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 13 & 14

Chapter 13: Each Their Own Role

“Chloe, wait up—!”

As expected—no, more like of course—Chloe didn’t head straight for our classroom.

Instead, she kept drifting farther and farther off course, walking toward the familiar stairs behind the school building.

I finally caught up to her near the edge of the back courtyard.

The moment I grabbed her left wrist and called out, “Hey!”—only then did Chloe turn around.

She stared at me with a hollow look.

Her eyes weren’t focused at all.

“Ah—sorry, Jeromiya. I ended up saying something really loud… something that could even drag you into trouble…”

“No, no, I seriously don’t care about that at all! Who gives a damn what kind of rumors spread about a gloomy loner like me!? What I’m worried about is you! J-Just calm down for now! Sit. Right there!”

I pointed toward the short set of stairs behind the school building we always used.

Chloe quietly walked over and, unsteadily, sat down.

I sat a few steps below her, took a moment to steady my breathing, then glanced back at her.

“So—Chloe. Why did you say all that back there?”

“…Sorry.”

“Apologizing is fine. But that’s not what I’m asking. Why didn’t you get angry at what Nayuta Yaohara said? Why did you stop me when I tried to protest? That was just too cruel. Hearing him say something like that about you, right in public—like you were some easy woman—”

I couldn’t hold it back anymore, and my words came out sharp.

“Anyone would get mad if the guy who dumped them said something like that. In fact, Hitotsuba and Nikaido were furious. And you too, Chloe—the old you would’ve slapped Yaohara the instant he opened his mouth. That’s the kind of person you were, right?”

Even after hearing that, Chloe kept her head lowered, her expression still empty.

A few seconds passed with no reply.

Just before I could press her again, Chloe finally spoke.

“Hey, Jeromiya.”

“O-Oh. Yeah?”

“You know… when a girl really likes someone, she doesn’t want that person to suffer over her.”

That single sentence hit me so hard I genuinely felt like I’d lost the ability to speak.

“If this were me before getting dumped by Yaohara, yeah, I definitely would’ve slapped him without hesitation. But it’s different now. Me and Yaohara… we’re not in a position where I can do something like that anymore. I wasn’t chosen. I… I lost.”

Sniff.

Chloe sniffled, burying her chin against the knees she had pulled up to her chest.

“But listen, Jeromiya. I still love Yaohara. I love him so much. Even after getting dumped, I still can’t give up. No matter how dense, wishy-washy, and awful he can be, I still like him. I know you’re seriously angry on my behalf right now. I know what you’re saying makes total sense. I really do. But… but—”

At that point, Chloe lifted only her eyes.

Her bloodshot blue eyes stared straight at me.

“Please… don’t say bad things about the person I love. Not in front of me.”

The moment she said that, Chloe buried her face back into her knees.

—So that was why she’d stopped me earlier.

That… that kind of thing was even possible?

After all that, she was the one protecting him?

Why did she have to defend a dense, insensitive guy who could say something that cruel straight to her face?

If this was what it meant to love someone—then romance was way too painful.

Way too cruel.

It felt like my head had been smashed with a brick.

I tasted something close—probably the closest I had ever been—to a feeling called despair.

And then—in just a few seconds, not even ten, I felt like I finally understood.

So this was that kind of world.

This romcom world worked like this.

Nayuta Yaohara—a harem romcom protagonist—was exactly this kind of existence.

Dense. Oblivious. Indecisive.

And sometimes unbelievably insensitive.

With every careless word and action, he toyed with multiple heroines, shook their emotions, and drew out their feelings—their actions, their charms, their raw hearts.

That was what a harem romcom protagonist was.

That was the absolute role given to him by the heavens.

Which was why Chloe Mitsushima could get angry at Nayuta Yaohara’s words—but could never truly hate him.

Because unlike a mob like me, she was an important character in this story.

The third “fanservice” heroine.

—No one was ever sent down from heaven without a role to play.

