Chapter 136 - Knowing Everything
Once I had finished arranging the furniture, the appointed time was drawing near.
10:27 PM. Three minutes before the meeting.
Before I knew it, Ayako-chan had disappeared, apparently having headed to the park ahead of me.
As for the two girls from the other world, they had long since turned in for the night.
To avoid waking Angelica and the others, I quietly unlocked the front door.
There was no strength in the hand gripping the knob. It was as if my entire body had turned to lead.
—Am I going to die?
My mood was that of a swordsman heading to a duel.
This was not the mental state of a man having a secret rendezvous with a seventeen-year-old girl in the middle of the night.
Sure, if it came to a physical scuffle, I would definitely win, but Ayako-chan has this inexplicable, overwhelming presence.
She might skillfully combine [Skill: Debuff] with a woman's passion to attempt a clever double suicide.
Or I might be violated.
People would probably ask what a man is worrying about when facing a woman, but what is scary is scary.
What's scariest of all is that since her appearance is quite to my liking, there's a risk I'll be easily swayed by my emotions and fall for her.
"I'm the worst..."
While wondering if my thoughts just now were a bit much, I kept my feet moving.
I walked straight down the hallway and hurried down the stairs at the end of it.
This apartment building is equipped with an elevator, but I chose to walk on purpose. I thought that if I didn't get my legs used to it beforehand, I might fall behind during the initial dash if I had to flee.
That's right.
In everything, fleeing is winning.
Unlike monsters that end once you punch them, the task of soothing a girl has no end. Moreover, if you soothe her too well, you'll end up triggering a flag and becoming a candidate for a girlfriend.
It's a trap called "romantic relationships" that I experienced many times during the other world era. A pitfall filled to the brim with honey at the bottom. Once you fall in, all that awaits you is a daytime soap opera.
So, if things take a suspicious turn during my discussion with Ayako-chan—I intend to say I need to poop and run toward the toilet with all my might.
I'll run.
I'll run and run and run like crazy.
This is my only option.
It's incredibly pathetic, but I can't think of any other way to take evasive action while breaking the atmosphere.
"...Let's go, then."
Making a pessimistic resolution, I stepped outside the apartment.
Above my head, thousands of stars twinkled, presenting a spectacle much like the flashes of the media.
...The media, huh.
Come to think of it, if I'm being watched by the tabloids, I'm finished, aren't I...?
Realizing the gravity of the situation, I hurriedly cast [Concealment Magic].
Lately, there have been many celebrities who self-destruct by getting involved with underage girls, so there's no harm in being cautious.
Honestly. Teenage girls are troublesome in many ways. But they're cute, too.
Wait, I used to like women in their thirties, but has my sexual preference become warped because of being trained by them?
While regretting my transformed inner self, I arrived at the park.
Where could she be... As I looked left and right, I saw a girl sitting motionless on a bench next to the restroom.
It was Ayako-chan.
The girl in question was there, with a stillness like a decorative object.
Her legs were pressed tightly together, with her fists resting on her knees. The streetlight cast a deep shadow over her downward-looking face, exuding an indescribable negative aura.
That was either the face of someone discussing a breakup, or the face of someone about to report a pregnancy. We aren't even dating, and I have no memory of getting her pregnant, so why can she make such an expression?
"...Did I keep you waiting?"
I called out to her, trying my best to sound friendly.
Ayako-chan slowly raised her head and replied, "I just arrived, too." Her voice was nasal.
It seemed she had been crying. It was the worst possible state.
While letting my guilt swell significantly, I sat down to the right of Ayako-chan. A discussion with a woman I made cry. It was hell.
"You have something you want to talk about, right?"
I tried speaking to her using a gentle voice, the kind that could appear on a children's program right now.
Ayako-chan's response was to "nod while sobbing."
"F-for now, shall we wait until you calm down? Okay? You don't seem to be in a state where you can talk well right now..."
Attack magic that reaches the level of a natural disaster, high stats that make even daily life difficult, and a variety of cheat skills.
As you can see, all of that is neutralized by a single woman's tear.
What a sad creature men are, isn't it?
Glancing at Ayako-chan from the corner of my eye, I could see her covering her face with both hands.
...If a black-haired girl is whimpering in the middle of the night, wouldn't she be mistaken for a ghost?
Out of consideration for society, I decided to cast [Concealment Magic] on Ayako-chan as well.
"I think you might be misunderstanding regarding the matter with Ange, but we didn't actually have a physical relationship—"
"—Since being taken in by Nakamoto-san, I've increased my repertoire of cooking..."
"Eh?"
It seemed Ayako-chan had something she wanted to say.
The sound of her sniffing was mixed in, making it hard to hear, but I decided to stay silent and listen closely.
