I Thought It Was a World Where Chastity Norms Were Reversed, But It Turns Out I Was Just Surrounded by the Overly Intense Girls in My Class

Chapter 4: Side Yukimi Yukina

I’m Yukimi Yukina, and though it feels strange to say it myself, I come from a very traditional, high-class family.

Ever since I was little, I was made to take every possible lesson: piano, calligraphy, flower arrangement, English conversation, kyudo archery, table manners… you name it.

My after-school schedule was always packed. Before I knew it, my days were nothing more than going back and forth between home and the classroom.

At school I fought sleep through every class, never talked to anyone around me, and the moment the bell rang, I rushed off to the next lesson. That was my daily life.

Living like that, of course I never made any friends.

I was always alone.

When I started middle school, I threw myself even harder into lessons to fill the loneliness.

If I had any free time, I spent it practicing etiquette or flower arrangement instead of playing outside. I never skipped studying either. Before long, the only thing people knew about me was the label “perfect honorable young lady.”

Deep down, I wanted to hang out with friends and talk about real things, but once everyone started calling me “ojou-sama,” the distance between us only grew.

Then, around my third year of middle school, people suddenly started talking to me a lot more. I knew exactly why.

To put it bluntly… my chest had grown.

Apparently my breasts were noticeably larger than average, and the boys’ stares never stopped.
In the classroom, in the hallway, anywhere—I could always feel their eyes clinging to me.

Even when someone spoke to me, their gaze wasn’t on my face. It was always pointed downward.

They only looked at my chest. No one cared about what was inside at all.

I grew utterly sick of it.

I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I talked to my mother about it.
Her answer was crystal clear.

“Men are dangerous. Do not let them near you.”

“If you absolutely must interact with one, choose someone you can speak to as an equal.”

“Never be swayed by appearances or sweet words. Judge with your own eyes.”

From that day on, I started looking people straight in the eyes.

I learned to read sincerity or desire in them.

By reading the movement and color of their eyes, I gained the ability to see through people.
Thanks to that skill, I made it through middle school unharmed.

In the end, I never found no one I could truly talk to, but I did train my eye for people, and I grew used to the stares.

Daily life itself posed no problem.

Still, the loneliness in my heart never went away.

I kept searching for someone I could really talk to—someone I could laugh with, fool around with, and open my heart to.

I entered high school with only a faint hope that maybe, just maybe, I’d meet that person someday.

Reality, however, is cruel. The unpleasant stares from the boys didn’t stop—if anything, they got worse than in middle school.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Everyone only cared about how I looked. No one was interested in who I really was.
I was fed up with that unchanging truth.

And that’s when it happened.

—Baba Tatsuya.

I met him.

The moment he sat in the seat next to mine, I instinctively tensed up, bracing myself for those same disgusting stares from my new neighbor.

But he showed no interest at all. He just gazed somewhere far away, as if I didn’t even exist.

That attitude somehow bothered me, so I gave him a small bow to open a conversation.

He returned a small bow of his own, looked straight into my eyes, and smiled gently.

“—!”

In that instant, I knew something was different.

His eyes held none of the vulgarity I’d seen in other boys. There wasn’t a trace of ulterior motive.

Instead, I felt curiosity and a kind of hopeful interest. Before I knew it, I was watching him.

Later that afternoon, by sheer chance, we talked.

I had been dragged into a tennis club recruitment, forced to hold a racket, and utterly humiliated.
I let out a sigh—and there he was, right beside me.

Curious, I spoke to him first and asked lots of questions.

It turned out he plays shogi.

Shogi—the traditional Japanese board game. Having grown up surrounded by Japanese culture and philosophy through all my lessons, I found that hobby very appealing.
Though, truthfully, I don’t even know the rules.

Still, he looked so happy talking about shogi that just listening made me interested too.

According to him, when you play shogi, you can understand the other person’s feelings. He called that “dialogue.”

—Dialogue.

That was the very thing I had longed for since I was small.

—Dialogue, you say…

Suddenly I became extremely interested in shogi.

So much that I could play a game with him.

But maybe what I was really interested in wasn’t shogi—it was him.

Because whenever I looked at his serious eyes, something strange stirred deep in my chest.

A feeling I had never known before. A soothing warmth that spread through my heart, gentle and cozy.

Maybe with him, real dialogue would be possible.

Maybe he could be the one I truly connect with.

Believing that, I decided to start playing shogi.

Yet right then, out of nowhere, he said something outrageous.

“Want to… play a game with me?”

It was so sudden.
I didn’t understand what he meant at all.

A game… play together?

What could that possibly mean? I was about to tilt my head in confusion when it hit me.

W-wait… “play together” with that kind of wording…

Just imagining it made my cheeks burn. My heart started pounding wildly, thoughts spinning in circles…

And before I knew it, I had shouted.

“…No such thing!”

That would be improper.

“No such thing!”

We had only just met—there’s no way that could happen.

But he pressed further, saying, “Just one game, just one is fine,” repeating those shameful words.

Was this his true nature?

Had he been hiding lewd intentions all along?

Yet I couldn’t believe that gentle boy would say something so crude, and I didn’t want to believe it.

“I-I’m so sooorrrryyyyy!”

My brain couldn’t process it anymore, so I fled the scene.

I know it was rude.
I know it wasn’t like me at all.

Still, I couldn’t stay there a second longer.
Please forgive me just for today—I’ll apologize properly tomorrow.

—Yukimi Yukina, age 15. The greatest blunder of my life.

※

“…Why? Just why?”

That day I went straight home without stopping anywhere, yet strangely, I couldn’t fall asleep even after night fell.

No, it wasn’t strange at all. I already knew the reason.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“What a blunder I’ve made…”

Earlier I panicked and ran away.

If I had just talked to him calmly, we might have understood each other.

I was so embarrassed I couldn’t stay, so I fled.

I truly regret it.

But it couldn’t be helped.

—Want to… play a game with me?

After being told something so improper, of course I’d be shaken.

Yet when I thought about it calmly, something felt off.

He didn’t seem like the type to say lewd things. He didn’t seem to like dirty jokes either.
In other words, he had been serious. He seriously wanted to play a game with me.

Then what was his intention?

I had no idea. It was so incomprehensible that I pressed my face into my pillow and repeated his words over and over.

No matter how much I thought, I couldn’t figure it out, and because of that my mind stayed wide awake. I didn’t sleep at all.

“At this rate I’ll be up all night.”

Realizing thinking alone was useless, I consulted my mother again.

Her reply was:

“If you’re interested, go all out and make a move. In love, the first to act wins. Stop being passive just because you’re a girl.”

“On the contrary—because you’re a girl, attack. Throw away defense and play aggressively. That’s how I captured your father.”

“…Attack with the first move!?”

Those words struck me deeply.

At the same time, I realized I wanted to attack him.

That meant I was interested in him as the opposite sex.