Prologue
“The setting is a remote southern island, about an hour’s flight from Tokyo...”
The after-school classroom glowed a lonely red from the slanting rays of the setting sun.
“And because of depopulation, the academy on that island is going to merge with a prestigious girls’ school on the mainland...”
From outside the window, the needlessly, hollowly energetic voices of the sports club members drifted in.
“So, the story starts with the protagonist cross-dressing to attend that girls’ school...”
My voice echoed through the room, which felt all the more silent because of those faint, distant sounds.
“And then, a princess from the moon comes to homestay at the protagonist’s place...”
My voice spread quietly, carrying my passionate, intense feelings along with it.
“Oh, I forgot to mention, in this world, the Divine Realm, the Demon Realm, and the Human Realm coexist...”
“Hey...”
“Also, technology is advanced, so the protagonist has three maid robots at his house...”
“Listen...”
“Amidst all that, the protagonist decides to run in the student council election to protect his club...”
“Excuse me...”
“Ah, and by the way, every single one of the heroines specializes in some kind of martial arts...”
“Shut up alreadyyy!”
“Whoa, don’t yell so loud. You’re bothering people.”
My quiet, carefully measured, weighty words were completely drowned out by a sudden, unreasonably violent shout.
“How can the person who’s been blasting incomprehensible fantasies non-stop for over thirty minutes talk about being a nuisance?!”
“Has it really been that long...?”
Looking at the clock, the hour hand did indeed seem to have moved about fifteen degrees compared to before.
Oh, just so you know, I’m a big-picture kind of guy, so I don’t care about the minute hand.
“Anyway, I’m going home. This was absolutely, without a doubt, a completely and utterly flawless waste of time...”
“Hey, wait a second, calm down. I’m not finished...”
“To be called after school without any warning, shown a proposal that’s literally just a cover page, forced to listen to some incomprehensible speech, and then invited to join an unintelligible club on top of that—anybody would snap!”
“I thought there was a chance, though, since you came strolling in even after I called you out here without any warning...”
“Ugh... The word ‘regret’ is running through my head in so many ways, so stop pointing it out so calmly.”
“Really?”
The girl who had been yelling in front of me a moment ago looked down slightly and held her head.
As she did, her blonde hair—her public trademark, so to speak—slipped over her shoulders with a soft, rustling sound.
Her delicate, doll-like blonde hair and porcelain skin would undoubtedly steal the breath of any guy meeting her for the first time.
A classmate born and raised in Japan, the daughter of a British father and a Japanese mother.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura.
“Besides, look at you. I could let it slide while you were just a consumer-type otaku, but starting a game out of nowhere when you don’t have a single saving grace? Are you mocking the world?”
Usually, she was a beautiful girl whose ladylike, lovely behavior and speech were famous not just in our class, but throughout the entire school. Peel back that layer, however, and you would find this ferocious, passionate, and hardcore geeky true nature sleeping underneath.
“Gathering people to make a game for you so you can make a name for yourself, all while you can’t do anything yourself... That’s what we call a doujin parasite. The exact kind of person you hate, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?! I have this boiling passion! My motivation is twice as strong as anyone else’s! In other words, this project couldn’t exist without me, and there’s no way the game could ever be finished!”
“Well, yeah, because nobody else has any intention of making it.”
“Ah! Don’t literally crush it! I spent all night writing that proposal...”
“How does it take all night to write a name, a date, and Doujin Galge Project (Temp)?!”
“If you sleep for eleven hours, the remaining time is obviously going to be short!”
“I don’t even know where to start with you... You... You idiot!”
“Ah, ahhh... How cruel.”
An ace of the art club who had been winning awards in exhibitions since her freshman year.
The owner of rare, exceptional artistic talent.
The “true identity” of this highly praised girl was known to only a very select few in the school, including myself.
Well, I’m not mature enough to indulge in a superiority complex about it being “her other face that she only shows to me,” though. This girl is awful.
