Chapter 110: The Lonely Ones
The night after his date with Kanami. Ran was sitting in front of Tetsuttei Tetteh(inn), looking up at the sky in a daze.
He sat down on his knees. The night sky was covered with thin clouds, and most of the moonlight and starlight were covered by a grey veil.
The night wind was cold and seemed to be stealing the warmth from his chilled heart.
As he let out a heavy sigh and turned his head, Ran could feel the presence of someone approaching him.
“What’s the matter, being alone at this time of night? Is there something wrong?”
It was Aya who came to talk to him.
Aya smiled and sat down next to Ran.
She was in her school uniform. Ran was sure she was wearing the easy to move around outfit she used as a nightgown earlier and wondered if she went to the trouble of changing clothes to go outside.
“It’s my turn to keep on the lookout and Kirishima wasn’t in the room. I wondered where you’d gone.”
“I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“Don’t worry about it. …Oh and, Shirayuki and Sadogashima are on guard inside.”
As if to restrain Ran from getting up, Aya gave the answer to his worries for the girls.
When he sat back down, Aya looked into Ran’s face.
“You can’t sleep?”
“No. I’ve been thinking about something and it’s making me dizzy.”
“Did you have a bad date with Inugami?”
Ran flatly denied Aya’s question.
He enjoyed his date with Kanami. That was an undeniable fact.
“I did enjoy my date with Kanami.”
“I’m glad to hear that……You looked tired when you went out with Nekoyama.I was worried that I’d been too self-conscious and that things wouldn’t work out well.”
Aya’s hair softly fluttered in the wind. Her long brown hair tickled Ran’s cheeks and a sweet scent wafted to his nose.
When he leaned in for warmth, Aya hugged Ran’s shoulders tightly.
The feeling of being acknowledged brought strength back to his depressed heart.
“……Aya. Aya is…,I’m not sure if I’m more comfortable in this world or the one I came from. What about you?”
“What’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”
Aya looked at Ran in confusion, as if she hadn’t expected the question.
Aya put her hand on Ran’s forehead, tilted her head and muttered, [You don’t have a fever, do you ……?] It was a theatrical gesture, but not an unpleasant one.
“Well, I’d like to go back to my world. I think it’s only right to go back, and I’ve never once thought it was wrong.”
Aya made a small, anxious sound in her throat.
“…Is Kirishima different?”
“…………”
“It is true that I have been treated as a nuisance at school, and I have even been subjected to unkind criticism from proud seniors and people like Aihara. I’ve had a lot of misunderstood men come on to me because I look like this…but I have family back home, and a few friends.I like my world much better than this one. I’ve never thought about what it would be like if I couldn’t go back.”
Aya’s hand grasped Ran’s shoulder, and he felt the strength in it.
“Why do you ask?”
Ran seemed to be putting it into words.
“……When I was kicked out right after my transition, I was wondering what I would do here if I couldn’t go back.”
In the early days of Ran’s exclusion, he did not have such a strong desire to return to his world.
There was little attachment to the idea of returning.
“Don’t you want to see your family or something……?”
“I did want to go home.But I didn’t feel that strongly about it. If it didn’t happen, I could just live with it.”
A small orange light twinkled in the darkness.
It was the residue of a bad memory that had come back to Ran several times in recent days.
The flickering memories that had been smouldering in the dust, the loss and the temperature of those days, were brought up together.
Bitter memories that should have been kept in the back of his mind and covered up.
He remembered the look in Ryuzaki’s eyes when he confronted him in the forest.
He wondered if Ryuzaki sensed the loneliness that lay deep within Ran in his eyes.
He didn’t have any friends in his class. There was no one with whom he could share his hobbies or talk to. It was a different kind of isolation, and Ryuzaki may have smelled his own kind.
“I lost my parents in a fire when I was a little boy.”
From the depths of a congealed memory, a burning mass of emotion was scooped out.
The strongest memories never faded from the record.
The desire to forget had created a wall, a membrane, which covered him from the outside.
When he broke through the shell that surrounded him, the edges of his vivid memories came pouring out like a torrent.
“I can’t say for sure because I was very young and my memory of that time is vague, but it didn’t seem to be an accident. I think it was fortunate that there was no damage to the surrounding houses.”
Aya kept silent, but her hand that grasped his shoulder soon had the power to pull him closer.
“My grandparents were still alive and well, so I had a lot of support until I was in junior high school. I think it was around the time I decided to enter high school.For some reason, I was taken in by my relatives - my maternal uncle’s family. …… I still live there now.”
Sohei Kirishima was a quiet, serious man with a slightly unusual habit.
He was unmarried but owned a nice house, where Ran was staying with him.
When he was young, Ran’s parents had done him a great favour. When he had nowhere to go and was at his wits’ end, they offered to look after him.
“Back home, I was alone. I had no hobbies. I had no friends. I thought it wouldn’t matter if I never went back”
The excessive desire to be loved that consumed Ran’s nature may have something to do with that.
