Vol 1 Chapter 11 – Mother

“Just retake the photo normally. Why didn’t anyone notice? Are you all idiots, including you, Ichirou?”

My mother stated calmly.

She is a first-class businesswoman, working in the first sales division of one of this world’s five major trading companies.

Wasn’t it better to just brazenly show their faces rather than take a photo that looked like something out of the adult entertainment industry?

They should just smile and flash a peace sign.

That was the conclusion derived from her insight.

And she was right.

My mother frowned as she ate dinner.

“…Well, not that I really mind. Fine. It’s fine if you join this ‘Modern Culture Research Club,’ and it’s fine if you participate in that doujinshi convention. I don’t really get the whole otaku thing, you know. But this photo is just not okay.”

“We haven’t posted it on social media yet. President Takahashi ended up objecting.”

President Takahashi had suggested we hold off on posting it for now.

I figured it was fine, though.

“I see. That’s a relief. This way, I don’t have to deal with rumors at the office that my son is a whore. In today’s information society, you never know what will suddenly go viral.”

Judging by my mother’s reaction, it seemed it really was no good.

I was glad I trusted President Takahashi’s judgment.

Fiddling with my smartphone and looking at the photos, she said this other one was fine and told me to use the one where we’re just showing our faces normally.

So the first picture we took was okay?

In it, I was beaming, standing next to an awkward-smiling Segawa-san.

“If you have nothing to feel inferior about, then do it with your chest held high.”

That was my mother’s principle.

If there’s nothing to be ashamed of, push straight ahead and fight.

The opponent played dirty?

Then pulverize them.

With enough power, anything is possible.

That’s the kind of personality she has.

“I read this report from that girl, Ryoune Segawa. I like her.”

She twirled the report I’d been given by Segawa-senpai in her hand.

It seemed my mother liked its no-nonsense contents, which listed only the merits and demerits.

“If it had been full of some scam-artist-like language, I would have blown a gasket, but she really explained all the downsides, and if you say you accepted that, Ichirou, then it’s your choice.”

Freedom.

My mother is strict about discipline and curfews.

However, I feel that she basically lets me do as I please.

Honestly, she might be more reasonable than my parents from my previous life.

A world of difference from my parents in my past life, who despised otaku.

And in a dystopian world like this one, no less.

“Bring her over to the house sometime. I’ll size her up for you.”

“Whoa, it’s not like she’s my girlfriend or anything. I’ve barely even spoken to her. Are you misunderstanding something?”

Is Mom getting the wrong idea?

I’d only just started talking to Segawa-senpai today.

My only real impression of Segawa-san was that she was the senpai whose breasts were bigger than President Takahashi’s.

When I said as much…

“Listen here. You think a high school girl at that age would settle for a relationship like that? Their heads are all full of lewd things. I know mine was.”

“Just because you were like that, Mom, doesn’t mean you can apply it to everyone else.”

“It’s the same. All anyone thinks about is fuck-and-goal-in, fuck-and-goal-in. That’s it. They think of nothing else, like monkeys.”

Shouldn’t that be ‘fuck and sayonara’?

You don’t normally hear a dystopian, Neo-Saitama-like term like that.

Knowledge from my past life pricked at my memory.

“How to trick a boy into fucking them, and then get pregnant, insist he take responsibility, and goal-in to a marriage. Teenage girls think of nothing else.”

“Mom, that’s vulgar.”

My mother was, at times, vulgar.

Then again, considering the values of my past life, men certainly didn’t have much on their minds besides sex.

And if I were being honest, I had sexual urges in this world, too.

But more than that, I just wanted otaku friends.

That hadn’t changed from my past life to this one.

“Geh heh heh, this guy thinks I’m just his friend. That’s what’s so damn hot about him. That’s how I was! Everyone’s like that! Adolescent girls are nothing but beasts, their fantasies filled with nothing but drawing up blueprints for their future lives with some boy.”

“I don’t know about that. President Takahashi and the others aren’t like that.”

I’m not asking, you know.

Somehow, hearing about my own mother’s sex drive was a bit much.

Besides, I heard that she and Dad had married for love, hadn’t they?

It’s not like they had a ‘fuck-and-goal-in’ situation.

I said so.

“Honey! Ichirou won’t listen to me! He won’t even let me see his girlfriend’s face!!”

My mother yelled at a photo frame.

I’m told my father died young in an accident.

I remember his face vividly, but that’s only because I see it every day in the photos lined up in the living room.

By the time I was old enough to be self-aware and had remembered my past life, my father had already passed away, so I’d never seen him in person.

“Your father’s last wish was to have lived in a slightly freer society. That’s why I’m letting you be free, and yet this child…”

“I know that.”

And I’m grateful for it.

In this world, if a boy wanted to practice karate instead of playing the piano, he’d surely be scolded and told no.

I was certainly free.

“And that includes romance—if it’s a girl you’ve chosen, Ichirou, you’re free to choose, you know?”

If things were different, I probably wouldn’t have been allowed freedom in love, either.

She would have been thinking about how to forge a connection with a wealthy family to secure support for her own old age.

I do think I’m loved. But…

“But, you know. I think I need to properly assess this Segawa-san, this big-breasted bundle of lust who’s smirking with that sycophantic grin under the banner… I’m worried my son is going to get destroyed at night. That girl is definitely staring at Ichirou’s collarbones with lust in her eyes! I can tell!!”

“Did you hear a word I said?”

I’m seriously not looking for that kind of relationship.

I want otaku friends, so holding such impure feelings for President Takahashi and the others would be disrespectful.

Besides.

“I feel like there’s a difference of opinion here, but… I kind of assumed I’d end up in an arranged marriage or something in the future.”

Her earlier words stuck with me.

If it’s a girl Ichirou has chosen, you’re free?

I’d never even considered it before.

It’s not that I intended to stay single like in my past life, but I hadn’t wished for a marriage based on love in this life, either.

I just figured that in this world, arranged marriages were the norm.

“Well, Ichirou, it’d be impossible for you with a normal girl, right? You’re an otaku… I figured you wouldn’t be able to talk to or share hobbies with a regular civilian girl.”

She had a point.

While normal boys were learning how to be considerate of women and proper etiquette at their lessons, I was practicing straight punches and one-armed shoulder throws.

I just couldn’t get over the trauma of being stabbed in the gut.

“So, I’m free to pursue romance?”

“Looks that way.”

Apparently so.

That, however, presented its own problem.

I have zero confidence in my ability to have a normal romantic relationship, you know?

I wasn’t a virgin past the age of thirty in my previous life for nothing.

“Anyway, I would have been angry if you’d posted a photo like this without telling me first, but from what I hear, this President Takahashi person seems level-headed, so it’s fine. Do as you please. Joining the club, that convention thing, all of it.”

“I’m really free to?”

“You’re free.”

My mother nodded with a smile.

Her gaze was directed at the photo frame of my now-deceased father.

Thanking my late father, I reached my chopsticks for the miso-marinated mackerel.