Matsuda Rin

I hurried through the train station, keeping my bag tucked close to my chest, under my jacket. A flood of adults getting off work and kids my age getting home from their clubs poured up the staircase to Japan Rail—I picked up my pace, trying to avoid getting swept away, but I couldn’t quite get to the exit before the wave of people hit. I was crushed into close contact with everyone’s bodies and pushed along with the tide. 

Luckily, we were all going the same way. I emerged out of the crowd of people into the late-afternoon sunlight, taking sputtering breaths like I really had been drowning. I still had a good hold on my bag; I wanted to look through it to make sure everything was still there, but I couldn’t do that in public. I’d go home and look, and if something really was missing, I’d call the station Lost-and-Found…no, not that either. I’d just go back and look myself. 

I lived in a residential neighborhood about a ten minute walk from the station. My house had the perk of being next to a small park, with a prefab playground and a grove of plum trees; pretty in the spring, good to pick in the summer, but today, bare-branched against a cold sky. On a different day, I would have followed my old ritual of cutting through the park’s center, climbing up the playstructure and sliding down the slide in order to get to my house, but right now, it felt like the bag was burning a hole through my jacket. I walked fast with my head down, trying not to draw attention to myself. 

The door was locked. I fumbled with my key and opened it to a dark house. “I’m home!” 

No response. My parents were on a trip for the next few days, and my little sister was probably still at music club. She didn’t know about my… my sexuality, but she knew a bit about my hobbies, so I felt okay taking the bag out and leaving it on the table. I’d save sorting through it for when I was in my room with the door locked, though. For now, I busied myself looking through the fridge; there were some nice leftovers from yesterday’s dinner, which I took out and left on the counter with a scribbled note of Heat this up for yourself. I collected up the dishes from breakfast and put them in the dishwasher, then—finally!—took the bag and headed upstairs. 

“The bag” was a plastic one, with the KBooks logo printed across the front in bold white letters. I crouched on the floor of my room and spread everything out to look at, feeling irrepressibly happy. First were four volumes of BL, all the same series. I didn’t normally do fantasy, but this series had gorgeous art and it was sexy too, and I was obsessed with the main characters, a flirty human and a beautiful, cold elf. Next were three plushies of my best boys from my favorite otome game. Buying plushies broke my bank, but looking at their blank expressions, I couldn’t stop my heart from fluttering. So cute—! And I get to cuddle them in bed! After that was the figure I’d bought of my ultra-favorite boy from that game, next was a doujinshi with him and the guy I shipped him most with, and finally there was a small flood of little stand figurines in little plastic bags. Most of them were of him, but there was a variety, including one I’d found for the game I was playing lately, Delinquent Love!. 

From a distance, my bookshelves mostly looked like a wall of One Piece manga. That was clever subterfuge. In fact, I’d never actually read that series. I’d found the One Piece volumes on clearance and used them exclusively to hide my BL and shoujo. Behind the cartoony pirates was my massive collection of hot boys. 

I put the elf/human BL and the doujinshi back there, the plushies under my covers, and the figures of my favorite boy in the little shrine I had for him in my closet. Assembling the Delinquent Love boy, I contemplated where to put him. 

The figure was cute. His name—the name of the character—was Miyazato Ryoya, and he was pretty much exactly my type. I liked playboys, which he was, and boys with long hair, which he had; dark red and a little wavy, tied into a pretty ponytail. I’d grown my hair out myself for a bit, but the school discipline committee had made me cut it to a more acceptable boy’s length for the graduation ceremony, and I hadn’t tried again since because I didn’t really think long hair suited me. I had a plain face, that of any guy you could find on the street, and my cheeks were round, contrasting awkwardly with a long hairstyle; at least with short hair, I looked kind of cute in a little-brother way. Anyway, Ryoya was the only character I’d completed the route of in the game so far, so it’d felt like a real lucky draw to find him. 

For now, I’d put him in the drawer where I stashed the otome games I bought physically. I didn’t normally like putting figures in drawers because they’d fall over, but he could live next to the Delinquent Love! box while I figured out a better place for him to go. Speaking of Delinquent Love, I was ready to settle in and start playing it. The game had been growing on me quickly. I’d finished Ryoya, highly enjoyed Ryoya, and started another route straight away—I’d decided on Okuda Kazuhiro, the heroine’s brash childhood friend, since he’d been teased a lot during the prologue. 

Booting up the game, I was greeted as always with a random love interest’s voice reading out its title. The bright way this one read out “Delinquent Love!”, pronouncing the exclamation mark in full… that was Asada Yasutoki, the cheerful, sunshine-like one. After the logo passed, I was greeted with the homescreen of my 8 different love interests—half rich boys, dressed in preppy uniforms, half edgy boys, wearing leather jackets and tough expressions. 

Before I could press Continue, I heard my sister’s voice from downstairs. “Rinrin-nii!”

“Yeah, what is it?” I shouted down.

“What’s this thing open on the computer? It’s like, a Google search for ‘Is it okay to be gay and not come out’?”

Oh shit. 

