My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering with My School Romantic Comedy - Volume 2 Chapter 1.2:

Volume 2 Chapter 1.2:

“So, how many of the four ended up having their way with you?”

“None of them, dammit!”

My pained retort echoed through the student guidance office.

“Tch, what a letdown.”

Our homeroom teacher, Douraku Utage, smirked as she leaned back in her chair—her tiny frame making her look more like an elementary schooler than a full-grown adult.

Utage-sensei was the only person who truly understood my unique predicament. Apparently, she had suffered from the same curse in the past.

“Is it really that amusing to see one of your students get confessed to by another guy?”

“Super amusing.”

“……”

After that first confession, I got hit with back-to-back love confessions from the guys ranked second and third, leaving me mentally devastated. With nowhere else to turn, I came running to Utage-sensei for advice… only to be mocked.

This is cruel.

“Well, if you wanna get this over with, your only option is to bust your ass completing those missions.”

“Yeah, I know, but… I haven’t even gotten a new mission yet. I was hoping you could, I dunno, give me some special insight from experience?”

For some reason, Utage-sensei was always weirdly secretive about the curse. She had a habit of dodging questions or changing the subject whenever I pressed her for details.

Noticing my accusing gaze, she let out a small huff before speaking.

“Look, it’s not like I’m hiding information from you. I’m just restricted from saying certain things.”

“Restricted?”

“Yeah. You can’t talk about the curse to outsiders, right?”

She had a point. Every time I tried to explain Absolute Choice to someone, an excruciating headache would kick in and block me from spilling the truth. The only reason I could talk about it freely with her was that she had been in my shoes.

“I cleared several missions and got rid of the curse itself. But some of the restrictions stuck around. I can talk to you about it—to an extent—but I definitely can’t say a word to anyone else.”

With a frustrated expression, she tapped her temple with her index finger.

“And even when it comes to you, there’s still a limit. Anything beyond that, and I hit a wall.”

“I see… I was actually hoping to ask you about something. Lately, I feel like there’s been a weird change in the choices I’ve been getting.”

Not that it mattered, since both of my last choices turned out to be traps anyway.

“That’s because you’ve cleared two missions. When I was in your position, things did get a little easier over time… Though, beyond that—tch.”

Utage-sensei furrowed her brows in frustration—probably because the block had kicked in again.

But at least one thing was clear:

Completing missions definitely had an effect on the nature of the choices I received.

“But listen, if you’re looking for answers, I’m not the one you should be asking. That dog of yours should be the real source of information. Isn’t she supposed to be helping you break the curse?”

“Well, yeah, but… she’s got amnesia or something, so she barely remembers anything useful.”

“……Useless. When it was my turn, that mutt at least gave me some decent intel. And she was plenty useful in other ways too. I had her run errands all the time—grabbing me bread, beer, whatever I needed.”

…That’s just a glorified errand boy.

“So, how is she at home? What does she even do all day?”

“Eats, lazes around, and snacks on sweets.”

“…What? She doesn’t help with housework?”

“I can do it faster myself.”

“I had her up at five every morning, cleaning the entire house.”

“She sleeps like a log until I wake her up.”

“…And what about helping with the missions?”

“She wants to help, but she’s absolutely useless.”

“……Then why the hell are you even letting her live with you?”

…

Good question.

Why am I?

***

“Hmph-hmm~ Kanade-san and I are heading home~”

On the way back, Chocolat hummed happily to herself.

It was bad enough that she was completely useless around the house, but now I had to babysit her at school too? Just as a deep sigh started to escape my lips—

“K-Kanade-chan!!”

A desperate voice suddenly rang out from behind me.

I turned around in surprise, only to find our neighbor, Gondo Daiko-san (49), her face deathly pale, trembling violently.

“D-Daiko-san? What’s wrong?”

For the record, this woman had a rather… aggressive physique, easily breaking into triple digits in weight.

