Genjitsu de Rabukome Dekinai to Dare ga Kimeta? Vol. 1 Backstage 2

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Translation: learning2tl

Editing/Proofreading: chelly, henrylin22

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Backstage 2 – Girls’ Side

Yet another stupid thing to do.

I, Uenohara Ayano, sighed self-mockingly as I walked alone through the dark tunnel.

Ever since I was a little, I’ve been a smart girl.

The so-called versatile type—someone who’s quick to understand and becomes good at everything in no time.

Thus, I could manage most things reasonably well. But on the other hand, I was never great at anything.

My parents repeatedly told me to look for something that only I can do, but I never managed to do so.

That’s why I don’t have anything that only I can be proud of. I don’t even have a self to stay true to.

Being the clever person that I am, I figured this out early on and convinced myself that it was the reality.

After all, reality is reality. There’s no other way but to accept it.

And so…

Maybe that’s why it was so refreshing to see the figure of that guy staying true to his stupid “I won’t accept the reality I don’t like” approach.

Ever since that Confession Event, I’ve ended up being dragged into lots of stupid things.

I saw the love letter full of sappy lines that could only be described as a poem and a guy who was completely immersed in the situation he was aiming for—a situation that even shoujo manga these days don’t do. I was out of luck when I became curious about that, thinking that there must be a reason for him to do something this stupid.

Then as it turned out, I realized that he was by far more of an idiot than I had imagined. His behavior completely lacked common sense, that it threw me for a loop. And before I knew it, I found myself settling down in the position of Accomplice.

More than anything, it was terrible that I didn’t refuse right there and then, thinking that I might as well play along for a while.

There was no way that I, an intelligent person, could become an idiot at heart.

In the end, it was that half-heartedness that had caused this failure.

But also, at the same time…

To think that everything would be overturned…

Seriously, what a big idiot.

It’s amazing.

But frankly, the tsundere and other confusing settings that were forced on me did make me angry. No matter what I do, it’s interpreted strangely, so it’s difficult for me to move around.

Also, I’ll never forgive my mother. Honestly, that hag should be old enough to know better, but she keeps doing all sorts of silly things just for the fun of it. Come on, don’t readily talk about your daughter’s past with others, and don’t hand over pictures without permission. I’m going to eat all the Kikyo Shingen Pudding^[1] in the fridge and teach her a lesson.

I have a lot of complaints. Or rather, I have nothing but complaints.

Well, but…

If the Childhood Friend and Accomplice fantasized by his stupidity are really those kinds of only existences…

At least… I can say they are things that only I can do.

I figured that if I got on board with that part, even someone like me might be able to see a different reality.

So, for just a little longer… I’ll try to keep up with the stupidity.

For now, that’s what I think.

Now then.

In any case, now that I’ve accepted that I’m the Accomplice in his plan…

I must do the things I can do, to the best of my abilities.

That’s why I’m here.

That’s why I came to this row of cherry blossom trees.

“Calling me to a place like this… Is there something wrong, Ayano?”

Our very first chance encounter.

I came here to ascertain the true intentions of the Main Heroine who created that opportunity.

*

“So Ayano knew about this place too, huh? And here I was, thinking that it was a secret.”

Saying this, she spread her hands out in a dramatic manner and looked up at the sky.

The rows of double-flowered Yaezakura^[2] cherry trees had already shed most of their blossoms. Every time the wind blew, a few remaining petals would fly through the air and disappear somewhere.

There was nobody else around. The sun had already set, and in a few moments, we would be completely enveloped in darkness. From there, our only source of light was the illumination from an old electric lamp.

“Well… I just wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with you, Mei.”

I cut to the chase, conscious of maintaining the same tone as usual.

“Oh… girl’s talk, huh?”

The action of turning around to face me with her head tilted was so charming that it could make one smile.

Both her beautiful black hair and smooth skin are undoubtedly natural. The fact that she’s like this with practically no makeup shows she’s had many different things going for her from the start.

I checked once again to make sure there was nobody else around. After making sure that I’m calm, I took a step closer to her.

Then, I asked her about something that had been bothering me personally for quite some time.

“…About Kouhei’s love letter. Why did you move it to my shoebox?”

During the Confession Event, that guy seemed to have concluded that he mistakenly put it in the wrong place, but… he didn’t.

The Main Heroine had transferred the letter away from her shoebox.

“…What do you mean? A love letter? I don’t quite understand.”

She said, scratching her cheek and tilting her head.

I’m in no position to speak about others, but seriously, your game face is pretty good.

