MaruMA:Volume13:Short Story

Who is His Majesty the Maou's Bride!?

By the time I think ‘Uh-oh’, it’s already too late.

A salaryman desperately rushing down the stairs with an expression of panic collides straight in Murata and me. Just like that the two of us lose our balance, and tumble down the stairs from a height of twenty-five steps.

My name is Shibuya Yuuri. I never got off the train at Harajuku.

Today I was supposed to meet my friend at the turnstiles of a nearby train station in our district.

The time is 13 February, Saturday, 5.17pm.

I’m usually punctual, but this is a rare occasion where I’m two minutes late, hurriedly racing up the stairs, slippery from the snow yesterday, two steps at a time.

Murata Ken, who was in the same class at me during our second and third years of junior high, is wearing a super cute camel-colored double-breasted coat, together with a black scarf. Perhaps he realized I’m not at the turnstiles, so he is climbing down the stairs to look for me.

I remember he just finished his mock exams. He’s carrying his bag on his left shoulder, hurrying on his way unsteadily with one arm swinging.

“STOP, Murata! Careful, your eyes will fog up!”

“Nope, you got it wrong, Shibuya. It’s the other way around, the other way, it only fogs up when I go from somewhere cold to somewhere warm, or when I’m eating ramen…”

His foot lands on the platform in the middle of the stairs just as he says that.

I grab the handrail and bend down, desperately trying to suck the icy cold air into my lungs.

“Yo… Sorry, I’m late…”

“You’re not late.”

“But you know, I was the one who wanted you to follow me to the bookstore! In that case I should have been here fifteen minutes earlier, waiting for you at the place we agreed on, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

Murata’s gaze looks surprised beyond his glasses, and he pats me twice on the back, my aviator’s jacket making a dry sound.

“When you take me to a baseball game, you never say such considerate things!”

“That’s because you really enjoyed watching the ballgame too, right?”

In contrast, no matter how you look at it, calling a friend to help me choose reference books is nobody’s idea of a good time.

We decide to find a place to get warm first, then only scour all the bookshops around the station.

…This is all thanks to those embarrassing results from the term test.

The person who got such unsightly scores, is naturally yours truly. Those were the most unbearable scores I’ve gotten since I went to high school, plus the year-end exams are just around the corner, the results of which will decide whether or not I will have to experience the first year of high school all over again.

In other words, I may have to—r-r-r-repeat a grade!?

Brrr, just saying those words is scary.

But I do have my reasons. After all, in the past year, I was in an environment that didn’t allow me to focus on my studies. Not only was I sent to an alternate world through an unbelievable manner, I even suddenly became Demon King. The place I journeyed to had many conflicts and battles waiting for me, and I was even forced to face off with the leaders of large countries without any prior mental preparation.

As a high school student whose head is filled with nothing but baseball, I had to bear the brunt of diplomatic problems.

And there are a ton of problems in the country itself, so an underage brat who can’t even vote like me, had to figure out how to dissuade those people who wanted to resort to violence.

Anyway, the baseball boy of only sixteen years old, has been living such a cruel life for the past year.

Where will I find the time to study!

“About that~~ I know exactly what your situation is, maybe that’s why your results fell.”

When I told him of the crisis I was facing, that was how Murata answered me from the other side of the phone. Still, he was swept into the affairs of the other world as a major player too, and his results haven’t been affected in the slightest.

“But you haven’t told your parents, right?”

“How do I tell them? Do you want me to say, “Mom, Dad, thank you for caring for me all these years, I’m an impressive king now”? How do you expect me to say that!?”

“In that case, you won’t be able to get their pity.”

“Nothing I can do about that—But compared to my parents, the biggest problem is my brother!”

Maybe it’s the Shibuya family’s educational way, but my parents never had much of an opinion when it came to their kids’ results at school. My brother is the completely opposite of my parents, though, and always loved to pick on his little brother’s results since elementary school.

He will check my exam papers or report cards before Mom does, and then start nagging about how I got a few marks less than last time, or how I didn’t reach the average score for the year, finally coming up with comments that defy science like ‘You are a low grade clone of me’. In other words he will just keep scolding his little brother for my bad results.

And now if I really have to repeat a grade, who knows what gaze that guy will look at me with.

“…My brother will definitely kill me.”

“No way!”

“Even if he doesn’t kill me, he will call me the shame or the black mark of the Shibuya family, and trample my dignity into the ground. He even thinks I’m an obstacle to his making it big in life, so he might even exile me to a faraway island.”

“Exile to a faraway island--?”

“For all you know I may even start writing songs on that island, and those songs will be made into an album that is widely talked about after I die.”

“That’s pretty good, too!”

“That’s not good at all! If that happens I’ll be under house arrest on a deserted island, and will never get to watch a ballgame again, y’know!? If that happens I won’t be able to see the development of Ito’s long term management, and when he completely conquers the game and is raised into the air in celebration, I won’t be able to cry with him, will I!? It’s okay even if I wasn’t first in the preliminaries, as long as the team can choose me… Forget it… This is a dream that won’t come true even if I don’t repeat a grade… Anyway, if my brother finds out I repeated a grade, it’s very likely that I will never see you again.”

“So I’m actually that far behind? Whatever, which part do you want me to help you with? I think freshmen mathematics only gets hard in the second semester.”

“…Please help me study everything since spring when we started school.”

There is a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, until Murata yells, “Didn’t you realize your problem way too late--!”

Just like that, before I can handle my own brother, I first obtained my friend’s sympathy. It’s late in the ninth inning with two outs, so in order to turn the tables and bat a safe, I have no choice but to ask for help.

I’m not hoping for a home run, just a hit on the line. Even a touch or a foul from the other side is okay. In other words as long as I can avoid the nightmare of repeating a grade, I’m happy.

So I asked Murata, who had to go for a mock exam at his cram school on Saturday, to follow me to get reference books. We were supposed to meet at 5.15pm, because large bookstores tend to be around train stations, so I thought it would be more efficient to meet outside the turnstiles.

That’s right, we were supposed to meet at the turnstiles, not the stairs.

