The Returnee Hero’s Love Life
“Oh, come on. You two are clearly close—don’t try to play it off. You’re the only guy who calls Hasumi-san ‘Hasumin,’ you know? And she calls you by your given name ‘Shuhei-kun.’ That’s way too lucky, man. I’m jealous.”
“I’m telling you, really—there’s nothing going on. Hasumin and I are still just friends. Totally.”
“Still, huh?”
“…That was just a turn of phrase.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you have that for now. I mean, you did decide over summer break to ditch your gloomy introvert persona—kind of the age for that, huh?”
“No, seriously. Nothing’s happening. Sure, I think Hasumin’s a great girl, but we’re nowhere near that kind of relationship.”
“Haaah… if you say so.”
I spent five years as a Hero in the other world, Orphermaus. I gained the kind of mental toughness that doesn’t flinch at anything—and enough power to take down a Demon King. I grew a lot, inside and out.
But there was one area where I hadn’t grown at all: romance.
(I mean, that world was a battlefield where your life was on the line every day. Who had time to fall in love?)
In other words, my romantic instincts were frozen back in my introverted days—or worse, they’d regressed after five years of constant fighting.
But this kind of thing, you can only learn through experience.
Still, going out with someone just to get experience would be completely backward.
If I’m going to date someone, I want it to be real.
And if I’m going to have a real relationship—I want it to be with Hasumin.
“I’m only saying this because it’s you, Tomoya, but… I only just started to realize I might like her. I’m nowhere near the stage of actually dating. And besides, with this kind of thing, it only works if both people feel the same way, right?”
“You know, the fact that you can just come out and say you might like her, or that you think she’s a good person—that alone is amazing. I couldn’t say that, not even if my life depended on it.”
“Yeah… you’ve got a point.”
Tomoya was right.
Back in my gloomy introverted days, I never could’ve said anything like this to anyone.
“I mean, come on—even Hasumi-san’s clearly into you, right?”
“I don’t know about that. I feel like it’s still too early to say.”
“No, no—trust me, she totally is.”
“Just to be sure—do you actually have any evidence to back that up?”
“Listen, I’m a master of late-night romantic comedy anime. A rom-com connoisseur. If I say it, it’s legit.”
“Thanks for confirming your opinion’s completely unreliable.”
“Kufufu, fair enough. I thought the same thing as I was saying it. I mean, come on—using midnight anime as a reference for real-life dating? What was I thinking?”
“It’s like bringing a pool floaty to climb a mountain.”
“Ooh, nice metaphor! Man… I wish I could have a connection where I could say someone’s a good person, like you do with Hasumi-san…”
Tomoya muttered, looking up at the ceiling of the hallway.
“You’re making progress too, Tomoya. You really worked hard for the school festival, didn’t you? We’re only first-years—no need to rush.”
I spoke from the heart, seeing a bit of my old self in Tomoya.
And just like that, my high school life began to move forward again—peacefully.