Shimotsuki-san Likes the Mob

Ever since then, Kirari Asakura has been thinking.

‘Who are you?’

The boy she thought was her friend asked her this question, but she could not find the answer.

Who am I?)

Kirari Asakura was unsure of herself.

She had never cared much about it until he asked her.

She had just been living her life as she wished, but before she knew it, she had lost sight of herself.

(After meeting Ryu-kun, I became …)

She remembered well how it all started.

It was the entrance ceremony. She met a boy named Ryoma Ryuzaki and made a decision to change herself.

(I just wanted to be the person Ryu-kun liked…)

At that time, Kirari was still ‘Kirari’.

Whether she changed her hairstyle to blonde, started wearing colored contacts, changed her tone of voice, or changed her clothes, she was able to keep herself.

But one day … she lost sight of her existence.

(Yes, that’s right. I lost my … sense of being when I was at the overnight learning program.)

It was an unforgettable event.

The boy she had a crush on had a crush on someone else.

It was an unforgettable incident.

(If I became the person that Ryu-kun said I should be and he doesn’t like me …, then what reason do I have to be me?)

He told her. Right after they met, she asked him what his favorite type was.

“I like people with flashy hair color. I don’t dislike dark hair either… but I think I prefer the Western look.”

Kiraly took the words to heart. The next day she changed herself, twisted her personality, and tried to get Ryoma Ryuzaki to like her anyway.

Thanks to this, they became friends, but in the end, those feelings did not come to fruition.

When she found out during the overnight learning program that he liked his childhood friend Shiho Shimotsuki, Kirari was not so sure about herself anymore.

(I see. That time… that time, when she found out about Ryu-kun’s feelings for her… No, it’s not only that. When I saw … Ko-kun, I didn’t know myself well.)

The person she liked was not the only reason.

When she saw the boy she thought was her friend, she strongly thought

–What am I doing?

Ah, yes, that was it.

Kirari clenched her teeth at the thought she finally realized.

(Ko-kun has changed. He had become much more attractive than he was in middle school…, but what about me? Am I really a better person now than I was in middle school?)

During the overnight learning program, he was so nice that he was protecting one girl even though she was the center of everyone’s attention.

Unlike Kirari, he was lively.

He was cool, to say the least.

Surely it was because of that person.

The girl Shiho Shimotsuki, whom Kotaro Nakayama was desperately trying to protect, must have been the catalyst.

(Ko-kun met someone who accepted him for who he was.)

Thanks to her, he had changed.

He had grown a lot as a human being.

She envied them both for having such a relationship.

Kotaro Nakayama and Shiho Shimotsuki always seemed happy.

In the corner of the classroom, they always seemed to be close.

They chatted in quiet voices, laughed at each other, and thought of each other.

Kirari, who could not build such a relationship with Ryoma Ryuzaki, was dazzled by these scenes.

So, even more so, she felt miserable.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, … and she began to wonder….

She no longer wanted to think of herself as the person Ryoma Ryuzaki liked, but she couldn’t be the person she was.

Because of this, Kirari no longer knew who she was and who she was not.