“When I was in primary school, there was a girl in my class. Living with a single parent, that girl always wore the same clothes. I was kept away from boys and girls…even though I didn’t do anything wrong or cause any trouble.”
“I was like that in secondary school. Whenever something went missing from the class, I was the first one suspected. They don’t have to say it directly, but I can feel it in the air.”
From somewhere, it spread. Before one could know, everyone already knew about it.
Ran didn’t think he had anything to do with it after he started high school.
Had his mind matured and learned to distinguish between what was right and wrong to say? Or was it simply that no one knew about the past? Ran didn’t know.
“No matter how many times I’ve experienced it, I’ve never gotten used to being under the spotlight of suspicion. I don’t even want to get used to it.”
“It’s as if everyone in the world is against you…… I’ve had a similar experience, so I can understand.”
“You might laugh at me for overreacting, but …… I feel like I’ve been denied by everyone and everything.”
His growing loneliness made him crave warmth and solidarity with others.
The reason why he took Misuzu in the first place was because he didn’t want to die without having ‘experienced it’.
He had a desire for revenge against Torao, but more than that, his priority was to satisfy his need for approval from the opposite sex.
“As soon as you’ve been transferred, that is what also happened to you. But now, it’s not so bad, is it?”
Aya asked, and Ran nodded his head emphatically.
For the sake of his harem, he wanted to somehow return to the original world. Such a consciousness had grown strongly in Ran.
It was not about being carried away or leaving decisions to others.
Ran felt like he understood a little bit more about how precious it is to work hard for his precious girls.
“I’m sorry for being a little emotional, Aya.”
He didn’t mean to tell anyone about this.
Ran was going to take his past to the grave.
Ran didn’t know why he felt so at ease when he talked with Aya.
When Ran was asked once about his plan to make the girls into his harem, he revealed everything to Aya.
A fake delinquent girl and a lonely boy. Ran wondered if he felt close to her, as she was also a loner in the class, although in a completely different position.
“……family, of course. Do you think that your friends, your colleagues, your lovers, can change your way of thinking?”
“It changes when I meet an important person. I think there is such a thing.”
Suddenly Ran was hugged by a strong force and his posture collapsed. A soft warmth catched him.
He was held in Aya’s arms. Aya, who had been hugging Ran tightly, eventually let go of his body. She smiled a tight smile and was embarrassed.
“I think I’ve changed a lot since I got together with Kirishima, the way I think and the way I behave. It’s not as difficult to get along with Aihara and Onigawara as it used to be, but I think I feel less rejected and less afraid of them than I did when I was in the original world.”
The reason why those things had changed was because of the effect of [Underling Training: Sexual Lunatic]. Ran who actually knew this fact did not even bother to mention it.
“If meeting me has a positive impact on Aya’s outlook on life, then I can’t ask for more.”
Ran said it with pure feelings without any malice or guilt. Aya’s eyes narrowed happily as she looked at Ran.
Then, for a while, they sat shoulder to shoulder in the night air. Aya stood up abruptly and stretched.
“If you don’t come back for a long time, they might worry about you. ……Let’s go back to our room, Kirishima. If you can’t sleep, I’ll hug you forever.”
“Just be honest. You just want me to be your pillow, don’t you?”
“…Well, yes, but…Let me look good for a change!”
It was a correct guess but Aya was blatantly upset.
Aya’s mouth was agape, and Ran’s body was attached to hers.
“I’m happy that Aya wants me.”
Aya and Ran entered the inn side by side. On the way back to her room, Aya casually muttered to herself.
“When I think about it, maybe meeting with them wasn’t so bad after all…”
It was a sighing monologue, but it sounded sarcastic in the quiet night corridor.
Aya must have known that Ran had heard her. But Aya didn’t seem to mind, she just put her hands around Ran’s waist and looked happy.
To Aya, the words were a whisper without any deeper meaning.
But in Ran’s mind, the words were strangely persistent and stuck to the corners of his mind.
“…………”
They were none other than the Otaku group.
It was they who first saved Aya from the loneliness of being isolated in class. It was no wonder she had some feelings for them.
As long as his skills were in effect, Aya would not have romantic feelings for boys other than Ran.
But as he could see from the relationship between Emi and Yuri, even friendship was not enough to tear them apart.
Aya was getting on well with Megane and his friends. This, in turn, confirmed that there were no romantic feelings between them.
There was no need to be concerned.
‘But why?’ It was hard to say, but Ran had a bad feeling about it.
◇◇◇
The day after he encountered Kanami in the forest. Tsubasa Ryuzaki was sitting in the corner of the boy’s room looking at the scenery outside for no reason.
Normally he would have been out by now, but today he just didn’t feel like going to the guild.
He remembered what happened yesterday. This was the second time Kanami had warned him about going out by himself.
For the proud Ryuzaki, it was a terrible blow to his self-esteem to hear his classmates complain about him.
“I don’t like the idea of doing what Inugami says but I don’t want to be dwelling on it any longer.”
In the boy’s room were Yamashiro Hirokatsu and Tanaka Haruto.