I scrambled up. “That’s nothing, it’s nothing!” Running to the landing, I could see her leaning over our family computer, scrolling through the search results. I hurried down the stairs—

The stairs were slippery, and the speed I was going didn’t help. I tripped, fell, and hit my head with a sharp and painful bang. 

➽──────❥ ❀⊱༺♡༻⊰❀ ➽──────❥

I woke up on the floor of a school hallway. I blinked and looked around, thinking, I fainted in the hall? But my last memory wasn’t even of being at school; it was at home, with… with my sister about to find out I was gay. Nausea and anxiety curdled in my gut. I didn’t want her to know. I was going to be happy enough living my life, keeping my sexuality to myself… and maybe someday it’d fade, and I’d start liking girls. 

I didn’t like having attention on me. If there were a lot of gay kids at my high school, maybe it’d be different, but I was the only one. I didn’t want to be looked at, appraised, or judged, and I didn’t want that to happen after I became a working adult, either. I had absolutely no desire to be seen as different. 

Why was I in this hallway? It seemed… unfamiliar. Was this even part of my school? Through the windows outside, I could see cherry blossoms in bloom. It looked like we were on the second floor of a building. My classroom was on my school’s first floor, and so was the gym—I hardly ever went upstairs. 

Crowds of students were walking through. So many, it seemed like it was around lunch…? 

I’d get stepped on if it wasn’t careful. I tried to get to my feet, then stumbled and fell again. 

“Whoa there, are you okay?” 

I looked up, squinting to try and keep my vision focused. Why did that voice sound so familiar? 

Leaning close to my face, nose scrunched up like he was thinking hard, was a teenage boy with freckles and choppy yellow hair. Yellow—not blonde. A color that’d be hard to dye and against school dress code. “You kind of have bags under your eyes. Have you been getting enough sleep, Miya?” 

…Miya?

“I don’t know, maybe not. Everything’s kind of spinning.” I blinked a few times. Looking at the boy closer, he wasn’t wearing my school’s uniform. His uniform was one I’d seen before, but not on the train or at my sister’s middle school. Somewhere else. He wore a light blue waistcoat with a rose sewn on the pocket, and a bright white notched-collar shirt. 

It clicked. Delinquent Love. And with that realization—“Asada Yasutoki?” 

“What’s up?” he replied with a smile. 

I hadn’t recognized him at first because I was used to seeing him in a stylized, manga-like style. His eyes, rather than being big and expressive, now looked like a normal person’s; he had pronounced aegyo sal under his eyes, invisible in the game, that gave him a more natural cute look, like he was used to smiling. His freckles were uneven, and he was tanned along his nose with even a bit of peeling skin. 

Wait, hold up. This was really Asada Yasutoki? No way, right? After all, Delinquent Love wasn’t about real life, and the characters of Delinquent Love weren’t real people. Unless… 

It was like all those villainess manga. I’d reincarnated into an otome game! 

Wait, for real? 

Wait, hadn’t he said Miya, like…Miyazato? 

“Hey…” What did Miyazato Ryoya call Asada Yasutoki? Yasutoki called him Miya, so… “Asa?” 

“Yeah?” 

Good, judging from his lack of reaction, I’d gotten it right. Wait, but he also hadn’t cared when I’d full-named him. I was talking to the most go-with-the-flow guy ever right now. “Can I ask a weird question?” 

“Sure.” 

“Where’s the bathroom? I forgot.” 

“Did you hit your head or something? It’s down there.” He pointed. 

“Thanks. I’m gonna go use it.” 

If he was talking to me in the game, based on what I’d seen of him, he would take my hand gently and say with a serious expression: “Yo, be careful, okay? Don’t fall again. Ryoya worries about you, you know.” 

Instead, he said with a grin, “Slam your head against the urinal and maybe you’ll get your memories back.” 

My pretty prospective love interest had turned into a real-life teenage boy and I didn’t like it. 

Even though my brains had settled and I was mentally coherent, I still felt dizzy as I stumbled towards the bathroom. It feels like my height’s changed. By about twenty centimeters. Which was about the amount taller than me than Ryoya was. He was 185 cm according to his character sheet. 

My goal had been to have some privacy and look in the mirror. I leaned on the sink and stared at my reflection. Miyazato Ryoya stared back.

This is actually real. 

Long, wavy dark red hair, tied in a ponytail. Stud earrings and an unbuttoned collar. Dark reddish-purple eyes. I reached up and touched my own face. A long, elegant nose. Long lashes and clear eyes. Unblemished skin. A mouth that suited the sultry smile which often played across it. I’d become the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen. 

And because I’d taken his body, it was impossible for me to meet or romance the real deal! Was this heaven or hell? 

I didn’t know how I’d gotten here or why I was in this world, or whether this would be temporary or permanent. I hadn’t ever expected something like this to happen to me. For now, I’d try and figure out as much as I could, without revealing to anyone that I in fact was not the ultra-popular third-year high school student and womanizer Miyazato Ryoya; that I was in reality the socially inept and secretly gay second-year high school student Matsuda Rin. 

Not exactly a small gap.