her, pulling her into a hug. You know, my brain damage can be used to play off a personality change, and any ‘amnesia’ I get. Egh, let’s just focus on the hug.

God, I’ve missed hugs.

Akane looks conflicted. Shouldn’t there be some sort of graphic for that?

It’s a nice hug.

Unfortunately I have to pull away, but I’m definitely going to hug her again. Human contact feels so much better when it’s not forced. Or causing suffocation.

Pulling away I tell her “I'll bring dinner with me to school if it’s still in the fridge, alright?” she nodded in assent and then I scooted to the kitchen.

She’s also really bad at whispering because I then hear “He really must have hit his head badly, Akane, he’s talking so weird.”

I’m glad we weren’t facing each other because my frustrated twitching at Pinky’s “Maybe he did lose some IQ points.” was uncontrollable.

You know my reasons! I speak perfectly in the Queen’s English! Ok, it’s not strictly formal and correct, but it’s understandable by anyone! Fuck The Translation!

I check the fridge and see a quality looking meal of I-don’t-know in plastic wrap. There’s rice and more miso, I know those. That’s about it, looks good though.

I take it out and rummage around the kitchen for tupperware to take to school with me. Oh wait, can I get a bento box? That’d be awesome. “Aoki, what are you looking for?”

“Something to put this in.” I gesture to the meal.

“Oh, let me do that! Just sit back down and finish your meal.” She cheerily shooed me out of the kitchen and I, having no other choice, tucked back into my meal.

A quick jab in the ribs from Akane got my attention, she whispered a quick “good job” and went back to her own food.

Well, apparently I just did a good job. Has my recent suffering and good handling of the Mother gained me good will? Yay.

I’ll get to you in a bit.

She and I finished up our meals, the Mother gave me my lunch, in a bento box, and I asked Akane to ‘please get me my bag and absence form, I left them in your room.’ A huffy yes, so a great result overall.

A few goodbyes and a hug to the Mother and we’re off at... 6:45? We get two hours to get to school? No, even earlier! How did I even wake up this early without an alarm? Pinky was up before me! I at least had the excuse of an all day nap yesterday, she went to bed about as late as me. Was it 8? 9? Well, that’s 6-ish hours of sleep, but it could have been more! Why didn’t the Mother question why we were leaving so early?

It’s the little things. Why is it the small things always throw me off? Just skim over it, jackass, you have more important things to worry about. Like that apology.

I fielded a look towards Akane. It wasn’t frosty ignorance, at least. “Hey, Akane, I need to apologize for yesterday. I totally focused on the wrong thing and didn’t stop and consider your feelings on the issue, or allow you to field your goals on the thing after completely shooting down getting back your brother. I want to make this apology to you because I don’t want there to be a rift between us in the future that causes drama.” Plain, simple language. Set a course and correct it from there.

My face feels really hot, though. I wish it wouldn’t do that.

She had been quietly listening, having turned to me after I started listing reasons. Then, she became angry at ‘drama’, a visible vein popping on her head. Wait, what about the graphics? Isn’t it supposed to be a giant and flashing sorta deal? Well, it’s still got the right sorta shape? Maybe a-

Right, she’s angry. The thing signifies she’s angry. Let’s focus on that. Tsk. tsk tsk tsk.

“Drama? Are you apologizing because you don’t want to be bothered by ‘the narrative’? You wanna die, bastard?” Nope.

I quickly cut her off. “No, I mean interpersonal drama. I was legitimately being a dumbass, so i need to apologize. You might not have stated them clearly enough for me,” I emphasized, “ to understand at the time, but your worries were more relevant to the discussion than mine. I got hyper fixated on this ‘cool’ idea of doing a curse experiment. That’s on me. Hell I even sulked when you didn’t work with me on the capitals thing.” Not the exact situation I planned, but the course continues.

“I, in my dumbassery, had not explained to you what all my base assumptions of this universe were, nor my personal theories of Narrative. I was inadequate in my assuagement of your concern for your very brother, and completely dismissed you when you tried to bring forth information of potential import. It is brought upon me by my honor of being not completely socially inept to apologize and ask of you to warn me in case of future obstinance.”