“Do you want to go eat something first? You’ve been using your brain all day, surely you’re exhausted?”

“Mn—Not really. It’s just that tonight my dad’s coming back from Hong Kong, I haven’t seen him for three months…”

A second after I heard that, that man rushing down the stairs collides into Murata and me.

That man is wearing a very common camel-colored coat over his suit, not even bothering to button up. He has a briefcase underneath one arm, his other hand pushing his glasses back up his nose. Maybe he’s in a hurry, because he’s looking at his watch as he runs. That’s why he never noticed the two high school students in front of him, and crashes right into us.

By the time I think ‘Uh-oh’, it’s already too late.

My sole falls past the line on the end of the step that’s supposed to prevent slipping, and both my feet float in mid-air. Murata’s body weight plus the momentum land squarely on my body, and my fingers instantly leave the silver railing, though I still had three fingers trying desperately to hold on.

“…gonna…”

I want to yell “we’re gonna fall”, but I can’t breathe through the anxiety, so I can’t make a sound either.

An intense pain comes from my back. The pain continues traveling to my shoulders, my upper arms and waist, only reaching my calves after a while. Just like that, Murata and I tumble down the stairs together.

…Hey …Hey …Wake up…

My consciousness blurry, I dazedly think.

This is ‘that’, that ‘Hey~ I poke’ game my mom loves to play so much. If you turn around when someone yells ‘Hey~’, your face will be poked by that person’s index finger. How annoying~~! It’s all Yuu-chan’s fault for having such a cute round face, Mommy just loves to pinch it! But your little heart must feel dissatisfied, huh? Eh? This shouldn’t be called “Hey~ I poke”, it should be “Hey~ Yuu-chan”, right? I’ll use that when I think up another game, then.

“Hey~ You two, are you okay?”

If I turn my head just like that, I’ll just make my childish mother even happier. So I decide to feint sleep, until they lose their patience.

Maybe it’s because she’s given up, because the young woman’s voice sounds worried,

“It’s not working, I can’t seem to wake him. Could someone call one of the station’s workers here?”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to call the ambulance?”

Ambulance!?

I think, “You don’t have to go that far, right? If you really call an ambulance, I’ll have to repeat the grade for sure!” Although I want to get up immediately, I can’t. Because my back and waist both hurt like anything.

“Ah, it’s too hard to get up immediately. After all, you two fell down the stairs.”

“…Sta…irs?”

My consciousness finally returns to reality. That’s right, a careless salaryman crashed straight into Murata and me, so the two of us fell down the stairs of the train station together.

“Oh, right, Murata.”

I don’t know which joint in my body got dislocated, because my vision is all blurry. Eventually the two friendly ladies help me up, and I finally get onto my feet.

“Your friend’s still out cold. But he’s still breathing, and his heart is beating too, so he should be okay.”

“Urk—Thank you for your kindness… Ouch…”

“Ah, sorry, does it hurt here?”

An unknown fragrance wafts over, and I actually get butterflies in my stomach.

Hold on a sec, right now I should make sure Murata is okay first, right? But I still can’t see properly, so I start desperately massaging my eyes, what on earth is happening? Could I have knocked my head? My eyes are obviously open, so why is my vision so blurry that I can’t even see my surroundings properly?

“Ah, you’re looking for your glasses, right? They’re right here! Don’t you move for now, I’ll put them on for you.”

Outside of the optometrist’s, I never had a woman help me put on glasses before. No, wait! My vision in both eyes is 2.0, this should be my first time ever, right?

“Sorry for the trouble, I really don’t know how to thank you… Waa, it’s me! Am I okay!?”

After some adjusting, my blurry vision turns abruptly clear, and the first thing I see in front of me is my body—lying on the floor, even, while the other young lady in a mini skirt has my head on her lap, making me a little jealous.

I walk up to myself, shaking myself with a trembling hand,

“Why does it seem like my condition is worse! Hey, am I okay? Did I knock somewhere!? The hand I’m used to isn’t broken, is it? Right, uh—Where’s Murata…”

Mn?

Wait, calm down, Shibuya Yuuri.

The one lying on the floor, is definitely me. That’s the Shibuya Yuuri I’ve been used to seeing in the mirror for sixteen years. It’s just that I’m used to practicing my batting in the mirror, so I only remember how I look like in my uniform.

Then, right now who is the person desperately shaking the unconscious Shibuya Yuuri? I clasp my hands tightly together and then pull them apart, this body is moving according to my instructions.

“…Strange?”

That’s strange--?

Just then, beside me I start groaning softly, blinking a few times and then opening my eyes.

“…Why…”

Just as I’m at a loss about how to address myself, Shibuya Yuuri’s mouth asks,

“Why am I… staring at myself… now?”

“I”? Who is the “I” my mouth is talking about!?

“Could it be Murata!?”

Of course it could be, it is Murata.

“…U-unbelievable. How did things get to this?”

Sitting in McDonalds with a bunch of heart-shaped decoration flying everywhere, I sigh for the fiftieth time. There’s a cooling paper cup of coffee on the table, and Murata Ken is sitting on the opposite of me.

I should say, Murata Ken with the appearance of Shibuya Yuuri.

“This is amazing, I can see everything so clearly. Who knew that I could see so clearly without glasses or contacts—Waa~~ This feels so fresh.”

“Now isn’t the time to be awed—“

The person with my body and Murata’s soul is looking around happily. I see, I didn’t think I could have that kind of expression.

“And this body feels so light, too.”

“Well, my butt and waist hurt like hell, as though I hit the same place a ton of times.”

“I’m guessing it must be because your reflexes and fitness levels are better, so you instinctively protected yourself. While I just fell all the way down, so I bet your body must be covered in bruises now! Later I’ll tell you where I keep my health card, tomorrow we’ll go to the hospital together…”

“Don’t…”

I splay myself over the table with the wooden pattern, the warm camel-colored coat sticking to my face.

