The seaweed-haired woman who had seemed to know me from before finished all the nama chocolate, but instead of going somewhere else, she needlessly clung to me.
The sensation of her large breasts came through clearly against my elbow, but I didn’t feel the slightest lewd thought or sensation toward her.
It was like a giant dog, armed with nothing but goodwill, was fawning over me.
For lewd thoughts or feelings to arise, she first had to look human to me, and her gloomy appearance and the way she communicated with me through a sketchbook were making it impossible to see her as one.
Judging by what she had said earlier, it wasn’t as if she couldn’t speak at all, so why wasn’t she talking?
If she was a gloomy beauty who spoke through words written in a sketchbook instead of actually talking, then there would probably be some demand for her in a dating sim, so I could somewhat understand why a dating sim would include a character like this.
Since I had no intention of dating this woman anyway, I went straight to the point.
“Why did you come here, though? Were you passing by outside and saw me through the window?”
If she had merely stopped by the café, she would have bought a drink or something. She might have come after confirming my face on the second floor of the café, but... did coincidences like this normally happen?
Was I being too suspicious, or had this dating sim turned me into such a suspicious person in such a short time?
After hearing my answer, the woman diligently wrote in her sketchbook, then showed it to me with a somehow proud look on her face.
[You kept not checking my texts, so I thought you were going outside, and I just wanted to see you, so I came♡]
Seeing as this body was being ostracized at school, I had thought its social life wasn’t very good, but unexpectedly, it seemed to have a wide circle of acquaintances, with people who knew it appearing here and there. I’d thought I wouldn’t need to look for the phone, but if I’d known there were people who would text and then come find me like this, maybe I should have searched for it.
Feeling as if she was rubbing her body against my arm again, I quietly slipped my arm out of her embrace.
It would be nice if someone I actually liked did this, but when a woman I was seeing for the first time acted this familiar and rubbed herself against me, it was only burdensome.
Since she was slightly taller than me, she could have stopped me as much as she wanted even with her gaunt body, but she merely watched me as if nothing had happened.
“Did we live close to each other?”
[It’s only 30 to 40 minutes on foot.]
Then how did you know and come here?
If our houses weren’t even close, how had she found me just because she wanted to see me?
I’d assumed the owners of the hallway CCTV in front of my room were my older sister and Inna, and my sister had never separately mentioned this woman. It made me wonder how she’d known I’d gone outside.
But perhaps because she was a little bigger than me, I was somewhat reluctant to ask.
It wasn’t because I was scared, but because there was a rule in this world that you shouldn’t provoke a crazy person.
As I sat there thinking it over by myself, I found an answer so clear that I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it sooner.
She had used Instant Enhancement to enhance her vision and seen me leaving.
If you asked me how she could have seen me leaving with a superpower that wasn’t even ordinary enhancement, but enhancement that occurred only for an instant, I wouldn’t know either. Still, if it was one of those cases like Yu Inna, where a superpower had been strengthened to its limit, it wouldn’t be impossible.
Perhaps sensing my gaze on her, she smiled brightly at me.
However, even when she smiled brightly in her own way, the gloominess on her face did not disappear.
In that state, she raised her sketchbook.
[I sent you a text too, but do you want me to punish the person you fought with?]
“What person?”
This body seemed to have been bullied a bit, but if she asked whether she should punish the people I fought without even giving me a list of candidates, I had nothing to say.
[...Did you get hurt a lot? Do you know their names? I’ll punish them all for you.]
“I don’t know.”
[I see~.]
Since I didn’t want to tell just anyone that I had lost my memories unless it was a necessary moment and a necessary person, I simply said I didn’t know.
A superpower called Instant Enhancement would more or less guarantee a certain level of strength, but maybe because I had never really been properly beaten by the kids who supposedly bullied me in this body, I didn’t particularly feel like I wanted someone else to take revenge for me.
As if she intended to listen to me, she nodded faintly, then instead of turning the sketchbook to the back, she flipped something from the back to the front. Perhaps she had written it in advance, because without even moving her pen, she immediately showed it to me.
[If you date me, I’ll protect you so kids like that can’t touch you carelessly! Date me!]
Wouldn’t they touch me even more, rather than not touch me carelessly?
At a glance, she looked far too frail on the outside.
Seeing the woman look at me with strangely expectant eyes, I chose my words carefully.
If I rejected her for no reason, even though it seemed she had been on good terms with this body, then even if the owner of this body returned later, the distance between her and a woman named Kana might become irreparable.
“I’m sorry, but I already have someone I like.”
So something like this should be just right.
If she was someone around me, she seemed to know about the relationship with the student council president, so she would probably back off.
Kana stiffened slightly with a smile still on her face, then, as if she had already written down a response for when I rejected her, turned to that page and showed it to me.
[Ah, I see. If that girl ever develops a flaw, would I have a chance too? It might turn out that the girl you’re dating has an ugly side too, you know.]
“I don’t think she has any flaws.”
I had spent less than a few hours with the woman who was the student council president, but I had learned enough about how uprightly she conducted herself.
It wasn’t that I was recklessly thinking of her as a woman close to my ideal type. My standards were extremely high, and she too was a person close to perfection.
“And even if she did have flaws, I’m the kind of person who thinks everyone can have one or two flaws, so it doesn’t matter.”
Wouldn’t it be stranger to dislike someone you loved just because a small flaw showed itself?
