Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko. Volume 4 Chapter 1

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Moonlight Lost World

When I slipped through the tunnel, I found the land of the demon. And then the depths of my mind turned blank.

…I know this line makes it sound like this is the start of a belles-lettres love story, but just as it pains me to tell you as it pains me to admit it, the world that I live in is your average modern society. There would be no beautiful danseuse to appear out of the blue¹, nor would any romcom happen in a Snow Country². Of course, I’ve never seen the dancing girl of Izu³. So I’m really sorry to all those people who were expecting a romance involving a cute girl. My life doesn’t build up to such eventful flags like those from a video game.

But, back then, when I met that ogre girl, I was a bit surprised. No, honestly speaking, I was so shocked I let out some disgraceful behaviour that I can tell you about. Yes, this happened this very year, in March. It was the first day of my final month as a first-year student.

Crawling on all fours like a monster, I was pushing my body through the tunnel inside the thicket. As for why—I needed to run away from the track-and-field club’s president, the ‘Steel King’. If you asked me why the club president would possess such a nickname, there is a lot I could tell you, starting from the fear and tyranny she reigns the track-and-field club with. But then we’d sit here until tomorrow evening, so I’ll keep things short. Just trust me when I say that I would be split in half by her iron chainsaw if I went against her will.

Skipping club practice is basically a passive declaration of suicide. However, the amount of practice at this very club is also enough to actively kill you. Whether it be passively or actively, I want to take the path that keeps me alive, so I went off searching for a place to escape to during our outdoor running practice. This thicket tunnel is one such escape path.

This very tunnel goes through a hedge surrounding a nursery school close to our high school. The aforementioned nursery school across the street definitely lacks precaution when it comes to potential criminals.

Basically, the thicket in the rear of it has a hole which creates a secret path leading to an otherworldly scene, you might say. That being said, this isn’t a girl’s highschool or a public pool, so I’m not too happy about it anyway. If there was anyone who could proudly declare ‘I’ll be enjoying myself. Nursery schools ftw!’, then he would be crowned the Pervert King of the Pervert Royal Family.

The perfectly-normal me reluctantly, unavoidably, completely unwillingly, felt like watching over these children’s every single movement. That shows how much power these nursery schools have. Nursery schools ftw!

*

The wind during this March evening was fairly strong. I had been running around the vicinity of the school building, so this breeze was very comfortable for me. Wiping away my sweat and dreaming of a blooming future… Now this is youth.

My body was wriggling on the ground, and I couldn’t even be bothered to care about dirtying my track-and-field club jersey. I just crawled my way beneath the thicket. What greeted me past the tunnel was the backyard of the nursery school’s main building. When I poked my head into this atmosphere, the light of the lost garden—didn’t shine down on me. Because above my head was a shadow.

“Eh…?”

Right in front of my eyes was a pair of shoes. From these grew white high-socks, followed by knees. Further above, I could see a wrinkled skirt with a checker pattern, as well as an ashen-colored blazer, which showed a flat chest, and ended up—at the face of an ogre. There were horns on its head, and the eyes were glaring down at me.

“Gaaaaaaaaaah the hell is this?!”

“Kyaaa?!”

The demon heard my fearful scream and let out an even higher-pitched scream of its own. It gave off a sound beautiful enough to make bells shake. Maybe it’s just the child of an ogre I’m dealing with here?

“I had no idea the nursery school had a pact with hell!”

“Um, you are…?”

“I’m not important enough for me to name myself here! I just happened to mistake this place for my home! Now then, until we meet again!”

“Do you always make your way home in such a fashion?! Also, there won’t be another time, so stop right there!”

I thought I might be able to get away if it was a girl I was dealing with, but I was too naive. The moment I shifted into reverse to take my leave, the ogre girl grabbed me by the hair.

“Gyaaaah let go of me! Someone help me! I didn’t do anything, but a lustful ogre is taking me away! She is using a pincushion method from hell to seal my lips!”

“I’m not doing anything like that. How rude. This is just an amalgamation of misunderstandings!”

In what was most likely a spontaneous decision, the ogre girl closed off my mouth.

Grip grip pull pull.

Grip pull grip pull pull.