“Don’t say it so calmly, would you--! And you’re using my face, my voice, saying ‘I, me, my’, it’s so weird to listen to! It feels like I suddenly became a sissy, it feels horrible! And that’s obviously my voice, my voice! It’s obviously me--!”

“Calm down, Shibuya. You acting like this will make people assume we’re some con group, you know!”

I raise my head hastily to see how others are looking at us, but all I see is a bunch of fog and nothing else.

“Damn—Why do these glasses fog over so quickly!”

“Oh dear, don’t get so agitated.”

Murata raises my hand to lightly tap my… I mean, Murata’s arm. What a mess. This is such a mess.

“I say, Murata, how can I not be agitated? Do you know what’s happened to us? Our souls switched! Inside my body is Murata Ken, and even though your body is speaking with your voice, the person that’s actually talking is me!?”

“All right, all right, of course I know that. It was probably the impact of our fall down the stairs that caused our souls to switch. This sort of thing is completely common.”

“Completely common? Ah!”

Through the lenses that have finally cleared up, I realize that everyone is looking at us strangely. I hurriedly lower my voice, putting one hand beside my mouth as I say,

“How can you still be so calm? Something as unscientific and unrealistic as this, how can this be common?”

“But it is really common! I remember it was in Doraemon, something about swapping mandarins and dried fish. Obayashi Nobuhiko switched before too, right? But that time they switched genders too, now that was a mess—”

Murata thinks his cold joke about “mandarins and dried fish” is not bad, so he starts laughing with Shibuya Yuuri’s face. That’s another new discovery, so that’s how I look when I laugh.

“Doraemon switched using his tools, so that can be explained with science, right?”

It can, right? Probably, I believe it definitely can.

“But we have no evidence or foreshadowing, we just switched after we fell down the stairs, right? And the most important thing is, what do we do next? If we tell anyone else that I look like Murata Ken but my true identity is Shibuya Yuuri, do you think the people around us will believe that?”

“Mn, probably not. Ah~~ Shibuya, the so-called body switching tends to be a short-term thing. No matter how long the time, we’ll just have to hang in there for a few weeks and we’ll probably switch back…”

“But what if we don’t switch back!?”

I hold my head in frustration. The feeling in my fingertips tells me that Murata’s hair is naturally curly.

“If the situation doesn’t change… Oh, yeah, the exams are right around the corner! That’s crucial to whether or not I can move on to the next grade! And you have exams too, right… Mn, wait a sec! In that case Murata will be taking the exam in my place… That way I should be able to avoid the danger of repeating a grade… Ah~~ No way no way! That’s just like having someone take the exam for me, just like cheating it’s not allowed! The person taking the exam is me, but not the real me!”

“Shibuya’s personality is as straightforward as ever.”

Murata drinks the cold coffee. There’s a lot of milk added into the paper cup, so instead of black, it looks more like milk-coffee color.

“And if I go to your school for exams, the results will definitely be tragic. After all you study at a celebrity school, just taking any exam simply will get you into Tokyo University… It’s over, it’s really all over. I will definitely fail, and leave an eternal single digit result on your report card… Not just that, if I cause the genius Murata Ken to repeat a grade, how will I face your parents!”

“My results for the first two semesters are not bad, so one failure won’t make me repeat a grade. And I told you so many times already, in-school exams have nothing to do with university entrance exams. Even if I can’t make it to the second year, I might as well pretend that I re-took a year, right? Relax, don’t think so much. Once we get back to normal, I’ll definitely be able to catch up. And even if I get expelled, I can still go for the university entrances exams, no problem!”

“Murata…”

As we talk, I can’t help but grip Shibuya Yuuri’s hand tightly. I discover yet something else—a baseball boy’s fingers aren’t at all nice to touch.

“You are such a good person~”

“Thank you for the praise.”

“By the way, Murata do you bat and throw with your right hand?”

“I think my body isn’t that good for playing baseball—”

Anyway there’s no point in overthinking this. Now all we can do is try our best to transform into each other, then calmly see what happens. When I forcefully come to that conclusion, a sense of weariness suddenly sweeps over me. Come to think of it, Murata’s body just went through the torture of a mock exam. Compared to Shibuya Yuuri, who spent the entire cold winter day sweating buckets, the tiredness of using his brain must be one step higher.

I’m still wearing the double-breasted coat that shouldn’t fit me as I lean my entire body on the chair.

“Mrgh—So tired, why am I so tired.”

“About that, although it’s no wonder, after all you did go through some trauma.”

“Mn… Ah—After I relaxed, the biological needs start showing up. I’m going to take a wee.”

“Ah, I want to go too.”

After throwing away the paper coffee cup and papers, I carry my bag and push open the toilet door. To deal with the current situation, we need to exchange information about each other’s families. At least tonight, if a little worse then tomorrow night, in the worst case scenario we may even have to live in each other’s shoes for weeks.

I am Murata, Murata is me… Ahh~~ This won’t work, I keep feeling as though I heard this line somewhere before.

“Speaking of which, Shibuya, what’s your dog called? Flanders?”

“Do you think my house is ‘Dog of Flanders’? Sigh—But winter sure is annoying, if the weather is too cold, it’s so troublesome just leaving the house…”

As we’re standing side by side in front of the urinal covered in yellow beads, and finally manage to pull our zips down with the hands we warmed at the heater… I suddenly realize something.

“Ah!”

“W-what happened!? Why d’you suddenly make such a weird sound, Shibuya! If I don’t hold on properly I can’t aim well!”

“Wait a sec, Murata, I’m standing here because I want to pee, s-so I must use this hand to hold your… in other words, Murata Ken’s excretory organ? And this isn’t something immediate either, as I’m peeing, I have to keep~ on holding someone else’s bird. Waa~~ What to do, I don’t want to hold it! I’d rather be beaten to death!”

I stare beside me and sigh again. Because Murata has started peeing.

“Waa, you’re holding my… Yaa! Don’t look! Don’t keep looking down and comparing sizes!”

“Why the heck are you saying such childish things? Everyone has to go to the toilet, right? Keeping it in for too long is bad for the body, at a time like this, we don’t have a choice, right?”