“You didn’t think the shoebox next to yours belonged to his friend—no, childhood friend, did you?”

We didn’t even know each other at the time. But that’s irrelevant now, so I’ll put it aside.

“Maybe there’s been some misunderstanding? I know nothing about this letter, but was I really the intended recipient?”

“I checked with the person in question, and I’m certain.”

“Then Nagasaka-kun must have made a mistake. I mean, Nagasaka-kun can sometimes be a bit of a nitwit.”

There’s no way that’s true.

Leaving aside an unexpected situation, there’s no way that an obsessive planner like him would have made such a trivial mistake.

So, the letter had been in Mei’s shoebox. There’s no doubt about it.

I decided to take a breath and pursue the matter in an orderly fashion.

“…I thought the same for a moment. But no matter how much of an idiot Kouhei is, he’s not stupid enough to put a love letter in his childhood friend’s shoebox by mistake.”

Given that the childhood friend stuff is completely fabricated logic, there’s another reason why I felt it was unnatural. But when it came to throwing Mei off balance, it was likely to be a useful piece of information. Since the setting was already in place, I decided I might as well make the most of it.

“Also, when I picked up the letter… there was something that felt out of place.”

Kouhei’s love letter had been ordinary, on plain white writing paper and sealed with a heart sticker. The letter inside had contained the poem and the sender’s name, and there was nothing exceptionally strange about it.

As I observed the letter and tried to figure out what the uncomfortable feeling was, I came to a single conclusion.

“The letter had traces of someone having opened it before.”

That’s right. There were marks left on the seal that indicated it had probably already been opened once.

“So I thought that the person to whom it was originally addressed might have looked inside first and then placed it on my shoebox.”

“But that doesn’t mean it was me, does it? It might have been someone else playing a prank, you know?”

With an angelic smile still on her face, Mei responded with a precise rebuttal.

“Do you have proof that I did it? Like fingerprints left on the letter?”

She said, sounding just like the culprit in a mystery novel.

So she’s not going to admit it so easily, huh?

I breathed and decided to point out another argument.

“…The smell of cherry blossoms.”

“Hmm?”

“Mei, your hand cream smells like cherry blossoms. There were traces of it on the letter.”

“…Oh?”

That’s right… When I opened the letter that time, I smelled the scent of cherry blossoms.

“This is something I heard from Kouhei, but… you have a habit of putting on hand cream after club activities. To prevent rough hands, he said.”

This is information that was in the Tomodachi Note.

But at first, I hadn’t thought much of it.

It only struck me during the “on-site training.” When I was sitting right behind Mei to observe her behavior, I suddenly recognized the same scent, and that’s how I arrived at the possibility.

“From that matching scent… I was convinced that it was you who had moved the letter, Mei.”

But…

“But I didn’t understand the reason for that action. From what I had heard, you didn’t seem like the type to do something like that.”

The image of the Main Heroine from Kouhei’s informationdata was that of an angelic being overflowing with kindness. It was hard to imagine that such a person would move the letter.

“So I decided to directly look into your personality myself, Mei.”

If even that guy’s insane investigative skills couldn’t get to the bottom of it… then I needed to search for the answer in a way that he couldn’t.

Having come to that conclusion, I decided to stand on center stage.

“For the time being, I wondered how you would react if you found out that the person you threw the letter at was a friend of the sender, so I tried to mess around during the advance coaching session.”

At that time, I didn’t barge into the group of characters on a whim or for the fun of it. Even the motive of building a relationship with everyone to boost the plan was secondary.

The real purpose had been to fluster Mei and get her to reveal her real nature.

“It was just for a moment, but you were shaken when you heard my name, weren’t you? Although you were perfectly fine when I went on to tell you about the shoebox.”

It had been very slight, but I could tell that her reaction was delayed.

After that, she attempted to read the intent of my actions—even asking some questions to gauge the closeness of our relationship.

“And then after that… you came here with Kouhei and wanted him to comment on me. Didn’t you want to check if I blew some ideas into Kouhei about the replacement incident?”

Alarmed by my sudden appearance, Mei had tried to probe Kouhei to verify the intention of my actions. Maybe that’s the reason for her mysterious behavior that day.

It was the right decision to not tell Kouhei about my movements. Had I told him, everything would have been exposed right then and there.

“All of a sudden, you started to make contact with groups you’d never been involved with before and started hanging out with them. Up until then, it should have been the case that you never tried to get close to anyone beyond a certain point, and yet that suddenly changed.”

