Chapter 1: A Confession Too Late
–The season is spring.
About a month into being high school students. Most students were beginning to grasp their “place” in the class.
Kamijou Yuuto heard rumors that his childhood friend, Ichinose Ayano, had been confessed to by Mikado Kouki, a handsome and intelligent student from another class who was famous throughout the school.
Yuuto and Ayano had been neighbors since birth, their families close friends. When her parents divorced and she began living with her father in the third grade of elementary school, he would invite her over to his house when her father was away for work, taking care of her as if she were a member of the Kamijou family. This was partly because the Kamijou couple pitied the girl who had lost her mother, but more importantly, because their son worried about and cared for her more than anyone else.
Kamijou Yuuto loved Ichinose Ayano.
As a neighbor, as a friend, as family—he had harbored a feeling more certain than a “child’s infatuation with an adult” for her since he was old enough to understand his emotions.
But children are weak.
A few days before graduating from elementary school, his classmates teased them about their relationship. As the divide between boys and girls began to form, for better or worse, the two of them, who were clearly close, inevitably attracted attention.
“Kamijou likes Ichinose, doesn’t he?”
“They’re always holding hands on the way home, you know?”
“Those two are going to get married.”
Such teasing embarrassed him, and the boy denied it. He said, “That’s not true,” and “We’re not going out,” and let go of the girl’s hand he had been holding.
“I like girls who are more girly.”
And she ran away from the spot.
He should have chased after her immediately. He thought so. At the age of eleven or twelve, he should have been able to do that much.
He deceived his guilt with things he couldn’t even do, like, “It’s okay to apologize when I see her next.”
That was a mistake.
When he saw her face the next day, swollen from crying, he couldn’t say anything. The next day, and the day after that—.
There were plenty of opportunities to apologize.
But he was afraid of being rejected, so in the end, Yuuto kept running away from Ayano. For three long years of middle school.
He felt pathetic.
Seeing her become more and more beautiful over these three years, while he remained a child, made him think even more so. Kamijou Yuuto was not particularly good at academics, nor did he have good looks. He didn’t have anything he could boast about that he was better at than anyone else.
–He had nothing to be proud of.
With such a Kamijou Yuuto (himself), he was not a match for Ichinose Ayano (the girl he loved).
So, he should just give up. It was his fault for making her cry, for letting go of her hand, even though he loved her.
So—let’s make it the last time.
For a love that seemed to have already ended, a love that hadn’t even begun.
The rooftop of the school building after school, where no one else was, bathed in the setting sun, was where Kamijou Yuuto waited.
“Um… Kamijou-kun?”
Ichinose Ayano had responded to his sudden summons.
“Sorry for making you come all the way here—”
That alone was enough.
“I have something important to talk about.”
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Her long, glossy black hair swayed in the wind.
Ichinose Ayano, whom he hadn’t seen up close in a while, had become more mature and even more beautiful than he had imagined for a fifteen-year-old.
Intelligent, beautiful, and well-behaved.
He could understand why she was hailed as “the most beautiful girl in the grade.” He would probably be more nervous in front of her than he would be in front of an idol on TV.
When she was a child, Ayano was a lively girl who could hold her own against the boys. It was around the time she became a middle school student that she began to resemble a gentle woman. She was kind to everyone, her speech was beautiful, elegant, and quiet.
And as if in response to that, her body had also become more feminine. Especially her breasts, which had grown to the point where they were clearly visible even through her blazer uniform, and now she was the object of admiration for boys in that sense as well.
An out-of-reach beauty. He keenly felt the distance between himself and her.
Such a girl was, of course, bewildered.
Yuuto steeled himself, knowing that he couldn’t waste any more of her time than necessary.
“I know it’s sudden and annoying, and that it’s too late now. But I want you to let me say it.”
While acknowledging that he was being too selfish,
“–I love Ayano. Not just as a neighbor or a childhood friend, but as an ‘important person’ I want to be by… I want you to let me be.”