That was a line written on the cover of a manga I used to read in my previous life.

If people were meant to live by fulfilling the role given to them from above—then what were people like me… or Chloe… supposed to do, once the role of “losing” had already ended?

No matter how hard I searched for comforting words or clever arguments, the truth was simple.

In my past life, I couldn’t even go to school like a normal person.

I only knew romance as fiction from manga.

I had never fallen in love with anyone.

I had never been dumped by anyone, either.

And because of that, a frustrating certainty welled up inside me—no matter what I said right now, none of it would reach the current Chloe Mitsushima.

Feeling utterly pathetic, I finally gave up and slumped forward, raising the white flag in defeat.

“S-Sorry, Chloe. Um… I’ve never loved someone before. I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to say to comfort you right now. Sorry… I guess I’m a total failure as a comforter.”

Even after I said that, Chloe kept her face buried in her knees.

She didn’t look up.

She didn’t answer.

Seeing Chloe completely shut herself off, rejecting any kind of comfort with all her strength, only made the feeling of helplessness inside me grow heavier.

The morning HR bell was about to ring any minute.

Just imagining Chloe stumbling into the classroom with bloodshot eyes and a pale, drained face made my chest ache.

That open, bold, powerful, tough, sexy woman—the one who had always kept this romcom story running as the fanservice heroine—watching her shrink down into someone so broken and lifeless…

That alone—that was something I absolutely couldn’t stand.

Thinking that way, a strange sense of rebellion began to rise inside me.

Yeah. So what if I was just a mob character?

What about it?

Even after being given a once-in-a-lifetime retry through reincarnation, was I really going to hide behind the excuse of “I’m just a mob who doesn’t matter to the story” and run away from this situation?

Was that really why “I” got reincarnated?

Back when I lay in that hospital bed day after day, the thing I had wished for over and over again—it definitely wasn’t to live some meaningless, empty life like this.

And besides, right now, it was just me and Chloe here.

Who else was supposed to comfort her and help her stand back up, if not me?

This girl had carried out her role as the fanservice heroine properly—and because of that, she’d ended up this broken.

Then that meant I had to have a role too.

Even someone like me—there had to be a role given to me by something, somewhere.

The reason I was reincarnated.

That reason was—surely—

“Hey, Chloe. I know this is a weird time to say this, but… can you listen to just one thing?”

Even when I asked, Chloe still didn’t lift her head.

With no other choice, I sat the same way she was, hugging my knees.

Hoping she was at least listening, I quietly muttered my question.

“You see… I’ve never eaten omurice before. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or the day after. Just… someday. Would you make it for me and let me eat it?”

Chapter 14: Defeated Soldiers and Guerrilla Warfare

At my words, Chloe finally lifted her face.

Looking straight at her surprised expression, I spoke calmly.

“What’s with that look? You’re planning to keep being hung up on Nayuta Yaohara all through high school, right? Then that means I’ll keep having you make my lunches all through high school too, while I listen to you complain about him nonstop. On top of that, I want to eat the omurice you make.”

Yeah.

My role after reincarnating into this romcom world as Reiji Jeromiya—for now, at least—was to stay by Chloe Mitsushima’s side, nod along while listening to her complaints and weakness, and comfort her.

Even if Chloe Mitsushima’s role as the fanservice heroine—the losing heroine—was already over, my role wasn’t finished yet.

“Listen, Chloe. I’m not gonna say I fully understand how you feel right now. I’ve never loved someone before. I don’t get it—so let me listen until I do. And once I really understand how you feel, I think I’ll be able to comfort you way better than I can right now.”

Honestly, even I wasn’t sure I fully understood what I was saying anymore.

But even so, I wanted to comfort her.

I had to comfort her.

This girl—the one who tried the hardest, the one who expressed her feelings the most honestly,

the one who put her whole body and heart on the line.

The one who fought seriously and sincerely in a game she was never meant to win.

