Chapter 1: I Finally Got Rid of My Yandere Childhood Friend

The alley smelled like wet stone and bad decisions.

I ran past a fruit cart, slipped under a line of laundry, and silently begged every god the hero ever met for help. My boots slid on the cobblestones. My lungs ached. Behind me, a girl was humming.

Humming.

That was the worst part.

My name is Alfred Takafumi II, and I’m the grandson of the Hero from the Other World. Grandpa had the real name. I got the hand-me-down, like an old sword no one bothered to shine. He died of old age, which for him meant all his old battles finally caught up. I barely knew him. I was born here, and the other world is just a bedtime story my dad uses to make me feel bad for being normal.

My father runs the Adventurers Guild in this city. He expects me to inherit it.

I do not want to inherit it.

All I ever wanted was a quiet life. A small house. A good breakfast. Maybe a cat that ignored me. Instead, I got a famous bloodline and a dad who treats training like it’s sacred, plus—

“Alfred-kun! I can see your ears!”

I am going to die.

I threw myself around the corner of the blacksmith’s shop and pressed my back against the wall. My heart was trying to punch its way out through my ribs. I covered my mouth with both hands. I counted to three.

The humming got closer. Slow. Patient. The kind of humming that belonged to someone who already knew how the story ended.

“Alfred-kun. I brought you lunch.”

Lunch. Of course. Lunch, she probably made herself. Lunch that probably had a strand of her hair baked into it on purpose, because she once told me, in a completely calm voice, that a strand of hair was how you made sure a person always came home.

I remember laughing when she said it.

I remember stopping when I realized she was not laughing with me.

“Alfred-kuuuun.”

She rounded the corner. Sakura. My childhood friend. My alleged childhood friend, because “friend” is a word for people who do not carve your name into tree bark at age seven. Her black hair was pinned up with the little silver clip I gave her on her eighth birthday, because of course she still wore it. Her eyes found me in half a second. Her smile was soft. Her smile was always soft.

That was the scariest thing about it.

“There you are.”

“Hi.”

“Why were you running?”

“Exercise.”

“You hate exercise.”

“I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Alfred-kun.”

“Sakura-san.”

She tilted her head. She still had the lunch box clutched against her chest with both hands, like a hostage. The little pink cloth was tied in a perfect bow. Of course it was.

“You’re not avoiding me, are you?”

“Why would I avoid my dearest, closest, definitely platonic childhood friend?”

“Exactly. That would be rude.”

She stepped closer. I stepped back until my shoulder hit the wall. Great. I was cornered by a girl who probably weighed forty-five kilos and brought a picnic.

“Open your mouth.”

“Sakura, I really don’t—”

“Say ah.”

“I had breakfast—”

“Ah, Alfred-kun.”

She had already unwrapped the box. She lifted a small rice ball on her fingertips. It had a face drawn on it in nori. The face was mine. She had drawn my face on a rice ball.

I opened my mouth. I ate myself.

It was delicious. That was somehow the most insulting part.

She watched me chew with pure, glowing joy, and I felt a chill run down my back. She wasn’t crazy. That’s what people misunderstood about her. People who are unhinged usually know it. Sakura was calm. She believed everything she did was normal, kind, and maybe even romantic.

That was what made her terrifying.

“Good?”

“Good.”

“Say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Say thank you, Sakura-sama.”

“…”

“Alfred-kun?”

“Thank you, Sakura-sama.”

“See? Was that so hard?”

I did not answer. Answering would only encourage her. I wiped a grain of rice off my lip with the back of my hand and tried to look like a man who had options in life.

She smiled.

She grabbed my wrist.

Her fingers were small, warm, and way stronger than they should have been. She started walking, and I followed because I didn’t want to lose an arm.

“Where are we going?”

“Training.”

“Sakura, I told my father I was busy today.”

“You told your father you were sick.”

“That too.”

“I told him you were lying.”

I stopped walking for exactly one second. She did not. My shoulder almost popped out of its socket. I started walking again, very fast.

“You told my father I was lying.”

“Because you were. I care about your honesty, Alfred-kun.”

“You care about my honesty.”

“Mm-hm.”

“To my father. The guild leader. Who already wants to turn me into a weapon.”

