Chapter 18

Father and mother: the entities known as parents are extraordinarily important to a child.
It is no exaggeration to say they are an indispensable presence for a child to maintain inner peace, to the point that how parents treat them determines how they grow up.

Yet for Ryuichi, the concept of parents held only negative aspects.

“Why did a person like you and I…?”
“Shut up. I don’t give a damn about that. Besides, didn’t you train me into this, which is why this kid was born? Do something about it.”

His father was an ordinary salaryman, and his mother was an ordinary office worker, too… His father was tolerable enough, but his mother was an absolute maniac when it came to men. Infidelity was a given, and it seemed she had been involved with countless men.

Once that came to light, his mother stopped caring and began hurling the basest, most vicious words at both his father and Ryuichi. His mother spoke of giving birth to Ryuichi as if it were a dark blot on her history, while his father kept him at a distance simply because, son though he was, he carried that woman’s blood… Ryuichi’s home environment was truly as terrible as it gets.

“I don’t want to think of you as my son.”
“I don’t want to think of you as my son, either.”

Spend a childhood like that, and anyone’s heart would warp.
He hated his father for refusing to look out for him, and he hated his mother even more for looking down on weak men and treating even her own son like trash. Watching a mother like that, Ryuichi naturally came to the conclusion that women were worthless anyway.

In the end, both of them passed away early from illness, and the treatment he received upon being taken in by his paternal grandparents could hardly be called good. From his grandparents’ perspective, here was a woman who had spent years hiding the fact that she kept betraying their son, only to completely change her attitude the moment it was exposed. It wasn’t unreasonable for them to think they didn’t want to look at Ryuichi’s face, carrying as he did the blood of such a woman.

“Ryuichi, I’ll send you money, so live on your own.”
“Truth is, I’d love to live together with you, but… I’m sorry.”

He still remembered laughing at how smoothly they could spin such utter lies. In the world he originally belonged to, being abandoned in such a wretched environment rarely happened. But this was his hidden past, a truth that couldn’t be discovered simply by reading the manga.

“…Ua?”

Hearing the chirping of small birds, Ryuichi opened his eyes.
With a groggy, sluggish brain, he scanned his surroundings and finally recalled the events of yesterday. He had visited Shizuna’s house, been treated to a home-cooked meal, and afterward shared an intimate bond in her room.

“……………”

To be completely honest, a part of him felt like he had really gone and done it—almost like an outsider looking in.
The original course of events in this world had already progressed far past the point of no return. In a sense, it was practically a foregone conclusion that Ryuichi would get involved with Shizuna, but the nature of their relationship was entirely too different from how things were supposed to go.

“…Heh, who would have thought it’d turn out like this?”

Even now, closing his eyes brought back the memories.
The image of Shizuna beautifully losing her composure in his arms, the image of Shizuna having pleasure hammered into her body step by step by his own hands; those scenes replayed over and over. It was just like always, no different from holding any other woman… yet he couldn’t deny that he felt an inexplicable sense of reassurance in her presence.

(If the time ever comes when Ryuichi-kun wants to talk about it, I want to listen. You told me that I’m pure white that won’t be dirtied, so I want you to feel at ease. No matter what happens, there will always be a color by your side that remains unchanged. Because a strong color capable of painting over those anxious shades will always be right here with you.)

The words spun by her unclouded eyes continued to echo inside his head.
It was as if she were validating everything about Ryuichi, accepting every part of him, and telling him she would walk alongside him.

“…Shizuna, huh. You really are a heroine through and through.”

He couldn’t help wonder why on earth someone so remarkably good-natured had been cast as a heroine in an adult manga, but Ryuichi figured she would have easily gained immense popularity as a heroine in a standard boys’ manga, too.
He stretched his limbs to work out the stiffness and stood up. Then, following some sudden whim, Ryuichi muttered words he never thought he would say:

“Guess I’ll make breakfast.”

At that moment, a volcano somewhere in the world erupted… well, no, it didn’t. But for Ryuichi to say something like that was, frankly, abnormal. As a rule, he never made breakfast, usually settling for a quick pastry from the convenience store. For a guy like that to announce he was going to cook breakfast was nothing short of a major incident.

First, he heated up a pack of pre-cooked rice in the microwave, transferred it to a bowl, cracked an egg right on top, and splashed on some soy sauce. Stirring it all together completed the ultimate breakfast staple: tamago kake gohan (raw egg mixed with hot rice).

“…Damn, that’s good.”

Simple as it was to make, this raw-egg rice genuinely tasted delicious.
He finished it in no time, wrapped up his preparations for school, and stepped out of his apartment.