Yamashiro, who had suffered a mental breakdown due to the suffocating life in the palace, did not take part in the collection of money, but stayed at the inn to look after the room.
He couldn’t be left alone, so Yamashiro’s friend Haruto Tanaka or Sho Shiratori would stay behind, and they were together most of the time.
“…………”
Their gaze catched Ryuzaki’s.
The silent gaze seemed to condemn them to be in the same space.
He couldn’t breathe being in the same room with them. That was why Ryuzaki went out every day alone to collect silver.
He could forget about all those annoying human relations and stuff while he was doing his job alone.
“………Haa”
Feeling unspeakably oppressed, Ryuzaki left the boy’s room.
There was no place to go. If Kanami found him wandering around outside for no reason, he’d be in trouble.
“What do I do now?……”
Now that he was forbidden to go out alone, he needed to find a partner to share his activities with.
The relationship with Tanaka,Shirotori and Yamashiro was beyond repair.
The relationship was formed when Ryuzaki, who had lost his place in the original group, forced his way into a new group. It seemed that all three of them disregarded Ryuzaki, and even if he were to return, it would probably be uncomfortable.
Above all, it was more humiliating than anything for Ryuzaki to bow down and say, [Will you be my friend again?]
If that was the case, Ryuzaki still thought it was more likely that he would go back to the otaku group.
The feud with Megane ran deep and may not be so easy to get rid of.
However, he did not directly fall out with Mitagawa and Kawasaki. Ryuzaki was not going to apologise to Megane even if he would be killed by not doing so. , But if he started by filling in the outer moat, he may find himself back in the same place before he knew it.
“If it is Mitagawa, it may be possible…[I can’t do it alone, Inugami-san will complain.] If I say that, I might be able to get it over with. Because it is Mitagawa.”
He thought of the face of a modest boy with long fringes who never made eye contact with everyone.
It was a bad habit that Ryuzaki can’t seem to get rid of, even when he was isolated, he somehow despised others and ranked them unconsciously.
“But I wonder if those guys are always together. It’s hard to call out only Mitagawa. You’re a boy and all you do is stick together like a girl. Pitiful.”
The door to the boy’s room opened and Hirokatsu Yamashiro appeared.
After muttering in the hallway, Ryuzaki wandered off to the luggage room.
He didn’ want people to know that he was wandering around unattended. It may be too late, but Ryuzaki avoided eye contact with Yamashiro and opened the door of the luggage room.
“……Ara, it’s you, Ryuzaki-san.”
In the luggage room were Reika Joougaoka and Subaru Kiryuin.
They were dressed unusually rough and were surrounded by a pile of luggage.
When he looked near those two, he saw that their jackets and sailor uniforms were scattered haphazardly about.
Ryuzaki’s heart fluttered as he sensed an atmosphere of adultery and ennui.
“It’s a warehouse of sorts, but it’s good manners to knock before you enter a room.”
Reika’s blue eyes narrowed softly and she said this in a pure tone.
Kiryuin Subaru was glaring at Ryuzaki with a hostile look.
Ryuzaki turned his face toward Reika, pretending not to notice Subaru’s line of sight.
“…have you seen Mitagawa?”
Ryuzaki was being blunt and it was a poor way of putting it.
Students that belonged to the [riajuu] group. This was the kind of language that Ryuzaki naturally used for the students who were at the top of the hierarchy he had set for himself.
(pr/n : ‘Riajuu’ is typically used in fandom circles as the opposite of an otaku, or simply meaning “everybody else”. The underlying notion is “someone who is interested in real things and has a successful social life”.)
“It seems that he has gone out with Megane and the others. He was going through his things, and I think he went to the guild, didn’t he?”
Mitagawa had gone out.
As usual, these guys were doing their best for their classmates. They were the lower caste otaku who usually could not play an active role in the world, and that was why in their own territory, the [other world], they were more energetic than necessary.
They put themselves on the shelf and kept their mind stable by ridiculing their own kind.
“――――”
The look in Kiryuin’s eyes gradually changed to a deadly one.
The cold stare pierced him and gave him goosebumps. Ryuzaki knew he shouldn’t stay too long. As he turned his heels to flee, he saw a small piece of paper on the floor near the entrance to the luggage room.
Somewhat curious, he picked it up. Retreating from the luggage room and out into the corridor, he opened it.
It looked like a piece of paper rolled up from a scribble. The scribbles made it difficult to decipher, but Ryuzaki thought it might be a map.
“Looks like it’s not the guild……”
It was clearly marked with the exact number of houses down the street so that the location was clear.
It was not very interesting, but Ryuzaki tucked it into his pocket.
The second bad habit that Ryuzaki could not seem to get rid of was the syndrome of wanting to expose other people’s secrets. He didn’t use it as an excuse to blackmail people, but he did feel a bit superior when he knew other people’s secrets.
“I’ve got plenty of time to try and decipher these messy letters.”
He felt like a detective and got a slight relief from the depression he had been feeling.