[Warning 15+]
Epilogue 2"Everyone" Has Decided That We Can't Pull Off a Rom-Com in Reality
─My heart is racing, and it just won't stop.
On the rooftop, now shrouded in the darkness of night.
I leaned against the warehouse wall, clutching my chest, which was starting to ache.
"─Do you understand now? Where will you—who's extraordinary—end up?"
The voice of "The Main Heroine," which had been echoing in my ears all this time, now felt distant.
Right now, Kiyosato-san was merely uttering those words as the voice of reality shattering the "Rom-Com."
"I don't know what kind of ideal you're chasing. But if—"
Step, step. The sound of Kiyosato-san's footsteps as she took a step back.
"If you're pursuing an ideal filled with everyone's smiles, like the ones in teen novels. If you do things that are extraordinary for that sake… …what awaits you at the end of the road is 'the worst possible ending.'"
Step, step. One more step.
"The thing is, the 'normies' around you aren't chasing ideals like that."
Step.
"I don't need ideals I can't achieve unless I keep working hard. I don't want to see ideals that have nothing to do with me."
Step.
"In our ordinary daily lives, as we mutter, 'Yeah, that's just how it is,' there's no other way to laugh together with those 'normies.'"
Step.
"Normies will definitely bare their fangs at those who ignore that and try to drag them into their own ideals."
Step─.
Kiyosato-san paused for a moment.
"And Ayano, the one closest to you—she's just a normie, y'know. Just like Mi-chan."
─Oh.
"No matter how lofty the ideals we set for ourselves, in the end we're still just normies."
A chill ran through me.
"Trying hard, trying hard, but unable to constantly live up to those ideals, and eventually getting caught between ideals and reality—"
My eyes fluttered.
"Suffering like that… …do you intend to make your 'childhood friend' go through that, Nagasaka-kun?"
I couldn't breathe.
"Right now, it's still possible to avoid reaching the absolute worst-case scenario. You can still turn things around at the very last moment. So, stop chasing your ideals here. Yeah—"
And—.
The girl who used to be the "Main Heroine" in my "Rom-Com."
"Before you make Ayano betray you, yeah—"
Finally, leaving those words behind,
Kiyosato-san walked away from me.
◆
─Rom-Com World.
That's the ultimate paradise, filled with a myriad of teenage dreams and hopes.
─.
─…Is that true?
Is that really the case?
All of you─.
Don't you feel at all that Rom-Coms are an idealized portrayal that aligns with the reality?
Rom-Coms, after all, are nothing but fairy tales.
They're figments of the imagination that have absolutely nothing to do with me—they exist only in a two-dimensional world.
Both their grandeur and their beauty.
Everything, everything, is nothing but lies and mere imitations.
To even dream that I could have something like that—really...
Thinking, "I have to try my hardest to get it,"
Isn't that just something extraordinary—and actually a hassle for others?
So—.
No matter how much information is gathered, no matter how thorough the preparations are.
No matter how many "Characters" are sought out, no matter how many "Events" are planned.
No matter how hard I try to stay true to myself.
…No.
The more I try to stay true to myself,
The "Happy Ending" I've been dreaming of seems to slip further and further away—isn't that right?
"…Besides, well…"
An ideal that has no "Main Heroine."
A story in which the "Main Heroine" is completely unable to save that ideal.
"That can't really be called a Rom-Com, can it…?"
A Rom-Com in reality would certainly not end with a "Happy Ending."
Then.
"Oh..."
The person closest to me—.
If that's really how things are in my Rom-Com, where all we can do is make that person suffer.
—Something like that.
"It's not an ideal worth pursuing—"
TL: Reeze27
ED: Reeze27
PR: Reeze27
RP: Angga Kun
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