Haibara’s Teenage New Game+ - Volume 1 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: Regretful Teen Years

If I had to describe my three years of high school in one word, hands down it’d be “gray.” I’d never managed to shake my teen regrets. Maybe things would be different now if I had done this instead of that, A instead of B. Imagining what could have been, I’d cook up these impossible fantasies.

Back in middle school, I’d been a hard introvert: no club activities, no girlfriend, and no friends to speak of. I was always alone. The other students chattering happily together in class made me jealous. I felt envious of the guys flirting after school with the girl I secretly had a crush on.

Come high school, I’d resolved to achieve my own “rainbow-colored youth,” as if I could become some kind of dating sim game protagonist. So I attempted to make my high school debut, but I failed. Spectacularly.

By way of comparison, my middle school days had been a million times better. Whereas back then I’d merely been a loner, I was blatantly isolated in high school. Everyone—and I mean everyone—hated me.

I know; it was all my fault. Everything had been going well at first. No, it only looked like everything was going well. That’s why I got cocky. And because of that critical mistake, everything was ruined.

“Hey, Natsuki? Sorry, man, but I can’t stick up for you anymore. Besides, you piss me off.”

I could still vividly remember when those words had slapped me across the face and everything started going downhill.

I was an idiot. That was all.

From then on, I devoted myself to living an upright life. However, I knew that regaining lost trust was much harder than building it fresh with someone new. In the end, my naive rainbow-colored dreams died, and my high school life stayed the same dull gray from start to finish.

I’d been haunted by these regrets ever since, and I’d probably stay haunted until I died.

It was now the winter of my fourth year in college. How many years have you been hung up on all this? I mockingly asked myself. I lit the cigarette in my mouth and slowly breathed out smoke. In the blink of an eye, I had become an adult.

I’d spent my college life weighed down with the regrets from my high school screwups, just trying to pass the days innocuously. I’d returned to introversion, but fed up with failure, I made a few casual friends whom I could occasionally go drinking with. Had someone asked me, “Are you having fun?” I honestly wouldn’t have known how to answer them, but things weren’t bad. It was just right for me.

My senior thesis was progressing well, and I had enough credit hours to graduate. I’d also received a job offer from an infrastructure company with stable future prospects. At this rate, I would probably graduate on schedule, work a normal job, and live a normal life. I didn’t hate the thought of normalcy. Being able to live a normal life is a fortunate thing.

But my high school regrets would never disappear. Three gray years of high school—those precious days had long since passed. People always say, “You can change starting now!” and I’d agree with that statement. However, even if I were to change now, I would never regain all that lost time.

All I’d wanted was a vibrant high school life, something I would never get to experience now. But life goes on. No matter how much the past weighed on my mind, time would continue ticking forward.

I have no choice but to keep living. I smiled bitterly. My past didn’t torment me enough for me to want to die, but it sure did make me sentimental. Being a teenager doesn’t work out for lots of people. I bet it’s a common regret. Yeah, I’m sure it is!

So there and then, I made a wish to god, just one small wish.

God, if you could grant me one wish, please give me a chance to redo my youth.