Chapter 1
It's an unfamiliar park.
“?”
『If you don't like it, why don't you make a better ending with your own hands? Until then, don't expect to go back.』
After a single blink, my surroundings had suddenly changed. Looking around, I found a note beside me with a message roughly along those lines.
An ending...? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
It wasn't helpful at all. So, setting the note aside for now, I decided to recall what had happened just before.
――Big bro. Fuck. The author butchered the ending. They abandoned the series―― Fuck!!
Right. My little sister had been venting to me, furious that the rom-com manga she'd been reading had gotten a rushed ending. Then she'd handed me the manga, saying it was a masterpiece right up until just before the finale, and told me to read it.
After taking it, I returned to my room and opened it to the first page—and ended up in this situation. An unfamiliar place, day and night turned upside down, and so on.
…A lot of physically impossible things had happened.
Ah.
As I pondered for a moment, a certain possibility suddenly occurred to me. The note, which I'd briefly forgotten, helped me put the pieces together.
『If you don't like it, why don't you make a better ending with your own hands? Until then, don't expect to go back.』
Hmm. As I thought.
Apparently, through some mistake on the part of a god or an absolute being, I'd been subjected to what people called ‘possession.’ And in a rom-com I hadn't even read, no less.
This was an utterly unfair situation.
“Was I here in my little sister's place? ……Huh?”
Huh? What was with that childish voice?
A sense of wrongness suddenly struck me as I muttered to myself. Why had a child's undeveloped voice come out of my mouth instead of the deep voice of an adult man?
To find the cause of this strangeness, I tried to reach up and touch my throat. I would have—if my eyes hadn't fallen on a tiny hand and a slender arm.
Ah.
“……Fuck.”
Seriously,
――No way?
＊＊＊
Ever since I was thrown into a rom-com world in a woman's body, a lot had happened.
For example,
the fact that right after possessing this body, I was found by a patrol officer and eventually placed in an orphanage.
The fact that after living happily at the orphanage, I was suddenly taken away to some wealthy family.
The fact that after being taken in, I spent several years being trained to become a maid.
The fact that after becoming a maid, I became the personal maid of a girl who was the story's heroine.
And so on. Over the past ten years, so many things had happened that it was difficult to summarize them briefly.
“Takamine.”
“Yes, Miss Kaede.”
‘Takamine’ was the surname I'd been given after leaving the orphanage. And ‘Kaede’ was the name of the young lady I currently served as a personal maid.
“Hey. My body's been feeling weird lately.”
“Where does it hurt?”
“I don't think it's that kind of thing…”
“Even so, just in case, please tell me about your symptoms. I'll pass them along to your personal doctor.”
“…Okay.”
Kaede had complained that something was wrong. I immediately took out my work smartphone.
“Takamine, you know Arai-kun, right? I think he's in my class…”
“Yes. I've met him.”
“……Are you close?”
“No. We've only exchanged a few formal greetings.”
“I-I see.”
Arai Shota wasn't someone I didn't know. There was no way I wouldn't know him. He was the male protagonist of the manga I'd been dropped into, after all. My little sister had mentioned him several times, so I remembered him clearly even though I hadn't read it.
“A-anyway, since you know him, it'll be easier to talk about this.”
As she spoke, Kaede placed a hand against her chest. Seeing her face flush, I had a pretty good idea what she was about to say.
‘Finally.’
Thump, thump—the moment I'd been waiting for was drawing near. Excitement surged through me at the thought. As emotions churned inside me, I kept my expression calm. Like a professional.
“Whenever I see Arai-kun, my face gets all hot and my heart goes doki-doki. Sometimes my hands and feet even tremble. ……Could it be some kind of conditioned-reflex arrhythmia?”
Conditioned-reflex arrhythmia? What kind of ridiculous medical condition was that supposed to be? It was absurd. I wanted to call her out on it right away. But this wasn't the time.
I pressed down hard on the urge welling up inside me with an invisible hand.
“Miss Kaede.”
“…Yes.”