“……”

She kept hitting me on the cheeks, pulling on my hair. It feels like my little sister is making some rice balls for me. This girl’s palms felt really warm and smelled really good. Well, I guess I would be the one who was the rice balls in this case. After that, she carefully whispered into my ears.

“Calm down. Look me in the eyes.”

When I took a closer look, I saw that the ogre face had two small holes, and I could see two eyeballs further in the back, gazing at me. They had the color of a transparent lake deep in a cave. The girl was merely wearing the mask of an ogre. When she shook her head left and right, I could see hair in the form of a cat tail on one side of her head. Between the plastic mask and her cheeks shone a few pearls of sweat. Just like the Winged Victory of Samothrace⁴, the fact that I couldn’t see her face made me assume that this face was incredibly cute. I had no basis for that whatsoever. That’s just what it seemed like.

“…Do you understand now? I’m not a suspicious person at all.”

“Yeah… Sorry for panicking like that.”

My mouth was finally freed, and the girl raised herself up. After that, both of us started snickering. The girl crouched down to the ground, raising one finger.

“Then, it’s my turn this time. So that I don’t have any more misunderstandings, please answer my question carefully.”

“Yes?”

“Firstly, this nursery school is a school for children around the age of five.”

“Yeah, it’s a child institution.”

“No matter how I look at it, you definitely don’t look like a young child.”

“Yup, I’m 16.”

“That would mean that you don’t have any children.”

“Yup, I’m unmarried.”

“There have been frequent occurrences of children being targeted by suspicious people, right?”

“Yup, sounds like something lolicons would do.”

“You’ve let the cat out of the bag! Police officer! There’s a suspicious person here!”

“Ehhhhhh?!”

The ogre girl once again grabbed my head, and she started screaming loudly. She didn’t get it at all!

“Stop, don’t tear out my hair! I request a lawyer! I’ll exercise my right to remain silent until he gets here!”

“You seem awfully used to this situation! Are you a habitual criminal when it comes to nursery schools?”

“I’ve never heard of anybody like that! Also, I don’t have any interest in small children! If anything, I’m more interested in the mothers who come visit in the morning and evening!”

“That’s still just as bad! Either way you’re planning on snooping around the school, right?!”

“That’s not right at all! This is just merely a coincidence, an act of God! I didn’t do anything weird yet, so I’m totally innocent, and I would win any lawsuit—Hm?”

The ogre girl’s hands suddenly stopped moving. She was looking at the chest area of my clothes. My name was embroidered into the track-and-field club’s jersey. This is bad! She knows my personal information now!

“—Are you part of that school’s track-and-field club?”

The ogre girl read the name of the school aloud, as if she was inquiring about my social status. I heard a sigh coming from the inside of the mask. At the same time, my head was freed.

“If you’re from there, then you must have been using the area as a running track, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right!”

“So that’s why you just happened to just end up in that thicket, with your head poking out of it. It was merely an act of God.”

“…Yeah, I think so.”

My high school is fairly prestigious, and our track-and-field club is moderately decent as well. The club president is always telling us to be passionate about training, and to have good morals. I guess that was why she was relieved when she saw where I was from.

…Well, I joined the track-and-field club because of a particular scheme that I had come up with, but I found myself unable to quit it because of the King’s pressure. My chest hurts. And there’s another thing that I realized. On a fundamental level, this girl just trusts other people.

“You’re not suspicious. Not suspicious at all. Right.”

“Y-Yeah!”

She trusts other people so much that she would directly confront an intruder and talk to them like this. I feel horrible.

“I’m glad… Did I hurt you? I’m sorry for being so rough.”

The ogre girl carefully looked at my head and face, gently brushing her hand across my head. That gesture was enough to immediately make me realize how much of a girl she was.

“No, same here. I’m sorry. The next time I sneak—happen to end up here, I’ll put up a placard that says I’m not suspicious.”

“Fufu, please do so.”

Even though what I had said wasn’t all that funny, the ogre girl laughed with a laugh from the bottom of her heart. The fact that she was still wearing the ogre mask made it even more surreal.

“By the way, why are you wearing that mask? Isn’t it in the way?”

“……”

Her laughter stopped. Her small body froze in place and she stared at me.

“…No, I have to keep it on. If not, I can’t calm down at all. I get embarrassed way too easily,” said the ogre girl. She shook her head.

I couldn’t exactly follow her logic, but after listening to her faint voice, I oddly enough found myself agreeing.

