Volume 1 - CH 1.1

Every healthy high school boy has times when they fantasize about living together with a girl.

It could be the girl you love or the one rumoured to be the prettiest in school. Maybe all of a sudden, you would find yourself living with a step-sister you don’t share blood with because of a parent’s remarriage. Or maybe, it’s with the beautiful and rich older sister that lives in the neighbourhood.

It’d be like something out of a drama or a manga, a page from youthful fantasy.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s a rite of passage that every adolescent boy goes through.

And if you ask me if I’ve ever had that kind of fantasy, I would say that, of course, I have.

There were so many times that I can’t even count them with the fingers in my hands and toes in my feet together. And while I had such fantasies, I got so excited that I couldn’t sleep all night, but when the dazzling sunrise came and the birds sang, I would feel empty.

I’m sure almost every healthy high school boy can understand that feeling of emptiness that makes you want to die.

I’ll leave my sad story aside for a moment.

There are people out there who are actually living together with the girls we all long for, and to those people, I’d like to send a bomb along with my compliments. Explode, you Riajuu! You sonavabech!

I was jealous of these guys, and I longed to live with a girl because it’s a dream for every high school boy like me.

If it ever comes true, I hope it will be when I grow up and have a girlfriend.

As I was thinking…

“This is my house. Please come inside.”

“Sorry to bother you…”

I never thought I would be in a position of envy.

“You should go take a bath anyway. Um, here’s a towel and… here’s one of my loungewear if you want to wear it. The bathroom is on the left as you exit the hallway. Feel free to use any shampoo or whatever else is available.”

I couldn’t leave her soaking wet forever, so I decided to let her take a bath first and gave her what she needed.

“Thank you…”

“It’s fine. Take your time～”

I called out to Sotome-san as she walked off to the bathroom.

“… no, wait, what am I doing?”

The living room echoed with the sound of me shouting at myself.

Even though we were classmates, it was crazy to let a girl I didn’t know well into the house.

But since I couldn’t just leave her like that, I unexpectedly said those words, “Would you like to come to my house?”

I was surprised that I had the courage to say such a bold thing.

“I didn’t think she would really follow me, but…”

I feel like things are going very smoothly, depending on how you think about it.

Once I read an article in a magazine…

Apparently, if you invite a girl to your house and if she’s okay, then it’s okay to do this and that.

“… No. That can’t be true! Absolutely not!”

Even if it was, there must’ve been some kind of trap.

If you search on the internet, you will find many stories of people who believed in the saying that it is a shame for a man not to eat an offered meal, yet they were rushed to the police station because the girl didn’t consent and their lives ruined.

It could have been me if I got careless. I tried to imagine myself being taken away by the policeman to be questioned.

“I’m so jealous that you brought a high school girl home.”

“No, it’s not that I had any malicious intent.”

“Lies. You thought about it for at least a millimetre, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, a millimetre, maybe…”

“Arrested☆”

The possibility of being questioned in the name of an interview is scary. I heard that, nowadays, you could be reported just for talking to a lost child.

I’ve been thinking that the world is too harsh, but I don’t think I can get away with it even if I delay the answer when asked if I have any bad intentions.

Goodbye, my youth. Better luck in the next life.

“… Anyway, let’s make dinner instead of thinking about stupid things.”

Maybe it’s because it’s stupid.

I’ve become relatively calm.

Sighing, I calmed myself down and thought about it as I started to cook.

In the first place, my preference doesn’t lie with an unfriendly blond gal, but for a gentle, innocent beauty… That’s now what I should be thinking about, though.

Well. It would be inappropriate not to ask about her situation before thinking about what to do.

As I finished cooking, I heard the door to the bathroom open.

As the sound of the hairdryer echoed through to the living room, I carried the dinner I had made to the table.

I didn’t know what happened, but I’ve heard that people get desperate when they’re hungry. At any rate, after she eats a full meal and calms down, she might be able to tell me one or two things.

Well, I may or may not be able to do anything about it.

As I was thinking, Sotome-san came back to the living room.

“For the bath, thanks.”

“I-It’s all right…”

I looked at Sotome-san and couldn’t help but feel a jolt of excitement.

Her long and slightly wet hair.

Her cheeks faintly reddened by the heat.

Above all, I couldn’t help but feel a man’s romanticism for the unusual situation of a girl wearing a man’s loungewear. And the fact that she was wearing my own clothes was just too good to be true.

It would have been even better if this was a pure white shirt…!

“Is something wrong?”

“Ah, no, it’s nothing!”

I tried to look away and pretend to be calm, trying not to let her know what was going on in my head.

I took a deep breath, shook off my worries, made a smile and called out to her.

“Dinner’s ready. Why don’t you have a seat?”

“I’m sorry… about everything.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

We sat facing each other, hands clasped, and Sotome-san took a spoonful and slowly brought it to her mouth.

