I Reincarnated as a Mob Character in a Romcom Manga—After I Kept Comforting the Third “Fanservice” Heroine When She Got Dumped and Cried, I Feel Like She’s Started Directing Some Seriously Heavy Feelings at Me - Chapter 01: The “Fanservice” Heroine Who Loses

Chapter 01: The “Fanservice” Heroine Who Loses

“Sorry. I really can’t go out with Mitsushima.”

Out of nowhere, that voice reached my ears, and I turned toward where it came from.

At dusk, on the second step of the back staircase behind the school—where no one ever came—a boy and a girl sat side by side.

Both of them stared straight ahead at the courtyard, which was slowly sinking into darkness.

“I still love Hitotsuba. You’re the one who made me realize that. I’m sorry. But I really was happy about your feelings. That part—wasn’t a lie.”

“…Mm.”

The one who answered in a small voice, without even nodding, was a girl with shining silver hair cut neatly into a short bob.

The moment I felt a strange sense of deja vu from the way she stood there—

Memories slowly surfaced in my mind, as if rising up from beneath a thick fog.

Ah. That girl—I knew her.

She was one of the heroines from that manga.

Which meant the guy sitting next to her had to be Nayuta Yaohara, the protagonist of this story.

Haha… seeing him up close like this, for a romcom manga’s main character, his face was seriously plain.

Compared to the girl beside him, who practically overflowed with charm, the difference was unreal.

Like the moon and a turtle. Beauty and the beast.

No—more like a beauty and a raccoon.

“Mitsushima. Thank you for falling in love with me.”

The girl who had been called Mitsushima quietly replied with a small “Mm,” her face still lowered.

Her silver hair—something she had inherited from her Nordic-born mother—caught the light of the setting sun and looked as though it were burning.

Yeah… I knew it.

That heroine—she was going to lose.

She was my favorite heroine from the hugely popular romcom manga Schrödinger’s Love, the one I had once been so obsessed with that I memorized entire lines.

And now, right in front of my eyes, I was watching one of the heroines from that very manga getting dumped by the protagonist, Nayuta Yaohara—

Was I dreaming?

If this was a dream, it felt far too real.

No—

This couldn’t be a dream.

This was probably a scene that was supposed to be published in the magazine after I died.

No matter how you looked at it, what was unfolding before me was far too realistic.

Besides, before I remembered my memories as “me,” I had been in an operating room.

That doctor who was supposed to operate on me never once used the word “success” until the very end.

Well, of course he didn’t.

My heart had been messed up since I was a kid.

Somewhere deep down, I had already known it would stop working before I ever turned twenty.

I had prayed to God, begging—just begging—to let me live long enough to read the final chapter.

So this was how God chose to grant my last wish… huh.

“Yaohara.”

“Yeah.”

“Make sure you make Hitotsuba-san happy, okay?”

“Yeah.”

The silver-haired girl suddenly stood up and took a few steps forward, almost as if she were dancing.

Nayuta Yaohara watched her with a puzzled look.

She raised both arms, stretched with a long “nghh—,” and then spoke without turning back.

“Ahh, I finally feel refreshed. Yaohara, even if you said you wanted time to think, making me wait a whole year was way too long.”

“…Sorry.”

“And stop apologizing so easily when it’s not even your fault.”

“Sorry—ah, yeah.”

“Seriously, why did I ever fall for such a plain, indecisive guy anyway? A high-level girl like me could’ve gone after way more handsome guys. Or rich ones, you know.”

“…You really saying that about yourself?”

“Of course I am. Who do you think I am?”

With that, the silver-haired girl pressed her fingertips to her chest, turned around, and lifted her chin proudly.

“I’m Chloe Mitsushima, you know? A guy like you dumping a good woman like me is way too extravagant. Yaohara, don’t complain if every guy at school starts hating you and ignoring you from tomorrow on, got it?”

Seeing the absolute peak of a smug expression—one that couldn’t possibly get any smugger—Nayuta Yaohara froze for a moment in stunned silence.

Then he let out a dry, exasperated laugh.

“Mitsushima.”

“What?”

“You really don’t waver on things like this, do you?”

“Of course not. I’m a woman who wants to be honest with herself.”

“Haha, yeah. That’s exactly the kind of person you are. I’m relieved.”

“I see. Then I’ve heard your answer, so I’m going to stay here a bit and sort out my feelings. You should head home first.”

“Alright. …Just in case, want me to walk you back?”

“No. I want to go home alone. Thanks for worrying about me.”

“Got it. Then be careful.”

Nayuta Yaohara stood up from the steps.

As he turned his back and started to walk away, the silver-haired girl called out to him.

“Hey, Yaohara.”

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t choose me. I won’t blame you, and I won’t resent you. But—”

After a brief pause, as if she were bracing herself, the girl spoke up in a loud voice.

“It’s okay if I keep liking you for a while longer—right? That’s my choice, isn’t it?”

At that question, the boy fell silent for just a moment, then answered, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” the silver-haired girl replied.

With that, the boy quietly walked away, disappearing from sight.

Suddenly, the wind blew.

For a breeze at dusk this time of year, it felt unusually cold.