“I guess the nursery school must be scary. It’d be great if you could go home soon, right?”

“…Eh?”

“I know. Why don’t I play with you until your Mama comes to pick you up?”

“Um…”

“Should we play house? I don’t mind reading you a picture book, either. Or do you want to ride on my shoulders?”

“…………No.” The girl hesitated a bit. She raised her hands. “I think you have the wrong idea about something. How old do you think I am?”

“I mean, you said that the children here are around five years old.”

“How rude!” Her shoulders were shaking in rage. The ogre girl stood up from the ground, stomping her feet.

She showed me the blazer she was wearing, as well as the skirt.

“How about this?! Can you see this?! Can’t you see these clothes?!”

“What cute cosplay. Did you custom-order it to get it in that size?”

“…! How rude, how unbelievably rude! This is unbearably rude!”

“I-I was just joking! Don’t step on my feet like that! It hurts!”

The girl was wearing the uniform of a middle school near ours. Of course, I was just joking about her being a small child, but with her height, I could take her as a grade school student at most. Even now, I still can’t come to terms with the girl’s apparent age, but whenever I brought it up she grew sulky, so I kept it to myself.

Either way, this was the first encounter between me and the ogre girl.

*

After that event, whenever I was out running outside the school, I would slip through the tunnel in the thicket so that I could see the ogre girl again. I always wanted someone to talk to whenever I was skipping training, and it didn’t seem like the girl was giving me the cold shoulder, either. Every time I would meet her…

“Did you come again? Are you even getting any training done like this?”

She would say stuff like this, but she’d still loiter around the thicket.

“If I don’t take breaks often, I’ll seriously die. Today she said ‘If you go home without running the 100 kilometers, you’ll die’.”

“100 kilometers…”

“She didn’t even say ‘I’ll kill you’. That makes it sound like it’s some kind of done deal, right?”

“I-I’m sure this is just a sign of trust for you!”

“Hahaha. I’d be happy if that were the case.”

When I poked my face out of the thicket, the ogre girl was right next to me. Like this, we could talk about the club, how school was going, recent games, and all sorts of things, and we started to get to know more about each other. For example, the ogre girl was oddly defenseless in a few certain areas. She apparently had no experience with talking to boys her age, so she wasn’t used to being exposed to another person’s gaze like this.

“That reminds me…”

“Yes?”

Whenever I said anything, the ogre girl would always answer like this and tilt her head. Even now, I can’t help but think that this gesture was cute.

“Do you like small kittens?”

“…Eh?”

“Well, there exist certain laws of physics related to skirts. Whenever I crawl on the ground and look up at you, I can see your panties. You’re always wearing the Hello Kitty ones every day, so I figured you did.”

“—?!”

The ogrel girl jumped up at least three meters (at least it seemed like she did), shoving the skirt between her thighs while she was in mid-air, creating Sunomata Ichiya Castle (at least it seemed like she did), and started yanking my hair the instant she landed (in reality).

“Why didn’t you say anything!? Are you a pervert?!”

“You were showing it to me so boldly, so thought it might have been some kind of fanservice. And I thought it would be rude of me to just point it out so ouch could you stop that?!”

“So you were a pervert after all! I don’t want to hear any more!” The ogre girl started sulking, and she wouldn’t forgive me until I gave her some sort of offering.

“L-Look, I bought something from Seven again today.”

“You’re looking down on me! Do you think you can win me over with just food?!”

“It figures…”

“…Why are you putting it away? I never said I didn’t want it.”

“It figures!”

“Why are you laughing? Is there something you’d like to say?”

“N-Not at all! I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I just thought that fixing your mood for 110 yen is an easy feat if I get to see your smile.”

“That isn’t an excuse at all. For crying out loud…”

More than anything, the girl liked convenience store steamed buns the most. When I gave them to her as a token of apology, she let out a sigh. “It can’t be helped,” she said as she took a bite. Of course, she still kept her mask on. She just used the small opening to munch on her food.

Aside from this skirt incident, the ogre girl showed other signs of being overly defenseless. For example…

“Noooo! Uuuh…!”

During your average evening, the ogre girl suddenly started making a ruckus. She was desperately jumping up and down with one leg, grabbing the collar of her uniform, pulling on it and stretching it. The hem of her uniform revealed her white legs.

