053. First Love (3)
053. First Love (3)
She had asked me to tell her about the outside world.
That was the request the Girl had made.
For my part, it was a dilemma. In several ways, the request made little sense.
I had no idea where the so-called "outside world" began or ended.
And yet the girl easily dismissed my concern.
[Just anything]
[What you do when you wake up in the morning]
[What you do before you go to sleep]
Like that.
She even promised me additional compensation.
[If you tell me, I'll give you more rice balls]
[S-tier trade ratio, right?]
It really was a high trade ratio.
All I had to do was chatter about myself to the girl lying quietly in bed, and I would get food.
For me, constantly struggling to find enough to eat at the time, it was a generous deal I might never find again.
So I agreed without much hesitation.
A story of the outside world.
I couldn't clearly remember exactly what stories I told her.
They were probably nothing special. I must have rambled in no particular order about my life on the streets.
However, I clearly remembered the look in the girl's eyes as she listened to those insignificant stories.
They had sparkled.
Whenever that sparkle reached its peak, the girl would ask me something.
The content of her questions was mostly absurd.
It felt like she was asking things with absolutely no common sense whatsoever.
For instance, if I talked about sometimes eating grilled fish, she would ask something like, "Fish live in water, so how can you eat them in the city?"
Then I would explain the distribution process for fish as best I could, only to uncover another gap in her common sense. It went on like that.
After I finished spinning those tales — easy in some ways, difficult in others — for a few hours,
[Come again tomorrow and tell me more]
[I'll have rice balls ready]
With that sort of attitude, she unilaterally set our next meeting.
Of course, I went along with her demand.
As I said before, I was in a position where I would do almost anything for food. More than that, though, I wanted to know more about this strange girl.
At the same time the next day, I returned to the Ghost House and continued telling her about the outside world.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
And the day after that again....
I wasn't certain, but I thought I'd visited around ten times.
Each time, I had to tell that curious girl more and more about my life.
Of course, my day-to-day life didn't provide enough material for that many stories, so later on I told her odd things I had experienced in the past or simply made small talk.
During those conversations, I sometimes asked the girl questions in return.
Why she asked me to tell her about the outside world instead of simply going outside herself.
And in the first place, what was the identity of her and the mansion she lived in?
The Girl never properly answered a single thing.
She could write, but she seemed to dislike deliberately talking about herself.
The only things I could piece together from her brief answers and the circumstances were:
1. She had been in poor health since childhood and couldn't go out properly, let alone live a social life.
2. She had longed for the outside world, asked her parents about it and learned things from the internet, but it all seemed like a lie somewhere.
3. She had wanted to ask a local about the outside world, and that was when I appeared.
That was about it.
To add one more thing, her inability to produce a voice didn't seem to be due to illness.
It was closer to her having deliberately sealed her own mouth shut.
Thinking back on it now, it was likely closer to mutism — where one closes their mouth due to psychological reasons — rather than aphasia, where brain or nerve issues prevent speech.
I learned that because, as our meetings continued, she gradually began to speak.
Starting from very short, one-word answers like 'Yeah' or 'No,'
she gradually moved on to slightly more complex phrases like 'I know that too' or 'I don't know about that,'
and by our tenth meeting, she had even suddenly come out with this.
—I want to try being in a relationship with you.
I should say the idea didn't come completely out of nowhere.
I could roughly guess what had prompted it.
Because in our very last meeting, I had told her about romance in the outside world.
...Though what I told her was hardly expert advice.
For one thing, I didn't know much myself. Obviously, I had zero dating experience.
I probably just rambled about vague, obvious things: that romance existed, that a man and woman who liked each other might naturally start dating, that everyone should try romance at least once before they died...
That was my fatal mistake.
[Since we like each other, I thought it would be good to date.]
The girl answered, reverting back to writing.
I was dumbfounded.
—What do you mean? Why would we like each other?
[...So you don't like me?]
It seemed this speech pattern was something women were born with, even if no one taught it to them.