“W-Who is that girl!?”

Daiko-san’s sharp glare was fixed on Chocolat, who simply blinked in confusion behind me.

“Huh? Chocolat? She’s, uh… how do I put this—”

“E-Even though you already have me!”

…Huh? What? I don’t know what you’re talking about…

This woman had a bad habit of fixating on me because, apparently, I was the spitting image of her ex-husband in his younger years. And she wasn’t doing it as a joke—she was dead serious.

“Oh! A neighbor? Nice to meet you!”

Chocolat greeted her cheerfully, but Daiko-san was far too worked up to hear it.

“Just because she’s young and pretty, you think you can get away with this… you little harlot!”

Her face was starting to look like a villain from a battle manga.

“Daiko-san, please, calm down. Chocolat isn’t—”

【Choose: ① “Hold me.” ② “Hold me until I break.”】

Give me a break, seriously.

The options were as merciless as ever. So clearing two missions hadn’t changed much after all…

“…Hold me.”

“Kanade-chan… at last!!”

Yup. I’ve been through this exact scenario before.

“Wait, no—Gyaaahhh!!”

“Oh wow, Kanade-san’s all squishy now. He looks kinda like an octopus~”

“Chocolat, don’t just stand there commenting—help meee—GAAAAHHH!!”

For the next agonizing three minutes, Daiko-san squeezed me in her crushing embrace until she was satisfied and left, giggling to herself.

“Ugh… Uuuugh… I thought I was gonna die…”

I collapsed on the spot, completely drained.

And since this time, the choice only dictated my words, rather than my actions, Daiko-san’s memory wouldn’t be erased.

If anything, I’M the one who wants to forget this ever happened…

“To captivate even a madam… As expected of Kanade-san.”

Chocolat nodded to herself in admiration.

No, no, no. I don’t want to attract madams. I want to date normal girls and have a normal love life…

But with these damn Absolute Choice, that was never gonna happen.

“I’m home~!”

Chocolat dashed into the house as soon as I opened the front door.

Dragging my battered body and broken spirit behind her, I let out a weary sigh and stepped inside.

“Haaah…”

Even though she was completely a freeloader, Chocolat had already settled in as if she belonged here. Her sheer audacity was almost admirable in its own way.

“Kanade-san, my brain is craving something sweet!”

…And now she was saying stuff like this.

“Well, I’m tired too… Guess I’ll bring that out.”

I reached into the kitchen cupboard and pulled out my prized tin of cookies, setting it down on the living room table.

“Hooaaaahhh!”

Chocolat’s eyes sparkled with delight.

As expected of a well-known confectionery, the cookies radiated an aura of deliciousness. Just from the way they looked, you could tell they’d be amazing without even tasting them.

According to the menu card inside, there were ten different varieties, five of each—fifty in total. Just as I reached out to grab one—

“Hn?”

My phone started ringing.

Glancing at the screen, I saw the name “GOD.”

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

A certain bitter memory from a few days ago resurfaced in my mind.

With a deep sigh, I answered.

“…Hello?”

《Hello hello~ Kanade-kun! How was school today? Did something extra spicy happen, hmm~?》

My irritation instantly skyrocketed.

I immediately hung up.

But before I could even breathe a sigh of relief, my phone rang again—”GOD.”

Even though the number wasn’t displayed, it was possible to block it, so I set it to auto-reject.

But then—”GOD.”

…What the hell is this?

I had no choice but to turn my phone off entirely.

But then—”GOD.”

“SO HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS NOW!?”

The phone powered itself back on automatically. Holding it up to my ear, I practically roared in frustration.

《Haha~ Well, I am God, after all~》

The owner of this infuriatingly carefree voice was, as he himself claimed, an actual, bona fide deity.

At first, I thought he was just some obnoxious playboy, but after seeing him casually pull off reality-defying feats—like, say, turning me into a girl—I had no choice but to believe him.