She gazed bemused at me, her face red. Ha! Completely disarmed, accept my surrender with grace!

Ooh, that’s a good line.

“You didn’t have to make such a production. Just because you think life is an anime doesn’t mean sudden speeches like that will work.” Hmm?

“What do you mean? I was perfectly clear and direct, what’s the problem here? Did the translation mess with shit?”

A blank look “I accept your apology. Was that how you normally speak?”

I considered it. I had rehearsed it, but looking back… “My speech was a bit bombastic, but I worked my personality in there to make it genuine, I think. I typically don’t judge myself, since that’s biased, but I’d give myself a good six out of seven.” I paused, uncertain “Maybe a seven out of nine now that I think about it. I should have worked the apology in there, perhaps it felt disingenuous because of that?” I turned to her for confirmation on my ratings.

“You know,” Akane began, “I don't get you. And I don’t care right now, you made Kaa-san happier this morning than she has been for a while, even if you freaked her out with the brain damage thing. At least it’ll be easier to cover for your personality…” I froze. Mentally. I kept walking. Who stops for sudden revelations?

Oh shit. It all weaved together: concussion to conciliation to apology. The concussion is a major plot point, I know it. There’s totally foreshadowing with this. Too many things that have gone conveniently have hinged upon it. Why did I get anime vision from head trauma? To confirm I was in an anime. Why wasn’t Mother yelling at the school after my, frankly blunt, explanation? To not disturb the status quo for the show, that wouldn’t happen this early. The lifted depression from this? To guarantee my key relationship with Akane. Which shouldn't be a thing, since I stole her brother’s body. So many plot devices interplaying with my head trauma to make sure my position is safe.

My life is a story. Do I have plot armor? Does the plot have plot armor?

Fucki-

“Hey!” a sharp crack of an interjection whipped my attention back to The Pink. “Don’t ignore me. I’m talking to you,” she ordered flatly. Whoops, my bad. Let’s just set that in the back cycles.

“My apologies. That might happen a bit, I'm a bit frazzled and easily distracted at the moment. I’m not the pinnacle of mental health normally, and now I'm stressed and concussed.” dazed and confused with nothing to lose, alright. ”Ah, shit. Just, thinking about me being in an anime brings up so many questions, you know?”

Do I have a writer? Or are my events being recorded? Am I being written? Is this entire world a figment of imagination? What’s the point of the graphics- Stop. No. I’m listening right now. Those existential questions never. This is reality.

“As I was saying, you made Kaa-san happier than she’s been in a while, so I can’t be mad at you much.” Well, yeah, you just said that earlier. “Even if you’re less… put together than you seemed yesterday morning.” Hey, I can only perform under stress for so long. The hour I went without a breakdown was pushing it.

She took a deep breath and she regarded me “I don't want for you to get off topic, so. Tell me about your ‘base assumptions’”

“Oh, gladly. First off, do you read much?” a shake of the head “Well, unfortunate. My homework for you is to read fiction. A lot of it. Anyway. After reading many a book you begin to notice patterns. These are often called trop-.”

“Wait shit I’m expositing, this is, like the most boring part, usually.”

“I don’t care, stop joking around with me! I want to know this!” Ok, ok. I getcha. Don’t throw a conniption fit.

“Right, so, the patterns in fiction are called tropes. They’re like shorthand; they can tell you what a character’s archetype is. How they fit into the story. Using what you know of the archetype you can then predict its interaction with other archetypes. The Mighty Hero being summoned to go and defeat the Demon King. he meets the Loyal but Naive Princess, a Scatterbrained mage, and a Lovely Priest for his Party. Often all beautiful women. Or for a more western lens, you could go with the Five Man Band: Hero, Brute, Mage, Rogue, and Medic for that tabletop feel. Less likely to be a harem, but it can happen. Stories are like large Rube Goldberg machines. Insert cogs and an instigating event and off you go! Maybe not very far… but,” I gesture vaguely. “Somewhere.” She takes a breath.

