Chapter 1: No girls are kind to creepy nerds. — Part 2

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Translated and Edited by: luccayn.

Common Honorifics:
-san: A polite suffix, but not excessively formal.
-kun: A common suffix among friends and younger people.
-chan: A common suffix among people you're close with, mostly used for feminine nicknames and girls, since it's cutesy and childlike.
-senpai: A common suffix and noun used to address or refer to one's older or more senior colleagues in a school, workplace, dojo, or sports club.

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Long, thin, pristine. Her pale fingers glided over the showcase full of multicolored ice creams. Next to her, I stand by like a squire.

“Vanilla is the only win~ner♪”

Ice cream when it's freezing outside? I feel like I'm about to shatter here, so I wonder if girls are creatures resistant to the cold or whatever.

But to be honest, I found myself relieved inwardly. I mean, a girl as beautiful as the sun started to talk to such a dull, ugly guy like me. That reminds me, I was in junior high when a friend met a girl at a card store, and he went inside with her without a second thought. Grave mistake. He was soon locked on by some boys who were waiting in the back of the store.

He must've resisted desperately, but he was still beaten to a pulp in the back of that place and stripped of his entire bag full of rare cards. Boy, that deck was all he had. His words, not mine.

Sadly, stories like that are regularly passed down as warnings everywhere. Later, his empty bag and wallet were found on the riverbank in a distant town, but neither the culprits nor his things were ever found.

We nerds have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff. I mean, I'm in a similar situation right now, even though I'm always on the lookout for the possibility that tomorrow might be my turn.

But if it's just one ice cream then it's not that bad.

“Damn, you're blessed~! You got a ‘winner' today, nerd.”

“Huh, you're welcome…?”

Again, I answered like a fleeting mosquito despite apparently winning something. But what exactly did I win? No idea. What was she on about?

“I came all the way to this store just to go, ‘wait, where's my wallet?' Haha, it's like, ‘what are you doing here without a penny, lol?' —Kinda funny to be honest.”

Where was the stinging reaction from earlier? She gave a chipper smile, probably because she was in a good mood due to getting what she wanted. Of course, it's easier to smile back than to get grumpy, so I reciprocated… Uh, wait a minute.

I wonder if I look okay. I mean, I'm not used to smiling, so am I coming across as creepy or something? Probably.

“Everyone loves ice cream, right?”

Ugh, how long have you been doing that? It seems she didn't notice my struggling patience, what a waste of time. After a while next to me, she suddenly went “O~kay.”

She hummed, lightly tapping on the showcase with her beautifully finished nails.

“I've decided.”

Are you old or something?

She let out some happy noises, and a sweet smell tickled my nose. I wonder if it was her perfume. Along with it, a cold spilled from the open showcase full of ice cream, wafting over me.

“Hey, did you know? Vanilla has a ton of variety.”

“Haah…”

“And every last one of them is perfect.”

“I see.”

Oh, I see. You're a “simple is best” kind of girl, huh? Well, I hear there are many bestsellers with vanilla, and I don't dislike it, so I don't have any particular objection. But if there really is a pecking order in ice cream, I wonder how high up my favorite Matcha-flavored ice cream would be. Even if it didn't get number one, I'd be proud if it managed to compete in some way. Man, I love matcha.

I thought so, but huh? Wait.

“Um… Why are you getting more than one?”

Shutting up and listening, I saw this classmate of mine grabbing one ice cream after another from the showcase. What's more, she keeps piling them up and up. Hey, what are you trying to do, build the Tower of Babel?

“It's fine, it's fine. Look, I have a younger sister.”

So what? If I were to tell you this in dummy talk, it'd be “Oh, her smile is so~ pretty~, and we're so close! I can hear my heart beat against my chest,” or something. Couldn't be me.

Normally, I would have said, “nope, can't help ya, goodbye,” or something like that. But don't underestimate a gloomy guy! If I could argue with a beauty, I wouldn't be this dull.

“All right then.”

“—!”

As I was developing some sort of unintelligible boast for being gloomy, she quickly placed all that ice cream on the checkout counter, and all that was left was for me to rip open the maws of my wallet. By the time I finished paying the bill with my silent complaints, the clock inside the store was almost reaching 8 PM.

“Thanks,” she walked away with a satisfied look on her face, carrying the bad I handed her in the parking lot. Inside the bag were a lot of flavors, including vanilla, vanilla, vanilla, and surprise, vanilla. The number of ice creams I saw at the checkout was six,

If it was one for each person, her family was stock-full of children, to say the least. I'm glad to hear your place is lively, I say while cursing inside my own heart.

“Oh yeah, the look on your face at the checkout was so funny. I bet you were scared sh*tless, weren't you?”

I smiled wryly in response. Well, I mean, I've never paid for that much ice cream in my life. If she's as beautiful as she is, her rich boyfriend (I'd imagine) would just buy it all without even looking at the price tags, so I wonder if she's used to it.

On the other hand, I am a petty citizen from an ordinary family, so I have nothing to do with cool stuff like that. It's a shame.

After a while, she pointed to a residential area and said, “My house is over there.” I wonder which one of them she lives in. I mean, this is an area with quite a few high-class buildings, but come on. If you're rich, you can at least buy your damn ice cream.

In front of the gleaming townscape, a quip or two almost escape my lips. But well, for the most part, this is farewell. I can finally say goodbye after the next intersection. It'd be troublesome if this got any more complicated.

With that, the gloomy kid activated his special move, “I don't give a sh*t,” and it was super-effective.

“Where do you live, nerd?”

“A little further down the road.”

Huh. She seems wholly uninterested… Hell, why did you bother asking if you don't care?

“Oops,” suddenly, she stumbled.

“It's heavy. Gimme, I'll hold it,” I offered to hold her bag since it was so heavy, but my hand suddenly cut through the air and I caught nothing.

“Hey, are you trying to take me home or something?”

No, not really.

When I looked at her, I saw she had a very spiteful look on her face and I thought to myself yeah, guys my age who try to get close to girls are dime a dozen.

Still, a bit aggravating to see her cut right through me. Even an ugly, gloomy guy like this one has a little pride. Booger-sized, at least.

“Fine,” I feel someone tugging me from behind just as I was trying to act cool while leaving. “Ah,” she tried saying something while pulling me. No no, don't do that!

If I get any more involved with that extroverted mass in front of me, my position in class will change tomorrow on… Of course, in a bad way.

I've been doing this for a long long time. I'm familiar with the daily grind that is being alone and, well, I don't know if she's the kind of person to do that, but you can never be too careful.

School life has just begun, and I'm just a good ol' freshman. I don't want to be the laughingstock of the whole school, so I need to get the hell out of here!

Finally, on a cold spring night, I scurried away without once looking back.

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A while after that, I thought about something that almost slipped my mind.

“F*ck me.”

I finally realized my mistake. Apparently, I was so excited to talk to a beautiful girl that I didn't even notice it. It was late enough for the police to grab me and yoink me back home, and I was walking alone on my familiar path from school, facepalming.

I remembered why I stopped at the convenience store in the first place. I've been looking forward to it for the past week, throttling myself over my favorite series, which ended on a cliffhanger last issue, and yet…

“This is the worst…” I failed to buy that all-important magazine. No, on the contrary, “I spent the money I'd use on the manga.”

I don't mean to complain about the fact I bought her the ice cream now, but what am I going to do with my “manga-money” this week? I can't help myself at all.

Groaning as to how to come up with some extra cash, my house was just a stone's throw away.

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