Are You Okay With a Slightly Older Girlfriend? Volume 1 E-Book

Kota Nozomi

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

First-year high school student Momota Kaoru just saved a beautiful high school girl, Orihara Hime, from a train molester. One thing leads to another, and they end up going on a date! They have a lot in common: they both love video games, they both jam to their favorite songs on mixtapes, they were even both born in the Year of the Snake. Except... Orihara’s first game console used cartridges... and her old mixtapes are all on MiniDisc... and, oh, her birthday is actually 12 years before Momota’s! When her secret comes out, she thinks it must all be over... but will Momota really let something like a little age gap get in the way of his love for Orihara? Find out if love really can transcend generations in this sugar-sweet romantic comedy!

Leseprobe

Prologue

In my opinion, there’re way too many princesses who fall in love at first sight. Cinderella, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, Sleeping Beauty, even Juliet: the majority of famous princesses fall in love right away.

They suddenly fall in love, become completely infatuated, and get all excited thinking “This must be destiny!” Then, without so much as a single date, they accept the prince’s marriage proposal. Seriously, do they only care about looks? Or is it the position of “prince”? Is the lesson here that an attractive person with money and power is the best?

It’s not just the princesses either. Princes are just as bad. Just from looking at the princess’s face, they fall head over heels like “What a beautiful girl, I shall make her my wife!” and propose without any kind of courtship. Among the offenders is some guy who fell in love after looking at a girl’s face while she was asleep. Good grief, is it all just about the girl’s face too? Is the lesson here that all a girl amounts to are her face and her youth?

In any case, these are basically just speed marriages. They walk down the aisle at super speed and everything is wrapped up with an “and they lived happily ever after.” Even a tragic fate like Romeo and Juliet’s only took about two weeks.

Nowadays you’ll see stories in the harem romantic comedy genre catch flak because it’s inconceivable that any of the heroines could fall for the main character, but personally I think that criticism should be levied more at classical literature. I just don’t get it. I don’t get why the princess and prince fall for each other. “Love at first sight” is a crappy excuse to just conveniently wrap everything up.

...Or, well, all that’s how I felt before, anyway. Now, ever since I met her, my whole way of thinking has taken a 180. My world was turned upside down. Love at first sight does exist. I now empathize with the princesses and princes of the world. Come to think of it, an English mystery writer once said that “The only true love is love at first sight,” and now I think that guy might just have a point. Because on that day, at that moment, I fell in love at first sight.

Actually... maybe I just want to make the whole thing into love at first sight. Now that I’ve actually fallen in love, maybe I want my love to be love at first sight. I want to think that because I’ve fallen in love, maybe the first time we met truly was something special. I want to feel like maybe it was destiny. Maybe I want everything about our story to be sacred. I can’t deny the possibility that my brain is tweaking the narrative to make it so.

Come to think of it, maybe these mental gymnastics themselves are what “love at first sight” really means.

You might say it’s a form of self-hypnosis that comes from having love on the brain. It’s not that you fall in love when you first look at someone: after you’ve come to like and eventually fall in love with someone, your brain conveniently restructures your memories so that, when you look back, you’ll be able to say, “I knew from the moment we met that we were destined to be together.” It’s entirely possible that “love at first sight” is nothing more than these distortions and rewrites to your memories. Or something like that.

Anyway, I think I’ve monologued long enough to hide my embarrassment now. It’s about time we get to the point. It all starts with how we met. When I look back, now that everything has been laid bare, I can’t help wanting to laugh at how funny, novel, strange, and just like a fairy tale the whole thing was.

Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time There Lived a Very Pretty Princess

It was an early Monday morning. I let out a small sigh inside the crowded train I take to school. The time of day was smack dab in the middle of rush hour for workers and students. By the time the train reaches my station, the cars get so crowded that you’re not able to sit down or even grab onto a ceiling handle. Now, for those living in the metropolitan area, not being able to even get a handle might not seem like a big deal, but for someone from a northern provincial city like myself, a train is something that you sit down in.