“But won’t you at least refuse a bit? T-that’s mine! Uwoo, oh god—don’t swing it!”

“On the other hand you shouldn’t copy me and sway your body, got it?”

Compared to my friend who solved the pressing issue instantly, I just can’t bring myself to do it. The problem is as my need to pee gets more intense, my brain gets even more confused.

“Mrgh, Murata’s holding my…”

“You’re making too much of a fuss over nothing, isn’t this hand yours too? Alright, if you want to pee just get it over with now. Don’t bother too much over whose bird this is! Otherwise just pretend you’re practicing how to take care of patients, won’t that work? Pretend you’re helping an old man go to the toilet. Just keep calm and grab it, then you won’t feel like it’s anything.”

“…I don’t want to keep calm and do something like this.”

“Well, what else do you want, do you want me to help you--? You wouldn’t want that either, right?”

Murata scratches his head impatiently, pointing at the white door,

“Go inside the cubicle to pee!”

“What--!? You want me to pee sitting down!?”

Even if we’re like lovers in front of a hotel, saying things like “I’m a little worried, why don’t you stay” or “I don’t want to go home tonight” to try to hold each other back, Murata Ken still can’t spend the night in the Shibuya household. In other words, the fusion of Murata’s body and my soul has no choice to return to my (Murata’s) house.

“I remember that the father who hasn’t been home for three months is coming back tonight. It’s just that he’s flying off to goodness knows where again tomorrow.”

Apparently Murata’s father, who does something IT-related in Hong Kong, and his lawyer mother who stays in a short-term apartment in Tokyo, spending every night in the firm, both only come home once in a blue moon. The way things are, he has no choice but to go home tonight. To the father, he can finally return to his own warm home, so he must really miss his beloved only son.

But that also means he’s usually a high school student who stays on his own. To me, who has an older brother sticking his nose into everything at home, I really can’t imagine what kind of life he leads. Your family environment is 180 degrees different from mine.

I stand at the door to the tall building, exhaling white breaths.

Although I’ve remembered all the basic bits of knowledge beforehand, if anything unexpected happens, I’ll still be unsettled. Still, I have no choice but to face two adults I meet for the first time and pretend to be a family.

At first I wanted to call Murata (who looks like Shibuya Yuuri on the outside) to follow me back, but today is one of those rare days where the whole family can get together, it’d be too awkward for a stranger to stick himself in the middle. And anyway, if the father he hasn’t seen for three months treats me like a real son in front of him, it would probably hurt Murata’s heart, right? No, well, the body is his son, that’s for sure. Since his father doesn’t know the truth, that’s only normal… But psychologically speaking, even I would feel very lonely.

“…I’m back—”

I finally manage to open the automatic lock, and get ready to pull open the door that Murata told me is the right number, but the door is locked. Well, that’s unsurprising, since it’s not been very safe lately. I look at the lamplight coming out of the windows, thinking that his parents should both be back by now, so I push the intercom and wait for someone to open the door, my heart a little… No, considerably nervous.

“A random ‘Good evening’ would be really weird, but ‘How are you’ is really funny instead.”

…It’s been a long time, and no one has opened the door for me yet.

I press again, and wait for a long time more, but there still isn’t any response.

So I throw it all to the winds and press ten times in quick succession. Finally someone opens the lock from inside, but I feel like immediately escaping the scene instead. It feels like I’m one of those criminals who rings and runs.

“What are you doing!”

The woman who pokes her head out isn’t asking a question. I’ve started out on the wrong foot, and swallow back the greeting that almost escapes my mouth.

“Ah, the door…”

“Don’t you have the key?”

There is indeed a bunch of keys in the coat pocket.

I think to myself, “Could all other families be like this?” as I take off my shoes at the foyer, completely missing the chance to say “I’m back”.

The woman who went in just now and looks a lot like Murata’s mother, just as I expected, was wearing glasses. Her short neat hair is dyed brown, and she wears makeup even at home, looking at first glance like Takashima Reiko ten years later. She’s the complete opposite of my mother, the perfect image of a professional woman. If I had to face her in work, she would seem to be a troublesome opponent, and she doesn’t seem to care overly much for her son either. Just thinking that this is just right for me to deal with, I quietly heave a sigh of relief.

I take off the coat in the high school student’s room on the left of the foyer, spending a bit of time at the sink washing my hands. When I raise my head, the mirror reflects my face.

Murata Ken.

Alright, Murata. It’s time to make a decision! No, I should be the one making a decision. After this I’ll have to have a touching reunion with the father who was away for three months.

So I prepare myself mentally and walk into the living room, only to see an uncle in a white shirt sitting on the sofa. He’s all focused on reading the newspaper, so all I see is the back of a head with thinning hair. That uncle… No, how can I call him ‘that’, this salaryman is obviously Murata’s father.

“Um…”

“Ah.”

His father raises his face from the papers by about 3 cm, looking at what should be his most beloved only son, but only for a moment, turning his gaze back to the paper in no time. Maybe it’s because he’s a multinational employee, so he must always pay attention to what’s happening in society; or maybe he hasn’t been in Japan for too long, so he’s desperate to catch up on domestic news.

If I have to use one line to describe what characteristics I caught in that short time, I would say he’s a lot like Sada Masashi 30% fatter.

So if Sada Masashi and Takashima Reiko got married, their kid would have Murata Ken’s brains and looks…

“Uh—”

Now there’s a huge problem.

I don’t know how to address the father I haven’t soon for so long.

Taking Murata’s personality into account, ‘Mom’ and ‘Pops’ don’t seem too proper. In that case, it’s either just ‘Dad’, ‘Papa’ or ‘Father’, right? Or like a high school freshman calling ‘Daddy’… It may be ‘Daddy’, for all I know it could really be ‘Daddy’—

So I make a decision, and slowly approach Sada Masashi.

“Ah—Uh—That… It’s been a while.”

What am I saying?

“Hm? Yeah, it’s been a while.”

The problem is his voice doesn’t sound like folk songs, and instead is a very powerful bass. I can’t help but be pressed down by the that minister-level pressure, and even say weird things,

“T-thank you for your three months of hard work.”