When I went around asking the members of each group to understand how Mei had connected with them, I found that everything—from the depth of association to the contents of the invitation—was consistent. It wasn’t like she had taken an interest in any particular group.

With that in mind, I reached a conclusion that’s connected to Mei’s movements so far.

Having said that, I then controlled my breathing.

“…This is my guess, based on your actions so far.”

Mei’s behavior.

Her underlying intentions.

They were…

“You want your relationship with everyone and everything to not be too far and too close. You want everything to be even and without any difference. Hasn’t that been the principle of your behavior this whole time, Mei?”

The cherry blossom trees fell completely silent.

“It kind of feels like I’m condemning you, but I’m not trying to complain or anything. I simply wanted to know what you really think and what it is you want to do. That’s all.”

I couldn’t make out the expression on Mei’s face, which was utterly swallowed up by the darkness of our surroundings.

As for Mei, who had been listening in silence the entire time…

“Ha-ha-ha… you sure make a great detective.”

She shook her head as if to say Good grief.

Then she slowly opened her mouth and brushed her silky black hair over her right ear…

“Everything you’ve said is true. And since you want to know that much, I’ll show you about Kiyosato Mei’smy realitytruth.”

Dark, strong-willed eyes, with a look of quiet anger—they were things the angelic Main Heroine had never shown before.

*

“As expected, you’re a nuisance, Ayano. I really shouldn’t have been so careless…”

Mei narrowed her eyes and glared at me.

By this point, her usual smile was nowhere to be seen.

“‘As expected’? How long have you been suspicious of me?”

“Since the beginning, you know? Ever since the day after I received the letter, I’ve been wondering if there was someone behind Nagasaka-kun.”

I took a breath.

Mei exhaled and started to talk as if she had given up.

“…As for the first letter, that was just meant to delay things because Nagasaka-kun’s behavior was unexpected, and I wanted time to think about countermeasures. I didn’t want to create a fuss by rejecting him so easily, and I thought that if it was just the one time, I could pretend it never happened… If possible, I would’ve liked to pretend that the whole thing never happened.”

She muttered with a regretful look on her face.

“The next day, I was ready to deal with him no matter what he did. But he just casually acted as if nothing had happened. Normally, someone in that position would have had questions or tried to confess to me again, but he didn’t show any sign of doing so whatsoever. Of course, I’d think it’s unnatural, right?”

Maintaining the same tone, Mei continued.

“At first, I thought he had given up, but then he took advantage of the lottery and tried to get close to me. Not only that, but for the members, he only targeted those he was trying to befriend.”

I see. She also noticed that the lottery was fake, huh?

“I thought it was strange that he suddenly changed his initial approach to a more roundabout method. Nagasaka-kun himself didn’t seem to have changed, so I wondered if someone else had put the idea in his head.”

“And that’s me?”

“There wasn’t any other valid reason, after all. I heard that Nagasaka-kun didn’t have any close friends, and if there was any possibility, it had to be the person to whom I moved the letter… In other words, you, Ayano.”

Mei took a breath then continued.

“Well, I never expected that you already knew each other as childhood friends or anything like that. Although… I can’t tell if you’re really childhood friends, you know?”

Mei narrowed her big eyes and glared at me.

Yikes. She totally suspects us.

“I wasn’t going to talk to anyone about this. I was trying to solve it on my own behind the scenes… But you’ve caught me at a bad time, Ayano. So I don’t think that’s going to be possible. I’ll just say this to you clearly…”

A sudden breeze blew, shaking the branches of the cherry blossom trees.

Amid those swaying cherry blossoms, Mei repulsively held down her fluttering hair and opened her mouth.

“Would you please not deviate from normal any more than you already have?”

Those words expressed a will as strong as Kouhei’s.

“You know, it’s not like I want to attack anyone. I don’t want to shun anyone either. I was just trying to discourage him because he was approaching me in ways that lack common sense and trying to forcibly make a group with me.”

With a dark glint in her eyes, Mei continued.

“Even as friends, I don’t mind as long as it’s within the realm of common sense. I can stand chatting with someone in class, going back together, or hanging out occasionally. That much is within the usual range, after all.”

Then, she narrowed her eyes slightly and muttered in annoyance.

“But a series of big commotions, or ‘lottery tricks,’ or sending gratuitous love letters without warning right after enrolling… Those kinds of things are a no-no.”

“Because it’s not normal”, Mei stressed.

“I have no intention of being friends with anyone more than is necessary. The most dependable relationship is where it doesn’t matter if someone’s there or not, or if something’s there or not.”

