What If: Akitsu Akane Is The Heroine (From Author's Tweets)
Author's Preface
Akitsu Akane
I'd probably put a confession scene right at the beginning of Chapter 1.
And then it'd become the story of conquering Hizutome Rakuro, a shitty human being who looks like a normal person but has a trash-game cartridge jammed into his brain.
Even now, I'm still kind of drawn to that story structure, but the problem is that romance dragster Akitsu Akane is beyond the author's control.
In real life, their relationship would be the same as in the initial setting: she's Rumi's classmate.
Around the time the New Continent gets unlocked, she'd discover the equation Rakuro = Sunraku and, from the real-world side......... damn it! The speed from there to conquest is terrifying!!
Chapter 1: "What should I do, Sunraku-san! Apparently, I like you!!"
No, that's world-record RTA pace.
What! The concept of Akitsu Akane spending about a year interacting with Sunraku through full dive, then meeting him in person for the first time one snowy night, and the instant she sees his face she can't hold back her feelings anymore, throws her arms around him, and confesses right beside his ear!?
Look at Heroine-chan! It's almost Christmas in the fourth year of the story's planned timeline, and she's still Giza-rolling herself straight into defeat!? You ox-paced turtle......
They Say Failure Is the Mother of Success, But...
——This is a story of one day in one place, or perhaps, of one possibility.
"Pencilgon-san! Can I ask you something?"
"Hm? What's up, Akitsu Akane-chan?"
The girl came pattering over with light, almost buoyant steps and immediately opened with a question, to which Arthur Pencilgon replied without seeming particularly bothered.
Though she isn't quite as impossible to locate as a certain someone, the girl is still busy running all over this world (game), so it's unusual for her to come all the way over just to ask Pencilgon a question.
"Um......... Pencilgon-san, when you buy clothes...... do you do it online?"
"Hm? Hmm........."
Arthur Pencilgon. A miscreant who created an avatar that looks exactly like the immensely popular real-world celebrity "Amane Towa" and devotes herself to all manner of scumbag behavior............ but as she is, in fact, Amane Towa "herself," she spent a moment considering how she ought to answer.
In truth, Arthur Pencilgon gets her clothes through methods that are a little unusual compared to ordinary things like AR-based virtual try-ons, so simply telling Akitsu Akane exactly what she does probably wouldn't be much use as a reference.
"Hmm, I use both online shops and physical stores...... I guess."
"You do?"
"Yeah, but what brought this on all of a sudden?"
"Actually......... um, I bought some clothes online......... and the sleeve size was............ ahaha."
Seeing Akitsu Akane pull her fox mask down even farther and avert her eyes as though trying to hide her face, Pencilgon understood.
Buying clothes online only to try them on once they arrive and find that they're bigger or smaller than expected isn't particularly unusual.
"So I thought I'd ask all sorts of people for future reference!"
"I see...... in that case, buying from a physical store is still the safest bet. Or, it'll cost you a little money, but you could have it altered."
"Ohhh...... that's really helpful!"
"Yeah, or you could deliberately style it that way, you know?"
"Deliberately............?"
To the bewildered Akitsu Akane, Pencilgon offered some advice, partly as encouragement for a girl who seemed ready to set her passion for fashion ablaze.
"Clothes that are way too short are a little hard to pull off, but deliberately oversized outerwear can have a completely different kind of appeal depending on how you style it."
Roll up the sleeves, deliberately use sleeves long enough to hide your hands, cinch the looseness of the clothes with a wide belt...... in the end, it all depends on how you do it.
"Depending on how I style it......... um, it's a shirt, but it's too big........."
"How about just treating it as an oversized shirt?"
"I see, an oversized shirt........."
Now then.
Arthur Pencilgon deliberately makes an avatar that looks exactly like her real self, and she has no hesitation whatsoever about committing scumbag acts while wearing that face. She won't go so far as to do that even to her own people...... her clanmates, that is (with about two exceptions), but putting that aside, a little teasing......... that she absolutely will do.
"By the way, Akitsu Akane-chan......... you wouldn't happen to be planning to go out with someone... would youuu?"
"Huh......... huh, ah? H-how did you know...!?"
There had been no particularly deep deduction involved, but the jab Pencilgon tossed out on a whim apparently landed a critical hit on the person known as Akitsu Akane. Seeing her visibly start flailing in panic, Pencilgon's grin spread wider.........
"O lost lamb......... the winds of blue spring[*1] sometimes blaze fiercely......... as one who has gone before you in life, I shall guide you........."
"G-guide me.........!"
"Yes, with a magic plan that connects failure to your next success, and the killer line to go with it———!"
◆
——I want you to come shopping with me!
That was what she said to me last Friday. Of course, I had no reason to refuse, so I was standing at the meeting spot in a complete outfit that had made it through the rigorous inspection of my little sister, whose attitude toward me had been getting colder and colder lately.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Senpai!"
"Nah, I just got here too, and we're still five minutes early."
To the girl who came pattering up, I told her, without a shred of exaggeration, the truth that I'd literally just arrived.
"So, what was it again, I'm tagging along while you shop for something today?"
"Yes! Actually, I made a little mistake buying some clothes........."
"Ahh, the size or something?"
"Yes."
That happens sometimes, right, I did it once and told my little sister, who burns with a slightly excessive passion for fashion, 'Sorry, I can't wear this!' and she got seriously pissed at me......
Gotta at least make sure to check the size properly.
"So I figured if I was going to do it anyway, I'd actually go to a store and try things on!"
"I see."
"So........."
And then the girl gave my arm a little squeeze and clung to it loosely as she looked up at my face. Instead of the clothes she usually wears with ease of movement as the priority, she was dressed in something clearly chosen with the intention of making herself look nice, and her hairstyle was different from usual too. If she was being more forward with me than usual while looking like that...... then I suppose a slight quickening of the heartbeat was only natural.
And whether some evil somebody had put ideas in her head or what, she spoke with an almost challenging expression unlike her usual one.
"P...... 'Please choose the cutest me,' okay, Rakuro-senpai!"
"Uh......... yeah, well, leave it to me......... I guess, Akane."
I instinctively turned my face away so she couldn't see my expression. I was probably making some red, indescribably awkward face that I couldn't even tell was going slack or tightening up.
"Ah, right!"
"......What?"
When I turned my gaze back, wondering what it was.
"C-could I......... pick the coolest Rakuro-senpai...... too?"
".....................Y-yeah."
There was the face of my...... lover, bright red and wearing that same indescribably awkward expression that I couldn't tell was going slack or tightening up.
Translator's Notes
- [1] Blue spring: 「青い春」 literally means "blue spring" and playfully evokes 「青春」 (seishun), "youth," whose kanji are literally "blue/green" and "spring."
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