Hey hey hey, I’m not acting out ‘the Crime Boss’ Wife’!

Father raises the head he had buried in the newspapers, looking at his own son in all seriousness. Those goody-goody guy eyes are wide behind his retro-looking glasses. Perfect~ now’s the time! I can’t miss this chance, to talk to him properly! The most important thing is to take the initiative. I sit on the bright yellow sofa, trying to find a way to talk to him even if I don’t know him well.

“How’s Hong Kong? Is Hong Kong yamcha nice? Did you see Jackie Chan?”

“Same as always.”

Impossible~ Don’t say ‘same as always’! Since you went for three months, tell me about what you saw…”

“Ken!”

Although someone yells my name impatiently, for a moment I don’t notice who that person is calling. But still I immediately remember my character, turning around to look at the owner of the voice—only to see Murata’s mother with files all over the dining table, tapping the table with a pen cover,

“If you have to talk, would you please go somewhere else? I can’t concentrate like this.”

“Eh? Ah, sorry.”

“Your mother brought her work home again.”

Father whispers to a confused-looking me. Looks like professional woman these days all believe in bringing their work home to finish.

“If there’s nothing else, go back to your room and study?”

“Eh? But dinner…”

“You haven’t eaten yet!?”

I got shocked by them as well. What the heck, since your family always eats out, why didn’t you tell me earlier? I thought their whole family was looking forward to this reunion after three months, and would definitely eat around the table together! I even thought of saying that although there isn’t the smell of anything cooking, maybe they were going to call for sushi delivery or something.

“Geez, don’t you usually eat before coming home? Or you would buy something on the way back… Now you tell me suddenly you want to have dinner, I’ll tell you I didn’t cook a thing, you know!”

“Ah! It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay! I’ll just buy something from the convenience store! Is there anything you want me to get on the way?”

I was too naïve, to think I wanted to eat the food Takashima Reiko made.

I put on the camel-colored coat I just took off, running to the corridor outside the door. After dashing into the lift, I finally heave a sigh of relief. His family is harder to deal with than I thought, if this goes on for a few weeks, I might lose my mind to the mental wear-out.

After making sure that the keys and wallet are all in my pocket, I walk past the utterly silent entrance. Since I forgot to put on a scarf, my face and neck are in direct contact with the cold February air. I remember that if I turn the corner 200m ahead, there seems to be the light from a convenience store.

Just then I realize there’s someone walking over here, so I lower my head. If that person stays in the same building, the least I could do is say hi. If I gave Murata a bad name in the time I’m using his body, that’d be bad. I look forward slightly, and realize that she’s a girl about my age. She’s wearing a coat over her uniform and a scarf around her neck, but no socks underneath her checkered skirt. I feel cold just looking at her, and can’t help but shrink my shoulders when I brush past her.

“Murata-kun.”

What!?

Yet again someone calls me out of nowhere. I make some unintelligible noise and stop my footsteps, pointing at my chin using my finger and confirming with her,

“Are you calling me?”

“That’s right, who else would I be calling?”

She’s holding her bag with both hands, standing in front of me. Her face is red in the icy wind, her shoulder-length hair blowing lightly in the wind as well. She’s one of those you see in every class, the girl that looks like a class representative. She has a pair of large eyes, unwilling to admit defeat.

“Weren’t you supposed to spend the day with me?”

“Eh?”

Now that it’s come to this, I can’t just ask her, “May I know who you are?”

“You should be hanging out with me, but why did you go back first? And you only used a simple text message to reject me, is my existence that meaningless to Murata-kun?”

“H-hold on a sec!”

Class Rep (for now) puts her hand into the bag and pulls out a box. From the cute packaging unique to the season, I can obviously tell those are February 14 chocolates.

“Since I can’t meet you tomorrow, I thought of giving this to you after school today. And I had the present all prepared and ready, too!”

“Hold on a sec!”

Hold on a—sec!

Class Rep (for now), give me some time to think. Although Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, but because you can’t see Murata tomorrow, so you planned on giving him chocolates today, right? You agreed to meet after school, and prepared the chocolates, right? Just for this confession.

But who do you want to confess to? Who are the chocolates for?

“Murata-kun!”

“A-are you calling me!?”

“Of course I’m calling you, don’t act dumb, will you?”

Why do accidents always fall unnoticed? I thought I just avoided complicated parent-child relations, but the next thing I face is actually a Valentine Eve’s confession? Speaking of which, such a cute girl wants to confess to you, so why the heck did you bail out on her!?

Right here and right now, what kind of an attitude am I supposed to face her with!?

“Give me an answer.”

“Uh… Even if you want me to, I can’t give you an answer.”

I think an excuse like “I’m not actually Murata Ken” won’t work, and even if I’ve been pretending to be Murata from start to finish, I can’t simply give a reply. After all, what men like in the opposite sex can be as different as heaven and earth, so even if she fits my standards, she may not be the type Murata likes. No matter how good they look, girls who are too hot-tempered will get three strikes and they’re out… No no no, since she looks so cute, I could pretend not to notice her personality.

Class Rep (for now) frowns anxiously, holding the chocolate box tightly.

“Murata-kun!”

“Sorry, I can’t simply say something irresponsible… Ah!”

I’m fast losing track of what she’s asking me, when I hear the tune from Thunderbirds, and something in the pocket in front of my chest starts vibrating.

“Excuse me, let me answer this call.”

From the cellphone warmed with body heat comes the voice of the friend I just parted with,

“Shibuya?”

“Murata!? Ah, that’s not right, I’m Murata.”

I react happily like a child and hurriedly lower my voice. After all the girl beside me doesn’t know that we swapped bodies.

“Ah—perfect, come out quick. It’s really cold here, I’m in a public phone booth. I thought of something really important, but I can’t call you at home—the atmosphere in your house is really very warm, but your brother is nagging drunk in front of the telephone. He won’t even let me use the other phone—”

The big brother of the Shibuya household is actively looking for a partner, participating in group dates non-stop this month.