Normally, I board two trains earlier than this one, sit in a seat and enjoy a nice, relaxing morning commute. On Mondays I buy a copy of Jump from the convenience store in front of the station, read it on the train, and, after arriving early to my classroom, I leisurely reread the comments section and previews for next week; it is my Ultimate Routine. However, thanks to the terribly simple reason of me oversleeping, this tradition was tragically smashed to pieces.

I knew I shouldn’t have stayed up reading manga and should have just gone straight to bed. Why is it that so many manga apps lately update at around midnight? Though I know in my head that it would be best to read them when I wake up in the morning, I just can’t help myself and end up staying up all night. Staying up all night reading manga apps, oversleeping, and getting depressed because I missed my chance to read Shonen Jump: this is daily life in May for me, high school first-year Momota Kaoru.

In the midst of having my stamina and liveliness erased by my lack of Jump and the crowded surroundings, the train came to a stop at the next station. The doors opened and even more passengers huddled into the train, forcing me farther into the back. I somehow managed to secure my own space near the door on the train’s opposite side.

In that moment, I saw her. In that moment, I was entranced by that lone high school girl.

“......”

My heart was suddenly overwhelmed by how cute and pretty she was as I watched her gaze out the train window dressed in her blue blazer. Her skin was pure white, and her features were beautifully proportioned. Her face had a lingering youthfulness to it, while her long eyelashes and lightly painted lips emphasized how womanly she was. Her long, glossy black hair gave off an air of tidiness, but it was still styled on the ends like you’d expect from a typical high school girl. Awash in that stifling heat peculiar to crowded trains, she appeared to me like a mirage, glowing with a faint, cool light.

I snapped back to my senses and, slightly flustered, I cast my gaze outside the train.

Oh no, I’m totally staring at her too much...

But she was so pretty I couldn’t help staring. She was so cute. And... so BIG. There they sat, underneath her blazer, pushing up her thinly knit sweater: two rolling hills with the ability to drive a man insane with one look. So abundant... hanging so heavy... the kind of terrifyingly beautiful breasts whose very existence feels like a crime, breasts that make you want to sue someone. And then there were her legs, covered by her black stockings underneath her pleated skirt, perfectly sized, neither too thin nor too fat—wait, hold up. Why was I focusing so much on her sexy parts? It’s way too early for me to be this horny.

In any case... something was strange. Her blazer was from Tourin Girls’ High School. Around here, that’s a pretty famous school for rich girls. However, this train was heading in the opposite direction of Tourin. In fact, she was the only person on the train wearing that school’s uniform. If she got on by accident, she should be getting off somewhere soon... Maybe she forgot something? Feeling like something was off, I looked at her again. Yeah, something definitely felt off. It’s not that I was staring at her again because I was horny. And I definitely was not thinking I wanted to get lucky and see her heavy melons bouncing in rhythm with the train.

Without moving my head, I took a look at her with my peripheral vision, and it was then that I realized that her face was completely pale. Also, I could tell it wasn’t because she was sick. The reality was that her well-proportioned face was stiff from fear. Her tightened lip shivered slightly, and her hand was clutching her pleat skirt so hard it made an unsightly wrinkle.

It wasn’t long before I saw the reason for this. It was a train molester.

I was witnessing the sight of a train molestation happening in real time. The high school girl’s rear was being groped by a hand that had blended into the crowd, the hand of the man who was standing behind her. He was wearing glasses and looked like a white-collar businessman. From a glance, he had an earnest appearance and didn’t look like the kind of person who would do this kind of thing. That said, his hand moved freely, and his face was completely calm. His other hand was handling his smartphone so as to distract from the former. He looked like he was totally used to doing this.

Are you serious? Just what are you trying to pull this early in the morning? Wait, haven’t I heard before that train molestations happen surprisingly often in the morning?

