“That’s impossible.”
“Impossible how?”
I consider myself smart.
I may not have graduated from university, but that was because of tuition issues and my own conflicts over them. In reality, I had a mind smart enough for everyone to acknowledge.
I heard things like, “Your ideas are really creative,” at work all the time.
You could say my intelligence had been verified by everyone.
However, the mind that had stood out in the sciences was utterly powerless in this class, which seemed to have chosen the humanities track.
Was I really this stupid? No, absolutely not. I wasn’t the stupid one—this body was.
But in the end, the one who had to be called stupid by others wasn’t this body, but me. The one who would have to endure the shame and humiliation of remedial lessons was me, too.
As I lay slumped over my desk in despair after failing to understand a single morning class, a rolled omelet slipped right into my mouth.
“If it’s impossibly delicious, then I guess I’ll have to make it for you again next time.”
Sweet, with the softness of the egg leaving a deep impression. It was a taste I hadn’t even experienced when eating expensive Japanese-style egg rice bowls at restaurants famous for being truly delicious.
If there was one good thing about coming here, it was that I could eat foods for free that I never could have eaten in reality no matter how much money I paid. Though the penalty for that was an increase in my affection toward Yu Inna.
“So, aren’t you going to subjugate the queen of the school?”
Inna, who seemed to have prepared a lunchbox before coming to my house, spread it out on the desk once lunchtime arrived. She had been working on raising my affection by feeding me one bite, then herself one bite, when she asked.
Heroine stories usually progressed by having them overcome their fundamental problems or traumas. If the queen subjugation, which was practically the first button to be fastened, failed, my story might get tangled from the start.
But—
“More importantly, my grades look like they’re going to be ruined, so what queen? What damn queen? I’m going to worry about my own life first.”
I could endure being called stupid. But I couldn’t endure being outclassed intellectually by kids younger than me.
If I failed my exams, I’d have to admit that kids younger than me were smarter than me. That, at least, was something I absolutely could not accept...
Love wasn’t something you could control, like deciding whether or not to do it carelessly. So just as I had to clear character scenarios to prepare for the worst-case situation, I also needed to study to some extent if I wanted to avoid the worst-case scenario of starving to death if I kept living here.
“Still, the one who’s going to interfere with your studies is the queen of the school. Shouldn’t you deal with her before the bullying gets worse?”
“Deal with her how? With a knife?”
“There’s the method of ruining her reputation so she can’t be called queen anymore, and physical violence like you mentioned would be one method too. Or it’d be good to cut her off clearly and declare that she’s not your type so she can’t approach you in that gloomy way anymore, right?”
She was casually devising a chilling plan to make me personally deal with the existence known as my ex-girlfriend.
It was a clear example of just how much Yu Inna hated the student council president. As I quietly ate what Yu Inna handed me like a baby bird, I voiced a question that had arisen from her words.
“Why do you hate the student council president so much?”
“...Because she so easily stole something I’d been trying to have for ten years.”
Something she had wanted for ten years? It hadn’t even been a full day since I came to this world, so even if she talked about something from ten years ago, it wasn’t like I could immediately understand it.
But since I had seen and heard some things, it wasn’t like I couldn’t make any guesses at all. There was probably only one thing the student council president could so easily steal from Yu Inna, who received goodwill from countless people—perhaps the only thing she would want.
“You wanted to become student council president?”
“H-huh?”
“If you become student council president, it’s recognized to some extent when applying to university or getting a job, so you’ve dreamed of becoming student council president for ten years, right? And no matter what your dream was, you think she got in the way of it. Is that not it?”
Her expression looked like she had heard something completely unexpected, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because she hadn’t expected me to deduce that much, or because she was shocked that I had imagined something bizarre.
For a moment, Yu Inna’s chopsticks slowed as she fed me. At a glance, she seemed to be thinking deeply about my question.
“I certainly never thought of it that way, but it’s true that she lightly stole something I thought of as my dream. The reason I call her the student council president instead of by name, which probably contributed to your guess, is just meant as mockery. It’s not because I have lingering attachment to the position of student council president. Though I did apply for the position once because I found her so hateful. Mm, is there anything else you’re curious about?”
“One more thing. Even though you must know my memories aren’t intact, why aren’t you asking me about it?”
The words were tossed out in a classroom where we were the only ones talking. I could say it because I was almost certain she knew I didn’t have my memories with her.
I had thrown the words out abruptly on purpose to unsettle her, but she accepted them without batting an eye.
“Mm, because having no interest in the people by your side, like me, isn’t all that different from how you usually are? And because I know that just because you lost your memories, it doesn’t mean your soul changed or that you’re being controlled by someone else’s ability. The student council president said it too, but with your ability, you can avoid any interference from others.”
She was saying that she did think methods that radically altered a personality, like “possession” or “brainwashing,” could exist, but since those would absolutely never work on me, she assumed I had lost my memories.
At this point, I was becoming curious about what kind of psychic power I possessed—the kind that I suspected every heroine had.
Just what kind of ability was it that made everyone who knew about psychic powers certain I wouldn’t fall victim to other people’s abilities?