“What’s wrong?”

I totally thought some pervert allergy had started to act up. But since it’s just me and the girl here right now, there’s nobody she would be allergic to, right?

“A-A bug…!”

“A bug? Was that what you said? Bad luck? Stuck?”

“What do you think it is?! A bug jumped into my uniform!”

“Ahh, that happens, yeah. A while ago when I was running, one jumped right into my mouth.”

“Uuu! T-This feels awful! Stop joking around and help me! Get it out…!”

Good grief, what a crybaby. The voice from inside the mask made it sound like she was already close to tears.

“I get it, I get it. Hold on a second.”

I pushed my body the rest of the way through the tunnel and crouched down next to the girl. Above or below? I was lost as to where to attack first. I looked up at the ogre mask, and then looked at her stomach. Around the shirttail of her uniform, I spotted a small, slender dent. It was one of the human body’s main three dents. And it was the superior dent of the three.

“How could this happen…?”

It’s her belly button! And a biting louse right next to it! The girl’s belly button was exceptionally beautiful. Width, depth, and color. The balance between the three was out of this world. Now this is breathtaking! Right in the center of her snow white stomach was a black hole, like a non-fruit-bearing flower. It was like a small cosmos of alluring space, which looked like it was created by the devil himself. As if I’d let some lowly insect enter this heavenly land!

“Onwards to battle!”

Of course, I was filled with nothing but goodwill. I was simply trying to banish this intruder from this paradise. So I stuffed my index finger right into the opening of her navel.

“Hyann?!”

I pulled it out, only to repeat the action.

“W-What are you—Hyaaaan!”

While pushing it in, I moved it left and right.

“Wha… Ahh… What are you… uyannn… doing… ahhh…!”

Her flat stomach vibrated from the movement, and I heard the sound of the biting louse flying off, or at least I think I did, but who cares about that?! I have the navel of a defenseless girl right in front of me, and in order to perform research on the human body’s depths, this is an adventure I can’t miss out on.

Nobody can stop me. Nobody will stop me. Because this navel right here will lead to furthering human science!

“Hya, hyaaaaa!!”

Like a gentleman possessed by the devil, I continued to examine this cavity with my finger. Like a musical performance of a Stradivarius instrument, the ogre girl let out screams of agony. T-This is so much fun…!

“Per… Pervert…!”

The ogre girl grabbed my arm. For her, that was quite the aggressive action. She tried to move my arm with her own strength, but her clothes and my arm grew entangled. While we struggled, the momentum caused everything to be pulled upwards, revealing what was beneath.

“Nooooooooo?!”

The uniform and shirt were pulled up so far that they even covered her ogre mask. The obvious result was that the protection of her clothes was gone, and the ogre girl’s lost world⁵ greeted me. For whatever reason, or maybe because she simply didn’t need it yet, she wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath said shirt. In the center of this prairie I saw two blooming cherries.

“Oho…”

I wasn’t excited or stimulated in any way. Only a pervert would get excited from seeing a young girl like this naked. If anything, I was sad. Since she had a body stature like a young girl, the middle school uniform must have been too big. Nobody could blame her for this. She would just have unforeseen accidents like this since her uniform was too baggy.

“…Interesting.”

With a grave expression coloring my face, I closely inspected the girl’s upper body. Even if this event brought great sadness upon me, it will not be wasted. This incident will lead to new opportunities between me and the ogre girl. New umbilical cords, you might even say! What a wonderful way of phrasing it!

“………”

The clothes slowly started to descend again. There was an awkward silence, and the ogre girl proceeded to fix her clothes.

“Um, are you okay?” I spoke like I hadn’t been bothered by this incident at all.

“Just what…”

“Hm?”

“Just what kind of rotten thoughts went through your mind that led you to sexual assault?”

She spoke in a calmer manner than ever before. As if she were prophesying the end of the world due to God’s judgement, a tranquil and dreadful voice came out of her mouth.

“N-No, well, it just happened…”

I struggled to find an answer.

“Is that so. What a pervert you are.”

“Eh…?”

“A helpless pervert. Throwing reason and ethical view into the hot pot, and throwing that away on garbage day. That’s how much of a pervert you are.”