Apparently, he was also the one who arranged for Chocolat to join my class as an “academic support pet” or whatever.

“So? If you went out of your way to contact me, does that mean you’ve figured something new out?”

《Nope, not at all~》

…Not at all!?

Right. So, the previous god in charge of my world had gone on maternity leave (due to an illicit affair, no less), suffered an emotional breakdown, and was now in full-on shut-in mode.

Which meant that this Chara-God had taken over in a hurry and barely knew a thing about my curse.

“Then why the hell did you call me!?”

《Mmm~ Just killing time~》

…That’s strange. I should be a pretty mild-mannered guy.

And yet, I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to punch something.

《Ah, wait—are you mad? Calm down, calm down, Kanade-kun. Even gods have things they don’t know and things they can’t do, you know? Changing you into a girl, though—that’s easy.》

…There were so many things I wanted to yell at him for, but that particular topic was one I’d rather not relive.

《Oh! Another easy one would be turning you into a pinworm.》

“That’s horrifying!”

Pinworms… Those were the ones that laid eggs around the anus, right? I vaguely remembered having to stick a piece of tape on my butt for a test back in elementary school. Hadn’t heard that word since.

《But, you know, if I turned you into a pinworm… what would happen to the ones already living in your butt?》

“LIKE I CARE!!”

I definitely didn’t have the kind of mental fortitude to be worrying about the fate of other pinworms if I became one myself.

《Oh, I could also take all the images of girls in your “Super Ero” folder and increase their weight by 20 kilograms each.》

“THAT’S LITERALLY HELL!”

For the record, there was no such thing as a “Super Ero” folder on my PC. My sacred collection was all stored under “The Path to Philosophy.”

《Oh, by the way, I already know it’s actually under “The Path to Philosophy.”》

“YOU REALLY ARE GOD, HUH!?”

《Yep, that’s me~》

…Right. I forgot.

《Oh, and I could also turn all the men in your world into homosexuals.》

“DO YOU WANT HUMANITY TO GO EXTINCT!?”

This was escalating way too fast. And knowing this bastard, he probably could do it.

Wait a second. If he could pull off something as massive as that… wouldn’t breaking one curse be an easy side job?

《Ohh, I see what you’re thinking, Kanade-kun. “Then just do something about the curse,” right?》

Ugh… It really pissed me off how easily he could read my thoughts.

《But, like I mentioned earlier, that’s actually impossible.》

“…Impossible?”

《Yep. Every world has its own established laws. In your world, for example, an apple will always fall to the ground once it leaves a tree, people can’t fly, and dogs can’t speak human language.》

Well, yeah. That was all just… basic reality. Things that were absolute, undeniable facts to anyone living here.

《As a god, I can change those things. I could make a falling apple float midair or give someone wings.》

…I mean, I guess he probably could.

《But, there is one domain even I can’t touch. That’s the unnatural laws—things that were never meant to exist in that world to begin with. These are distortions, rules forced in by a god who went and tampered with the world. And that is what you humans call a curse.》

Tampered with… Yeah. Now that I thought about it, I’d just grown numb to it and stopped questioning it, but there was never supposed to be a system of forced choices in this world.

《And by the way, Kanade-kun, even the normal world laws I can change? It’s not like I actually do. It’s just that I could if I wanted to. We gods aren’t supposed to interfere with human affairs. That’s taboo. Our duty is to remain impartial and manage the world from a neutral standpoint.》

For once, this flippant God’s tone carried a rare firmness.

…Honestly, if physics laws were just being rewritten left and right based on divine whims, that’d be a nightmare for us.

“Wait, hold on. In that case, turning me into a girl and calling me now—aren’t those things you shouldn’t be doing?”

《Well, I mean, teasing you is fun.》

“THAT’S PURE PERSONAL BIAS!”

《Ehhh, well, gods are still people too, you know. Sometimes, we get emotional.》

“Oi, you’re not even human!”

