It Seems That the Word Cute Was a Deadly Poison to the Girls Who Were Despised as Ugly Women in a World Where Beauty and Ugliness Are Inverted
“K-Karei! Hey, my arm hurts….! Hey, are you listening?!”
Yuma’s voice echoes hollowly in front of the school building in the evening as he changes into his loafers and exits the shoe box.
However, the girl walking next to him, Karei, was walking in a straight line, holding on to his arm tightly.
“Wait a minute! You’re too conspicuous. ……!”
Yuma tried to stop her as if shouting.
But she did not stop.
Rather, her stride widened and her speed increased.
The students walking in front of the school gate stopped in their tracks, and even passersby glanced in their direction.
Their gazes began to gather like waves.
No wonder. In this world, a male student, who by all accounts is legitimately beautiful, is walking with an ugly-looking female student on his arm.
This scene, which defies common sense, was unmistakably seen as foreign to the people around them.
“…… aren’t we being exposed? Hey, Karei-san”
It’s not that Yuuma wasn’t unaware of the pain of the gazes being directed at him.
Still, looking at Karei’s backside, he felt somewhere that he should stop her, but he couldn’t.
Her profile was desperate, her neat face contorted.
Sweat was pouring down her face and her hair was sticking to her cheeks. Still, she kept going, looking only ahead.
“I’ll get there, at least let go of my arms!”
But that was different from this.
His arms were already screaming, and he felt as if his bones were creaking.
But Karei said nothing and squeezed hi hand even tighter.
It was as if he didn’t even reach her
Finally, they stopped at a corner of a residential area not far from the school.
It was a room in an apartment.
On the second floor of the small building, in front of the door at the top of the stairs, Karei finally let go of Yuma’s arm.
“……This is my home.”
She said shortly and unlocked the front door.
The door creaked slightly with a click, and a small room opened up in the back of my field of vision.
The air outside the front door was still filled with the lively after-school atmosphere, but beyond the door it was like a different world without sound.
Yuma took off his shoes and followed Karei’s back inside.
“Um, …… are you sure it’s okay for me to come in?”
“What do you mean?”
For a moment, Karei’s eyes narrowed.
While holding back a throaty throat at the look in his eyes, Yuma opened his mouth.
He is a man, and as a man, he had to confirm at the very least what was going on.
“Well, how should I put it… I think parents would normally be worried about letting a man into your home.”
“No problem.”
“…… Eh?”
“Mom will be here late tonight. Besides, I think she will be happy if Kanna-kun would come.”
Those words were so decisive that Yuuma was left speechless.
Before he had time to wonder why he was trusted so much, Karei was leading him by the hand as he stepped into her room.
(…… smells so good. This is Karei’s …… No, no, no, calm down, me. This is just air, air
This was the first time he’d ever entered a woman’s room, even in his previous life.
Moreover, the other party was an exceptionally beautiful girl by Yuma’s standards.
His heart was beginning to pulse noisily with thumping.
he sat down beside the bed and disappeared into the kitchen without a word.
In the quiet space, Yuuma quietly looks around him.
In the stillness of the space, Yuma quietly glanced around.
The walls are a soft ivory, and on the floor is a long, white rug.
Decorations are kept to a minimum, with bookshelves neatly lined up and soft light streaming in through the curtains, gently enveloping the room.
The room is clean and unadorned, with an air of serenity.
But her color was certainly seeping into the air.
Suddenly, a sweet scent wafts past his nose.
It was soapy and clean, somewhat like fabric softener.
But it was not artificial, it was a scent with body warmth, as if the warmth of her skin could be felt.
(……No, I don’t feel calm. Why …… just for this?)
His heart starts to beat like a fast bell.
The first time he has ever had his rational mind go haywire just because of a scent.
“Did I keep you waiting?”
He looked up to see that Karei was coming back from the kitchen.
In her hands were two cups of steaming white water. She quietly offers one of them to him.
“Here you go, it’s for you.”
“Ah….thank you.”
The cups were hotter than expected, and the temperature spread to his palms.
Yuma holds it gently in his lap and takes a deep sigh.
He saw Karei put her cup on the table, and he followed suit.
“….I’m sorry about before. Your arm hurt, didn’t it?”