I was someone who aspired to single-minded, pure-hearted love, so even if that woman was very different from what I imagined, I didn’t think my love would immediately cool.
Perhaps it wasn’t the answer she had been hoping for, because the woman’s face remained dark. Though, to be fair, her complexion had been dark from the moment she first approached me.
[I, see. But couldn’t the opposite happen? If you show an ugly side of yourself, the other person might cut you off.]
I absolutely wouldn’t show an ugly side either.
If I wanted to have high standards, then I too had to become that perfect.
If the woman in front of me knew how much I had studied and worked hard during my school days, she would open her mouth wide and marvel, Ah, this man is someone who would absolutely never show an ugly side! ...Though with my current appearance, it would be more correct to call me a girl rather than a man.
And it was just a hunch, but I didn’t think the student council president would abandon me just because I showed some slightly unsightly side, like walking around with a grain of rice stuck to my face.
[The blessing surges fiercely.]
Perhaps their conversation had ended, because the group I had seen through the window, standing in the parking lot and talking about something, was no longer visible, and my superpower reacted.
When the protagonist was nearby, my superpower seemed to be stimulated by something called radiance, so this was probably proof that they were getting closer...
[Unable to completely block the suggestion, the die rolls.]
For me, who had been thinking that, the message that appeared afterward could only be bewildering. The fact that it couldn’t block it meant I had been hit by something.
Something that could even pierce through the blessing, which was presumed to be quite a powerful ability. Considering the timing, I thought it might be the woman who had approached me, but looking at her heartbroken expression after presumably being rejected, she didn’t feel like a woman who would secretly place a suggestion on me.
The system had said this woman possessed the ability called Instant Enhancement; it had not declared that she possessed a petty ability called suggestion.
[The die has rolled a 4. You have succeeded in blocking the suggestion. You are not currently under suggestion, but please note that if such attempts continue, you may fall under suggestion even if you keep succeeding in blocking it. (1/10) The number of brainwashing attempts will gradually disappear over time, so please refrain from approaching the target so that they do not brainwash you again.]
...I barely survived.
Having miraculously survived, I swept a hand over my chest and let out a sigh of relief. I didn’t feel like anything had happened to me, yet hearing that I had almost fallen under suggestion in an instant made my heart pound.
To figure out who on earth had done it, I looked at each person on the second floor one by one, but among the extras painted black, I couldn’t find anyone with a superpower called suggestion.
...Did someone try to brainwash me from a distance outside the window?
I checked outside the window once to see if there was anyone with a suspicious role, but perhaps they had already run away the moment they confirmed it failed, because all I could see were extras.
“Hah, who the hell was that?”
I never imagined there would be a lunatic in this world who would try to place a suggestion on me and then run away.
If this was a humiliation-type dating sim, the protagonist would either be the one doing the brainwashing or the one getting violated, so I had known that people with powers related to that sort of thing might be wandering around somewhere in the city, but to think they’d throw the first punch like this and run away.
The next time we met, I would definitely get revenge. As I ground my precious teeth and looked forward to that day of revenge, a sketchbook was cautiously held out to me.
[Did something happen?]
“...It’s nothing. But if someone offers you a strange coin or shows you a phone first or something, run away immediately. It seems like a weird person is wandering around.”
I hadn’t intended to say anything because talking about an unresolved matter would only scare her, but when I imagined this woman being brainwashed and approaching me, I thought it would be better to tell her some kind of countermeasure, so I said it.
Perhaps my words frightened her a little, because the woman trembled slightly before cautiously holding out her sketchbook.
[If you need help later, tell me. They were pretty delinquent friends, but there are some kids who became precious friends of mine. They’ll definitely help with what you ask too.]
Did she use Instant Enhancement to beat them up and then force them to become her friends?
I’d seen it while she was flipping through the sketchbook, but I couldn’t possibly picture a woman with what looked like teeth marks engraved on her fingers hanging around with delinquent friends.
Since I understood the desire to bluff in front of someone you liked, I nodded for now. While thinking that once I got home, I would search for my wallet and phone first.
I needed to find the phone and check just how many women like this there were. Along with the loud noise coming from downstairs, the woman grabbed my right hand and forcibly pressed it against her cheek.
“I love you.”
Uh, I don’t love you.
Yu Inna, who supposedly fought with me, started at 0, and you’re only at 12, which isn’t all that different.
[Affection toward you: 12 (20)]
Perhaps that was her final farewell, because after saying those words, the woman went downstairs and slowly disappeared from my sight. A few minutes after she disappeared, my group came up.
“Erika, are you okay?”
The student council president checked on me first. Well, since she was apparently my past lover, I didn’t stop her from doing that, and instead I sent the boy a questioning gaze, asking why they were so late. Thanks to them arriving so late, the coffee they had ordered had no ice left and had all melted, making it taste bad.
“Some weird people stopped us from coming up. When the woman who came down from the floor you were on gestured, they let us go.”
If the boy’s words were correct, then the woman who had been talking to me until just now had scattered people around so that our conversation wouldn’t be interrupted.
And the fact that she had figured out that I had gone from home to here, too.
...Had she become the young lady of some wealthy family or something?
Leaving behind a question that would not be answered unless I looked at my phone, I quietly watched as they roughly finished their drinks and prepared to leave.
In the end, what had these two talked about? Maybe it was because the student council president was practically my ideal type, but even though I knew the two of them were as good as real lovers, I couldn’t help being bothered by what they might have discussed.