Chapter 57: No One is Waiting for a Sequel Anymore

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“…I’m home.”

Today was just like any other day; after university classes ended, I headed straight home without hanging out anywhere.

My college life was already halfway over, and with job hunting starting next year, I had to wonder where my earnest desire to sing the praises of youth had completely vanished to.

Suppressing a sigh so as not to make a sound, I opened the front door to my house, only to find my Okan already waiting in ambush.

“Oh, welcome back. Mahiro-chan dropped by a little while ago and left a message: ‘I have something I want to discuss, so please contact me.'”

“…Why the hell did Mahiro go out of her way to visit our house just to leave a message?”

“Because you never check your Liso or anything like that, right?”

“…”

She has a point.

Well, ever since high school, my Liso had essentially devolved into a dedicated communication app exclusively for Temari. There was absolutely zero chance of me making a habit out of checking it, let alone becoming addicted to it.

However, ever since that memory-less mistake we made while drinking, Mahiro had been coming onto me aggressively. If this was going to happen, I would’ve preferred it during our high school days, or if I were being greedy, before she started dating Hashizume. But life just didn’t work out that nicely.

In my mind, the existence known as Yoshikawa Mahiro was already a relic of the past, saved on a corrupted memory drive labeled ‘Youth.’ She wasn’t someone I should be looking at as a romantic interest this late in the game.

“Okaasama.”

“What is it? It’s creepy when you get all formal out of nowhere.”

I was absolutely certain that my tendency to say one word too many was entirely Okan’s fault. But since I had something I wanted to ask, I had no choice but to humble myself. Endurance. I just needed to endure.

“Why is it that, in this world, situations where ‘the one you love doesn’t love you back, but the one you don’t love does’ constantly occur?”

“That’s a much more serious question than I expected, so I’m a little surprised.”

“Don’t dodge the question… Ah, I see. Am I to understand that even with your needlessly extensive life experience, Okan, you don’t know the answer?”

“I wonder who influenced that irritating conversational style of yours.”

“Well, there is a little something in this world called the Product Liability Act, you see.”

“Sigh… Whatever. I don’t have a definitive answer for that either, but it most likely comes down to the presence or absence of ulterior motives.”

“…Ulterior motives?”

I was genuinely shocked that Okan had returned a much more serious answer than expected. I felt like I was going to get a reflex boner.

“Yeah. I probably shouldn’t put it like this, but guys inevitably approach the women they have feelings for completely brimming with ulterior motives, don’t they?”

“Well, you can’t really help that, can you? A guy has to start by getting her to notice him in the first place.”

“You have a point, but if you’re overflowing with unnecessary ulterior motives, a woman will put her guard up. The only time that’s tolerated is if it’s a man who makes her think, ‘I wouldn’t mind having sex with this guy.'”

“Ah, the standard thought process of a mass-produced woman: ‘If it’s from a hot guy, it’s an invitation to love; if it’s from a cheese-gyu nerd, it’s sexual harassment.'”

“That’s perfectly normal. If a woman gets attacked by force, she can’t exactly fight back, you know.”

“I get that, but still.”

“Well, it’s tough being a man these days. Everything you do gets turned into a huge fuss. Even though there are plenty of other men out there who truly deserve to be condemned.”

“As you say.”

Whoa, Okan was actually making a lot of sense. Well, it couldn’t be helped that the ultimate consequence of all this was a declining birthrate.

“We got off-topic. Anyway, that’s exactly why women drop their guard around men who don’t show any ulterior motives. And if they have a lot of opportunities to interact, a certain level of affection naturally develops.”

“Like gradually falling in love?”

“You really can’t underestimate this, especially for a woman who’s been through a terrible experience in the past. If she feels disgust toward a guy’s ulterior motives, he’s starting from the negatives. But if she receives kindness from a man with no apparent ulterior motives, she thinks, ‘This guy is a gentleman!’ and he gets to start from the positives.”

“Oh, that makes sense. And most guys won’t treat a woman poorly even if they don’t have any ulterior motives toward her. Unless they hated her from the start, I suppose.”