In the face of the defenseless girl being encroached upon by his despicable hand, I felt something like righteous indignation well up from the pit of my stomach. However, having never been in a situation like this before, my mind went blank.

Wh-What should I do...?

I couldn’t just ignore the situation unfolding before my eyes. More than anything, I couldn’t just leave her. I wanted to save her.

But what should I do...? If I just cause a ruckus without thinking, it won’t do her any good.

Just when I was thinking that I should calmly take a picture to get evidence of the crime, our eyes met. The moment she looked at me, her eyes filled with tears, my plans went out the window. Before I could think, my body moved.

“Hey!” I said as I forced my way through the crowd and grabbed the hand of the businessman.

“Wait, what?!” he said, his voice almost a shriek.

I desperately suppressed my fear and did my best to look intimidating. Honestly, I was really scared. Just thinking about the possibility of this man flying into a rage made me feel like my legs might start shaking. The reality is that I’m a hardworking honor student (no after school activities, to be fair) aiming for perfect attendance, but I was doing my best to keep this guy in check by acting like a delinquent. I squeezed his arm and roughly raised it into the air. Luckily, he was slim and shorter than me.

“Wh-What’s wrong with you?! What are you doing all of a sudden...?”

“Don’t play dumb. This entire time you’ve been—”

It was at that moment that the girl’s face caught my eye. With her face twisted in fear and shock, she still seemed on the verge of crying.

Aw man, I did it now. I shouldn’t have acted so carelessly. Because I made such a scene, I was getting curious looks from all sides.

“What’s happening?”

“He said it was a train molester.”

“Train molester?! For real?!”

“That’s hilarious.”

“Who is it? Who did it?”

“It might be a misunderstanding, though? Lately it seems like false accusations of train molestation are on the rise.”

“I can’t stand women who think that every time someone touches them on a train they’re being molested.”

The inside of the train car was overflowing with curious looks and voices. There were even some people taking out their smartphones and pointing them in our direction.

At this rate, by catching the train molester I’ll have gotten her caught up in and shamed by all of this. Crap. What should I do? What should I do?! After feverishly thinking it over, I had my answer.

“Th-This entire time you’ve been touching my ass!” I yelled.

Both the perpetrator and the actual victim looked at me in shock. An awkward atmosphere permeated the surroundings, and before long the sound of laughter slipping out could be heard.

“What, you’re joking. A guy got molested?”

“Isn’t that called reverse molesting?”

“Naw, it’s not called that when a dude touches another dude.”

“That’s hilarious.”

“Well, love has no boundaries.”

An intense feeling of embarrassment was welling up in me. However, now wasn’t the time to back down! I’m pushing on!

“S-Seriously man... Don’t be getting all horny this early in the damn morning. Even if my ass is so cute that it just makes you wanna grab it!”

“What are you going on about? I don’t like gu—ow!”

I grabbed his arm forcefully to prevent any kind of counterargument.

I’m begging you, old guy who looks like a businessman. You’d rather be mistaken for a touchy old man than a full-blown train molester, right?! I don’t want to make things worse! I’ll let you off the hook, so just read the damn room!

Thanks to my frantic eye contact, or perhaps the scary look on my face, the old man went completely silent.

“Good. Don’t ever try that crap again!” I said firmly, returning to where I was originally standing and glaring out the window. I didn’t have the courage to look behind me. The train car was abuzz with everyone talking about me.

When the train stopped at the next station, the old man practically ran away as he got off the train. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my stop yet. I really, really wanted to get off, but if I did I’d be late for school, so for the sake of my perfect attendance I stayed on. Because the perpetrator had left, everyone’s attention was focused on me. One after the other, they played the telephone game until suddenly the original message became “Him, over there. That’s the boy who, like, molested someone it seems like.” The masses sure can be scary...

In the end, for the ten minutes it took me to reach my station, I became the talk of the town inside the train car. It really sucked having so many people whisper about me, but no one seemed to realize it was actually the girl who had been the molester’s target. Thank goodness for that, at least.