“It’s tasty…”

I could finally see some vitality in her face as she muttered that.

“Akamori-kun, you’re a good cook.”

“It’s just fried rice, though.”

It occurred to me while we had this exchange.

I’ve never talked to her before, and since she was a solitary blond gal at school, I was expecting her to be colder and me having trouble talking to her… But surprisingly, I was able to converse with her just like normal.

Guess having a bath and dinner had calmed her down a bit.

I didn’t know if that meant that Sotome-san would tell me what happened, but maybe this just meant that I didn’t have to be overly nervous.

So before I asked her, I told her about me.

“I think I’ve gotten a little better at cooking since I started living alone.”

“You live alone?”

Sotome-san looked around in surprise.

There were only minimal appliances and furniture in the house, and it didn’t look like more than one person was living there.

Looking at the scene, Sotome-san looked back at me with a convinced look.

“I’m temporarily living alone. My dad got transferred right after I passed my high school entrance exam, so my mom and sister moved out with him. Since I was about to enter high school and couldn’t change anymore, I decided to change school the next year.”

“Is that so…”

“So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know what happened.”

I put down my spoon and faced Sotome-san.

“I’m not going to force you to talk about it if you don’t want to, and even if you do, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m going to be transferring schools anyway, so there’s no way the story will leak from me. Sotome-san… What do you mean you don’t have a home?”

When I asked, Sotome-san kept her mouth shut with a frown.

“My house…”

After a while, she said,

“My parents divorced when I was young, and up until now, I lived with my mom. We were poor, so I took time off from school to work part-time after I entered high school, hoping to make a little extra money for living expenses. But… when I came home from my part-time job a few days ago, my mom was gone.”

“Did she leave a note… saying she’ll be gone?”

“There wasn’t any. I think she went out with the guy. Perhaps it was the boyfriend she got a while ago.”

Bitterness spreads in the mouth.

I wanted to punch myself in the face for my unhealthy fantasies from earlier.

“After that, my landlord told me that I was overdue on my rent, and since I had no hope of being able to pay, I left my apartment with only the bare necessities. I had no choice but to stay at the park because I was running low on money, and it would be a while before I could get any part-time paycheck…”

This can’t be. It’s crazy.

How could she leave with a man when her daughter had just started high school and was still working hard at her part-time job to help make ends meet?

I felt sick because it was insane to do such a thing, let alone a parent.

“What are you going to do now?”

I couldn’t control the emotions that welled up in me.

Still, I kept my cool as best I could and asked.

“I don’t know… What should I do?”

Her voice was slightly shaky as she questioned while breathing in.

“If you have nowhere else to go, would you like to live with me for a while?”

“Eh…?”

Sotome-san looked at me in surprise, then shook her head slightly.

“I’ve already caused you a lot of trouble just by coming to your home like this… I can’t do it anymore.”

It was natural for her to answer that way.

Even though we were in the same class and knew each other, no matter how much she was having trouble finding a place to live, no girl would accept a guy who lived alone asking her to come to live with him out of the blue.

She would be embarrassed, reserved, and most of all, she would be wary.

“It’s no bother at all.”

But I found myself saying that when I saw Sotome-san’s confused look.

It’s none of my business, so I should just leave her alone. It’s crazy to get involved in someone’s family matters.

As a high school student, there wasn’t probably much I could do to help.

I understood that.

But when I heard about Sotome-san’s situation, I couldn’t leave her alone.

The reason why I felt so strongly about it was probably that she reminded me of… a certain girl.

It was a memory from kindergarten that I had forgotten until just a few minutes ago.

At that time, I was in love with a girl.

She was always lonely in the corner of the classroom and rarely responded when I talked to her, which strangely bothered me… Before I knew it, I ended up falling in love with her.

When I saw Sotome-san in the park, I couldn’t help but see that girl’s figure in her.

Maybe I still regret that I didn’t do anything for that girl.

“I’m not going to ask you to do anything weird just because I’m letting you stay at my house. I have an empty room, so feel free to use it. Of course, as I said before, I won’t tell anyone about your situation without permission. You know what they say, ‘when times are tough, we should help each other,’ right?”

I was aware that I was struggling to hold her back, but I knew that if I abandoned her here, I would regret it just as much as I did then.

“Are you sure you want me to…?”

“Yeah.”

Then Sotome-san shook her head.

“Then, can I be in your care for a while?”

“Of course.”

And so our life together began.

“But there’s one thing I want you to promise me.”

“Promise?”

“You don’t have to pay rent or utilities, so I want you to get a part-time job in moderation and go to school every day. I’ll take care of the living expenses so that you can get back to your normal life.”

After thinking for a while, she said,

“I understand, thank you.”

She had an apologetic look on her face.

And I couldn’t get that face out of my mind for a while.

＊

TLN: there may be some delay the next update, I’ve just finished another novel a while ago, and I’m still feeling tired…

Have a good day!