“It’s ten years too early for someone like you to try standing in the spotlight now.”
“‘Now’ but also ‘too early’? And since when is a doujin galge ‘the spotlight’ anyway?”
“Ugh... People like you should just keep watching bishojo anime, buying merchandise, and spreading the word like you’ve always done!”
“H-Hey, say one more word and I won’t lend you the final Blu-ray volume of The Student Council’s Arbitrary Decision!”
“That’s why I’m saying you’re the worst! Baiting me all the way to the second-to-last episode and then suddenly pulling the ladder out from under me!”
“N-No, that was just a sore loser’s threat. I’ve never actually done that before...”
She was looking forward to that show that much...?
By the way, is “pulling the ladder” really that common of a metaphor?
“Anyway, there’s no point in discussing this further. I have my hands full just dealing with my own stuff. I don’t have the time to play along with some amateur’s stupid little game.”
“I only need you for the main heroine’s character design... Oh, and maybe just a tiny bit of sub-heroine designs, the key frames for all characters... and as a bonus, coloring including backgrounds...”
“Don’t increase your requests exponentially! What kind of guest-art-only anthology are you trying to make?!”
Did something like that happen to you in the past...?
As this fruitless, unrelenting argument raged on in the classroom...
“Calm down, you two.”
“Ah...”
“S-Senpai...!”
Since when did you fall under the illusion that there were only two people in this classroom...? That was the kind of vibe carried by the slightly low, calm voice that brushed against our ears.
That’s right, Eriri wasn’t the only one I had reached out to for this project.
My comeback victory, having anticipated the risk of someone dropping out and recruiting an ally in advance...
“Well, in this case, I’m afraid I have to agree with Sawamura-san.”
“S-Senpai...”
...Or so I thought, but she threw her support behind the side that was already winning. Where on earth did the Japanese trait of rooting for the underdog go...?
“Say, Rinri-kun.”
“It’s Tomoya.”
Since my name has finally come up, I might as well introduce myself.
Tomoya Aki.
A second-year student at Toyogasaki Academy.
And as of yesterday, my profile has a new addition: organizer of an unnamed doujin galge production circle.
“I’ve read through your proposal.”
“You don’t need to be sarcastic. And you really don’t have to go out of your way to flatten it out.”
Senpai carefully flattened out the crumpled ball of paper Eriri had made, smoothing out the wrinkles.
Fully aware that doing so would reveal a proposal (well, a cover page) with an obnoxiously large font and an extremely small word count, consisting of nothing but the title...
“To put it another way, I have a general understanding of the contents of your brain from that thirty-minute speech.”
“Wow, that’s impressive. To be honest, I don’t get it at all.”
“Yes. I understand that your thought process under your futon at around ten last night was: ‘I haven’t thought of anything, but I’ll wing it and it’ll work out somehow~ I’m going to sleep now~’”
“Harsh as always...”
“That’s because I don’t like your defiant attitude.”
Her delivery was perfectly calm, yet she didn’t mince words—her tongue was sharp, far past the point of simple sarcasm.
Lustrous, long black hair, and features that remained a certified masterpiece of objective beauty precisely because she rarely let them show any expression.
An upperclassman one year older than Eriri and myself.
Utaha Kasumigaoka.
"Well, even factoring in your verbal additions, I would have to give this project proposal a zero."
"Oof."
"It looks like nothing more than a patchwork of tropes seen somewhere before."
"Urgh."
"You probably just haphazardly cobbled together bits and pieces from games you've played recently, didn't you?"
"B-but I felt like combining all those different genres haphazardly made it pretty avant-garde..."
"Indeed—if by 'avant-garde' you mean creating a mystery hot pot rather than a proper stew."
"N-ngh..."
"For that matter, don't try to justify it by bragging about 'combining all those different genres haphazardly.'"
This went beyond "pretty sharp-tongued"—she was absolutely lethal. Unlike the hot-tempered Eriri, she sounded perfectly rational, which made her words sting all the more.