As a reader—and as a fan who had seen everything in this story—this was something only I could do.

“I’ll keep listening to you until you’re satisfied… until you can really move on from Yaohara. So yeah? Don’t make that face. You’ve gotta smile. You’re tough, powerful, wild, sexy, and full of energy—the best woman in the world. That’s Chloe Mitsushima. Right?”

“The best woman in the world”—that was her personal motto.

A ball of pride and competitiveness, someone who hated losing, a girl with absolute confidence in her looks, someone who always bragged that one day she’d make every man in the world kneel before her—that kind of free, bold, shameless energy was who she was.

Seeing her now, acting like a defeated heroine, didn’t suit her at all.

She was someone who should be smiling.

Someone who should always stick her chest out proudly—as if showing off its absurd size—standing tall and arrogant, like she was picking a fight with the sun itself.

For a moment, Chloe stared at my face with a completely baffled expression.

Then—pfft—she burst out laughing.

After that, it turned into full-on laughter.

“Ahaha… ahahahaha…!”

Her voice just kept getting louder and louder.

Seeing me listen in total confusion, Chloe wiped the tears at the corners of her eyes with her finger.

“You really are a pitiful guy, you know that? You’ve never even eaten omurice… That’s such a brutal life it’s honestly funny. I told you before—having you listen to my complaints almost makes me feel bad.”

“Huh? N-No, it’s not like that. If anything, compared to me now that I’m perfectly healthy, you’re way more—”

“There. That.”

Push. 

She poked the tip of my nose with her index finger, and I let out a muffled groan.

“Jeromiya, you never talk down about me, do you? Compared to what you went through before, me getting dumped and crying over it is honestly nothing. You could easily say something like, ‘Don’t worry about it—compared to what I experienced, this is small stuff, not even worth mentioning.’ You could say that without a second thought. And yet you don’t. You’re a real catch, you know that?”

Chloe kept staring into my eyes with those strangely colored irises for several seconds.

Then she let out a lonely little laugh—“ahaha…”—and shifted her gaze toward the distant scenery.

“…I wonder why I didn’t fall for you first.”

That single line made my heart jump.

And more than that—the side profile of Chloe, sitting there hugging her knees and staring into the distance—looked more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen in the magazine or the collected volumes.

There was something almost sacred about her, something that made her feel untouchable by someone like me.

“You’re way kinder and way more considerate than that dense, oblivious, wishy-washy guy. If I’d been dating you, I bet we would’ve turned into one of those couples everyone envies—an embarrassing lovey-dovey pair. I’m not flattering you. I really mean that.”

Chloe paused there, her expression still distant and unfocused, her words trailing off just a little.

“Not to brag or anything, but I’m actually pretty popular, you know? I’ve never gone out with a guy, sure—but when it comes to how many times I’ve been confessed to, I don’t think I’d lose to Hitotsuba-san. I mean, I’m this good-looking, so of course people don’t just leave me alone. And if someone did become my boyfriend, he’d be able to proudly grab these boobs whenever he wanted. If you’re a guy, you’d at least dream about that once, right?”

As if waiting for me to say something, Chloe kept talking, not giving me a chance to interrupt.

“And on top of that, I’ve just been dumped by the guy I was obsessed with for a whole year, so I’m completely worn out right now. Stuff like kindness and thoughtfulness hits way harder than usual at times like this. Aaah… isn’t there anyone out there? Looks don’t even matter at this point. Just someone gentle, good at caring about others, who’d say, ‘I’ll make you forget about a guy like that completely,’ and seriously try to win me over.”

At that point, Chloe sent me a meaningful sideways glance.

It was the kind of look meant to tease, to test, to see how I’d react.

To be honest—yeah, it hit harder than I wanted to admit.

But I forced all distracting thoughts out of my head and stared back with a frown.

We locked eyes like that for a few seconds—and in the end, Chloe was the first to give up.