With her head down, her voice was so quiet it was drowned out by the steam.
It sounded so thin and husky, it was hard to believe that she came from such a straightforward and forceful girl.
–I’m sorry
Surprised by this, Yuuma’s mouth relaxed a little.
“I …… don’t mind. It hurt,…… but you see, it’s not every day you get the experience of being touched by a girl.”
When he said that teasingly, Karei’s shoulders twitched.
Then the corner of her lips turned up slightly.
“……You really are a funny guy, aren’t you? You are.”
“You followed up! It really hurt!”
“Because ……, you were going to run away.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I kept thinking you were going to …… run away. I thought you were trying not to look at me.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“It just …… looked that way.”
Biting her lip a little, she continued to squeeze the words out of her mouth.
“For a long time, I took it for granted that no one would see me. So when you spoke to me, I was a little confused.”
“I see. ……”
Yuma smiled a little as he stared into his cup.
“I’m the one who’s confused. I didn’t expect such a beautiful girl to take me by the hand and bring me home.”
“……Eh?”
“Well, I mean, isn’t that a situation any man would envy?”
“Did you just say “beautiful girl” ……?”
“Yeah. Karei san, you are very pretty.”
Karei’s movements stopped at that comment.
“…… really, you think so?”
“Yeah. I think your expression right now is really beautiful.”
“……Baka.”
Karei was at a loss for words until just before she heard that voice.
She stopped moving, and just stared at Yuuma, as if she had forgotten to blink.
Stunned eyes, as if in front of something unbelievable.
Then finally, as if her emotions had returned, she looked away.
“……Kanna-kun, you make jokes, too. You didn’t even look at me before you took a break.”
The words were soft, but the sound was definitely piercing.
He had no words to reply. She was right.
Today was his first day in this world.
The girl in front of him had every right to feel that it was a leopard’s change.
“…There was a bit of a problem. I thought I should tell you what I really think.”
The girl in front of him today is a little bit different from the girl in the past.
“……, you can say anything you want. Prove it.”
“Prove it……?”
“Yes, what’s so cute about me? My face? My voice? …… or are you just feeling sorry for me?”
“No, that’s not–“
Before he could say “no,” Karei leaned forward and pressed closer to Yuma.
The two of them are staring at each other at such a close distance that their noses are almost colliding.
“What’s so cute about me? Hey ……, I have a face that makes me want to die every time I look in the mirror.”
Contrary to he strong voice, tears were slowly welling up at the corners of Karei’s eyes.
On the verge of overflowing, they were surely a sign of emotions that even she was unable to suppress.
“I understand! All right, don’t get too close!”
“…..I see. I knew you thought I was ugly, too.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Then tell me. Look me in the eye and let me hear what you really think.”
With another step, he closed the distance as if clinging to him, and Yuuma reflexively stiffened his body.
The breathtaking closeness, the gaze, body heat and fragrance swallowed up all reason.
He couldn’t hold back any longer. Yuma shouted out his words as if he were shouting.
“Karei’s …… face is too good …… for me! she smells so good, too, and it’s already …… driving me crazy!”
“…… wait a minute!”
“I’m not going to wait! You don’t know how good you look! You’re cute, Karei san! And yet, with a face like that, you’re so close to a man that if it wasn’t for …… me, you’d have been attacked!
Karei stares dumbfounded at Yuma, who is huffing and puffing and breathing hard.
The discomfort that had built up over the day and the tension of being alone with a pretty girl in a closed room.
All of this finally pushed away his true feelings.
“….. really, really, really, you say I’m …… cute?”
“It’s true. Karei san is prettier than anyone else. Only I think so.”
“I’m …… cute, ……!”
With her eyes downcast and her shoulders shaking, Karei began to cry as if a dam had burst.
They were the tears of a girl who had been quietly, as if stifled, but still certainly saved.
And the next moment.
“……, ah……oo…….”
In between sobs, Karei leaned forward as if to sob, and without hesitation, nuzzled her face into Yuma’s chest.
Her tear-stained hair was stuck to his uniform.
Her fingertips trembling as she grips his clothes.
–It’s all right. Yuma gently took Karei’s sobbing body into his arms without rejecting it.
Maiasa