“……”

“‘It just happened’, is it? What does that mean? Would you do that whenever you find a navel in front of you? Is that so? I see that you’re just a perverted puppy who needs to be trained, then.”

“…………”

“I understand. Here, paw. Give me your paw. Come on. Just like you want, I’ll train you thoroughly just like you want, you pervert.”

“………”

With a lack of expression and a cold voice, she kept indifferently stating that I was a pervert while she looked at me like I was human waste. I didn’t even know what was going on, but I felt a shiver running down my spine, and my body was screaming to get out of there. However, this only lasted for a brief second.

“W-What are you doing out of the blue?! Are you an actual pervert?!”

Her high-pitched angry voice pulled me back to reality.

“Ah, a dream…”

The ogre girl was crouching down in front of me. She was pulling her uniform down, hugging her shoulders, and she looked at me with the wary gaze of a hedgehog. That’s right, this is reality. There’s no way such a cute girl could have been the female version of Asura.

“…Ahh, thank goodness.”

“T-Tha…?! What are you so thankful for?!”

I’m sure I’m just tired. I’ll just go home for today. I’ll just watch a video with a cute naked girl in it and go to bed quickly after that.

“Good work today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?! You’re not even going to make an excuse?! You’re not I see! Are you that type of person?!”

I left the shaky, trembling voice of the ogre girl behind me.

From the time of that incident onwards, every time I crawled through the tunnel in the thicket, I would experience a crushing punishment ritual.

“—Listen. I’m not angry about the whole navel thing.”

“I’m sorry. I’m reflecting on it. I won’t do it again.”

“I’m angry because you didn’t take responsibility and just walked away silently.”

“That is correct. I am terribly sorry. Please forgive me.”

“The motto of my family has gone down the toilet. Are you even aware of that?”

“I do. I am terribly sorry. My head is being crushed.”

“C-Crushed?! I’m not that heavy! How rude!”

The ogre girl, sitting on top of my head, tugged my hair this way and that as if to show her true feelings. If the roots of my hair become an endangered species in the future, I’ll make this girl shoulder half the responsibility. But when I voiced that…

“…You! You, you!”

…She started trying to rip my hair out mercilessly, faster than ever before.

…I mean, after one or two calamities such as these, ‘misunderstandings’ you could even call them, the two of us really got attached to each other. I’ve never talked with someone this much before, and we could always discuss our troubles with each other.

“I couldn’t talk with the children very well today, either.”

Accompanied by the setting sun, the ogre girl let out a sigh as she spoke. What she found herself lacking was her ability to communicate well.

“I had a precognitive dream. Even after hundreds of thousands of years, I still couldn’t do it properly.”

“That sure sounds negative. I’m pretty sure the children would start liking you if you were to just laugh along with them.”

“That is not the case. I am far too young.”

I heard that the ogre girl’s dream was to become a teacher at a nursery school. That explained why she would help out at this nursery school as soon as her classes were over. But, according to the ogre girl, achieving this dream seemed more difficult than climbing the Alps.

“No matter what they do, I start crying, and it’s a lot of trouble for them. I’m too quick to show my honest emotions. And even if I manage to become friends with a few of them, that’s not enough to become a teacher. The roles of being a friend and a teacher are entirely different, after all.”

“Is that why you put on this mask? To hide your facial expressions? Isn’t that the wrong way to go at it?”

“It’s not. This is the only method I have left.”

“…I wonder about that.”

“You don’t have to. That’s how it is.”

Since I don’t remember ever seeing the ogre girl’s true face, she must keep this mask on the entire time even when she’s dealing with the children. It feels like she’s so focused on the goal that she’s using wrong methods. I wasn’t in her shoes, though, so I had no way of judging for myself. Once she starts focusing on this one problem, it sticks in the back of her mind. I’m not the one to talk about that sort of thing.

“But I’m a bit jealous that you can work so hard for something you like. I really only stay up late so that I can watch late-night shows…”

“Late-night…? Do you like late-night TV? I don’t really get it, but I believe you’re working fairly hard in the track-and-field club.”

“No. In reality, I don’t like the club all too much. I like swimsuits more than anything.”

“I don’t understand how you could even try to compare the two. Did you try telling the club president about this?”

“I can’t. How could I? I’m just a ‘Pretender’ after all.”

The reason I had to run away from the club activities like this is because I kept blurting out nonsense.

