Hikigaya's Route to Senior High Is Not Normal, As Expected

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Hikigaya's Route to Senior High Is Not Normal, As I Expected

"Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person." – Gloria Steinem

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Shiina's POV

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The daily life of what was supposed to be one of the best and highest funded Senior High Schools in Japan seemed to be ideal for every student.

Karaoke bars, the gym, swimming pool, a mall, and a library and more, it seemed like ANHS had it all.

But alas, even if it seems it has it all, does it truly?

Just like every school, it always supports the mass opinion. It really only looks at the picture of what most students do.

Not everyone.

For Shiina, she felt like she was a minority.

Not in ethnicity or anything, but rather, in the kind of person she was.

Among the female population, she didn't feel like she was "girly," enough. She'd never had the experiences many of the girls she'd been around had. Even when she was younger, she would rather read a book rather than hang out with other girls and see their shenanigans.

Almost to a point where Shiina never knew. Did she like books because other girls and boys didn't see her as girly enough, or was she not seen as girl enough, so she found an interest in reading books?

Tomboy.

That was often the term Shiina would hear when being described. While Shiina wasn't really the type to show emotions to people who were strangers to her, and especially to people whom didn't have similar hobbies or interests as her, she knew what it was, and how it reflected an overall opinion of her.

She didn't fit the picture of a girl, or at least the kind of girl accepted by society. She was more introverted, quieter, more into books rather than typical girl things that Shiina didn't even know about.

When she went into Junior High, nothing changed. Shiina was just the shy tomboy girl who just stuck to herself reading books in her free time. Even her parents worried for her, wanting Shiina to "grow out of her shell."

Sometimes she was told she just needed to take a step or be pushed into somewhere before she would realize how much she enjoys it.

But that didn't work out. When she went out to karaoke with some girls she had gained the courage to ask to join, she was too nervous to sing.

And don't get Shiina started on the outings heavily involving sports. Shiina almost passed out from exhaustion due to how unathletic she was.

When she went with girls and would talk about romance, Shiina knew nothing and instead remained quiet. Eventually, she had gone home after that outing feeling empty and nothing. She didn't really enjoy what she was involved in, and so she stuck to reading and imagining the plots of stories.

Sure, she may have been a bit dissociated, but she wasn't nothing. She was smart in her studies after all.

She could handle herself just fine. In the meantime, when she finished Junior High, she obviously went to ANHS. She was excited to start a new journey. She thought such a prestige senior high would be filled with seriously educated and academically focused people like her.

Oh, how she was wrong.

The class she was in were filled with the variation of troublemakers, to athletic jocks, to the average individual, to even the perverts.