"...Since Nakamoto-san seems to prefer elaborate Japanese food, I learned how to make simmered dishes... I've become able to make simmered fish, too... Because I thought Nakamoto-san would be happy... As for miso soup, when I was at my parents' house, I used to use instant dashi, but since coming here, I've made sure to make dashi from dried sardines."
"A-ah, yeah, it's incredibly delicious, it's really a big help."
"...I believed that if I made delicious meals, someday Nakamoto-san would come to love me... But it was all in vain, wasn't it? ...Because Nakamoto-san prefers Angelica-san, who has never even properly held a kitchen knife..."
I felt like a worthless husband who had betrayed his chaste wife for a woman at a foreign pub.
There I was, feeling a massive sense of debt toward Ayako-chan, who wasn't even my wife.
"...I love Nakamoto-san much, much more than Angelica-san does, you know...? I know everything about Nakamoto-san, you know...? And yet, you won't choose me...?"
"Everything?"
I felt something ominous, but I asked reflexively.
Of course, it was a question that would have been better left unasked, but it was too late now.
"...Nakamoto-san was born on July 1st, 1985, a Cancer, blood type O... You are a good match for me, a Scorpio with blood type A. ...Your height is exactly 170 centimeters, and your weight is 68 kilograms. With a BMI of 23.53, you're a little chubby on paper, but in reality, you have a muscular athlete's build... Your favorite subjects in school were math and PE... I think that's good, being manly... I find myself imagining that if a baby were made between us—a humanities student who is bad at sports—it might turn out with just the right abilities... You like salty seasonings, and you like your tea hot. You can't drink alcohol due to your constitution, but you like snacks to go with it. You like seafood. Your reading tendencies lean toward Heisei era history, but since we often bought mystery novels together, that's the genre you really like, right...? Not long after I first met you, Nakamoto-san, I found you at the library and secretly observed you from a distance, but you used to borrow a lot of French mystery novels, didn't you? I think you have good taste... I like those kinds of books, too... Right after you returned them to the library, I would borrow the same books and sniff or lick the pages... When I thought about how Nakamoto-san had been reading them until just a moment ago... they were erotic novels to me... As I read them, I started feeling strange... and I did it, all by myself... Come to think of that, that just reminded me, Nakamoto-san, you masturbate at a pace of twice a week, don't you? According to what I looked up online, that's on the lower side for a man in his early thirties, but are you perhaps holding back because you're living with us? If you had told me, I would have helped you, so why don't you ask me? I understand everything about Nakamoto-san's private life, his physical condition, and everything else, and I love you despite that, so why won't you use me? Or are you leaving that kind of thing to Angelica-san? Do the two of you go to hotels regularly? When I think about that, I feel like I'm going to go insane, I can't forgive it, I want to die, and even now—"
"I get it, please calm down."
I take it back. This isn't a chaste wife; it's a chaste stalker.
Am I perhaps going to be stabbed?
As I braced myself in a state of tension, Ayako-chan leaned against me with movements like a wraith.
Even though I was in close contact with a beautiful girl, this was my first time feeling like I wasn't truly alive.
"...Did you bring that with you properly?"
"That?"
"...Rubber."
"I still have it in my pocket..."
"...Thank goodness. I was worried you might refuse me."
Smiling as she spoke, Ayako-chan was transcendently beautiful.
Perhaps it was a special kind of allure that only those on the verge of breaking could wear?
"...It's not Nakamoto-san's fault... It's all Nakamoto-san's peepee's fault..."
Ayako-chan's right hand was persistently stroking my left thigh.
"...I should have squeezed it out of you early, before Angelica-san took you..."
"U-um, listen, Ayako-chan, the reason I came here today is—"
"—Found you."
Found you?
Time stopped for a single moment at the line that didn't match the preceding exchange at all.
It was undoubtedly Ayako-chan's voice, but I felt the quality of the contained emotion was different.
I wonder, what is she intending?
Feeling suspicious, I peered into Ayako-chan's face, and it seemed she was also surprised. Her eyes were wide open, and she was frozen.
"You just said, 'found you'..."
"It wasn't me."
She shook her head.
A voice that sounded like Ayako-chan's, but one that Ayako-chan herself had no idea about.
—Could it be.
Following the premonition that raced through my mind, I looked up.
Then, I saw a girl in a school uniform standing right in front of us.
She was wearing a coat over her shoulders, and her right hand was rummaging through her school bag. It looked like she was trying to take something out.
Her age was mid-to-late teens. Her height was around 160 centimeters, and her bangs were long enough to cover her eyes. However, her features were modestly well-formed, giving her the air of a sexy literary girl—
"Ayako-chan...?"
Yes.
The other Ayako-chan, who was likely still living normally at the Otsuki Household, was standing right before my eyes.