Chapter 36: The Heroine I Admire

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Translator: Soafp

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I immediately understood.

Sugawara-senpai had come to rely on me in order to ease her anxiety.

But when I saw the desperation in her eyes, I couldn't bring myself to coldly push her away. More than anything, if I rejected her here and now, there was a real fear that something irreversible might happen to her.

(Even if she ends up depending on me for a while… as long as she doesn't take her own life…)

What Sugawara-senpai wanted from me wasn't the role of a lover.

She wanted someone who would protect her, always be on her side, and support her heart.

In other words, the role that should have been fulfilled by her father, Hideki.

“Alright. Just for today.”

“…Okay. Thank you.”

“But just in case, don't tell anyone about this.”

“I understand.”

Of course, I had no intention of doing anything inappropriate.

But still, it was strange enough for a teenage boy and girl to sleep in the same room. If rumors like that spread at school, it wouldn't affect me much—but for Sugawara-senpai, it could lead to a fatal label, like “a girl who sold her body for money.”

“Senpai, by the way, did you dry your hair?”

“…I was scared, so I just wiped it with a towel and came right away.”

“Dry it properly. It'd be a waste if your beautiful hair got damaged.”

“…Is that better for you too, Fukagawa-kun?”

“Of course. So hurry and dry it with a hairdryer. If you're scared, you can do it in this room.”

“Okay.”

Sugawara-senpai quickly brought the hairdryer from the sink.

It seemed she really didn't want to be alone. Given how shaken she was, it couldn't be helped—but maybe she had always been quite clingy by nature. It was a side of her I never would have imagined when we first met.

I joked lightly.

“If my right arm were fine, I could've dried it for you.”

“Fukagawa-kun, do you like girls' hair too, not just their hands and legs?”

“Well… it's different from a guy's hair, isn't it? Maybe it's just my imagination.”

“I see…”

She turned on the hairdryer and continued.

“I told you, didn't I? You can do anything you want to me. If you want to touch my hair, you can touch it as much as you like.”

When she said things so directly, I didn't know how to respond.

At times like this, I almost missed Nodoka Komori's classic tsundere attitude.

“By the way, senpai—when you said sleep together, you just meant in the same room, right?”

“Just to be clear, I meant sleeping together in your bed. You're not going to say you'll sleep on the floor, are you?”

“….”

She saw right through me.

I shouldn't have asked.

(Well… my bed is big enough.)

I had bought it for Yuzuki, so it was large enough for two people.

Right—like that time at the hotel, I could just think of it as simple sleeping side by side.

Even that was a bit questionable, though…

I got into bed first and lay down.

I must have been more exhausted than I realized—I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment.

“Fukagawa-kun, do you prefer br**sts or thighs?”

“That's pretty sudden. Well, both have their merits… but I think a girl's figure is all about the thighs.”

“Oh really? For the record, I'm confident in both my ch*st and thighs. And my pelvis too.”

“Is that bragging?”

“It's an appeal. I'm saying you should check for yourself.”

Would I even be able to sleep properly tonight?

Sugawara-senpai was starting to feel more like a predator than ever.

Eventually, the sound of the hairdryer stopped.

After putting it away, she turned off the lights and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, slipped into my bed.

“Fukagawa-kun, what is this bed? It's amazing.”

“It's a one-million-yen mattress.”

“Wow… wait, what? One million? Not a hundred thousand?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened as she pressed down on the mattress.

Just like in The Little Prince, adults love numbers.

Maybe we were already climbing those steps ourselves.

“You really aren't normal, in more ways than one.”

“I'm just an ordinary high school student.”

“Anyone else saying that would be one thing—but hearing it from you feels like watching a news report about average income in Japan.”

“….”

Well, with my precognition, even I didn't think I was normal…

But from her perspective, it made sense.

“I think I like people who aren't normal.”

“Is that so?”

She lay down facing me and continued softly.

“When I read web novels, I always preferred slightly unusual protagonists over truly normal ones.”

“Well, honestly, it's rare for light novel protagonists to actually be normal.”

Even if they start that way, once they go to another world and gain a cheat ability, they stop being normal.

The same goes for movies like Star Wars.

She quietly moved closer to me.

