Chapter 3 Part 2

By the time we left the arcade, I’d forgotten about that strange sensation at the UFO catcher. I was just happy Ai had managed to get the plushie she wanted, which she clutched tightly to her chest. From there, we went to a nearby bookstore. I had turned to reading more and more as the migraines got worse, and so I was a voracious consumer of manga and light novels. The type of books I tended to read were a bit more male-centric—slowlife isekai fantasies were my favorite books to read.

When we entered the store, Ai immediately made a bee line to the light novel aisle.

Surely she’s gonna be a fan of those villainess stories—

“Oh! The new volume of HomuMaid is out! Maybe I’ll grab it now.”

Huh?

My mouth hung open. HomuMaid—also known as Baking Sweets in Another World with my Homunculus Maid—was about as fanservicey as isekai slowlife could get. It was filled to the brim with cute girls and steamy scenarios—and I’m not talking about baking.

“You read HomuMaid?” I asked, completely flabbergasted.

“Yeah! Of course!” She said, smiling so innocently it made me feel bad for asking. “I love how it’s all chill and how cute the girls are.”

“…Huh.”

Nothing else but that blank sound came to mind.

A strange feeling started growing inside me.

Not only was Ai exactly my type physically, she was nice, was willing to hang out with me, and even shared my interests.

I could only name that feeling when Ai turned to me, clutching the copy of HomuMaid to her chest, with a wide, gleeful smile.

Right, it’s just too good to be true.

That was it. Ai was perfect in every way. It felt strangely uncanny, like getting 100% in a test without even studying.

Seeing me just staring at her, this too-perfect girl broke the silence by asking me a question.

“What are your favorite light novels?”

“Oh, I guess—”

Wait. This can’t be right.

That’s when something broke in me. Instead of listing all those raunchy novels, I searched the store for my favorites, grabbing them without a shred of reservation. I fetched the most cringey-worthy, ecchi-filled, slop novels I could think of. I no longer cared about appearances; even if the covers had girls with their tits barely covered or the protagonist surrounded by a harem of monster girls, I still shoved those books in Ai’s face.

That’s not quite right—I wanted her to recoil back. I wanted her to drop the façade, to really act like a normal girl, like every girl in my life had ever treated me. To look at me like I was a piece of trash.

To end this dream and stop giving me hope.

And yet—

“Oh, I’ve never heard of this one! Looks cute though,” she said, to a novel where the girl was literally wearing a slave collar.

“Huh-uh, I read this too. I see you’re a connoisseur,” was her blushed response to a novel so outrageously, unabashedly horny even I didn’t have the gal to buy it.

What’s going on here?

This was impossible. No matter what novel I threw Ai’s way, she never recoiled, never even hinted at being disgusted by my tastes. She just accepted it with the same smile she showed all the time.

But there was still one novel left.

My all-time favorite. You could call it a “guilty pleasure”, in fact. Something that was sure to make the curtain drop.

“Oh, but my absolute favorite is—”

And then my mouth stopped.

It was happening again.

It was like there was something in my mind that was blocking access to my memories.

I knew for absolute sure that none of the novels I showed Ai were favorite one.

But no matter how much I tried to, I just couldn’t recall the name of it.

I browsed around the store, trying to find it by mere chance. Even just something that would jog my memory. But to no avail. Nothing jumped out as the one.

Wait. Had I ever had a favorite novel in the first place?

I was starting to doubt my own memories again. Maybe I did have one, maybe I didn’t. That uncertainty was making me feel creeped out at myself.

“Hiro? What’s wrong?” Ai said, still holding onto the novels I gave her like they were the most precious thing in the world.

“Nah, it’s nothing.”

Who cares?

Did it even matter?

Ai already had enough novels to read. Did it really matter I couldn’t remember the name of just one of them? I’d surely come across it eventually.

For sure.

⬡⬢⬡⬢⬡

“Aww, that was so much fun!” Ai said as she grabbed a forkful of the crêpe she had ordered.

We were at the mall’s outside plaza, where a ton of food stands were around. The sun was shining brightly, with absolutely no sign of the rain from yesterday. However, I wasn’t really enjoying the weather—I was just staring at my own confectionary, still stunned over the events of the last two hours.

“Hiro? Are you not enjoying your crêpe?” Ai asked, genuinely thinking about my well-being.