I felt a stirring in my heart as I heard her declare those words so firmly.

This girl… Could it be?

“The common friendship you can find anywhere, and where nothing happens, is the solution where nobody is unhappy. After all, things like priceless friendships and an extraordinarily fun school life with friends—all of these, they don’t exist in reality.”

Compared to Kouhei…

Isn’t she facing the exact opposite direction?

“…Nagasaka-kun’s trying too hard to pursue an ideal. That’s probably why he ended up as a ronin. But despite everything, he still hasn’t learned from experience and keeps trying to take action. I don’t understand his mindset.”

She bit her lip in frustration, shook her head, and then turned her sharpened eyes towards me.

“You too, Ayano. You better refrain from doing stupid things while you’re still at this level. If you don’t, you’ll end up going through even more pain next time.”

Her statement sent chills down my spine as a possibility suddenly occurred to me.

“Wait a minute. Did you possibly notice that I was going around… investigating?”

“Of course. After all, the steps I took were intended to result in that outcome. So it’s only natural.”

What the hell?

She said it so naturally that my thoughts stopped.

“Nagasaka-kun told me himself that if anything’s bothering him, it’s in his nature to examine it, or he can’t find peace of mind. So I thought that if I increased the number of things bothering him, he might become preoccupied with them.”

Mei continued nonchalantly as if to say that the reasoning was normal.

“The more things he investigates, the more he can’t do anything else. And if he ends up being unable to move, then his associate Ayano will move. Then, once the intelligent Ayano moves… all I have to do is leave behind a little inconvenience, and she’ll find and bite into it.”

There’s no way…

Did she intend to set me up by making me investigate her own actions…?

“By any chance… even the fact that Katsunuma-san started to be wary of me?”

“I just made her aware of your presence, Ayano. Ayumi’s a very compassionate girl. She’s tough on those who seem like they’d be troublesome to her close friends.”

“Even the way how in your own class, you only approached the boys…”

“I just adjusted the order of who I hung out with. With top priority to the guys in my class who are talkative and like girls, that is.”

“You mean that was all a calculated trap…?”

“It’s vexing, isn’t it? If you hadn’t been snooping around, none of this would have had any effect. It was your own stupid behavior that made it a trap, Ayano.”

I gulped.

This girl…

She’s also too unpredictable like Kouhei, but in a different way.

“I was so sure things were going well… But then, with Nagasaka-kun’s coming out and his incomprehensible speech, that was all swept under the rug. Seriously, since the beginning, that guy’s been doing things that are nothing but unorthodox, and that bothers me.”

She dropped her gaze slightly and muttered in frustration. Then, she quickly gave me a piercing glance.

“But if it’s the clever Ayano… with this, you’ll have understood, right? That’s why I decided to talk to you directly like this.”

Then, along with those words, which had multiple layers of meaning, she took a step forward.

I almost caved into the pressure, but I managed to hold my ground and stared back into Mei’s eyes.

“My current relationship with everyone is my limit. If you can all keep this distance, I won’t do anything. As long as you keep things the way they are, that is.”

Mei lowered her gaze, and with a huff, released the pressure.

“…That’s all the secret talk you’ll get from me. Try to make sure Nagasaka-kun doesn’t make any more mistakes either. After all, you’re childhood friends, right?”

While combing her hair with her hand, she smiled with her usual face as Main Heroine as if nothing had happened.

Then, she slipped past me…

“See you later, Ayano! Let’s continue to be friends!”

And left the row of cherry blossom trees without looking back.

*

“…Sigh. Seriously, I’ve stuck my nose into something crazy.”

I grabbed the hair behind my head and then unloosed it, letting it flow. The bottom of my neck was sweaty and uncomfortable.

Still… what the hell was that? I honestly can’t believe she’s a girl the same age as me.

The chance of Kouhei winning against something like that is zero. At the very least, she’s not the type of person you can casually get to know through a simple Confession Event.

“But you know, Mei…”

I muttered to myself in that now empty place.

That’s right, I’m smart enough to know that I can’t see a future where I can do anything about that girl, but…

“Maybe you shouldn’t underestimate him so much, you know? That idiot is someone who creates things that shouldn’t exist in reality, after all.”

[End of Volume 1]

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[1] A raw confectionary made by squeezing a generous amount of black honey cream on kinako pudding and topping it with black honey paste.

[2] It means multi-layered cherry blossom and is a catch-all term for cherry blossoms with more than five petals.

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