"B-but, this project is something only I can—"
"You know, an editor once told me... that whenever someone pitches a project claiming 'only I can do this,' it is without exception absolute garbage."
"Huh...?"
"Apparently this is a true story... One day, a game company received an unsolicited project proposal. According to the creator's own pitch, it was a 'groundbreaking new concept,' 'exactly what users have truly been waiting for,' and 'in the entire industry, I am the only one who can bring this project to life.' In short, it was just an endless stream of self-praise."
"H-huhhhhh..."
Oh crap, I'm pretty sure I just said all of those things.
"But once they opened it up, it had the 'doting childhood friend who comes to wake you up in the morning,' the 'tomboyish, short-haired athletic girl,' the 'quiet little sister who clings to the protagonist,' the 'mysterious ghostly girl,' 'witty banter,' 'lovey-dovey scenes after they start dating,' and 'a sudden plot twist near the end followed by a miraculous salvation'..."
"Ah, okay! Stop, please stop!"
Incredible. Just from that description, I instantly pictured at least five different titles. What a groundbreaking concept.
"Well, you get the point."
After thoroughly demolishing my thirty-minute presentation in a mere thirty seconds, Utaha-senpai placed a gentle hand on my slumped shoulder.
"It's been a while since you've engaged in any serious otaku activities, Rinri-kun, so it's not like I don't feel like I might not be entirely averse to the idea of maybe wanting to help you, or something along those lines..."
"If I do the math calmly, you're saying you don't want to help. Also, it's Tomoya."
She was the top student in our school, having never slipped from the number-one spot since her first year. She possessed a rare literary talent, occasionally writing scripts for the drama club on a whim.
The "true identity" of this woman, who was held in such awe, was naturally known to only a select few at school, including myself.
Well, knowing that... No, she was really awful too.
"Hey...! Don't go slipping into your own little world without me!"
"Is the world around you always this harsh on me?!"
Eriri's sharp tongue pierced through from the side once again, accompanied by her twin golden tails swishing about.
"Oh, are you still here, Sawamura-san? I thought you had abandoned him and gone home long ago."
"Wh-?!"
I don't know what kind of instinct was driving her, but Utaha-senpai's defensive counterattacks were razor-sharp.
"You really are kind, deep down, aren't you? I don't dislike that about you."
"Well, I hate that about you."
"Wait, which one of us was the first to slip into their own little world anyway?"
"That's right! I was the first one to refuse, so stop jumping on my bandwagon to bash him!"
"Honestly, you really have no self-control, Sawamura-san."
"Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Come on... Don't go slipping into your own little world without me..."
I always find myself thinking this, but these two get along way too well.
In a certain sense, of course.
"Anyway, why of all people is the Utaha Kasumigaoka here?!"
"I am a student here too, so it shouldn't be that strange for me to be around, should it?"
"You know perfectly well that's not what I meant."
"Did you want to be alone with him that badly? Were you having some kind of weird delusion?"
"Just so you know, I'm not falling for your stupid mind games."
"Saying that while your whole body is completely stiff makes you look quite pathetic, Sawamura-san."
"I'm just living my life with everything I've got!"
"And that is why you shouldn't break the door like that."
"It's not broken! It just made a loud noise!"
"H-Hey, wait! Just wait a second!"
My death rattle of a cry was drowned out by shouting and destructive noises that completely overwhelmed it.
Those two left, completely ignoring me while bickering about me.
Talk about putting the cart before the horse...
"Ah... *Siiiiigh.*"
Left behind, I let out a truly massive sigh this time.
After all, my grand ambition—which involved getting dialogue samples for the main heroine, a bit of the sub-heroine's plot on the side, scenarios for all characters, and scripting with directing notes thrown in for good measure—had been completely crushed.
Physically, all that remained was a single, crumpled sheet of A4 paper spread across the desk, and my own body.