When I asked her what my psychic power was by blinking rapidly, she picked up another rolled omelet with the chopsticks that had stopped a moment ago and placed it in my mouth.
“We’re only childhood friends. We’re not lovers or anything like that, so I won’t tell you more than that.”
“Even between childhood friends, isn’t that usually something you’d tell? If you tell me, I’ll appoint you as my best friend.”
Just how close did she want us to be, if the relationship in which she would tell me about the psychic power she knew I had had to be comparable to lovers?
“The term childhood friend already means best friend, so I’m fine. ...But I’ll gladly accept those words. Ah, but if you can’t find a job anyway, I can just support you, so do you really need to study?”
At her apparent attempt to change the topic, I actually felt my desire to study grow stronger.
With Yu Inna’s cooking skills, she could probably open a fairly successful restaurant even if she didn’t study, so she could live well without it. But I was different.
In order to major once again in the field I had studied before coming into this world, I needed at least some qualifications. I didn’t even know how much money I had, so I might have to find a part-time job.
If I thought about money problems, my study time would gradually decrease, so even when I wasn’t working part-time, I had to study as much as possible.
Even though I had entered the world of a dating sim, the reality that I still had to study left me in despair...
“In first year, the three of you—meaning you, that bitch the student council president, and Kim Haneul—all got perfect scores. Even if you’ve lost your memories, you should at least manage somewhere in the middle, right? So maybe you don’t have to. Of course, studying together and going to university would be fun too.”
As the devil’s whisper telling me I didn’t need to study continued even then, I started to feel like I wanted to simply give in to that temptation.
But the reason Yu Inna was tempting me wasn’t simply because she was worried about my future; it was probably because she thought that if my future went to ruin, she could support me.
Unless I intended to live with her for the rest of my life, I must not give in to the temptation of not studying.
[Affection has increased by 1. Affection has reached 25. Since affection has continued to increase in the same manner, affection increases caused by food will be impossible for Yu Inna for the time being.]
My affection toward her had already reached 25, so I needed to be wary of Yu Inna too. How long had it even been since I came into this world, and it was already 25?
At this rate, I’d be captured and see the ending in four days. Though a system window did appear, as if trying to prevent the same method from being used so easily over and over to capture me.
When I thought that perhaps I could now eat her food for free without worrying about affection, the fluffy grains of rice entering my mouth unexpectedly felt even more delicious.
She had woken me up, prepared breakfast, and then we had come straight to school, so this lunchbox must have been made before she even woke me.
Most of the class had gone to the school store, the cafeteria, or outside to eat lunchboxes with friends, so with only a few people left in the classroom, I took the chopsticks from Yu Inna and started eating with my own hand.
[Tip: If the other party does something negative toward you, affection may instead decrease. For example, if you suspect Yu Inna to be the queen of the school, affection will immediately decrease greatly. However, if Yu Inna is not the queen of the school, affection may surge sharply, so when matters are uncertain, it is better not to become convinced of who the one who harmed you is.]
A message informing me that affection did not necessarily only increase. It was obvious if you thought about it, but the example was strangely specific.
Did this system window want Yu Inna and me to become enemies, or was it shoving this message at me because it wanted us to get closer?
Or maybe it gave that example because it wanted me to agonize over the system window’s intentions.
“Why did you suddenly stop using your chopsticks? Is the fried rice not good?”
“No, it’s still warm, so it’s delicious. How did you do it?”
No matter how well insulated the container was, it should have been difficult to maintain fluffy grains of rice that seemed this freshly made.
The foods she gave me were all strangely magical, to the point that it was hard to say they were simply within the realm of cooking, and that made it difficult to ignore my curiosity. Unlike with the system, the biggest factor was that I could ask her directly.
“Mm, it’s the effect of the Influence I possess. I can transmit my feelings directly into my cooking, so it’s possible. If I put in the feeling of, I hope someone else will be happy~, then the food is influenced by my heart as much as possible and becomes delicious so that someone else can be happy. How is it? Do you understand?”
I felt like I understood, yet also like I didn’t. However, there were two things I could be certain of. First, the way she used her ability was strangely flexible.
Second, because she had made it with her ability, it might have been why the speed at which my affection rose through her cooking was so fast.
What I could tell from those two certainties was this: if even a sub-heroine could utilize her ability to this extent, then perhaps this dating sim hadn’t begun in second year, when I was here, but in first year.
Because I kept thinking that perhaps everyone had polished their abilities for a year as the story progressed, which was why they had this degree of mastery over them.
Choosing a heroine in a dating sim was something you did only after meeting all the heroines.
I should have realized that it wasn’t that the protagonist got together with a heroine too quickly, but that a year had already passed before he made his choice.
Well, even if I realized it now, nothing was too late.
“It’s fine if you don’t understand. If you keep staying with me, you’ll understand someday too.”
“Why do you think we’ll keep staying together?”
I voiced my doubt at the way she seemed to think it was only natural for me to be by her side. It was strange that she, who had once fought with me and grown distant, was so certain that she would continue to be with me.
“Because you like the things I make.”
She said that while picking up something from her own lunchbox with her chopsticks and bringing it to my mouth. Since she was right, I opened my mouth without retorting and swallowed a quail egg.
What she brought me was still delicious.