“However, tropes don’t just apply to people” I preemptively answer her, “They also apply to events. Places, things, sayings, interactions! All of it can be slotted into a narrative, everyone has a story.”

“So what makes you so sure you’re in an anime, huh?” What’s with the flip flopping, you were onboard a bit ago.

“A couple of things!” I triumphantly grasp the air! “I'm in a different world, with strange and unknown rules, a Stranger in a Strange Land, you might say. Classic Isekai. I didn't even get a chance to Refuse the Call. The Setting of a private Catholic all girls school suddenly opening to a limited population of boys. And that nobody knows who the hell fucking Jesus is in a Christian fucking academy. The fall I had with that Ginger Bitch was straight up obvious and I should have seen it coming. And finally!” I crescendo “I have been suffocated by large-titted women more than once in the last 24 hours! Do you know what that means!?”

“... No.” she admitted!

“Whatever anime I’m in is ecchi. I’m in high school, that limits the genre. It was an all girls school, and I’m one of the few boys allowed after co-edification, more limits. The crash cinches it! I’m in the most derivative, disgustingly generic medium known to mankind” I’m only slightly exaggerating. Slightly. “I’m in a fucking harem anime!” I announced with great lament.

“I… but, how does that help?”

“It narrows the tropes that may happen. If I know the tropes I can use them to my own ends! I probably won’t even have to deal with a world ending disaster!” I wasn’t greatly enthused about this outcome, but I could appreciate the important things. At least I didn't have to deal with hordes of ultra-violent eldritch demons.

They’d be sexy and/or rapey demons instead. Fucking anime.

“I meant how does that help me?” she corrected “I got the tropes thing and how that could be helpful, but you went on a tangent again. I don’t care about your fantasies.” ouch, you’ve known me for a day and have no faith in my character.

“It matters because you’re in my story. A main supporting character. A Trusted Confidante. If I were a standard protagonist I'd probably complain to you how I need a girlfriend or something and ask for advice about girls. You’d probably make up bullshit that I'd easily go along with and cause horrible, horrible misunderstandings. Causing me, the reader, to cringe at the fraudulent advice that tries to make me, the main character, completely change my personality.” a beat

“Wait no, that’s female-oriented rom-coms” hmm, perhaps they’re the most derivative. “Anyway, the point’s there, which is you get a romance b-plot.”

Her eyes widened “Eeeeh!? Where’d that come from?” A pause turned into a scowl. “Baka, stop trying to guess what’s going to happen and give me ‘actionable information.’ I want to know about what affects me. Not what happens to me in your fantasies. Hentai.” she emphasizes, pressing her hand against her collar.

Ok, fair. Except for the fantasies and that last bit. Why didn’t hentai translate to pervert?

I sighed “Genre is incredibly important for what’s going to happen. Harem anime tend to be rather one-note if they aren’t in a novel setting.” I slap my knee. “Aha!”

There’s a small stutter in her walking and she goes glassy-eyed for a second. Uh oh? Let’s file that away.

“But really, I can’t give you all the info you want. A lot of this is ad-hoc and based off of the instinctive knowledge you get when you spend four years of high school reading on your phone instead of paying attention in class.” I still got good grades. I mean, I passed. That’s a definition of good.

I wonder… I pull out my phone and look up tv tropes real quick.

“You’re an otaku?”

Nope, ‘fuck you’ says anime universe ‘no repository of universal knowledge for you.’ ‘tis a shame. Why can’t I get overpowered exploits? Why does Miss Mighty Four-foot here get super strength, but I get a headache and anime graphics?

“Hey! Answer me.” Right. Paying attention to Pinky.