‘If you want to become stronger, then you have to practice until you meet hell itself!’

“That’s the club president for you! I was just thinking that, myself! I’ll follow you wherever you go!”

And that’s how I sold my soul to the devil.

‘This club is way too tough. I’ll end up in heaven before I make it to the finish line…’

“That’s right, everyone! I wholeheartedly agree! Let’s tell the Steel King!”

I sucked up to the club members and tried acting nice to them, as well.

‘Since those other weak members collapsed, training will be cancelled today. But you should be able to keep up with me, right?’

“Eh?”

‘Why don’t I train you myself? There’s no need to hold back. I’ll stay with you. Forever.’

“Eh…?”

I was forced to join the club president on some different course of long-distance running. I’m not joking. I didn’t tell the ogre girl, but my dream is to live between mountains of swimsuits and panties. Even though the track-and-field club was only supposed to be a stepping stone for my greater goal, I had been misunderstood yet again.

“Honest feelings and facades are just way too different. I feel like if I don’t do something soon, things will start going south.”

“That the club president will eventually find out that you’re always slacking off near a nursery school?”

“Yeah, exactly—Wait, really?! Are you the type of person who’d tell her that?!”

“Don’t cling to me like that. Don’t do anything weird like that! I was just joking! That was just a joke!”

“…I’m sorry, I panicked a bit.”

“Good grief. If you know you have to do something eventually, I’d advise you to start on it soon.”

“It sounds easier than it is. Will I really be able to confess the truth to the club president one day?”

“I wonder who will be done faster. You confessing to the club president, or me finally being able to be friendly with the children.”

Both of us sighed. We watched the beet red evening sky slowly turn into a navy blue starry sky brought about by the end of the day. That’s how it always went. To someone else, it probably was something completely idiotic and nonsensical, but to us, it was something groundbreaking, something that kept us going through the day. That was how our chance meeting caused an entire month of us meeting up practically every day. However, that ended as abruptly as it started.

*

As always, we held a meeting discussing our problems. The ogre girl dropped her mask’s gaze to the ground, muttering “I’ve lost one of my horns.”

“I’ve become a bit less cool now. I have to repair this one way or another.”

“…I mean, repairing is one thing, but can’t you just put on another mask?”

“Another mask?” The girl asked with a dubious voice.

She put her hand on the broken horn and tilted her head as if that helped showcase her confusion.

“That’s right. Stop wearing an ogre mask, and instead try out a rabbit or fox mask. Something more cute, you know? Why did you pick the ogre anyway?”

“…I reused this one from Setsubun⁶. It stands out, so I thought the children would have an easier time remembering me.”

“I’m pretty sure it just makes you stand out in the wrong way. Why not borrow a mask the nursery school has?”

“Do you think I should?” The ogre girl was at a loss for a bit.

That day, the ogre girl seemed lost in thought for the rest of our meeting, only speaking up right as we were about to split up.

“I’ll ask the teacher tomorrow to show me some other masks. And if you’re fine with it…”

“Yes?”

“…Would you choose one together with me?”

The ogre girl’s ears were slightly reddened like shuten-dōji⁷. I wonder how much courage it took her to ask this invitation-sounding line.

What she said before came to mind: ‘I get embarrassed easily.’ Thinking about it now, the reason she was wearing the ogre mask wasn’t to make friends with the children, but to emphasize the restraint and anxiety she had towards an older high school student, or in other words: Me.

“Of course! I’ll offer my entire being to pick the best possible mask for you!”

At the time, I didn’t pick up on her embarrassment in the slightest. I was just excited in my own right, thinking that I might be able to see her real face, and that made me hope that she was as cute of a girl as she sounded.

The next day, during club activities. The instant the Steel King gave me the order to do some running outside school, I ran to the nursery school like my life depended on it. With the speed I arrived there, I could be compared to Maurice Greene in his prime. However, right when I made it to the school gate, I screeched to a halt. A girl wearing an unfamiliar high school uniform was crouching down. Even from behind, she gave off an aura that said ‘I’m a beauty!’ She looked like a fairy from nature. Her curly, chestnut-colored hair hung down her snow white nape, fluttering in the breeze like a beautiful flower. Great drops of sweat ran down her nape.

“…Are you okay? Are you feeling unwell in some way?”

