ALL NOVEL Chapter 50
Ryuichi and Shizuna were going out in earnest. It wasn’t something that the two had made public, but anybody could tell that from the atmosphere between the two that their relationship had progressed to something new. To begin with, the way Shizuna looked at Ryuichi was very maiden-like.
“Ryuichi-kun.”
“Yeah?”
“Just wanted to call your name. ♪”
“I see.”
Exchanges like these, though not incessant, were a frequent occurrence. With that in mind, it was impossible to think there was nothing going on between them.
“Well, guess I should say congrats, Ryuichi.”
“So you’ve officially made her your girlfriend. That’s great to hear, man.”
“Thanks.”
Ryuichi meekly thanked Makoto and Kaname. He had expected them to tease and make fun of him in lots of ways, but contrary to his expectations, they honestly congratulated him. That being said, though, they seemed to have a lot of questions.
“How did you confess to her?”
“Or were you confessed to?”
“………”
He’d thought they were honestly congratulating them, but immediately they broke into grins as they questioned him. He chuckled at how this was very much like them, but he put his hand on their faces as they approached, since it was not something he could talk about as he pleased.
“Gunu?!”
“Mugugu?!”
Ryuichi’s muscular palm held their noses and curiosity at bay, revealing some pretty dumb faces. Makoto and Kaname, like Ryuichi, were delinquents, but their faces were well-defined, so their distorted faces were quite unusual in that they looked similar to pig faces.
“C’mon, just tell us!”
“It’s not like it’s that big of a deal!!”
“You guys are way too old for this!”
It was a little annoying that they usually showed no interest in other people’s love lives, yet now they were being so curious and inquisitive. Ryuichi told them that they should just go to the club and sleep with a girl they liked rather than worry about their friend’s love life, but they still would not give up.
“Why are you two so persistent!”
Incidentally, the three of them were being watched by their classmates as they joked around. These days, perhaps because of Ryuichi’s change, delinquents like Makoto and Kaname tended to be more accepted to some extent.
They were thought to be scary solely due to their appearance and atmosphere, but the students now felt more familiar with them because they had Shizuna by their side, and sometimes they would show faces they had never seen before when they were with Ryuichi.
“Hahaha.”
“What a face, huh?”
Thus commented their classmates around them, who were also staring at them amusedly. It seemed the princess who had become Ryuichi’s girlfriend couldn’t stand to just watch from afar while they were making such a racket like this.
“What’s going on, you two?”
Shizuna came up to them. They immediately switched targets from Ryuichi to Shizuna, who had opened her mouth in a reasonably hushed voice, perhaps in consideration of her surroundings.
“We were asking how you two confessed your feelings for each other.”
“But he’s stubbornly refusing to tell us.”
“…That’s not really something that’s said in public, you know?”
Seeing that Shizuna had taken his side, Ryuichi made a small guts pose. The two scratched their heads uncomfortably because unlike their joking mood, Shizuna had a serious expression on her face as if it was perfectly natural.
“…We were being total kids, huh.”
“Yep. Scratch that, we were being total brats.”
“Don’t worry. We’re all brats age-wise.”
At the very least, they definitely weren’t good kids like other normal students. Although their scary delinquent-like atmosphere had lessened to some extent, they still indulged frequently in the city’s nightlife and had relationships with women. That was why the phrase “brats” perfectly suited them.
“…A-Ah!”
“What’s wrong?”
It was then that Shizuna suddenly clapped her hands together. Ryuichi and the others were wondering what was wrong when Shizuna started to say this:
“That means I’m a brat, too. Ryuichi-kun’s taught me a lot of things since I’ve started going out with him, and he’s also brought me to those kinds of places before. ♪”
“…You sound really happy when you say that.”
“So Ryuichi and Shizuna really are going out, huh…”
Just then, the chime rang, and Makoto and Kaname returned to their seats early. Shizuna stayed by Ryuichi’s side until just before the teacher arrived, perhaps because she wanted to be by his side as much as possible.
“C’mon, class is about to start. You should go back.”
“…Yes.”
“Don’t worry. I promised I’d go to your house today, remember? We can be together then.”
“All right.”
Shizuna resolved herself and returned to her seat.
“Class is starting~!”
The voice of the teacher who’d just entered the classroom rang out, signaling the start of class. It was a well-known fact that recently, Ryuichi had been listening to class diligently without dozing off at all. But just for today, he couldn’t help but feel sleepy. He tried desperately to keep his eyes open, but his resistance was futile, and his consciousness gradually faded away.
