The Story Of How I, A Gloomy Guy, Ended Up Surrounded By the Top-Tier Beautiful Girls In Class After A Seat Change - Chapter 48

After parting with Airi at the apartment building, the usual way home suddenly felt quiet and somewhat lonely.

Airi is natural and noisy, but she’s like a mascot character, always bright, so I feel somewhat calm when she’s around.

(Despite being an introvert, she’s kind to me. She really is a good kid.)

Lost in thoughts about Airi like that, I found myself back home without realizing it.

“I’m home!”

Entering the living room from the entrance, my older sister, lounging on the sofa in just a shirt and underwear, lazily greeted me.

Sigh… Compared to Airi, she’s lacking in the chest department.

“Oh, Ryota? I ate your ice cream for you.”

“Oh, come on! Seriously? I was really looking forward to that limited edition Harden flavor. Damn it! Stupid sister.”

“Oh, and…”

“What now?”

“Tanaka-chan came by earlier.”

Tanaka came here?

I wonder what for.

(Come to think of it, ever since that rooftop conversation with Tanaka, we haven’t talked even on Lime.)

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with those three beautiful girls, and I haven’t had time to talk nerdy with Tanaka.

“She said she just ‘dropped by,’ but don’t you think she came all the way here because she had something to talk to you about?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Ask her on Lime, okay?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

I sent Tanaka a Lime message asking, “Can we chat on the phone?” and then returned to my room. While waiting for Tanaka’s reply, I received a picture today from Kuroki.

“Whoa… She’s got twin tails today!?”

A picture arrived showing Kuroki in her school uniform with an under-twin-tail hairstyle, lying on her bed in a selfie.

“Kuroki: Doing my best for the play! Sending you a picture today too? You like this kind of thing, right, Ryota-kun?”

This girl… She really knows how to cater to my otaku habits.

Her beautiful face with twin tails is just unfairly cute. The gap moe is like a thousand times stronger when cute girls do it.

While I was saving Kuroki’s picture and thinking about it, Tanaka replied.

“Tanaka: Understood. I can talk on the phone now.”

I looked at her reply and called Tanaka.

“Long time no see, Tanaka.”

“Oh, Ryota-kun, it’s been a while.”

“She came by earlier, but did she have something to talk to me about?”

“Well, it’s not like she had a specific reason, but I heard some strange rumors about the cultural festival.”

“Strange rumors?”

I have a bad feeling about this…

“Well, something like Ryota-kun playing Snow White at the cultural festival, and Ichinose-san and Kuroki-san from the beautiful girl trio playing the prince or something.”

… Tanaka, that’s not a rumor. That’s the truth.

“Given the gender reversal, it’s weird, isn’t it?”

“…We’re doing it.”

“Huh?”

“I… I’m going to play Snow White. So what?”

“Isn’t that just… recently, Ryota-kun, you’ve been acting kind of weird.”

Tanaka’s voice of disbelief shattered my mental state.

(Stop it already, Tanaka! My life is at zero!)

“Are you really going to play Snow White? So, basically, you’re going to cross-dress?”

“Ah, shut up! I got stuck doing it! There’s nothing I can do about it!”

“I see. You got pushed into it by an extrovert.”

Tanaka understands introverts well, so she instantly grasped my situation.

As expected of an introverted girl.

“Well, aside from that, Ryota-kun, do you even understand the story of Snow White properly?”

“Of course I do. I used to have a picture book on my shelf and read it often.”

“That’s quite a fairy tale episode for you.”

“What do you mean ‘for you’?”

While I retorted to Tanaka, I moved towards the bookshelf in my room.

“Come to think of it, where’s that picture book now?”

“Why don’t you try looking for it if you’re going to play the main role?”

“Yeah, I guess I should.”

Recent shelves are full of manga from top to bottom, so it’s not immediately visible.

I haven’t read a picture book in years, so it might be towards the bottom…

“Snow White, Snow White… Hmm?”

When I looked at the bottom shelf, a nostalgic manga came out.

It’s a manga I read when I was in elementary school, called “Lucky & H.”

(This manga had quite erotic scenes for a boys’ magazine, so I often read it secretly from my parents.)

Oh, but this manga… There are 18 volumes in total, but for some reason, only the first volume is missing.

“…Oh well.”

“What’s wrong, Ryota-kun?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

I started searching for Snow White again.