“Ahaha… guess that didn’t work. Looks like I’ve still got a long way to go.”

“…Honestly, that was really close. But I held back with everything I had.”

“Why though? If it’s you, Jeromiya, I’d let you grope all you want—and even suck as much as you like, you know?”

“H-Hey, cut it out. Besides… it just didn’t feel right.”

With a stubborn look still on my face, I leaned in closer to Chloe and spoke heatedly.

“If you and I crossed that line right here, Nayuta Yaohara would probably feel relieved, wouldn’t he? And I can’t accept that. At the very least, I want him to be stuck thinking about you half as much as you’re stuck thinking about him. I want him lying awake at night, wondering if dumping a woman as great as you was really the right choice.”

Yeah. Even if you lose, you still get to have pride.

Even if this was a world where the protagonist ends up with the main heroine and rides off into a happy ending—that’s just how romcoms work—once I’d become involved in this story myself, there was no way I could accept that kind of easy victory.

And more than that, I knew she wouldn’t accept it either.

I said it firmly.

“If I’ve gotten this deeply involved with you, I’m not raising the white flag and backing off now. Chloe, let’s you and me run off into the mountains together and drag him into a long, messy guerrilla war.”

At my proposal—delivered with fierce enthusiasm—Chloe clapped her hands together, clearly delighted.

“Nice—guerrilla warfare! I like that way of putting it! We come down from the mountains once in a while, go wild, stir everything up, and disappear again. Sounds perfect!”

“Yeah, exactly. We’ll launch night raids while Yaohara’s sleeping peacefully and make him suffer from insomnia. That’s the pride of defeated soldiers who barely survived, right?”

“Jeromiya, you’re seriously great. Yeah, getting dumped by Yaohara still pisses me off, but being able to have conversations like this with you? That part really was worth it…”

Phew—Chloe let out a breath, her expression clearly lighter, like something inside her had finally snapped free.

Right then, the bell announcing the start of morning HR rang.

“Oh crap, we gotta hurry back—”

Just as I started to stand, grip—my collar was suddenly yanked.

My neck tightened against my shirt, a strangled sound slipped out, and Chloe grinned.

“It’s fine, isn’t it? No need to rush. Let’s just be openly late together.”

“E-Eh…? B-But—”

“Did you seriously forget what you just said? We’re running off into the mountains together and waging guerrilla war, remember?”

Chloe tilted her head slightly, wearing that unmistakable scheming smile—the kind that screamed this is exactly what a fanservice heroine looks like.

“If we’re late in a suspicious way, won’t everyone start wondering what the two of us were doing together?”

She whispered that right next to my ear, in a dangerously suggestive tone, and my heart clenched hard.

…Whoa. So this was the fanservice heroine.

She could casually say things like that—with an expression that hit way harder than it should.

At the same time, Chloe quickly grabbed my left arm with both hands and pulled it in close, pressing herself against me without hesitation.

Naturally, I panicked instantly and felt my face heat up.

“H-Hey, Chloe…! Um, y-you’re really close…!”

“What are you saying like it’s the early Heisei era? I’m doing this on purpose, you know?”

Damn it.

She might be a losing heroine, but she was still insanely cute—and way too dangerous.

Letting out a muffled groan, I turned my face away.

“…I’ll give him this much. I kind of respect Yaohara now. The fact that he endured this kind of pressure for a whole year is unreal. I wouldn’t last three days…”

“Nfufu, you’re really cute, Jeromiya. Unlike that dense idiot, you’re honest—and that’s very good. Come now, partner. Let’s head back to our battlefield.”

With my left arm already sandwiched tight and her even rubbing her cheek against it, I started walking forward, moving so awkwardly and suspiciously that it was honestly unbelievable.

“—Maybe I really am more of a slut than I thought.”

That quiet murmur from Chloe Mitsushima—and the strangely intense atmosphere I felt from her in that moment—I pretended not to notice any of it and kept walking.