I pretended to turn over, facing away—but she didn't let me escape. She hugged me tightly from behind, pressing her upper body against me.

“When I read web novels, do you know what kind of heroine I admired the most?”

“…No idea.”

I couldn't imagine what kind of heroine a girl would admire in male-oriented harem stories.

Definitely not because of the soft, full sensation pressing against my back through our pajamas.

“A slave heroine.”

“…What?”

“A kind, capable girl who meets a slightly unusual master and just has to love him blindly—and in return, she's cherished and taken care of. I wanted to be that kind of heroine.”

Now that she mentioned it, she had said something like that before.

That she liked stories where the protagonist supports all the heroines.

“Isn't it nice? No worries, just loving your master, being adored even more in return, and living without any hardship. I even envied it.”

“…I see.”

This wasn't just about today.

Her heart had been worn down for a long time.

She was seeking a strong shelter.

Maybe she wasn't the type to fight through hardship on her own to begin with.

“So… Fukagawa-kun…”

She brought her lips close to my ear.

Her breath tickled my ear, strangely seductive.

“Will you become my master?”

…But I had to endure.

(This isn't because she loves me.)

She was just trying to use me as an escape.

If I accepted this, she would make me her entire reason for living.

That wouldn't be good for either of us.

“…Senpai, I'm sorry, but I don't plan on getting a girlfriend anytime soon.”

“Not a girlfriend—a slave. You can still have a girlfriend separately. I don't plan on monopolizing you.”

“I like pretty hardcore stuff, you know?”

“Because I'd be a slave, right? SM? Or neglect? Either is fine.”

“Do you know why I broke up with my ex? Because I made her use her mouth and swallow, and I tried to finish inside her even on dangerous days.”

“So what? That just means your ex was strange. Shouldn't she have been happy?”

“….”

This wasn't getting through to her…

She was tougher than expected.

“Senpai, you're just overwhelmed because so much happened today.”

“No. I'm serious.”

“Then if you still feel that way after everything settles down, I'll seriously consider it.”

“That just means you won't, doesn't it?”

“No. Think of it as a test. To see how serious you are. If you really mean it, you'll feel the same even after you've calmed down, right?”

“…That does make sense.”

It was better to postpone than reject her outright.

If I simply said no, she might feel like even I had abandoned her.

“Alright. I accept the test. But if you see I'm serious, you have to accept me then.”

“Of course.”

Thinking of a biography of Abraham Lincoln I had read as a child, I drifted off to sleep.

---

After that, things progressed smoothly.

The next day, we immediately consulted a specialist lawyer and began proceedings for a criminal complaint and termination of parental rights.

With Sugawara-senpai now actively asserting her case, and with the evidence gathered through the detective, everything worked in our favor.

June passed, and July arrived.

The hospital cleared me to remove my cast, and my right arm was finally free.

With that, Nodoka's role also came to an end.

“Oh, I saw the news. Your father got arrested, right?”

It was lunchtime on the emergency staircase.

As usual, Sugawara-senpai, Nodoka, and I were gathered there.

Sugawara-senpai no longer demanded 10,000 yen for 15 minutes of my time.

If anything, she now refused it herself.

At Nodoka's words, Sugawara-senpai nodded.

“It even made local news. Well, it's all thanks to Ren-kun. He also paid the full legal fees.”

“By the way, senpai, now that he's been arrested, you don't need to stay at Ren's house anymore, right?”

“There's no one at my house anymore. I prefer staying at Ren-kun's place, where I can serve him anytime.”

“S-serve!? And you're calling him by his name so naturally now!?”

“I'm not a tsundere like you, Nodoka-san. As a slave heroine candidate, I actually wanted to call him ‘Master,' but he rejected it.”

“S-slave!? Master!? Ren, what is going on!?”

…Even if she grabbed my collar and glared at me like that, I had only done what I thought was best.

In fact, she even tried to take over all the housework at my place, which was starting to trouble my mom a bit.

But then—

“There you are, Sugawara!”

A male teacher suddenly rushed in.

He was the homeroom teacher of Class 2-4—Sugawara-senpai's class.

“We just got a call! Your house—it's in trouble right now!”

“My house?”

The teacher shouted in a panic.

“It looks like your house is on fire!!”