Perhaps Arai-kun had come to mind during our conversation, because Kaede's face flushed red. I watched her, then strode right up and firmly took her hand.
“Eh!?”
Startled by the sudden physical contact, Kaede let out a cute cry. At the same time, she tried to pull her hand free. But I wouldn't let her resist.
Knowing it was rude, I forced both of Kaede's hands to stay put.
“N-Nagi!? Why are you doing this!?”
Kaede was so startled she called me by my first name instead of my surname. I didn't pay it much mind. I knew it was a sort of habit of hers.
“Nagi!”
Kaede kept calling my name, demanding an explanation for what I was doing. I glared hard at her. At the sight of my serious gaze, Kaede let out a small “Eep” and her anger subsided a little.
Things were going exactly as I'd intended.
“Miss.”
“……What?”
Our eyes met. Kaede looked at me with bewilderment in her eyes. I wondered what I looked like to her.
A question suddenly came to mind. I mulled it over briefly, then shook the thought away. Instead,
I spoke the words I'd been preparing for a long time.
“That's love. Everything you just described is a classic symptom of lovesickness.”
“……What?”
“So, Miss. It's love. You're in love with Arai-kun.”
Kaede stared blankly at the answer I'd given. Seeing that, I let go of her hands. I wanted to give her a chance to gather her thoughts—in other words, time to accept her feelings.
‘Miss, let's hurry up and get to the ending.’
Ten years had passed since that unjust possession. All that time, I'd thought and thought about how to return to my original world.
And in the end, I reached one conclusion.
The conclusion was that to get back home, I had no choice but to bring about an ‘ending,’ just as the note said.
Then what was this ‘ending’? After thinking it over, I realized this world was a rom-com setting.
‘The ending of a rom-com is when the male lead and female lead start dating.’
There were exceptions, but most rom-coms ended with the leads getting together. In other words, the story ended once all that long-accumulated anticipation was finally resolved.
I decided to apply this typical rule to my complicated situation. That is, I would bring about an ending by getting Kaede, the heroine, together with Arai, the male protagonist.
And in the process,
‘I have to intervene actively.’
I hadn't seen the ending, but according to my little sister, the author had abandoned the series.
Interpreted through rom-com logic, that meant there was a good chance the protagonist and heroine hadn't gotten together. In other words, if time passed smoothly as it was, we wouldn't reach the ‘ending.’
‘The deadline is probably graduation.’
Kaede and Arai's relationship was temporarily linked by the ‘academy.’ In other words, once they graduated, they'd have no reason to interact. And if they didn't see each other, their interest would naturally fade.
Naturally, the chance of the two getting together would become vanishingly small. No, it would be fair to say there was no chance at all. In other words, a bad ending. If that happened, I wouldn't be able to fulfill the ‘better’ condition that the so-called god had mentioned.
‘The worst.’
If that happened, I'd have to live as a woman like this for the rest of my life. That was not a future I welcomed.
A man's mind in a woman's body. With hormones periodically messing with my mind, I'd somehow endured for ten years. But I couldn't take any longer than that.
I'd be living as a woman for the rest of my life. My mind wasn't strong. I was sure I'd accept reality and come to embrace an identity as a woman.
And eventually, even with a man―――
I hurriedly shook my head from side to side, driving away the thought that had surfaced. What on earth was I thinking? This had to be the hormones too.
Ugh.
Horrifying.
So horrifying――.
I got goosebumps. Just thinking about it made me nauseous. I had to prevent that future somehow. So I had to see the ending somehow. Yes, no matter what it took, I had to get Kaede and Arai together.
As their helper, as their Cupid, I had to somehow make them a couple.
“……Nagi.”
“Yes, Miss.”
As I was lost in thought, Kaede called my name. With firm resolve, I waited for what she would say next.
Hoping for a sincere admission to come from between those pretty lips――.
“Is something wrong with your head, Nagi? Me, liking some nobody like him? There's no way. Maybe I'm not the one who needs an examination—maybe you do.”
Grit――.
This damn woman.
This won't be easy.
She's a formidable opponent.