He spat out the words that he should have said, should have said, a long time ago.
“…………”
The silence was painful.
It hurt to see her covering her mouth and looking down.
But Yuuto resigned himself to it.
–I’m sorry. I already have someone I love.
–It’s all too late.
It’s okay. I know the answer. So I have a reply ready.
–I know, I’m really sorry.
–It’s not my place to say, but I’m rooting for you.
But Ayano’s trembling answer was a little different from what he had expected.
“Since when…?”
“I know it’s creepy, but it’s been since I was old enough to understand. I really started thinking of you as a woman around the beginning of sixth grade. My heart’s been pounding ever since.”
“Back then, I was… more boisterous than I am now, and my chest was smaller… you know?”
“It doesn’t matter. The Ayano from before and the Ayano from now, Ayano is Ayano. I know I’m not a match for you anymore, but there’s no lie in my feelings of love.”
–Again, silence for several seconds.
He was beginning to regret that he was causing her so much trouble, that he was such a nuisance of a man.
He was feeling the unpleasant sweat running down his back, thinking that she could just turn him down smoothly, when
“So… from before, from when we were really kids, Kamijou—kun has liked me, was that it?”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t matter if I have bad manners?”
“Yeah.”
“M-my breasts… even if they’re small, Yuto doesn’t mind?”
“Huh?”
“‘Huh?’ isn’t the answer! I’m asking if you don’t care that my breasts are flat!”
“W-well!? About that, really… yeah. I don’t mind.”
“Liar! You have a thing for big breasts, don’t you!?”
Yuuto trembled at Ayano’s sudden, nostalgic outburst as she clutched her head.
“Why do you doubt me!? And what are you basing your claim about my fetish on—”
“Yuna-san told me that she found a ‘big breasts’ porno magazine under your bed during summer vacation in the first year of middle school.”
“You were connected to my older sister!? And you knew!?”
“Waaaaah. So it’s true that you like big breasts!! You’re not interested in me at all!?”
“No, that’s not it! It’s true that the magazine was there… but! The one I like is Ayano!”
He was supposed to be making a selfish, bothersome confession on the premise of being rejected as a rite of passage to end his feelings because the childhood friend he liked had been confessed to by a handsome guy, wasn’t he?
She was supposed to say “I’m sorry” and it was supposed to be over, wasn’t it?
–Why did it turn out like this? Why is the situation so chaotic and glitched?
Yuuto was confused,
“Besides, you’re already, well, your breasts are—well, they’re pretty big now! Why are you getting mad on the premise that they’re not there! Is it because I interrupted after Mikado confessed to you that you’re angry? I’m really sorry!”
“That mama’s boy pretty boy has nothing to do with this right now!”
“What a way to talk about the most handsome guy in the grade!?”
“Then you should have told me sooner! I didn’t need to pretend to be someone I’m not! I didn’t need to artificially enhance them!”
“Huh!? Enhance!? What!?”
“Can you still say you like me after seeing this, huh!?”
Ayano got mad at him, and finally Yuuto got mad, and Ayano got even madder on top of that.
She opened the front of her blazer, reached into her shirt, grabbed something, and slammed it to the ground.
The fragments of mystery that women hide in their underwear, which high school first-year boys know as knowledge.
“Pads” that mainly shape and protect the shape of the breasts.
There should usually be one set of two, one for each side, but a large number of them were scattered around.
And Ayano’s breasts showed their “modest, original form.”
“–Can you still say you like me, even with this?”
“Yeah, I like you, though?”
“Instant answer, thank you! I’ve liked Yuto all along too! I mean, I still love you, you idiot!”
She cried at the end.
Kamijou Yuuto confessed to the girl he liked, and for some reason or another, she cried.
According to his older sister, Kamijou Yuna, “No matter the reason, a man who makes a woman cry should die.”
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Afterword
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