When I reached the last stop, I practically ran away from the train as I got off, and half-ran through the ticket gate.

Aw man... What happens if this whole thing becomes a rumor and spreads around? I’m pretty sure there were a bunch of guys from my school on that train. What if some idiot without any common sense uploaded a picture to Instagram or something like that?! Ugh, my high school life is over...

Just as it seemed I was about to be crushed by despair, as I finally brought myself back to a walking pace I heard, “Wa-Wait! Please wait!” I stopped walking, turned around, and saw that it was the girl from the train running towards me.

“Thank goodness. I made it.”

She had her hands on her knees and was trying to catch her breath. Because she was doubled over, her large breasts—which I totally wasn’t paying attention to—were emphasized even more than before. Whoa. Getting a good look again from the front, I could see they truly were huge... and she really was cute. Her hair was smooth, and her facial features were pronounced. Her makeup was subtle: it complemented her natural beauty without seeming too thick anywhere. Her school uniform on the whole seemed a size too small, but it accentuated her curvy figure. Just calling her a pretty girl didn’t do her justice, as she seemed to be more than just some pretty girl you’d see at school. Maybe you’d call it charm; maybe you’d call it sex appeal; whatever it was exactly, she gave off a mature air that high school girls around here just didn’t have.

“Um... Thank you so much for earlier!” she said before catching her breath and bowing deeply.

“I was so scared, and I didn’t know what to do... but thanks to you, I was saved. Thank you... and I’m so sorry for causing you trouble...”

“Ah, well, it’s no big deal,” I said hesitantly. Being thanked and apologized to so politely made me feel ashamed too.

“I didn’t really do anything special. I mean... I’m sorry too. I feel like it would have been best to turn that guy over to the conductor or one of the station attendants.”

Really, that probably would have been the best thing to do. To make sure that the punishment fit the crime, that the molester was given a proper sentence by his peers, his crimes should have been brought to trial and judged by the law. However, my selfish decision spared him such a punishment.

“No! Please don’t apologize!” With a strong voice, she firmly denied my apology.

“To keep me from being shamed, you put yourself in harm’s way, right?”

“...Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. Because of me, you had to go through all of that.”

“D-Don’t worry about it. It’s something I did on my own.”

“...Thank you. I’m really glad that you saved me.”

She smiled cheerfully, her eyes squinting with tears. I felt too embarrassed, so I turned to face away.

“Oh no. It’s already so late,” she said while looking at the clock on the side of the station building, seeming panicked. The clock read that it was already past 8 a.m., and both of us needed to get on our way to our respective schools.

After we part ways here, we’ll probably never meet again...

I found myself overcome with an unavoidable feeling of loss. I wanted to talk to her more. I wanted to see her again.

What should I do...?

Is this an appropriate situation to ask for her contact info? It couldn’t be, right? It would be awkward for her. With this timing, it’d be like I was coercing her into doing it. I might as well be saying “I saved you from that molester, so the least you can do is tell me your phone number.” Even if she didn’t want to, she seems like the kind of person who would tell me out of sheer gratitude, which makes it that much harder to ask. Even still...

Just as I was really overthinking it, unable to move even a step forward...

“E-Excuse me,” she said, cracking into a falsetto from how nervous she was. When I looked at her, I could see that her white cheeks had turned red.

“If it’s alright with you... can you give me your contact info?”

She murmured that last part, and I was blinking from how stunned I was.

“Umm... well, I want to thank you properly for today sometime, b-but if it’s any trouble, please don’t worry—”

“It’s no trouble at all! I’ll gladly give it to you!”

We both took out our cellphones and exchanged our Line usernames.

“Momota Kaoru, -kun... is that right?” she said while looking at her phone screen.

“Yes,” I said, nodding my head in confirmation while looking at my own screen. It seemed like she and I were both the type to use our real names when using Line, so I finally got to know her name.

