In a World Where Chastity Is Reversed, I Kept Provoking Girls Until Things Went Too Far - Chapter 17-18

Chapter 17: Test Week

On the way to school, the morning breeze felt a bit chilly.

As I recalled last night’s events, I found myself grinning alone without meaning to.

…Man, who would’ve thought it would be a VR chat full of femboys.

I’d started it with the ulterior motive of “I want to get fawned over!” but before I knew it, I was surrounded by muscle avatars and handsome ones, treated like a “little brother,” and forced to sing karaoke—.

And it had been genuinely fun…

That bizarre energy had felt oddly comfortable.

Of course, if someone told me to do the same thing in real life, I’d absolutely refuse, but because it was a game, maybe I could let loose in a different headspace than usual.

The direction hadn’t quite been “getting fawned over.” But I’d ended up as the center of the excitement, and that wasn’t so bad in its own way.

Remembering it made my shoulders shake with natural laughter.

It would probably be fun to hang out with that group again…

For some reason, I felt like I might get hooked on it.

The moment I stepped into the classroom, I tilted my head.

The air, which was usually noisy with girls’ laughter and chatter, felt a little subdued.

The scratch of mechanical pencils racing across paper, the rustle of turning pages.

Even those small sounds stood out because the overall atmosphere was so calm.

“…Huh, isn’t the vibe a bit off?”

As I settled into my seat and glanced around, the girl next to me was plastering sticky notes all over her textbook, and the one in front of me was muttering vocabulary under her breath from a flashcard book.

Oh, right…

Cold sweat beaded on my forehead. Yeah, the midterms were coming up soon.

Crap, I’d gotten so absorbed in the game last night.

A heavy weight settled gradually on my spine.

I shouldn’t have been partying it up with those femboy girls in the game—.

“…W-well. There’s still a week left, right?”

I muttered an excuse to myself in a low voice.

The high school I attended ranked among the college-prep ones in the prefecture.

But—I had a little “backstory.” Simply put, boys could get in even with low scores.

Originally, far more girls applied, so boys were treated like rare slots.

There was the pretext of “adjusting the gender ratio,” but in reality, they overlooked a bit of academic shortfall for boys. I was one of those who had slipped in thanks to that favor.

It was a level of academic rigor I’d never have reached otherwise, but I’d chosen this school just because it was the closest to home.

Once I actually enrolled, reality hit hard. The girls around me excelled in both studies and sports, above average.

As for me, keeping up with classes was all I could manage, and come test time, failing grades loomed immediately in my mind.

But if I scored low, the girls would mock me.

In this world, boys got preferential treatment and adoration lumped under the banner of rarity. That’s exactly why a boy might exaggerate himself to get people to see him as an individual and fawn over him… maybe that desire grew stronger.

No matter what, I’d ace this test and rub it in everyone’s faces!!!

After school that day.

While most of my classmates headed to the study hall, I slumped over my desk.

“…This is bad, I’ll definitely fail if it stays like this.”

Even opening my notebook made the letters and numbers look like spells.

Just then, a steady tap-tap of a mechanical pencil came from the seat next to mine.

I looked up to see Otowa frowning in concentration as she worked through a problem book. Her face screamed utter seriousness, so I called out to her without thinking.

“Hey, Otowa. Could you teach me some studying?”

Her hand stopped dead.

She looked at me slowly and narrowed her eyes.

“…Kouta, do you even understand your position?”

“My position? Uh… hopeless slacker one step from failing?”

“That’s exactly the kind of resignation that’s wrong. You only got in because you’re a boy—if you don’t hit the bare minimum scores, you’ll really get held back.”

Her blunt truth stabbed right through.

I choked on my words with a “gh.”

“…But I just can’t get it, no matter what. Formulas and stuff—they won’t stick in my head.”

“Hmm…”

Otowa let out a single sigh, pondered for a moment, then

“Fine. I’d wanted to spend time alone with you outside of studying, but I’ll make an exception and teach you,”

she said as she scooted her desk sharply toward mine.

But, she added with a piercing gaze.

“If you say anything foolish, that’s it—over right then.”

She saw right through me!?!?

—

Chapter 18: The Results of Studying

“Then, let’s start with this problem. It’s basic of the basics.”

Otowa pointed to one question in the workbook.

“…Um. Plug the values in here… huh? I got a negative.”

“You take the absolute value there. It’s in the textbook, right?”

“Nah, I figured absolute values had nothing to do with my life.”

I shrugged exaggeratedly, and Otowa’s eyebrow twitched.

“…Are you even motivated to do this properly?”

“No no, just kidding, kidding. Hey, you look cute even when you’re mad.”