Or so it seemed.

We genuinely had a lot of fun. The sort of mindless fun I hadn’t had in a long time. I had hung out with a cute girl so perfect she seemed unreal.

And that was precisely the problem. I just couldn’t accept this was actually happening. All my life I had been thrown aside and ignored, and suddenly this girl shows up like this?

There must have been a catch somewhere.

That’s when a certain idea started creeping in from the depths of my mind.

What if all this was some sort of setup?

That would explain everything related to Ai—her suddenly coming into my life and how seemingly perfect she was.

Someone probably set her up.

Maybe Kinuhata and the others threatened her?

Or maybe—she was part of it all along?

That eerie feeling that had followed me throughout the entire day suddenly vanished, being replaced by complete assurance in my deduction.

“Eh,” I said, a wry smile bleeding into my face. “You can drop the act now,” I said, my voice coming out hoarser than I expected.

“…Huh?” That single sound, not really a word, was noticeably sharper, as if she was truly caught unawares. “What do you mean? What act?”

“Kinuhata and the others set you up, right?” I said, not looking at her. “To give me attention, make me fall for you, just to then rip it all from me and make me feel miserable. As if their physical torture wasn’t enough.”

Yes, that was it. Their threats? All BS to make me even more protective of her. Ai was already Kinuhata’s girl. They probably knew each other even from before she transferred in. Then all they had to do was put her up to this charade, and their devious plan would just solve itself.

“Kinuhata? I don’t know anyone by that name,” Ai said bluntly.

“Come on now. If you’re gonna llie, make it more convincing. He’s your classmate, for god’s sake,” I said, shrugging cockily. “You don’t need to pretend anymore.”

“B-But… I’m not…”

I looked around the plaza, trying to find Kinuhata and his goons somewhere, but obviously I saw nothing other than other shoppers.

“They are probably hidden somewhere, laughing and pointing at my misery. There’s no way a girl like you would—”

She slapped me.

A full-strength slap that instantly made my face burn hot with pain.

I raised my eyes to see Ai, her face reddened and her eyes moist with tears.

That’s when I figured out my complete assurance had been wrong..

“You… you really believe that? That I’d be capable of tricking you like that?”

“I-I…”

She wiped off her tears.

“And I was so excited to meet you again. But I see you didn’t enjoy my company,” Ai said as she stood up. “I’m going home. See you, Hiro.”

She bolted away before I could even have a chance to respond.

I stood there, staring blankly at her seat.

Ahh… she left the plushie behind.

The rest of the shoppers were staring in my direction, trying to understand what had just happened, but they soon lost interest.

I waited and waited and waited for that curtain to fall—but it never did.

No one came.

There are no… bullies?

As the realization hit me, I started feeling sick. My stomach felt like it was about to exploud. My face was hot, not because of the slap, but because of genuine shame of what I’d done.

Ai was genuine. Earnest. And I’d done something so despicable because of my own insecurities.

Damn it.

⬡⬢⬡⬢⬡

On my way home, I could only think of one thing—apologizing to Ai.

When I got there, I asked my mom where the Kurosawas lived. But, apparently, she didn’t know, either. I found that a bit odd, considering how she was the rumormonger of the neighborhood, but this move had apparently been a bit sudden.

With nothing else to do, I decided to just do my homework and after that, read a bit.

Only when I glanced at my bookshelf did the whole thing with my favorite light novel series come back to my mind.

Surely, I must own it… right?

So I started dismantling my bookshelf, pulling out every single of my hundreds of books and even checking under the cover slip just in case I had misplaced it somewhere.

But none of those books were from my favorite. I was sure of it. I began thinking rationally about this mystery that kept bugging me.

Did I let a friend borrow it? I didn’t have any in the first place.

Maybe I had sold it? Didn’t seem likely, considering I had never sold any books.

I had just dreamt that I had a favorite series when I didn’t? Possibly. But wouldn’t I really have no favorite novel? Were my tastes this wishy-washy?

I thought and thought about it, but it was just making my head hurt. Surely an answer was going to come sooner or later.

Meanwhile, all I could do was rehearse my apology for the next morning when Ai came to my house so we could walk together.

But she never did.

She’s that angry, huh…

With nothing else I could do, I made my way to school, thinking that Ai would be my only worry that day.

But when I came to class—Kinuhata was missing.