“Right? But ultimately, a woman that a man shows no ulterior motives to… that just means he doesn’t think of her as anything more than that.”

“Falling in sense!!”

In other words, because I haven’t been blatantly showing any ulterior motives, it feels like Mahiro’s affection rating for me has been skyrocketing lately!!

It might have been exactly as she said. I genuinely didn’t really care about Mahiro’s existence anymore.

Hmmm. When you approached someone you liked full of ulterior motives, they put their guard up. On the flip side, when you approached someone you didn’t even like without showing any ulterior motives, they dropped their guard, causing their affection to just keep rising. In that sense, romance games might have actually been pretty accurate to reality.

…………

Which basically means.

If Mahiro’s affection for me went up because the current me is interacting with her without harboring any particular ulterior motives, then the exact opposite should also be possible.

Honestly, while she was someone I had liked for a time, it was far too late for this. A part of me just wasn’t very happy about it.

Compared to the time when Mahiro rejected me, I might have indeed changed. Thanks to Shorinji Kempo, I had built up a bit of stamina, and I had even managed to pass the entrance exam for a highly competitive university.

However, while it was true that I had tried to change, I didn’t actually have any conscious realization that my core self had changed at all. For better or for worse, I was still the exact same bottom-caste guy from back then.

And yet, with Mahiro suddenly coming onto me so aggressively after all this time, it really only left me with a profound sense of discomfort. Mahiro had absolutely zero taste in men.

—・—・—・—・—・—・—

“Mahiro… We need to talk.”

And so, I went over to Mahiro’s house, completely determined to smash the delusions she was harboring about the current me into absolute smithereens.

For some reason, Chihiro-san wasn’t around. Well, it was definitely convenient; I couldn’t exactly go spewing scumbag remarks in front of Chihiro-san, after all.

“W-What is it?”

As for Mahiro, she was inexplicably sitting in formal seiza, waiting for my words.

“Knowing you, you might just be giving me the time of day to justify that drunken mistake to yourself.”

“…Huh? T-That’s not true at all, you know?”

“No, it definitely is. A Mona-girl like you who attracts guys as easily as breathing wouldn’t possibly feel any lingering attachment to a guy you rejected in the past. That kind of convenient setup only happens in doujinshi.”

“T-That’s why I’m telling you to forget about that…”

Ho, judging by this reaction, at the end of the day, her high school days must have become a dark history for her as well. Or rather, that’s entirely natural considering Hashizume had his way with her however he pleased.

Very well. I’ll set that aside for now, and completely disillusion Mahiro. With an attitude absolutely brimming with ulterior motives!!

“Well, but if you’re up for it, setting aside the whole dating thing, I do want us to become more than just childhood friends.”

“!! R-Really!?”

“Yeah. Friends, but more than childhood friends. Like the kind who hang out and have sex together.”

“…………Hweh?”

Whoa, a blank, stupidly open-mouthed Mahiro was not something you got to see every day. In that sense, this was pretty valuable.

“Sounds good, doesn’t it? We can deepen our friendship by having sex with each other. I don’t have any memories of it, but whether you do it once, ten times, or a hundred times, it’s all the same, right? A relationship where we’re childhood friends and buddies who are close enough to f**k.”

Mahiro froze completely.

Well, of course she did. No matter how sexually experienced she was, it wasn’t every day that someone pitched their ulterior motives at her as blatantly as a blistering fastball.

No matter how much she might have liked me, this was a proposal on a level guaranteed to completely repulse her…

“I’d love to!!”

“…Huh?”

Or so I thought, but for some reason, Mahiro’s paralysis suddenly broke, and the next thing I knew, she was hugging me and pushing me down to the floor.

“Gueh!”

“If it’s you, Yuuya, I don’t mind being just sex friends. It all depends on my own heart anyway. As long as it’s you, Yuuya…”

Saying that, for some inexplicable reason, Mahiro happily began stripping off her own clothes while mounting herself on top of me. I couldn’t escape.

…Did I pick the wrong dialogue option?