Sometimes, being a reincarnated 50-year-old war veteran stuck in a 16-year-old body comes with unexpected perks.
Like realizing 90% of high school boys still think with their dicks and talk with their egos.
And the remaining 10%? They're just better at hiding it.
I sat on the rooftop with my boys—Daiki and Shin. My "friends," if you could call them that. More like the last two guys in class who still had something interesting to say.
Daiki was the loudmouth—tan, soccer-fueled energy, always bragging about a girl who "definitely wants me, bro."
Shin? The opposite. Quiet, sharp, emotionally constipated. The kind of guy who writes poems and then deletes them before sunrise.
Today was a bento-sharing, gossip-trading, trash-talking kind of day. The kind I needed.
Daiki: "Yo, tell me the truth. Is Nurse Reina actually single?"
Me (smirking): "You think she's handing out shots and hearts?"
Shin: "The real question is, why would someone like her be interested in high schoolers?"
I almost choked on my rice.
Me: "Are you saying that hypothetically or personally, Shin?"
Shin (shrugging): "Just seems odd. She's… beautiful. Confident. Like she has a whole life beyond this school. And don't forget her glorious body"
He wasn't wrong. They both were circling the truth, but they didn't have the system to tell them why Reina sometimes stared out the window like she was trapped in a memory—or why Rika, my homeroom teacher, wore perfume that didn't match her mood.
Daiki: "All I'm saying is, if I had a shot at someone like that? Bro, I'd never come back to school."
Me (grinning): "Then it's a good thing you don't. You'd fail harder than your last math test."
Shin: "Besides, women like that don't fall for boys. They fall for storms."
They both looked at me.
I raised an eyebrow.
Me: "What?"
Daiki: "Man, you've changed."
Shin: "You walk like someone who's already lived two lives."
I looked away, biting down a laugh.
If only they knew.
Later, we went to the arcade after school. Shin was destroying us in rhythm games while Daiki tried to flirt with a girl running the prize counter.
Spoiler: she ignored him.
I spent most of my time on the punching bag machine.
Not because I needed to impress anyone, but because I liked the sound it made when I hit it just right—like thunder trapped in leather.
System (teasing):
"Look at you, Renji. A MILF magnet by day, a rooftop philosopher by lunch, and a secret badass at night."
Me (in my head): "You forgot emotionally tormented."
System: "Nah. That's just seasoning."
On the way home, the three of us grabbed canned coffee from a vending machine.
It wasn't much. Just boys walking under a sunset sky, talking crap about everything and nothing.
But it reminded me of the before.
Before the system.
Before Rika.
Before Reina whispered she missed me in the silence.
Daiki: "You ever wonder if this is the peak?"
Me: "High school?"
Shin: "Life."
I shook my head.
Me: "No. This is just the tutorial. The real game starts when you stop lying to yourself."
They went quiet.
And for once, none of us had a joke to kill the moment.
Back at home, the system gave me one final line before bed:
"Even warriors need days off, baby. You earned this one. Tomorrow? Back to war."
I smiled as I pulled the blanket over my head.
Yeah.
Tomorrow, the storm returns.
But tonight? I was just Renji Sakamoto.
Friend. Fighter. MILF magnet in disguise.