“Ignore him.”

“But he’s still making a fuss, asking me to call him Onii-chan.”

“Don’t listen to him, that guy has played too many eroge.”

“He says that if I don’t call him that, he won’t give me the sports papers he bought at the station.”

“Then just call him once! Now’s not the time for all this, all this isn’t important. Mu… No, AMIGO, you’re in the middle of something really important now!”

“What is it, AMIGO?”

You don’t have to copy the way I address you.

“After hearing this you sure will be in for a shock! But don’t be surprised yet, calmly hear me out—There’s a girl confessing to you!”

I try my best to lower my voice, but my friend doesn’t think much of my panic at all, instead laughing on the other end,

“I know, it’s Kamei, right? She’s angry, isn’t she?”

“Kamei?”

“That’s right, she’s called Kamei something… Ah~~ Yeah, Shizuka.”

“Isn’t that a politician?”

“What a bother~ Who would have thought she would catch me at my door? She’s as unwilling to lose as ever, I did text her.”

“You idiot!”

I cover my mouth with my right hand, crouching down with my back to Kamei Shizuka.

“Although her personality seems really tough to handle, but she looks super cute! Don’t reject her with a text, why don’t you try dating her for a couple months? Isn’t there a saying, ‘Try to bat, try to catch’?”

“Nobody actually says that normally, right? But she doesn’t only look cute, she’s pretty smart too. On that note, we were in the same class as her in the second year of middle school, y’know, Shibuya. It’s just that you don’t remember a thing, outside of baseball.”

“Really? I know her!?”

I look at the girl with her arms in front of her chest and an impatient expression on her face. Just as Murata said, I have no impression of her at all, but she does look very smart.

“…I really have no impression… Could it be that I sensed the danger, and naturally skipped over her?”

“Probably. Kamei hopes to decide who’s the winner between us once and for all with these mock exams.”

“Deciding it once and for all with the mock exams? But the real battlefield is the university entrance exam, right? Then what’s the point deciding the winner before that?”

“I don’t know, either—Anyway she’s not here to confess, but to issue a challenge! It’s just that the dates and schedules never sync up, she wanted to use the results at the cram school mocks today as the decider, it’s just that I only took three subjects before leaving.”

You shouldn’t leave just like that either!

Since he told me to pass the phone to her, I nervously hand the phone over to Kamei.

“I can answer the call if you want, but who’s on the other side?”

“Mura… Shibuya.”

“When you say Shibuya, do you mean that idiot Shibuya Yuuri whose head has nothing but baseball?”

In the cold winter night, I finally understand what kind of a person I am in a girl’s eyes. It really chills me to the bone.

Kamei Shizuka accepts the metallic blue cellphone, her expression full of surprise as she speaks. Her initially straight eyebrows start twisting unhappily, and I can’t help but stand at a side with my heart in my throat.

“…What is the meaning of this?”

What on earth did Murata say to her!?

Kamei’s tone gets angrier and angrier as she talks, until she finally says something instigating, and shoves the phone back at me. She uses so much force it’s like she wants to throw the phone onto the ground, it isn’t easy for me to catch it properly.

“I can’t believe it! The two of you actually became like that!?”

“B-became like what?”

Right now we’ve switched bodies, so the situation is indeed dire.

With Nobita’s feelings, I watch Shizuka leave with Gian’s footsteps before hurriedly asking my friend on the other end of the phone,

“What on earth did you say!?”

“Nothing much, just the truth. I said that Shibuya… In others words, I, am facing a crisis in the semester-end exams, so I had no choice but to ask Murata for help in a panic. And whether or not my friend can move on to the next year is naturally more important than Kamei, so it can’t be helped that she was rejected.”

“That’s all you said?”

“Mn, I also said, what placing Kamei got in the mocks has nothing to do with me, but if I have to repeat a year, Murata will feel as though he’s responsible for it too. And since I’m him important friend, Murata has a responsibility to help me become a great king.”

“You actually said such weird things, with my mouth…”

His nonchalant tone coming over across the electronic waves, sounds like it’s laughing at my helplessness.

“It doesn’t matter, right--? After all we don’t plan on going out with her, who cares what she thinks—”

“That’s not the problem…”

She misunderstood, she definitely misunderstood, once the word ‘king’ gets mixed in, no matter how she interprets it, it would definitely become very weird, and there’s no way she understood the real meaning.

“Let’s put that aside for now, Shibuya, didn’t I tell you I remembered something very important? That concerns your life from now on, so I have to tell you right now, it’s not clear over the phone.”

“Okay, I’ll come over to you right now. Where are you right now?”

“Look up—”

Opposite the zebra crossing with no traffic light, there is a telephone post with a lamp on it. Murata, with Shibuya Yuuri’s appearance, is just underneath the lamp, waving at me from inside the disused-looking telephone booth.

“Dinner is French style vegetables stewed meat, you know—”

His expression is just too idiotic, even I feel embarrassed.

If there is information we can search up, to use as future reference, no matter what I really want to know, how many days on average could the people in the past who ‘switched bodies once’ tolerate?

We switched just a few hours ago, but we’ve long reached our limits.

“Who would have thought that even someone like me would start getting restless.”

“I think it’s not bad, it’s pretty comfy in here. Your body is light and soft, feels pretty good, and it’s easy even to climb the stairs. When I bend forward I can actually the fingertips can actually touch the toes, this is a first for me in my life—”

“That’s the result of me working out every day… What on earth do you want to try?”

“A holistic trial, of course! I think a body that’s good with exercise sure is convenient.”

I on the other hand really envy people with a good brain. No matter how, this situation is really very unnatural. Add that to the fact that Murata said he remembered something very important, and I think we should do everything we can to return to normal! Even if we’re not sure whether it is possible to go back, at the very least we should try.

But Murata seems a little reluctant to return to his original body, could he really like my mother’s cooking that much?

In that case, it’s no problem if he comes over to my house for dinner every night.

As for the important thing he talked about, it’s like this.

He puts his frozen fingers into the hunting jacket pocket as he says,

“You have to choose a bride, y’know!”