With 80% goodwill and 20% ulterior motives, I softly shook the girl’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch me. I’ll get infected with swine fever.”

“Eh…”

“Don’t enter the realm of us humans. Keep oinking in your own world. You’re just being a bother, you pig.”

“………”

I was immediately verbally assaulted by a cold, indifferent voice. Normally, anyone would leave a girl like her alone after being treated like this. Everybody who called out to her got rejected in such a fashion. She’s like a venus fly trap. You can’t help it, huh? I grabbed the girl’s arm.

“Kyaa! What are you doing?!”

“I’ll take you to the nurse’s office. Can you walk?”

“S-Stop! Let go! Let go already! I told you you’re being nothing but a bother, right?!”

“I’m not doing it for your sake, it’s for our students. The only one who needs to be hurt from the rose’s thorns is me.”

“I don’t get it! Are you trying to act cool?! You pervert!”

“How cruel…”

That being said, she can insult me all she wants. Thanks to all the gal games I’ve played recently that had a lot of phrases like that, I’ve gotten kind of used to it. Praise be to 2D life! However, the girl didn’t even try to understand my kind smile. Rather, she was busy trying to push me away with the palm of her hand right on my face, and she was trying to reject any sort of help. That being said, it didn’t take long for her to hold her stomach and grow silent.

“Urk… I-It hurts…”

“That’s because you were struggling so much. Do you know anyone from our school? I could have them come here. Or would the hospital be better?”

“I don’t know anybody here. I’m not going to a hospital, either, and I don’t need any medicine. You’re just forcing yourself onto me.”

“You sure seem pretty energetic to me.”

She doesn’t even try to give in. She just stressed that her hurting stomach would be fine after a while, but that didn’t mean I could just leave her. I’m so kind. I wonder why I’m not popular.

“Also, isn’t it weird? Why are you at our school if you’re not here to see someone?”

“I was just picking up some documents for my transfer.”

“Transfer? To this school? Woah.”

“What do you mean by ‘Woah’! Do you not want me to transfer here or something?!”

“No, sorry…”

“I bet that it’s just like every other school out there. It’s just a zoo of apes, bored to their bones like fools. What a waste of time…” The girl muttered as if trying to deny her surroundings altogether. She never spoke a word after that.

Even after I brought her to the nurse’s office, she never thanked me. She just kept her face cast downwards. I guess the saying ‘A beauty does not always hold a beautiful heart’ is true after all. As a side note, this girl transferred to my class a few days later, with the usual ‘Ah, it’s you from back then!’ romcom event, and she turned into a conquerable heroine through that—As if that would happen.

I heard that we had a transfer student in the same school year, but what about it? No matter her attribute, the fact that she was from a different class caused the value to drop to zero. I eventually even forgot her face. Game-like flags don’t exist in real life. What actually happened through this was a loss of time. This set up a death flag and nothing else.

When I finally started making my way back towards the nursery school, the club president caught me and I was forced into a man-to-lion Spartan training. As my consciousness drifted in and out, I met my respected Oscar Wilde three times.

By the time I finally managed to leave the school, it was already night. I directed my sluggish, exhausted body towards the nursery school. The hedge around looked like it was about to be swallowed up by the darkness of the night, but it was barely visible enough to show how dirty it actually was. When I snuck through the tunnel, I was only greeted by silence inside the small park.

“Now I’ve done it…”

I broke our promise. I’m really the worst. I betrayed her expectations. I slipped back out through the tunnel and headed to the front gaze, but as expected, nobody was there.

“…What should I do about this…?”

“Are you looking for someone?”

“Gyaaaaah?!”

I let out a sigh as I stared at the ground, but I suddenly heard a cheerful voice above my head. When I lifted my gaze, I saw a girl sitting on the wall.

“I-I thought you were a ghost! Why did you wait there?!”

“So that I could see you right away. I didn’t think you’d be staring at the ground.”

“I thought I’d miss you if I looked ahead.”

“Why do you have to be so rude all the time!”

The girl carefully stretched her legs out and descended from the wall. The mask on her face no longer had horns, but rather ears, and her fangs had been exchanged with whiskers.

“…So that’s the new mask you chose, huh?”

Right now, the girl was wearing a cat mask, and the cat had a charming expression. She pushed down her cat mask and made a pose like a beckoning cat. She was illuminated by the spotlight of the shining moon. It felt like she was an attraction in a shop window made by God himself.