Anyway, by her logic, I liked her too.
Because we had secretly met several times, I had gotten food from her, and we had become very close.
...No. Maybe I did like her in a different sense too.
First of all, she was pretty.
Even without such impure intentions, the person herself was just charming.
Whether you'd call it innocent or bright.
There was a certain beauty in that child of a type you couldn't find on the streets.
But she probably didn't like me in that way.
If she had, she wouldn't have been able to make such a nonchalant proposal.
So I tried desperately to explain the difference between her "like" and my "like" and lead her to the conclusion that we couldn't date.
I tried, but—
my poor vocabulary and her lack of common sense defeated me.
So I just...
—Alright, let's date.
Decided to date her.
Because I figured nothing much would really happen even if we did date.
And then.
—What about a date?
The girl said that.
—A date?
[They say you absolutely have to go on a date if you're in a relationship.]
—Where did you hear... No, that doesn't matter. To go on a date, you have to go outside. But didn't you say you can't go outside?
[So we can't go on a date?]
The girl asked that in writing, then murmured out loud.
—I don't have that much time.
At the time, I didn't understand what she meant.
I didn't understand, but I also felt I couldn't simply leave things as they were.
She was a head taller than me, yet couldn't even get out of bed properly.
I wanted to give her a happy memory, whatever it took.
So.
—Alright. Let's go on a date, then.
[How? You said we had to go outside?]
—The Ghost House... I mean, we can just do it inside your house.
[In here?]
I answered yes.
Truthfully, until then I had never seen any part of the mansion except the girl's room.
Her parents weren't around during my visits, but wandering around carelessly still seemed like a bad idea.
And above all else.
[I can't walk properly. My legs aren't good either.]
I didn't answer with words.
Instead, I turned my back toward the girl's bed.
The girl climbed onto my back, and together we toured the mansion.
...Rinne interrupted right as I finished telling that part of the story.
"Kyaa~ Now that's what I'm talking about~"
"Could you not interrupt a touching moment?"
"Ah, sorry. That was exactly the ideal salvation-pure-love development I had in mind. It just slipped out."
Rinne apologized meekly.
She must have liked it that much.
The story of that girl and me.
In fact, at some point Rinne had stopped rolling around on the bed, sat upright, and started pressing me for details.
"Anyway, keep going with the story. So how was the date? And after that? How far did you go?"
"Ah, well...."
I couldn't really remember.
All that remained was the impression that it had been an incredibly magnificent mansion.
Rinne naturally couldn't accept that answer.
"No, how can you forget something like that! You remember everything else just fine!"
Well.
My memories of the other details weren't very reliable either.
The broad outline was as I told her, but the details surely contained distortions of memory.
It couldn't be helped, since it was an event more than ten years ago.
It would have been stranger if I remembered everything perfectly.
Anyway, what I remembered clearly was this:
That the girl had been incredibly happy when we finished the date.
She had pleaded with me to come back the next day, saying she wanted to go on another date.
And when I returned to the Ghost House the next day—
the Girl had already disappeared.
"...Huh? Disappeared?"
As if asking what that meant, Rinne tilted her head.
I shrugged.
"Exactly as I said. I went the next day, and she wasn't there."
"Why?"
"I don't know that."
"No, you could have asked the adults of the house."
I had intended to.
So I waited until late in the evening, but no one came.
As if they had abandoned the mansion and left.
"...What about you going to find her, Oppa?"
"I couldn't do that either."
I didn't even know the girl's name.
"You didn't know her name?"
"I never asked."
I had mostly been the one doing the talking while she listened.
I simply called her 'you.'
I did not have any other information about her either.
There was almost no way for me to search for her, and before long I gave up.
"Hwaaaaaah?!"
At that, Rinne fiercely protested.
"No! You have to find her even if it costs you your life! She's your girlfriend!"
"You call that a girlfriend?"
"She is your girlfriend! Even if you only dated for a day."
After saying that, Rinne changed her words.