“…So sleepy.”
He was sleepy, and if he wasn’t careful, his head might slump down on the table right then and there. He was able to endure it to some extent, but soon Ryuichi fell asleep…and had a certain dream.
“…This is…”
He found himself in a familiar place. He was in one of the rooms inside the beloved apartment he’d lived in his entire life, his room.
“………”
He had no idea why he was there right now. While he was thinking about various things with a fuzzy head, the door opened and someone came in from the outside.
“Did I keep you waiting? They finally wrapped up all their chit-chat, you see~.”
The woman who entered the room was a flamboyant woman. She had blonde hair like Ryuichi’s, earrings in her ears, and a uniform that revealed so much skin that if she walked outside in it, she would undoubtedly be thought of as a lascivious woman.
“…You.”
However, Ryuichi happened to know who the woman was. She was none other than the person who’d become precious to Ryuichi—Shizuna.
“What’s wrong~?”
“…Nothing.”
Ryuichi couldn’t help but avert his gaze at her dragged-out, man-seducing voice. It wasn’t that he thought her appearance was too arousing, he was simply wondering why on earth she looked like that.
“You seem kinda off today, Shishido-kun~?”
Shishido-kun, she said. Shizuna should have been calling Ryuichi by his first name by now instead of his last name, but the Shizuna in front of him had referred to him by his last name, not his first name.
“…Oh, so that’s what this is.”
It was at that moment that Ryuichi realized this was a dream. It was rare that one was able to recognize a dream as a dream, but Shizuna’s appearance, which looked worlds apart from the Shizuna Ryuichi knew, tipped him off that something was wrong. No, well, although he did feel something was wrong with the Shizuna in front of him, that wasn’t to say that he didn’t know her.
“So you’re the manga Shizuna, huh.”
“Hey… Are you really okay?”
This was the Shizuna from the manga, the Shizuna whose body and soul had been corrupted by Ryuichi. In order to suit his tastes more, not only had her mind changed but so too had her appearance to a more flamboyant one, seemingly throwing her innocent image to the curb completely.
“Hey, Shizuna.”
“? …Yeah?”
“Are you happy?”
It was a question that had come out of the blue. Her eyes opened wide in amazement, perhaps wondering what he had abruptly asked her. She nodded her head and was about to reply to him…when suddenly, he put his hand over her mouth. He knew he didn’t have to bother to hear what she was going to say to him, because he could keenly feel that the Shizuna in front of himwas not the Shizuna that he loved.
“…You’re you, another Shizuna that’s also Shizuna.”
“Shishido-kun?”
“And I love Shizuna. But, well, at the very least it’s not you.”
He gave a wry smile as he said that, and Shizuna’s figure disappeared. Ryuichi felt a little uneasy now that he’d been left alone in that space, but he had a feeling that he would soon awaken from this dream. As proof of that, he could hear his beloved girlfriend’s voice.
“Ryuichi-kun… Ryuichi-kun.”
“Wait for me. I’ll be up and awake soon.”
Now that he thought about it, he remembered that the last time he had a dream about his childhood, it was Shizuna who’d pulled him out of the dream too. She mentioned that she would always be by his side, and apparently that applied not only in the real world but also in the dream world.
“…Geez, Shizuna’s just so amazing through and through.”
Leaving that mutter behind, he opened his eyes and woke up.
“?”
Once he awoke, he could feel someone shaking his shoulder. It was of course Shizuna, who had called out to him in the first place, and she was looking at Ryuichi with troubled eyes as if she were gazing at a small child.
“Ah, you’re finally awake.”
“…Was I asleep?”
“You were, and soundly at that, you know? The teacher even said they’d feel bad if they woke you up.”
“…I messed up, huh.”
I’ll apologize if I eventually get the chance to, he thought. He looked at Shizuna, who was staring at him, and the flamboyant Shizuna appeared next to her like a ghost.
One Shizuna was staring at him with pure eyes, and the other was staring at him with flirtatious eyes for men. The more he thought about that difference, the more conspicuous it became, and Ryuichi turned his attention to the Shizuna in front of him as if to erase the other Shizuna.
“You’re definitely best this way.”
“Huh?”
“I’m saying you’re wonderful as you are now.”
“Ah… G-Geez!”
Shizuna’s face turned bright red at his words, but she hit his chest happily.
By the way, he probably hadn’t noticed yet as he had just woken up, but they were in the classroom…which meant that their whole exchange was being watched, and Ryuichi had just personally provided his classmates with material to poke fun at him with.