“Choose a pride--?”

“Not choose a pride, you have to choose a bride. If I remember correctly, you’ve already officially ascended the throne in your country. And over there, it just so happens at the same season a now, there will be a large-scale bride-selection event.”

The shops on the street have already pulled down their metal doors, so the road heading to the station is a lot quieter than usual. By the time it gets to 9pm, all the local shopping streets will be filled with salarymen, exhausted from overtime on the weekends and ready to go home.

“Choosing a bride, huh—In other words, there’s something like Valentine’s there too?”

“Not at all.”

That line interrupts my image of group dating.

“There is more than one woman involved, yes, but you would be alone. In other words, there will be a selection for His Majesty the Maou’s bride from those who proposed and those who haven’t over the past year.”

“The Ma… my bride!?”

“That’s right. But ‘Who is His Majesty the Maou’s Bride!’ was an activity from quite a while ago, so whether or not it’s still held now, I’m not too sure myself…”

“Stop kidding, I should be to decide who I marry, right! Speaking of which, I’m only 16! Legally I can’t even marry yet, right!?”

“Please tell that to your Royal Educator yourself—Tell the person whose title may be like Royal Educator or Acting Minister or Prime Minister or Person-in-Charge etc!”

My mind immediately comes up with an image of Günter with his hands raised up high, talking non-stop, the remnants of snow under his feet looking rather slippery. If it was him, he wouldn’t care how old I am at, he’d just speed things up. Wait a sec, since it’s that Lord von Christ, it wouldn’t be surprising even if he shamelessly wore a pure white wedding dress and mixed in with the candidates.

“…Günter’s… wedding dress…”

“Shibuya, can you not imagine anything too scary?”

It’s because he’s more suited to a wedding dress than other people, that’s why it’s scary.

“Anyway, if you simply decide date a girl in this period of time, it may very likely connect directly to the bride-selection activity. Tomorrow is the long-awaited Valentine’s Day, too, so there may be a truck of girls lining up to confess to you.”

“…What a practical way of making fun of me.”

“What? Did I say something stupid that surpasses even magic? So, if I stay in your body like this, won’t it be me having to face girls confessing? If we haven’t returned to normal after one whole day, I can’t deal with the attacks by phone in the morning either. After all, if I reject them too easily, Shibuya wouldn’t feel right about it. Strictly speaking, since I’m not actually Shibuya Yuuri himself, if I simply agree to the girls, what would you think?”

I think it’s not too late to start worrying when someone does actually go on the attack.

But if we’re still like this tomorrow, I bet even Murata won’t be able to stand it. After all for the past sixteen years, I’ve been living a life without any luck with girls, even the only chocolate I get on Valentine’s coming from my mom.

“And, a nonchalant answer from you=me, might make the other party think they’re the Maou’s bride. Even if we argue that the customs over there are different from Earth, I don’t think those blinded ministers would listen to us… Shibuya, are you listening to me?”

“…Yeah, it’s probably better to return to normal as soon as possible. After so many years and still taking a mother’s chocolate, that psychological pressure is seriously huge. Letting Murata who’s so popular classmates are even coming by to issue challenge letters face something like that, I’ll feel bad.”

“Speaking of being popular, when it comes to Valentine’s, I’ll also receive cards from Hawaii, you know!”

“…Murata, when did you go to Hawaii?”

So nice~~ The other party must be a pretty girl from the island of eternal summer.

“My element was always leaning towards globalization. Alright, Shibuya, now we have to fall down these stairs in one go.”

“What!?”

I look down at the (seemingly) endless train station stairs, so scared I gulp a mouthful of saliva. The place we’re standing isn’t far from the turnstiles. From here down to the faraway ground, looks like about as high as Mount Fuji’s 8th Station to my eyes. It could be that my heart is swaying now that I’m actually there, and so my calculation ability has malfunctioned due to miscellaneous external factors.

“Really, Shibuya, did you forget? Did I tell you before--? As long there’s an impact larger than what we face when we switched, we can easily return to normal.”

“Wait a sec wait a sec, you said a similar impact, right? Not a larger impact, right!? Back tehn we fell down from the platform in the middle of the stairs, and now we’re on top of the stairs! If we fell from here, there’s no way we’ll escape unscathed, there’s a high chance we’ll just kick the bucket!”

“We won’t die, relax! And besides, there are prior cases. Also, Shibuya, don’t keep talking about dying like that.”

“Then you don’t simply tell me to fall down!”

“Relax, relax, we tried it once before. You just have to close your eyes, and everything will be like riding a roller coaster, it’ll be over before you know it.”

“Don’t please don ‘t be rash Murata even if we don’t do that the Earth will still go round—”

Murata seems determined to jump from the top floor no matter what, his hands holding my waist tightly, and taking one step into the air. Maybe it’s the break between trains arriving at the station now, because there are only a handful of passengers who got off the train walking by. It’s just that these rational people are giving the high school students hugging and shouting on the station stairs cold looks.

Maybe they are used to the things young people do these days, or those things end up the topic of casual conversation.

Hold on a sec, what if there’s someone we know here? If there’s a neighbor on the way home here, then by tomorrow we’ll definitely be a hot topic of conversation. Just then the horn in my head starts blaring next door Mrs Ono’s voice—

“Oh, dear, Mrs Shibuya, is your son troubled by something? I heard that he was going to die together in love with his male classmate from middle school at the statin stairs!”

Die together in love… die together in love… die together in love…

What a witness testimonial, as loud as a Dolby surround sound system.

“C-c-c-c-calm down, Murata! The way this is going, it’d highly likely that we’ll be treated as a couple ready to die together in love!”

“Ah, is that so—”

Murata says in a tone that obviously hasn’t thought too much about it, reaching his hand towards his head and touching Shibuya Yuuri’s hair, unruly on the winter, with an action I’m not used to. This is a pretty strange feeling. Although my hand is touching my own hair, it’s using someone else’s habitual movement.

“Even if it was like that, it wouldn’t be good for our reputation—And your brother won’t be able to become governor.”