"Ah, now that I think about it, it's not just one day. Since you never properly broke up. So you're still in a relationship with that sickly beautiful Girl even now!"
"No, how does that make sense."
"It makes sense here. If you don't like it, then go find her properly and tell her you're breaking up. You irresponsible jerk."
Strictly speaking, wasn't the one who disappeared without a word to her boyfriend the irresponsible one?
Rinne started whining at me while I stood there dumbfounded.
"So? Don't tell me the first love story ends here? You had a fated reunion at the academy about five or six years later, right?"
"No, nothing like that."
It really ended there.
That was why I said there was nothing much to it.
"No! That isn't 'nothing much'! That's an infuriating garbage ending! Worse, it's a serialization hiatus! Take responsibility! Take responsibility and give it an ending!"
Rinne raged, practically breathing fire.
For my part, I couldn't help thinking, "Aren't you also an author with a stalled serialization? Do you really get to complain?"
But there was no need to deliberately say that and make someone who was already heated even angrier.
I decided to return to the main topic.
"So? Having heard the story, do you think you can write the romance depiction?"
"...No. I feel like that garbage ending made my writing even worse."
That figured.
As I nodded, Rinne added one more thing.
"But while listening to your story, Oppa, I came up with a pretty good idea."
"A good idea?"
"Yeah. So, what I mean is...."
Rinne said.
"Let's experience being in a relationship for a day, just like you did with your girlfriend, Oppa."
......Huh?
"That was a plan I thought of from the beginning."
But it had been dismissed due to too many problems.
"What problems?"
"First of all, there's no man here for you to date for a day."
"Why isn't there?"
"Who is there?"
I asked in disbelief.
Then Rinne stretched out her index finger long.
And she pointed at me.
I was dumbfounded.
I was already dumbfounded, but Rinne said something even more absurd.
"Don't get the wrong idea, Oppa. I have zero intention of dating a loser like you. You just got auto-matched because you're the only human male around here."
"No, I don't want to date a girl like you either, you know?"
"Ha! Know your place!"
You know yours.
No, putting that aside for a second.
"If neither of us has any feelings, what meaning would it have to just be in a relationship in name only?"
Even if we assumed we were in a relationship without romantic feelings and tried something like a date, it probably wouldn't deepen our understanding of romance.
I had deliberately avoided suggesting that method because I knew the problem.
For the same reason, I thought Rinne's current proposal was useless.
But then, maybe she had some kind of brilliant workaround.
Rinne spoke confidently.
"I'm going to grant myself the narrative you just told me about your first love, Oppa."
For a moment, I didn't understand what she meant.
It didn't take long for me to figure it out.
"You're saying you'll grant yourself the effect of 'Liking Han Si-hu'? Like a kind of self-hypnosis?"
"Uh-huh."
Rinne nodded her head and added.
"For the record, it's a debuff, Oppa. Liking a guy like you wouldn't improve my life in any way."
Whether it was technically a buff or a debuff didn't matter.
Anyway, if the Narrative Granting worked as Rinne designed it... in that case, it might really be possible to experience romance.
After all, while the debuff or buff was active, Rinne would genuinely come to like me.
If we went on a date in that state, she could certainly improve her understanding of romance.
The question was whether she could actually create that kind of effect.
"Can you put it on properly?"
Rinne's skill distorted reality, but it couldn't do just anything.
The effect could be weak or entirely absent depending on the skill level or realism.
No, a weak effect wasn't the real concern. I was worried about an effect that was too strong, or one that produced a completely unintended result.
Especially because Rinne had never written a mental-manipulation effect before, I thought the risk of an accident was high——
"You have to accept the risk to get any return. Anyway, Oppa, you're just timid."
Rinne giggled.
Irritated by the sight, I decided not to try to stop her anymore.
To be honest, I was curious too.
Whether or not Rinne could create a mental-interference-type debuff.
And so, I gave my permission, saying we should at least test it——
The result was shocking in many ways.