The project, the enthusiasm, and the hope from an hour ago had been effortlessly demolished. Mentally, all that remained was a rejected proposal, lethargy, and despair.
No matter how you looked at it, this was clearly the end of the road.
So, I might as well just give up. I could just make the decision to execute a courageous retreat.
It was a plan born of a simple whim to begin with.
It wasn't some battle where I had to risk my life or death.
So I could just say, "Well, can't be helped," and move on.
But...
"My battle has only just begun..."
As humans, we get fired up when driven into a desperate corner, right?
...Granted, the only people who get turned on by driving characters into desperate corners are sadistic writers, but that's a story for another day.
The project that aimed to be a "groundbreaking new concept" had failed, no one had joined, and the circle's creation had run aground before it even began.
There was absolutely nothing new about my current situation.
If anything, this situation was the epitome of a classic trope.
A cliché, yes, but a story of rebirth rising from ruin.
Indeed, it was so cliché that just searching through old stories brought at least five titles to mind instantly.
But those five-plus titles were masterpieces whose contents I could still vividly recall to this day.
That's why, no matter how many times it gets repeated, no matter how worn out it is, a good trope is still a good trope.
"Alright!"
Clenching my fists, I recaptured the determination I had felt right before going to bed last night.
Then, letting my thoughts drift to the solitary battle starting tomorrow...
"That's too bad, with everyone refusing to help."
"...Oh right, you were still here."
"Um, wasn't the plan originally to make a game with me as the heroine?"
"My bad, my bad. I completely forgot about you until just now."
"Yeah, I can tell. You really did forget, didn't you, Aki-kun?"
And my bad, let me make a small correction.
Our own battle had only just begun...
"No, I mean, Kato, you didn't assert your presence at all in front of those two."
"But their aura is completely different. They're both super famous throughout the school."
"Well, that's true."
"So... those two didn't even ask for my name once."
"Well, I mean, they did spare you a brief glance at the very beginning, didn't they? Though that was it..."
"But you're amazing, Aki-kun, being acquainted with of all people Sawamura-san and Kasumigaoka-senpai. And you seemed pretty close, too."
"............"
She didn’t make much of a fuss about the fact that she’d been completely forgotten until now, weaving together an ordinary conversation in a perfectly normal tone of voice.
Visually... well, she was exactly as she looked.
She was a classmate who, despite the fact we’d supposedly been attending the same school for over a year, had left absolutely no impression on me until a mere month ago.
Megumi Kato.
...Yeah, there’s a good chance her lack of presence is due to her name. Yep.
"Well, now that we’re done talking, should we head home? There’s somewhere I want to stop by."
"You’re pretty nonchalant about this, Kato."
"I think this is normal, though."
"Normal isn’t good enough! You’re going to be the main heroine, you know? Of a galge!"
"Oh right, it’d probably be better to change my name for the game, wouldn’t it? ‘Megumi Kato’ is pretty generic, after all."
"Don’t admit that yourself..."
I recalled another rule of thumb for stories that are hailed as masterpieces.
That is, every single one of them features a heroine so unique and captivating that you can instantly recall her name and visual design, even years later.
It is sometimes said that in a story, if the characters stand out, ninety percent of the battle is already won.
Which means, in other words, if a character fatally fails to stand out...
"I’m locking up, okay?"
"...Right."
No, wait! The battle has only just begun!
With that renewed determination, I clenched my fists once more.
It was probably just my imagination that I didn’t feel as much strength in them as I had a moment ago.
After all, this is the story chronicling the daily battles of my... no, of myself, Tomoya Aki, and Megumi Kato.
A battle to create a story that casts this "Friend A" of a classmate as the main heroine...
"Up we go... Hmm, I think this should do it."
"What's up, Kato?"
"Oh, yeah. The door seems to be a little broken. Better fix it."
"...One of these days, you should join the side that breaks things instead. It’ll make your character stand out more."
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