Prologue. We'll Just Hold Hands and Sleep
"We'll just hold hands and sleep……"
The moment the man heard those words, he slammed the emergency button.
―WEEEEEOOOO!
A shrill alarm split the air as the warning lights on the ceiling bathed the corridor in crimson. Female security officers in thick protective suits came charging down the hallway, and before long, a woman was dragged out with both arms pinned behind her.
"I swear I was only going to hold his hand! It was fully consensual!"
"You can give your full statement down at the interrogation room."
"Wait, please! Just let me see him one more time! I'll die without him, I swear!"
Her screams faded into the far end of the corridor.
In the corner of the safe room, a man curled into himself and pulled his blanket all the way up over his head. A female counselor kept a careful safety distance as she soothed him in a soft voice.
"It's all right now. You're safe here, sir."
In this world, a man was small, fragile, and precious.
The birth ratio between men and women stood at one to fifty. Over long ages, men had lost their aggression and their strength. Most could hardly bear to look at a woman's face, and it was common for mere skin-to-skin contact to trigger a full panic attack.
Women, on the other hand, had grown strong. Assertive, beautiful, and utterly ruled by their desire for men.
And desire, here, was crime.
To protect its men from extinction, the state built laws around them. Men-only facilities rose up in every city, and unauthorized contact was controlled with an iron grip. To approach a man, you needed qualification. To speak with him, a permit. To hold his hand, explicit consent.
That was common sense in this world.
And then, on a certain summer night, a man fell into this world — a man who would turn every last bit of that common sense on its head.
A man who didn't stop breathing at the sight of a woman. A man who spoke first, and casually offered his hand. A man carrying a fully intact Y chromosome, thought to have gone extinct long ago.
And the man himself knew nothing at all. Not how rare, how impossibly precious he was. Not how one single ordinary gesture of his could shatter a woman's reason. And not how dangerous those words were — the words women would hand him with a smile.
In this world, no man believed those words.
Not yet.