“…Man, what a nostalgic dream to have after all this time.”

That was what Ryuichi muttered, referring to the dream he had just experienced.
Memories of his parents stretching all the way back to his early childhood… No, calling them “memories” was far too generous; they were wretched nightmares bordering on the absolute worst.

“Normally, a family dynamic like that is completely out of the question. Is this a manga or something?”

It was a picture-perfect, wretched domestic environment.
It was easy to see why Ryuichi had grown up warped, but that didn’t mean he thought his current actions were right, either. He hadn’t done anything strictly criminal yet, but he still wasn’t living a life that anyone would hold up as an example to follow.

“…Yawn.”

A massive yawn slipped past his lips.
He was heading to school now, but he wasn’t particularly stressing over what kind of face he should make when he saw Shizuna. To Ryuichi, Shizuna’s existence certainly felt a little special, but that didn’t mean he intended to change how he treated her. He would treat her strictly as a classmate, strictly as a friend, and strictly as a man and a woman who had shared a physical bond.

“……?”

As he walked down the street toward school, a familiar figure caught his eye.

“…Ah.”

Swishing her lustrous black hair, she looked right at Ryuichi… it was Shizuna. Even though they hadn’t made any plans to meet up, she was standing right there as if she had been waiting for him all along.
The moment their eyes met, she broke into a radiant smile and dashed over to Ryuichi.

“Morning, Ryuichi-kun!”
“Whoa there…”

She threw herself into Ryuichi’s arms as if diving straight toward the person she had been longing for. Looking up at the Ryuichi who caught her, Shizuna smiled with her cheeks tinged a delicate pink. Facing a smile so dazzling it could captivate anyone, Ryuichi couldn’t help letting a soft laugh slip.

“Good grief, what kind of person just leaps out and hugs someone out of nowhere?”
“What’s wrong with it? I’ve been wanting to do this ever since we parted yesterday, you know~”

It seemed yesterday’s events had completely unlocked something inside Shizuna. She had claimed not to know what love was, but skipping the formalities and jumping straight into a physical relationship had clearly triggered all sorts of changes within her. It wasn’t a negative change by any means; rather, it was proof that she had completely torn down the walls between herself and Ryuichi.

“What would you do if someone saw us like this?”
“I don’t care if people see. Ah, though I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble for Ryuichi-kun, so I suppose I’ll let go for now.”

Even saying she would let go didn’t mean she was stepping away. She merely broke the tight embrace, but they still stood face-to-face at point-blank range. Because of their secret relationship—a bond born entirely from yesterday’s events—they remained unusually close.

“Ryuichi-kun, staring at each other like this is lovely, but shouldn’t we get going?”
“Yeah.”

With that, they started walking together.
Ryuichi glanced sideways at Shizuna walking beside him, but truthfully, her outward appearance hadn’t changed much. If anything, she looked as though she had shed a layer; growing just a fraction more mature as a woman.

“What is it?”
“Nah, just remembering last night.”

With a sly grin, Ryuichi dropped those words, and Shizuna’s face instantly flared bright red as the memories came rushing back. Just as he expected her to avert her eyes in embarrassment, she kept her gaze locked right on him instead. Her eyes swimming with a faint moisture, she pressed a finger to her lips and spoke:

“I… kept replaying it in my head yesterday until I fell asleep. Even though it’s supposed to be something lewd, I couldn’t help feeling impossibly happy about it. It felt like something inside me had fundamentally changed, yet I didn’t hate it at all… because the person was Ryuichi-kun.”
“Is that so? You sure know how to say things that make a guy happy.”

Checking to make sure nobody else was around, Ryuichi pulled Shizuna into his arms. Seizing the opportunity, his hand naturally brushed against her bountiful chest; she let out a soft ah of surprise, but made no move to brush him away, leaving herself entirely at his mercy.

“Honestly… we’re outside right now, you know?”
“The way you phrase that makes it sound like you’d be fine with me doing whatever I want if we were at home.”
“Yes. I want you to touch me as much as you want.”

It seemed he had managed to change her far more than he originally anticipated. Like he’d said before, her outward appearance hadn’t shifted at all, so nobody would ever guess by looking at her. Even so, something inside her had undeniably changed—whether that transformation would eventually surface for the world to see… was something even Ryuichi couldn’t predict just yet.

(I wish I hadn’t given birth to you.)
“…Tsk.”

At the sound of his mother’s voice echoing like a curse in his mind, Ryuichi clicked his tongue, completely unaware that the sudden sound had caused a look of anxiety to cross Shizuna’s face.