“Well, Pinky, I am a geek, I don't know if that translates. I have a lot of surface to mid level knowledge about a variety of fandoms, but I’ve never really fallen to fanboyity. Back on track, and to end this part of the conversation, I can help you figure out what to do after things happen, or if I’m there when shit’s about to go down. However, if you want to have the same arsenal of savvy that I have you need to read. A lot.” I reiterated: “I have spent nearly a decade of my, admittedly short, life reading fiction. This is a lot of instinct, guessing what’s going on, and it may be very off base, as this is an entirely different universe.” she looked distinctly unsatisfied.

“Ok, look, I promise to help you whenever and however I can, as long as it isn’t too inconvenient. Deal?”

“Fine.” she spat tersely, “How do I learn these tropes on my own then, since you’re so useless in actually teaching me them.” I know I’m bad at explaining things, but something about the way she insults me hurts.

Despite the mild heat in my face, I shrugged nonchalantly, “look up web fiction on your phone, read books, manga, watch anime, look it up on the internet. Amateur fiction would be the best to read, I think. Tropes are story shorthand, and often when amateurs write they want the story to move a certain way. So they use tropes without understanding that you need substance to them. Glaringly obvious tropes. Great for identification. Just don’t forget to read good fiction in between to see how those tropes work when properly played with. For utilization.”

Often, though, people forget that tropes aren’t bad. Many people are just bad at using them.

She huffed and dropped the conversation. Mutters of ‘otaku’ and ‘eccentric asshat’ and other mockeries could be heard echoing from a nearby source, which seemed to reflect resemblance to me. We continued to walk, however, in silence

We walked by the park from yesterday, and I kept a wary eye for Sister Nun-loli. I bet the glitch in the matrix is already patched.

I can sense the malcontent from Pinky. I sighed, “Look, I do want to be friends with you, I’m not trying to get you angry with anything I’m saying,” since that’d likely be the death of me if I couldn’t calm you down, “I’m just… It’s real easy for me to misread people, and I get really enthusiastic about stuff I’m knowledgeable in, and it’s hard for me to explain things. I get on a track in a conversation, but my train of thought is really easy to derail, even in the middle of a paragraph, or sentence. So, like, I start an explanation and it’s going well then a part that I say in it gets me thinking about something else, or I need to clarify it, or something and if I'm unlucky the entire thing becomes incoherent. Or I ramble too long and people lose interest…” Like I’m doing right now.

“Ugh, listen.” she started “I’m good at ‘reading people’ and you, I don’t know if it’s because you’re from another world or whatever, are so obvious about it that it looks like you’re just acting. Like the stupid speech you did earlier. It looks like you’re intentionally holding back information. Like you’re screwing with me.”

Well. Meta-ironic emotional obviousness was not an... expected cause for anger. Was meta-irony the right word? So sincere it seems fake. A bit unwieldy. Akane stepped inside my personal space and grasped her hand on my shoulder. Her nails dug into me and I swore I heard something creak. owowowowow.

“You want to help? Here’s what you’ll do. Make Kaa-san happy. Help me learn tropes. Teach me English. I don’t care whatever else you do, asshat, just make sure it doesn’t hurt the only family member I have left.”

She enunciated this clearly and coldly. Her voice sounded clinically threatening; it wouldn’t be remiss if I was strapped to an autopsy table. Dear fucking God. She doesn’t have her aura up and I feel more terror than I did when I was choking. This is skill. Can I sic you on Ginger Bitch if she goes too far? Oh fuck.

“Now, we’re almost there. I’m going to start walking. You aren’t going to say anything else the entire walk.” Her hand unhanded me and she pulled an about-face, walking briskly away.

Oh hohoho, the adrenaline shot through my veins. My knees are weak, my arms are noodles and I can feel my heart beating in my fucking wrists. I spent the next gloriously calm walk going through breathing exercises.

And now, I am in front of Umehana Academy, once again the wonderful picturesque fountain, courtyard, and cherry blossoms that embody the first impression of this school. Which I, as any good high school senior would do, ignore in order to find the room E-6.

Time to exert sweet, sweet agency upon this world.

I'm not doing the curse thing though, that was stupid. Just plain old confrontation. Let's see how things react.