Chastity Reversed: Part-Time Life by the All-Girls High School - Chapter 90: At Least I Always Will

At Least I Always Will

It was late Sunday night. The stars were clear and beautiful overhead. We had arranged to meet at the park in front of the station. The weather was even better suited for a confession than yesterday.

“! Yuuka, your… hair.”

The guy in front of me stared in surprise. My long hair had been chopped into a short cut. I had dyed my blond hair black too, back to the way it used to be.

It was a hairstyle that looked just a little like the person I had liked. Though in terms of looks, there was no comparison.

“Y-Yo, ‘Sora’!”

“Huh?”

I raised a hand and called out to Sato-sa… no, to “Sora” like that.

“What’s with the gloomy face!”

“…Sorry, did rejecting you break something in your head…?”

“Hey, no, wrong, wrong.” *smack*

“Weak.”

When I threw an arm around his shoulders, his voice grew quiet, maybe because he was flustered.

“Sorry for calling you out here!”

“No, that’s fine, but… what? What’s with that way of talking… or rather, this whole act?”

“It’s not an act. This is me!”

“I see…”

“Hey. Can I be blunt?”

“Go ahead.”

I let go of his shoulders and turned to face him.

“I-I don’t see Sora as a ‘man’ anymore.”

“Ehh…”

“How do I put it… you’re just a ‘same-sex friend’!”

I forced the words out in a trembling voice. Of course I knew it was a stretch.

“Even though you confessed to me yesterday?”

“Yeah, well, that was what woke me up! Like, I can’t see you that way anymore!”

“…What are you trying to say?”

He said it with a sigh. I knew I was confusing him.

That was why I had to tell him properly.

It was embarrassing, but. Like a “woman” should: head-on.

“I don’t know anything about Sora. But you’re always doing everything ‘backward.'”

“So I decided I’m going to treat you that way too!”

“Sora, you’re a man, but I absolutely won’t treat you like one! I really, absolutely can’t look at you that way anymore!”

Putting it into words made it sound awful. Even so, I kept going without hesitation.

“So. Okay…”

In the future. Maybe even today. He would probably keep sleeping with countless women from now on.

“At least I always will…”

I would never be the one to sleep with him again.

I wasn’t his lover. I wasn’t his family either.

But I could still become his “special” person in the truest sense.

“I’ll always, always be Sora’s friend!!”

☆

☆

The park at night.

In front of the station, a few people were probably looking our way.

“I’ll always, always be Sora’s friend!!”

Right in front of me, the girl shouted that.

“…”

I tried to answer.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” or.

“That’s impossible,” or.

“What are you even saying?”

But the words vanished from my mouth before they could come out.

“…Idiot.”

The only thing I managed to wring out was that scrap of bravado. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t say lines like “thank you” or “let’s keep being friends.”

She had been rejected by the man she liked. Denied by him. For that man’s sake, she had given everything up and reached out her hand.

Ah. How “womanly.” And compared to that, I was so…

“Then your virginity’s reset, huh.”

But right now, I smiled and spoke just like a plain old “guy friend.” When I said something that stupid…

“A-Ah, yeah, totally! I wanna hurry up and lose my virginity!”

She smiled back and said that.

《–“I’m totally fine with a slutty older woman! I’d beg on my knees if I had to!!”–》

Somehow, she overlapped with “him” from my old world. For a moment, it felt like the guy I could never meet again had appeared beside me. Even though there was no way that was true.

“I’m a man, but want me to help you lose it?”

“Uwah, stop, don’t screw around! I-I have the right to choose too!”

“Kidding, you damn virgin.”

“Wha!?!?”

“Ugh, smells like virgin. I’m running.”

“Heeey!!”

I didn’t want her to see my face right then, so I dashed away.

“…I’m so uncool.”

The reversed world I still wasn’t used to. Yet little by little, I was adapting to it, and little by little, it was eating away at me.

The world told me that my “male” self was wrong. The longer I kept resisting, the more painful it became.

Like a curse. A matter of this “sex” that would never come undone.

“Would it have been better if I had been a woman?”

I had muttered it before I realized.

But if that were the case. If I had been “reversed” in this world.

I wouldn’t have taken Hoshi’s virginity.

I wouldn’t have troubled my parents.

I wouldn’t have become a slut.

I wouldn’t have made Yuuka sad.

I wouldn’t have come to hate this world.

But.

If that had been true, what would I be like now?

What would have happened to the people I had met?

Would the girls whose virginity I had taken still be agonizing over it even now?

“…Yeah, right.”

I snorted and looked back.

All of that was just talk of “what if.”

There probably wasn’t any right answer.

Rather than hating this ridiculous world. Rather than thinking of a place I could never return to. Rather than imagining a present that didn’t exist.

“–I said wait!!”

For now, I would be with the girl chasing after me.

–Please Go Out With Me (Impossible) End–

☆

☆

Second year of high school. First term, around the time class groups were starting to settle.

I threw my homework aside. I escaped by drawing rotten manga. And full of happiness, I fell asleep.

“…!?”

In my dream, in the darkness, I felt as if I had been struck by “lightning.”

My vision spun, and the numbness faded. When I woke up…

“””””!!”””””

“Y-You’re awake, ‘Kanau’-san!”

A concrete room? No, more like an abandoned building. When I touched my head, the rough, completely uncared-for hair felt disgusting.

“…Eh?”

But right now, none of that mattered. More importantly…

“Wh-Who the hell are you people! …May I ask?”

“”””””Huh?””””””

–Welcome to the Chastity Reversal World (Go Home) Start–

▲ Author’s Afterword

And so, I’m working hard on writing!

I’d be grateful for your support… (prostrating myself).