As if even the last remaining spark of hope left inside her had been blown out—

Unable to keep standing, the girl slowly sank down into a crouch right there on the spot.

“Ugh…! Hic…! Waaahhhhhhh—!!”

A sound so painful it felt like it was roughly tearing my chest apart spilled out of her throat, and the girl began crying and screaming.

She wiped away the tears and snot that kept pouring out with the back of her hand, shouting at the top of her lungs without caring who might hear.

“Why… why…! Why didn’t you choose me, Yaohara, you idiot…!!”

Yeah.

Just like I thought—she wasn’t chosen.

No, to be precise, there had never been any chance she would be chosen.

After all, she was the third heroine in the romcom manga Schrödinger’s Love—and on top of that, the “fanservice” heroine.

In a normal romcom, that position was pure despair.

A role with not even a one-in-ten-thousand chance of becoming the winning heroine.

In the unspoken rules of romcom heroine races—where the order in which the girls meet the protagonist is absolutely crucial—being third instead of even second already meant her odds were near zero from the start.

And on top of that, a heroine who used her clearly over-the-top, age-defying curves and her title as a currently active JK gravure queen to repeatedly try seducing the protagonist—

In romcoms, girls like that were nothing more than flashy extras meant to provide fanservice scenes for the readers.

Even so, she didn’t give up.

She couldn’t give up.

The third “fanservice” heroine—

That hopeless role given to her by the god of this world… that was her fate.

And now, that role of despair reached its ending here, exactly as expected—tragic and merciless.

“Why… why… even though I tried so hard…! All of it, all of it was pointless…! I’m so stupid, doing all those shameless, slutty things…!”

Yes.

She—Chloe Mitsushima—was exactly that kind of heroine.

Over and over, she tried to overwhelm the protagonist, Nayuta Yaohara, with blatant seduction.

Pressing her chest against him whenever she got the chance, wearing outfits with dangerously low necklines, tempting him outright, going to the beach together in revealing swimsuits.

By the middle of the story, she had even pushed Nayuta Yaohara down onto the infirmary bed while still in her underwear.

And yet, none of her efforts ever bore fruit.

No—

They never could have borne fruit from the very beginning.

Because no matter what, she was nothing more than the third “fanservice” heroine—

Hearing those unbearable, broken sobs,

Without realizing it, I clenched my fist tight.

The same.

She was just like me—that was what I thought.

I was going to die anyway.

I was never going to be saved.

Even after the doctor told me I wouldn’t live to see twenty.

Still, I spent most of my life on a hospital bed, enduring painful, brutal surgeries again and again.

Watching people outside run around happily through the window of my hospital room, feeling nothing but envy.

Clinging to the manga my parents brought me as my only source of joy.

Trying to live even after my chest had been torn apart and left a mess of surgical scars, to the point I couldn’t bear to look at it twice.

And yet—

In the end, whatever being had brought me into this world never gave me a happy ending.

That’s right.

People like us were born into this world as beings who could never win from the very start—

The moment I realized that, my legs were already moving.

I ran without thinking, without even remembering who I had reincarnated into or what kind of person I now was.

Straight toward Chloe Mitsushima—the third heroine of Schrödinger’s Love, whose entire existence had just been denied by this cruel world.

“Mitsushima—Chloe Mitsushima!!”

When I shouted at her, she jolted, her shoulders twitching as she looked up.

“Eh—!? W-Who are you…?”

“…Ah, right. Come to think of it, I don’t even know who I am yet. Sorry—I still haven’t remembered that part.”

“H-Huh…?”

At my completely nonsensical response, Chloe Mitsushima stared hard at my face for a moment, then spoke with a suspicious look.

“Who…? You’re Reiji Jeromiya, aren’t you. From our class…”

Reiji Jeromiya—

Right. Now that she said it, that did sound like my name.

I tried matching it against the original story’s memories in my head, but it wasn’t a name I recognized at all.

Looks like I’d reincarnated as someone in this world—

And worse, a nameless mob character who never even properly appeared in the story.

“I see. So my name is Reiji Jeromiya, huh.”

“…What are you even saying? You’ve been weird this whole time.”

“Anyway, Chloe Mitsushima. Um…”

I fumbled around in the pocket of my uniform pants.

When I felt the familiar texture of a handkerchief in my back pocket, I pulled it out and held it out to Chloe Mitsushima, whose face was soaked with tears and snot.

“You don’t have to give it back. Just use it.”

Caught completely off guard, Chloe Mitsushima—whose tears still hadn’t stopped—shifted her gaze back and forth between the handkerchief and my face, confusion written all over her expression.

“Sniff… W-What’s this all of a sudden? Why are you doing this…?”

“Just take it, okay? You don’t need to wash it or return it. I mean it.”

“B-But…”

The moment Chloe Mitsushima hesitated, I grabbed her right hand and forcefully pressed the handkerchief into it.

“Wah!?”

Before she could say anything else—her face still a complete mess—I turned on my heel and walked away.

“Alright then, I’m heading home. Get back safely, okay?”

Without saying anything more, I broke into a run—without even knowing where I was supposed to go back to.

I heard Chloe Mitsushima’s voice calling out behind me—“W-Wait!”—but I didn’t turn around.

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