“…It looks great. Much better than before.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I had a lot of trouble choosing since a certain someone ditched me.”

“I’m sorry…”

“I was joking. Good work during your club today. Thanks to you, I was really popular with the children today.” The cat girl looked like she remembered something, and she snickered.

It was a pleasant, almost transparent voice. One that I hadn’t heard before.

“We all held hands, played games, and ran around… I finally managed to make some good memories at the very end.”

She proceeded to look up at the moon, and stretched her entire body.

“…At the very end?”

“Yes. I won’t be able to come here for a while. My visits to the nursery school were supposed to end today, anyway.”

“Ah, I see…”

What a shame, not that, why is that, not that either… I could only respond with vague affirmation. That was just how much of a shock this was. For a brief moment, the cat girl waited for my response. But, possibly because I couldn’t think of any, she eventually raised both her hands in celebration.

“Because! Starting next month, I will be a high school student! A full-grown adult! Finally the same as you!”

“Huh. So, well, does that mean that you won’t be able to come here anymore?”

“…Is that all you have to say?”

“What do you mean?”

“…Nothing at all. Once my lifestyle changes, I’ll be very busy, that is all.”

I feel like the girl sounded slightly annoyed. She probably expected another response. But I just couldn’t focus. I grew desperate to somehow try to find another connection with the cat girl. This meeting at the nursery school had been something irreplaceable for me, but I had only realized that now.

“I see. So do you often come around here?”

“That’s a secret.”

“What middle school are you from?”

“Who knows?”

“…What’s your name?”

“Not telling.”

The cat girl responded with a consecutive three-hit head-shaking. It felt like we were at a distance of a cool moon and foolish sun, which made me feel sad.

“Eventually we might just slip past each other in the hallway, or inside the gym hall, you know.” The cat girl pointed at my jersey.

“Eh? D-Does that mean—?”

“Yes, indeed. Please treat me well from now on—Senpai.” She grabbed the hem of her skirt, and gave a slight bow.

Senpai, Senpai, Senpai; the girl repeated those words like she had found a hidden treasure, snickering to herself.

“However, I do believe I will be the first one to find you, Senpai. Without my mask on, you won’t be able to find me at all.”

“That’s not true! I’ll find you right away!”

“I wonder. You are terribly dense in a few certain areas, after all.” The cat girl ran her fingers along her mask’s whiskers and raised a finger.

“I definitely won’t tell you myself, even if I find you, so you have to make the first move, Senpai.”

“W-Why would you do something so roundabout?”

“It’s like a prayer. Once we meet again, I’m sure—”

“Sure of what?”

“Hmm, who knows?”

It seemed like the girl was in a fairly good mood after successfully getting closer to the children. She just kept giggling to herself, not moving the conversation forward. I couldn’t help but start laughing myself. I really liked the sound of her laughing. There was nothing excessive about it, and nothing lacking either. I recorded it into my heart as a 100% perfect laughing voice.

I know this sounds awfully embarrassing from an outsider’s perspective, but I thought this entire thing was destiny. As high school students, even the difference in student year is like the difference between country borders. I knew that finding her immediately would prove difficult—But I was certain that, one day, the two of us would be able to laugh like this again. Who cares if I don’t know her face, or don’t know her name? Even if there aren’t any flags in life, Happy Ends still exist… right?

*

…But. That manner of thinking was a fatal flaw. In reality, I should have asked her to remove that mask. Even if she ended up hating me, no matter how forcefully I would have had to be, I had needed to see that smile of hers. If so, I’m sure we wouldn’t have missed each other like we did.

I’m the type of person to forget a lot. No matter how much I liked her laughing voice, no matter how beautiful the moonlight was, everything—It ended up blown away like a breeze, burying these memories in the depths of my mind. I only remembered all of this a long, long time afterwards.

---

1 A reference to Mori Ogai’s ‘The Dancing Girl’

2 A reference to Yasunari Kawabata’s ‘Snow Country’

3 A short story written by Yasunari Kawabata

4 A sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike

5 Written as naked body

6 Holiday for the end of winter, combined with a bean scattering ceremony

7 Mythical Japanese Oni (Demon/Ogre) that lives on Mt. Oe