“Orihara, Hime, -san?”

“Yes,” she nodded shyly.

“Hehe... it’s kind of embarrassing, right? ‘Hime,’ like how you’d call a princess... When you’re little it’s okay, but when you get to be my age it’s—”

“No,” I said, without really knowing why.

“I think it’s perfect.”

Orihara-san’s face became red in an instant. I probably looked the same way. I was so embarrassed that I felt like I was gonna lose it.

“Come on... don’t say that, it’s embarrassing...

“...Th-Thank you Momota-kun.”

Spilling out those words, Orihara-san seemed both happy and embarrassed as she smiled. Her smile was so bright, I felt a pain like my chest was being bound up. At the time, I still didn’t understand what that pain meant.

❤

“...So, you found a girl you like? Drop dead.”

My friend Urano Izumi’s response was as harsh as I’d expected. It was lunchtime, and just like always, I was eating lunch with Ura in an empty classroom. Aside from us, no one was there. It was about a month after entering high school, and our classroom during lunch was devolving into a space for the more outgoing and social students. Unable to adapt to that kind of environment, I chose to come to this empty classroom at the end of the school building and have lunch with a friend who was easy to get along with.

“I didn’t say anything about liking her. Just... I’m kinda interested in her. All I’m saying is that there is a possibility that maybe I like her—”

“A guy big and tall like you talking like a girl is creepy. And you’re a traitor.”

“Traitor? What are you talking about, what exactly have I betrayed?”

“I thought that at least Momo would never betray me...”

From behind Ura’s long bangs I could see his eyes boiling with hate, cursing me.

“I thought we would proudly walk the path of the introvert together, unfazed by the deceit-filled illusions of things like ‘youth’ and ‘romance.’”

“The hell is the path of the introvert?”

“Remember, Momo! Back in middle school, during crappy events like Christmas and Valentine’s Day, we used to curse the world together, right? The idiots dancing to the tune of corporations and their marketing of the holidays were the targets of our laughter as we drank delicious champagne!”

“Ura, stop digging up such cringey memories. I’ve moved on from that since middle school. Now that I’m in high school, I actually want to get a girlfriend.

“...Also, we never drank champagne, that was just some kid-friendly stuff. I’ve had enough cursing the world while drinking fake booze on Christmas, thank you very much.”

“Bah. In the end you’re just a foolish commoner drowning in the foolish idea of romance. Get away from me, you idiot. Go get an STD and die.”

Ura turned his face away as he pouted and put the straw from his vegetable juice into his mouth. I sighed. Urano Izumi: his stature was short, and his build dainty. If you got a good look at him, you could see his face was well put together. However, this was all ruined by his unkempt hair and his lifeless eyes that resembled a dead fish. Occasionally his dark eyes would light up, but that was usually when he was engaging in some schadenfreude towards the more outgoing crowd. We’ve been inseparable since elementary school. Along with another friend of ours, we hung out a lot as a trio.

When Urano Izumi, aka Ura, was little, he was the type of bright and cheerful kid who would normally become the leader of his class. However, after a middle school career that was a hell resembling heaven, he descended into being one of the most antisocial antisocials.

“In the first place, what’s with the whole ‘you saved her when she was getting molested on the train’ thing? Is this a manga or something?”

“I’m sorry, okay? That’s just what happened.”

“Anyway, that Tourin girl was wearing an already proportionately short skirt and showing herself off, right? She’s a slut I tell you, a slut. A confirmed easy lay. With an outfit like that, it was only natural that a train molester—”

“HEY.”

My voice was so low I even surprised myself. Hearing Orihara-san being insulted like that made me lose my temper to some extent. I was probably glaring at him too.

Ura let out a shriek as he almost fell from his chair.

“Wh-What’s going on... v-violence?! Are you resorting to v-violence?! Putting your hands on me means that you admit that you can’t beat me with your words! I win! Argument refuted!”

“Relax, I’m not gonna do anything.”