《When something bothers me, I just head to an izakaya alone, order some grilled squid, and vent to the mama-san over a drink.》

“You’re just a middle-aged man!”

What kind of worldview does this guy even have…?

“Whatever… Can I ask something fundamental?”

《Ehh, I don’t really have much time, though.》

…Wasn’t this guy just calling me to kill time?

“You said you can’t interfere with the curse or the missions. I get that. And I sort of, barely, kind of understand why you don’t have any information on them, since your predecessor locked herself away. It’s not great, but fine, whatever.”

I was talking down to a god quite a bit, but it’s not like I could bring myself to respect him anyway.

“If it’s not you, and it’s not your predecessor, then just who the hell is sending me these ‘Absolute Choices’ and missions?”

《Yeah, no clue.》

A refreshingly immediate response.

《Actually, even the shut-in before me didn’t fully understand the details of the curse.》

“Huh?”

《It’s like, she got stuck with it too. More like, she was forced into it? Ah, wait a sec. …What? No way. Oof, yeah, that’s bad… Ah, sorry, Kanade-kun, something urgent just came up.》

“Urgent?”

《Apparently, in the 22nd World, a ‘Universal Annihilation Bomb’ is about to be completed. That’s, like, a level where I have to step in, right? Welp, later! Bye-bii!》

“Huh? Oi, hold on a sec—!”

The call was suddenly cut off. What the hell? A Universal Annihilation Bomb? I had no idea what that was, but it sounded like another world was about to be in big trouble.

But that had absolutely nothing to do with my own problems.

“In the end, I got almost no new information…”

With Utage-sensei and Chocolat being unreliable, this so-called god was my only source of info on the Absolute Choice.

Just as I slumped my shoulders in defeat, Chocolat called out.

“Come now, Kanade-san, let’s calm down with some sweet treats.”

She held out a cookie tin.

“Oh, well, I guess that’s—”

Inside, a single lonely cookie sat there.

“How many did you eat!?”

“Forty-nine.”

“I can tell! There were fifty, and now there’s one left! I don’t need the exact count, dammit!”

“Then… a lot.”

“I KNOW! If you ate forty-nine, of course it’s a lot!”

“Kanade-san is being unreasonable…”

“The only unreasonable thing here is your stomach! Where the hell did you fit all that!?”

“Sweet things go into a special stomach.”

“You only eat sweet things!”

“That’s not true. While you were on the phone, I had some senbei too.”

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?”

…Somehow, I just lost the will to be mad.

I popped the lone remaining cookie into my mouth and sank into the sofa.

“Ah, can I sit next to you?”

Chocolat beamed as she scooted closer, wagging like a puppy.

“…Oi, you. Why are you always so happy?”

“Because! Just being useful to Kanade-san makes me really happy~!”

…Whether she was actually being useful was another matter entirely, but her feelings were pure.

I was still a guy, after all. When a cute girl (at least, visually speaking) showered me with this much affection, it wasn’t like it felt bad.

But this idiot didn’t even understand what it meant to love someone.

“Listen, Chocolat. You’re only supposed to act like this toward someone you really like.”

“Eh? But I do like Kanade-san.”

“Ugh—”

Those eyes… completely free of doubt.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant. The ‘like’ you’re talking about isn’t the same. I mean it in a more… complicated way.”

“There are different kinds of ‘like’?”

“Ugh—”

That… somehow sounded like a profound truth.

“You know, I feel like I like Kanade-san more and more with each passing day!”

“Ugh… kuh…”

No, wait. Hold on. Hold the hell on. She’s just a dog. A dog. A dog. A dog.

“Oi. Dog.”

“Yes!”

…Why did she sound so happy about that?

Whatever. I just needed to keep my cool. As long as I stayed rational, everything would be fine.

“What’s wrong, Kanade-san?”

“Stop clinging to me!”

…Yeah, I’d be fine. Probably.