![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
School. Classroom. Lunch break.
After eating a decent meal, I indulge myself in doujinshi manuscripts[1] at my seat, as I usually would. After that acrylic stand incident a few days ago, I impulsively bought all of the doujinshis that I had been holding back on buying and have been intently reading them.
“...”
Even if I spent my free time reading them little by little, there were still a lot of them left.
This must be heaven.
Even if I treat school as an inconsequential place, I am at the peak of my own happiness.
As I consciously try to keep a straight face while immersing myself in ReiOu’s world, I suddenly hear girls, whose names I don't know, talking.
“Have you read today's Weekly Shounen Dive? The one on sale early.”
“Not yet.”
I already obtained that, though.
“Listen to this! In ‘Patibato!’, Reito and Minoru teamed up as buddies~”
“...tch.”
I reflexively stood up from my seat.
Are they stupid? They’re sick in the head to just spoil things without thinking. They’re basically causing pollution at this point.
In order to avoid getting hit by another stray bullet, I quickly went towards the classroom’s door.
“Those two get along, don’t they?”
“...”
I responded in my mind to the voices that reached my back.
Is this the rise of a new ship?
I'll crush those sorts of new ships that don't know anything at all.
–
“Damn it, I can't concentrate. It's those guys' fault…”
I thought that after taking refuge in the home economics room, I could read the continuation of the doujinshi I’m reading, but, sure enough, I couldn't concentrate at all.
It's because of them that I heard unnecessary things. The hell is with Reito and Minoru being buddies?
The Minoru that they were talking about is that guy, right? Kaju Minoru!
I had decided to read that magazine quietly by myself when I went back home, but thanks to them, I'm about to break that taboo of mine. Now I want to dash back to the classroom and check what's in that magazine immediately.
“There’s now way I’ll see them as a ship, but it seems like a really interesting development~...”
“Patibato!”, the manga that fascinates me so much and has been serialized in the Weekly Shounen Dive for many years.
Aiming to be the best pastry chef in the whole wide world, with the highly selective boarding school as the stage, the confection battles and camaraderie make it a passionate youthful story.
“Patibato is really the most interesting and fiery story there is.”
My lifetime oshi among all of the characters that appear in the story… “Chiyoda Reito”.
He takes pride in his chocolate confectionery skills and is the so-called ikemen type, but of course, that doesn't sum up what he really is.
There might be people who misunderstood about ‘Kaju Minoru’ and Reito being partners like those girls from earlier, but it's obvious that Reito's partner is forever his one and only one-sided rival, “Tentsuki Ouji”.
Ouji’s specialty in confectionery is pudding, so their ship name being Chocolate Pudding is the most adorable word to have, but what about Reito and Minoru’s? Chocolate Fruits?
“There’s no way that's right~”
The feeling of the word is cute, I guess. Just adding the word “chocolate” to them makes everything cute, so it can't be helped.
That's what makes Reito so remarkable.
A big no for ReiMinoru though. My body straight out rejects it.
I do know my boundaries, but I'm still a troublesome otaku. Even if there are countless ReiOu works out there, that doesn't mean that I agree with all of them.
But even for someone like me, there is only one god that I could hold in high regard and worship, and that is Acid Rain-sensei.
I want to go to that convention.
I want to meet Acid Rain-sensei someday.
And then, to shake with those hands that continue to bring forth masterpieces one after another…
While thinking about such things, I laid my face on the table and started lazing around when suddenly—
“So this is where you were. You weren't in the classroom, so I went looking for you.”
“Mu-chan…”
Opening the home economics room’s door is Muneuji, the only person that I could trust, entering the room.
“Is something the matter?”
“Nope. What about you, Mu-chan? …Ah.”
The moment I stood up, my hand slipped, and I dropped my phone.
My phone then slid across the floor and stopped right at Mu-chan’s feet.
“...!”
The screen was exactly at that part where ReiOu were in a passionate, insightful scene…
Crap! Mu-chan's gonna see it!
I jumped out. I was about to get my phone when Mu-chan suddenly bent down and, on his chest I—
“Uwah!”
“Waaaaah!”
We bumped into each other, and I fell on top of Mu-chan, with our face, arm, and hand touching together…
“Gh, ah-”
Instantly, numbness ran through my whole body.
Unable to bear the sensation of every hair on my body standing on end, I hurriedly jumped back.
While still gripping tightly at my phone.
I realized that I reacted quite rudely, but Mu-chan, who knows about my situation, only furrowed his brow in worry.
“Is your body alright?”
“...Yeah. Sorry.”
“It's alright. Don't worry about it.”
…Seriously, things don't go as planned in this world.
Even though I trust Mu-chan so much…
Having a body in such a state, not having enough money to spend as I please since a lawyer is administering my estate, not being able to even properly walk through crowds when I want to meet Acid Rain-sensei…
If only that—
If only that... didn't happen.
If only that... didn't happen.
—End of Track 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
[1] the word used here was 同人誌データ and it refers to the digital form or file of a manga that is given to a publisher to then print it out in a physical form. ↑
[1] the word used here was 同人誌データ and it refers to the digital form or file of a manga that is given to a publisher to then print it out in a physical form. ↑
----------------------------------------------------------------------