“…In that short time you were there, what did you hear from him?”

“Nah, just some life plans. He planned for you to join Ishihara Promotion, you know!”

Is Shouri planning to make us all a governor family?

“In that case we have to pretend that someone accidentally knocked us down… Ah~~Sorry, could the two of you lend us a moment.”

My friend looks around for a while, and asks two people who look like they just got off from work and are headed home. They even point at their own faces exaggeratedly. The man looks to be a little over twenty, wearing a jacket and a hat that blocks his eyebrows, a bit of bristle I don’t like on his chin. As for the one next to him, holding his arm and leaning her entire body on him, judging from the way her breasts are pressing on his body, that should be his girlfriend. She’s wearing a cute jacket with knitted sleeves, and opening her mouth wide to laugh loudly, looking quite ridiculous. Those bright red fingernails that hurt my eyes are buried deep into his arm.

Her face red and her eyes moist, she stumbles over to us, but her face is still covered with a silly smile as she points at us and yells,

“Look, look—Tango! They’re dancing the tango!”

What dancing the tango? We’re not stuck together like this because we want to dance!”

They should be a little drunk… No, they’re basically dead drunk. They’re this drunk just past nine, by tomorrow they’ll definitely be drunk past human limits.

“Murata, are you sure about getting drunkards to help us?”

“Otherwise, do you think strangers would possibly agree to this?”

You got a point.

I’m at a loss for words and Murata ignores me, giving the man with his hat to his eyebrows the right of action directly.

“Excuse me, could you please knock into us? You just have to knock into us lightly with your body. Uh—If possible try to make it look like an accident no one will suspect.”

“Ah--? Pretend to accidentally knock into you guys--? It sounds a lot like an assassination, hey—What to do, no one asked me to do this before.”

“You’re asking me what to do, I don’t know either! The two of them are dancing the tango—”

Maybe ‘tango’ is particularly funny to her, because the girl has been laughing non-stop from start to finish.

“Just do as he says, then—It’s okay, do as he says, please-- I want to see the tango see the tango see the tan—go! Hey--!”

It sounds slow when I describe it but it was fast then, because that girl uses all the strength in her body to crash into us, while we were standing in place—though her hands were still holding onto her beloved man’s arm.

“Wait a sec! That’s not a knock, that’s an atta… Waa--!”

By the time I realize my body is slanting, Murata and I are already floating in mid-air. And as we’re almost going to hit the ground, I hear something unlucky. It’s not a joke, but some unlucky words.

“I want to dance the tango too--!”

As I think “What are you saying”, it’s already too late.

In the end we didn’t dance the tango as expected, but fall into a bundle instead.

…Hey …Hey …Wake up…

My consciousness blurry, I dazedly think.

This is ‘that’, that ‘Hey~ Nii-chan’ game my big brother loves to play so much. If you turn around when someone yells ‘Hey~’, your face will be poked by that person’s index finger. The little sister with her hair in twin ponytails shakes her head and says happily, “How annoying~~Nii-chan, really, I fell for it~~” But Big Brother you’ve played too many eroges. Also, you have too much imagination when it comes to little sisters.

“Hey~ You two, are you okay?”

If I turn my head just like that, I’ll just make my childish big brother even happier. So I decide to feint sleep, until he loses his patience.

Maybe it’s because he’s given up, because the young man’s voice sounds worried,

“It’s not working—I can’t seem to wake them up—What to do now—”

The young man… No, this isn’t someone else’s voice, it’s my voice. Although the words are pulled out, but that is indeed my voice.

“Nothing we can do about it, I don’t want to bring the cops into this, we might as well scram.”

The cops!?

“Ohh—But what do I do, I look like this—”

“What’s there to do, you’ve basically gotten 7 years younger.”

“Really? Do you prefer the young ones?”

Although I want to get up immediately, I can’t. Because my back and waist both hurt like hell. It’s practically impossible to get up immediately, since I did fall down from the top of the stairs. Oh, right, Murata and I asked a passing couple to knock into us, and then we tumbled down the station stairs, all four of us at once, too.

“Mmrgh… Oh yeah, Mura... What about Murata…”

“Ah, looks like he’s awake.”

He is Shibuya Yuuri.

“What!?”

Why am I looking at myself!? I rub my eyes desperately, terrified that I hit myself somewhere. But my fingertips turn out to be such a fiery red color.

“Waa, what is this!? My fingers are bleeding excessively! Oh god, what now? I pitch and bit with my right hand… But why doesn’t it hurt at all… Ah--!”

No wonder it doesn’t hurt. The reason my fingers are all red, is because there are a girl’s nail polish all over them. But why are my fingers so pretty all of a sudden?

“Hey hey hey—Normally people call that blood--? I used an hour on that masterpiece~~”

The Shibuya Yuuri staring at me, actually starts complaining all upset in a girly voice.

“Who are you? Speaking of which, who am I!?”

An unknown fragrance wafts over from my body, and I actually get butterflies in my stomach. But this time I can see very clearly, meaning I didn’t switch bodies with Murata.

“W-where’s Murata? Ah~~ Perfect, there you are.”

Murata Ken with his glasses all crooked, is standing right next the Shibuya Yuuri who’s crouching down and looking at me. “The two of us” are even stuck together, holding hands tightly.

Hold on, calm down, Shibuya Yuuri.

The person who seems very close to my friend, leaning tightly on him, is definitely me. That’s the Shibuya Yuuri I’ve been used to seeing in the mirror for sixteen years. It’s just that I’m used to practicing my batting in the mirror, so I only remember how I look like in my uniform. So then whose gaze is looking at them now? Who do these eyes belong to?”

“…Could it be?”

It couldn’t, right?

Just then, not far away from me, the man with bristles and a hat blocking his eyebrows lying not far away, blinks his eyelids and opens his eyes. Just as I’m at a loss at how to address him, the man’s mouth asks,

“Mmgh—Ouch… How is it, Shibuya, did we switch back?”

Could it be that he’s Murata!?

In that case, who am I this time…?

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