I grinned, and the mechanical pencil jabbed my forehead with a “thunk.”

“…If you mess around next time, I’m really dropping you.”

“Eek, got it got it! I’ll get serious!”

I hurriedly turned back to my notebook.

But a few minutes later.

“Uh… here, rationalize the denominator… wait, why’s there still a square root in the denominator?”

“…That’s why I said if you expand and simplify step by step, it goes away.”

“Hmm… your voice explaining it is so soothing that the content isn’t sticking in my head.”

The moment I joked again, Otowa’s eyes narrowed.

“Kouta.”

“S-sorry!”

It was like an interrogating detective and a suspect.

As I desperately rewrote the equation, Otowa let out a small breath and reached for my notebook.

“You calculate it like this here. Now, try it.”

“…Whoa, it disappeared!”

“If you’d just followed what I said from the start, you could do it just fine.”

Her voice was matter-of-fact, but hearing it from such close range made my chest pound oddly.

…Huh? I’m supposed to be studying, but am I getting all flustered for some reason?

In the end, Otowa patiently taught me all the way through.

And as we wrapped up, closing the notebook, she added one line.

“…You’re really high-maintenance, Kouta. So… we’ll study together again tomorrow too.”

She came off as cold, but deep down, she was a kindhearted pushover.

“Kouta, I heard something. The test is coming up soon, right? Are you studying?”

Mom, who had been sitting on the sofa, folded her newspaper and narrowed her eyes.

“Uh, well… sort of.”

“That ‘sort of’ is why you got in—because boys get preferential treatment. It’s pathetic, Kouta.”

Her blunt truth hit home. I couldn’t help but grimace.

“Hey, Mom, don’t talk to Kouta like that; it’s mean!”

The one who jumped in was my sister Rika, fresh from archery club. Still in her jersey, she glared with her bag in hand.

“Kouta’s a kid who can do it if he tries. That’s why I’ll teach him properly!”

“Hehe, you sure it’s safe leaving it to Rika? You might get so distracted staring at Kouta that you spin out before teaching him.”

“Wha…! Th-that’s not true!”

Rika flushed bright red and floundered. Mom wore a smug smile and pressed her advantage.

“Then prove it. Have Kouta solve a problem right here, right now.”

“You’re on! Kouta, get out your notebook!”

Rika spread the workbook on the table. Mom crossed her arms beside her, fully in overseer mode.

I reluctantly gripped my mechanical pencil.

“…Huh, why doesn’t the math check out?”

“See! You missed substituting one constant! Listen properly!”

“Rika, aren’t you being a bit too harsh? If you yell like that, Kouta will shrink back.”

“You’re the one spoiling him too much, Mom! Kouta grows better with tough love!”

Their argument heated up.

“…Um, my opinion is…”

“Be quiet, Kouta!”

“Just trust me, Kouta!”

Sandwiched between Mom and Rika closing in from both sides, I felt like they’d crush me along with my notebook.

“Uwaaah, my time…!”

In the end, that night, the living room turned into the usual battlefield between Mom and Rika.

Their appeal battle of “Kouta needs me” versus “I understand him best” filled half my notebook not with “correct solutions” but with “their arguments.”

The week flew by, and test day arrived.

The chattering classroom fell utterly silent the moment the starting chime rang.

As I gazed at the answer sheet on my desk, I recalled the hell of the past few days.

–“Kouta, if you just do it my way, you can absolutely solve it!”

–“No! Memorize this formula, and it’ll apply to everything!”

Mom and Rika bearing down on me from both sides. Midway, their bickering got so intense that instead of me solving problems, they started solving them nonstop to prove who was right.

…No way I could focus in that mess…

I pressed my forehead and set my pencil moving.

But surprisingly, the knowledge they’d drilled into me stuck in my head, and with Otowa’s lessons a few times too, my hand moved along better than expected.

“…Oh? Am I actually getting this?”

“Kouta, good work~!”

The first to rush over was Yuri.

“How’d it go? Did you fill it all out? No way you left it blank, right?”

“Nah, I wrote everything. I’m a guy who can do it if he tries.”

“Hmm? Hope it’s not just talk~.”

Otowa looked down at me coolly from the side.

“I heard Rika and Kasumi were teaching you yesterday… but were you really okay with those two’s methods?”

“Y-yeah, it was fine! Well, Otowa, you explained it clearer!”

Then Aya joined in, arms crossed.

“Well, if Kouta fails, I’ll tutor you, so don’t worry! I’ll hold your hand through it♡.”

“You guys… how much of a loser do you think I am!!!”

By the way, my scores weren’t that bad, but my ranking was smack in the middle—a thoroughly meh result.