“Isn’t that sweet of me?”

I wanted to cry. I almost sat down in the street and bawled like a little kid, hoping the city watch would feel sorry for me and arrest me. Jail sounded good. At least jail had walls between you and everyone else.

We turned the last corner. The training yard sprawled in front of us, all packed dirt and splintered dummies and the smell of old sweat. My father stood at the far end with his arms crossed, and even from here I could see the vein in his forehead doing its warm-up stretches.

I prepared to die a second time.

And then, like a gift from heaven wrapped in gold ribbon, a voice cut across the yard.

“Sakura-san of the Haruno family, you are hereby summoned for evaluation at the Magic Arena.”

Everything stopped.

The messenger stood in the gate. He wore the white-and-blue coat of the royal heralds. The scroll in his hand still had its wax seal swinging off the bottom like a fat red tongue. Two armored escorts waited behind him. Real ones. The kind in the good armor, not the dented stuff the city watch wore.

Sakura blinked. Her grip on my wrist loosened for the first time in what felt like a decade.

“Me?”

“You, Sakura-san.”

“Now?”

“Immediately.”

She looked at the scroll. She looked at me. She looked at the scroll again. Her lower lip pushed out in a tiny, perfect pout.

“But I was going to watch Alfred-kun train.”

“The summons is mandatory, Sakura-san.”

“…can he come with me?”

“No.”

“Can he come to the arena?”

“No.”

“Can he at least—”

“No, Sakura-san.”

The herald had clearly been warned about her. Good. Smart move, kingdom. For once, my taxes were doing something useful.

She let go of my wrist. She turned to face me fully. Her soft smile returned, and she reached up and carefully straightened the collar of my shirt with both hands, like she was arranging flowers.

“Alfred-kun.”

“Yes.”

“I will be back.”

“Mm.”

“Quickly.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t go anywhere without telling me.”

“Mm.”

“Promise.”

“I promise, Sakura-sama.”

Her smile deepened by half a millimeter. It was like watching a knife being sharpened. Then she let me go, turned on her heel, and followed the herald out of the yard with the two armored escorts falling in behind her.

I watched her walk away.

I kept watching.

I waited until she was through the gate.

I waited until she was past the gate.

I waited until the herald’s blue coat was a tiny dot at the end of the street.

Then I turned around. My father was still standing at the far end of the yard. He had not moved. He had, however, lowered his arms, because even he could read a room.

“…evaluation.”

“At the arena.”

“That takes a while.”

“It does.”

“How long?”

“Weeks. Sometimes longer. They put the promising ones in the Tower.”

My father does not often say things that make my heart sing. That one made my heart sing. My heart was doing a full choir arrangement. My heart was hitting a high note so pure that songbirds three blocks away would be filing noise complaints.

The Tower.

Weeks.

Maybe longer.

I didn’t ask what the Tower was. I didn’t need to know. The Tower could have been a damp hole full of rats, and I would have gladly kissed every rat by name. Right now, ‘Tower’ was the best word I’d ever heard.

I took a slow breath.

I let it out.

I raised both fists above my head.

“YES.”

My father stared at me.

I did not care.

“YES. YES. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, MAGIC ARENA. THANK YOU, ROYAL HERALD. THANK YOU, WHOEVER SIGNED THAT SCROLL. I LOVE YOU ALL.”

“Alfred.”

“WEEKS, Father. WEEKS.”

“Alfred, we still have training today.”

“I will train. I will train so hard. I will lift every sword in this yard. Put a sword in each hand. Put a sword in my teeth. I have never been happier in my entire life.”

He was, I think, starting to smile. He was trying very hard not to. My father has not smiled at me since I was six and accidentally set his eyebrow on fire. He was failing now. I saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

I did not care about training. I did not care about the guild. I did not care about the hero’s bloodline, the sword techniques, or the destiny my grandfather supposedly left on my shoulders like a sack of wet laundry.

I had weeks.

I had weeks without humming behind me.

I had weeks without rice balls shaped like my face.

I had weeks, and I planned to spend every one of them being, for the first time ever, a totally normal, totally free, totally unwatched guy.

Somewhere across the city, a tall white spire caught the afternoon sun.

I did not look at it.

I was too busy dancing.