Basically, this guy is pretty timid. Around people he’s close to he talks a lot of trash and acts arrogant, but in reality he’s shy and kind of a wimp. In his class, he’s always loitering by himself with nothing to do. However, when I go to the neighboring class to visit him he’s like, “Wh-What are you doing here, you bastard?” and runs up to me with a big smile. I mean, he’s cute.

“...Anyway, what are you gonna do, Momo?” Ura asked, having regained his composure and returning to his seat.

“Are you going to date that girl?”

“No, you’re getting ahead of yourself. We’ve only just exchanged contact info.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Dude... that’s what I’m asking you for advice about.”

Thanks to good fortune, I was able to get her contact info. However... with no experience in romance, I had no idea what I should do next. Should I contact her as soon as possible? Should I wait for her to contact me?

“I see. In that case, let me give you a piece of advice—you’re asking the wrong guy.”

“I know that.”

Just like me... no, even more so than me, his social life is dead. There’s no way he knows anything about the strategies or subtleties of romance. After all, all of his romantic experiences are two-dimensional.

“For that type of advice, go ask Kana.”

“Yeah, I thought the same, but... if I asked him for help, he’d probably give me advice that’s too high-level, you know?”

“You’re right. He’d probably say something like ‘What? How about just contacting her?’”

“So, before that, I figured I’d get you to listen to me since you’re low-level.”

“Oh, I get it... Wait, who are you calling low-level?!” said Ura lightly, playing the straight man before his face became pensive.

“Well, I don’t really get it, but wouldn’t it be best to wait? You did save her, and she did say that she wants to thank you, right? In that case, she’ll definitely get in touch with you when the time is right for her.”

“That’s true, but isn’t it more manly to get in touch with her first? I was thinking that maybe it’d be a good idea to at least send a greeting first.”

“Okay, why don’t you?”

“B-But... becoming too greedy is no good either. I definitely don’t want to use the fact that I saved her from a train molester to try something like taking the lead.”

“...God, you’re tiresome. So this is the creature known as a virgin,” he said like he despised me.

Dude, you’re a virgin too... On the Christmas of our second or third year of middle school, I remember we got all excited forming that dumb “Virgins for Life Alliance.”

“Momo, you’re getting way too worked up from just exchanging names on Line. As we speak, that woman is probably already over it. She’s probably thinking to herself, ‘Geez, I said I was gonna thank that guy just to be nice, but it’s such a hassle. I’m just gonna ignore him.’”

At that very moment, my smartphone, which I had placed on the desk, vibrated to let me know I got a message on Line. I quickly snatched my phone off the table. It displayed the sender of the message as... Orihara Hime.

“Good afternoon. I’m sorry to disturb you during lunchtime,” the message began, in a manner surprisingly stiff for a high schooler. She politely repeated her gratitude from that morning then got to the point of the message.

“I’d like to thank you for this morning, so, if it isn’t any trouble, may I meet you tomorrow after school?”

While reading that sentence, I probably had the goofiest look on my face. And Ura, with a sour look on his face, clicked his tongue and said “Drop dead.”

We agreed to meet up at the plaza in front of the station building the next day. Not wanting to be late, I showed up thirty minutes early. I watched the passersby coming and going along the dusk-soaked street as I awaited her arrival.

It was pathetic how nervous I was. I compulsively checked my phone, time and time again. I even used the glass door in the station building entrance as a mirror to fix myself up and straighten my hair which, dammit, I just couldn’t seem to get right. I knew I should have gone to a hair salon.

Table of Contents

Cover

Prologue

Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time There Lived a Very Pretty Princess

Chapter 2: The Princess Had a Secret

Chapter 3: Yes, the Princess Was Pushing Thirty

Chapter 4: They Both Will Walk Together

Chapter 5: Their First Sleepover

Chapter 6: And They Both Lived Happily Ever After

Afterword

Color Illustrations

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Table of Contents

Color Illustrations