Chapter 33: Joining a Yandere Off-Meet!

Man—pretty crazy, right?

In just the last few months, I’ve brought three yanderes into this world.

A clingy one, a possessive one, a worshipping one…

At this point, it’s basically a yandere-only game.

Normally, this would be the part where I’m agonizing over which route to take, but—unfortunately.

Before I even think about getting a girlfriend, I have to produce a whole bunch of yanderes in this world.

So yeah, I’m still single. Lonely.

But today, I’m going to forget all that and just talk my heart out!

Today is a meetup where only yandere lovers gather, and we do nothing but talk about the appeal of yanderes—dubbed…

“I’m Glad I Was Born into a World with Yanderes”

…an off-meet.

I got possessed by the charm of yanderes back in middle school, but I had a problem.

That problem was: there weren’t any yandere fans around me.

Well, to be precise, maybe there were—but I couldn’t tell.

It’s not like I was openly announcing that I loved yanderes, either. Even I get it.

Like, I know how unhinged it sounds to loudly go—

“I love yanderes! Introduce me to yandere girls!”

—right?

People say you don’t need to hide what you like, but I’m at that age where I still care what people think.

So I tried to survive by matching other people and going along with the flow.

That’s why I kept it quiet, or only showed my yandere obsession within my own circle.

“This anime girl is definitely going to become a yandere.”

“This girl’s yandere-ness is genius.”

Stuff like that.

But nobody around me related, and it frustrated me that I didn’t have anyone to really talk with.

You can’t be satisfied just liking something on your own. If you can, you want someone to agree with you.

I wanted someone to back me up, so I searched the internet like crazy.

For a place where I could talk yanderes to the very end.

That’s when I found this group.

It’s the ultimate group where you can talk about yanderes from all kinds of angles—what got you into them, what parts you like, what your ideal yandere is… all of it.

For someone like me who doesn’t have anyone to talk to in real life, you could say it’s the one place where I don’t have to hide who I am.

And today is the first off-meet for that group!

Actually, it’s my first off-meet in general. Part of me always wondered what it’d be like to meet people I only knew online, but as long as you’re careful not to give out too much personal info…

…I figured you can manage.

Well, I’m still going to be careful, obviously.

Also, you know—there aren’t any bad people among yandere lovers. Or so I tell myself.

Ba-dump, ba-dump.

While I waited, my heart felt like it was pounding—like it was squeezing tight, a mix of excitement and anxiety.

Online, we’re always like—

“This season’s ___ has the perfect sick-and-sweet balance.”

—and—

“Did you see that scene? That dead-light look in the eyes is insane.”

—talking about all kinds of yanderes from this season’s anime, manga, and games, but this is our first time actually meeting.

What kind of people are they? Will we really click face-to-face…?

Ba-dump, ba-dump.

“Are you Jou-san?”

Someone spoke to me.

In this group, I use the handle “Jou,” using the on’yomi reading of the “castle” kanji in Takashiro.

Using my real name is risky, after all.

The person who spoke to me was a tall guy—kind of lanky—with glasses.

Oh—if he knows the name “Jou,” then he has to be here for the off-meet.

“Yeah.”

When I said that, he went, “Then this way,” and guided me over to where people were gathering.

Man, I’m nervous.

We’re gonna talk so much.

Chapter 34: I’ve Reached a New Frontier!

There were both men and women among the people who gathered.

That surprised me a little.

Honestly, online, I’d been interpreting everyone’s gender however I felt like. Meaning, in my case, I’d assumed almost everyone was a guy.

Since it was mostly people like me—people who love yandere girls—I figured it would be all men.

Huh. So yanderes are popular with women too. Maybe it’s like… they want to be friends with them?

Once it seemed like most of the group had arrived, we changed locations to a café-like place with private rooms.

“Since it’s a private room, it’s fine even if we get a little loud.”

That’s what the person who guided me earlier said.

This is my first off-meet, but maybe a lot of the others have done this before, because everyone immediately started chatting with people they were close with.

Crap, I missed my chance… But I was really looking forward to being able to talk today. Somehow, I need to jump into someone’s conversation.

If possible, with that person…

There was someone online I clicked with more than anyone.

Their name was Myuuta-san. Same taste in anime and manga, similar reasons for liking yanderes—honestly, the perfect person to talk with.

The reason I decided to come to the off-meet in the first place was because that person would be here.

If possible, I want to talk with Myuuta-san. But since I don’t know what they look like, I can’t tell which one is Myuuta-san.

Hngh… should I just start talking to different people for now?

As I thought that and looked around, a beautiful long-haired woman spoke to me, like she was rescuing me.

“Is this your first off-meet? I’m Myuuta! Nice to meet you.”

Huh? Myuuta?

I did a double take at her. Wait—wasn’t Myuuta a guy?

Maybe she could tell I had a question mark floating over my head, because she laughed and said—

“Hahaha, sorry, sorry. I do that on purpose because I want to see that reaction. I make myself sound kind of like a guy online. But it’s not like I ever said I was a guy, so it’s not like I’m actually tricking anyone, okay?”

…she said.

I see. So it’s my misunderstanding… but also not entirely my misunderstanding.

But whether she’s a guy or a girl, she’s still Myuuta—someone who loves yanderes and matches my tastes perfectly.

So I decided not to worry about it, and I talked with her about a ton of things.

When you actually meet and talk, it really is different.

She really was the Myuuta I clicked with.

If I said, “This season’s anime, this one’s the best, right?” she’d agree, and when I asked for manga recommendations, she’d name stuff I’d already been curious about…

Aren’t our tastes, like, way too perfectly matched? Stuff like that.

Oh, right.

I decided to ask her something I’d been wondering about.

“By the way, I know you like yanderes, but is it more like you want to be friends with them or something?”

I asked.

Then she said, “What do you mean?” so—

I told her: for me, it’s more like I want to date a yandere girl, so for guys, I figured it’s probably about wanting to go out with a yandere—but I wondered what women think about it.

Then she made this shocked, totally-unbelieving face and said—

“What are you talking about?! Sure, wanting to be friends with a yandere girl is a thing, but…

More importantly, there are yandere boys too, right?!”

It was like scales falling from my eyes.

Because when it comes to my tastes—or rather, the kind of manga I read—I’d only been paying attention to female yanderes.

In manga too, the yandere slot is usually a girl. So I’d ended up with this bias that yandere = girl.

But obviously, there are men with yandere talent too, and ignoring that is such a waste.

Yanderes have an appeal that goes beyond gender, and all I could do was feel embarrassed that I’d been unconsciously trapped by gender—reflection time.

Regardless of gender, you can create tons of yanderes with the same appeal—or rather, yanderes who have appeal you can only get from each gender. That’s what I realized through talking with her.

And more than anything, if I look at both, yanderes become—by simple math—twice as many!

Alright, starting tomorrow, I’m gonna go find more talent too!

With this new perspective, I felt like I could find yandere talent even better than before.