19.Let’s Talk

Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy

Iris/Yanagi
The strange girl who suddenly appeared in front of me knew about the
real relationship between me and Ayame.
“…!”
I tried to get up and run away… but my legs were too weak. I was
unable to stand on my own two feet, and my body was falling
backwards. Oh no, I was about to hit my head…
“Watch out!”
The impact I had expected did not come, and instead I was caught by
something soft.
“Phew, you scared me to death, nya.”
The girl hugged me while blinking her eyes repeatedly.
“I suppose I should introduce myself, nya. I’m Ayame-chan’s friend
since high school and a junior of Reiji-senpai’s, nya. In the game I was
called Milly, nya.”
“Um… your speech pattern…”
“You mean this, nya? When I spoke like this, those pickup artists would
think I was actually a man in real life so they wouldn’t come near me, so
I did it until it became a habit, nya.”
“Ahaha…”
The reason for that was more trivial than I expected.
I mean, I didn’t know Ayame had friends. Come to think of it, didn’t I
know very little about Reiji and Ayame’s social circle…?
“Ah, by the way, I’ve heard everything about you from Ayame-chan, so
don’t worry about it. And I promise not to tell anyone, nya.”
That Ayame wouldn’t say anything strange to someone she doesn’t
trust, so everything should be fine, right…?
“Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’d like to get to the main issue at
hand… but there’s something I want to do first.”
Milly-san’s tone and face suddenly became serious.
“I’m going to touch you a little. If you can’t take it anymore, please tell
me right away.”
“…Eh?”
My arms were pulled lightly and I found myself in an embrace with my
face buried in her ample breasts… Wait, why’s she hugging me like
that?! Before any indecent idea could form itself, my hands and body
almost jumped at the thought of being restrained. It’s scary, unbearably
scary… Huh?
Something was gently tapping my back in a steady, relaxed rhythm.
Why wasn’t I scared of that?
“Easy, easy. From the look of your eyes, I’m sure you must have gone
through a frightening experience, right? Don’t worry, I would never
hurt Iris-chan. Just calm down, and listen only to the sound of my chest,
and you won’t be bothered by all the noises around you anymore…”
As I was being tapped on the back, I slowly felt more at ease. I did as I
was told and concentrated only on the sound of it.
…Ah, I could hear it now. The sound of a steady rhythm of movement.
When I concentrated on it, I gradually became less and less concerned
about the sounds around me and the flow of people. Being held gently
in this way, surrounded by warm body heat, and hearing only this
sound, it’s…
Suddenly, I heard another sound… was this my own heartbeat? I
thought it was pulsating like crazy, but it was moving at its usual pace.
Man, this was too comfortable…
“(sobs)”
I realized that a lot of time had passed. My memory of the middle of
the day had been wiped out. The moment I realized what was
happening, blood was gathering on my face and tears were pooling at
the edges of my eyes.
“Meowhehe… It’s really nice to do this to a small, cute little girl… he
way you squirm in my arms defenselessly like seeking your mother, it’s
really irresistible!”
Milly-san looked somewhat satisfied and enraptured. What should I do
now, I was too embarrassed to look up. I couldn’t believe I was held in a
girl’s arms and comforted by the sound of her heartbeat and even slept
a little at the end… it’s like I’d regressed back to a baby.
“S-Sorry about all that…”
“Don’t sweat it. Besides, this is a good opportunity for you to get stuff
out of your chest, isn’t it? Do you have a room you’re renting?”
“Um… I have a room that I’m allowed to use at the moment…”
“Alright, it’s round two. No refusal allowed, you still look terrible.”
I answered without thinking, and the next moment, she slyly dragged
me back to my room before I realized what was happening.
“Uh… why am I in your lap?”
As soon as I got to my room, she lifted me up with a single motion. I
was so embarrassed to be princess-carried by a girl… This body’s too
light, I should try a little harder to eat my meal from now on…
While my mind was spacing out like that, Milly-san sat down on the
bed, with me on her lap.
“Don’t think about it too much~ Is it comfortable? I consider myself to
be pretty soft, you know.”
“Yeah… I can see that.”
As Milly-san’s rather glamourous body gently wrapped around my
entire body, I… wait a minute, what’s happening here?
“If I hold you in this way, I can give you a hug as soon as you get scared,
don’t you think?”
A shiver ran down my back at her words. The fear that I had forgotten
slowly returned.
“…What do you mean?”
“Well, I need you to tell me what’s been scaring you right now. It’s been
bothering me since the first time I saw you, like you were about to
break.”
“…?!”
I quickly tried to release myself and escape, but my body was
ineffective against her firm grasp.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t run away. You have to get that bad stuff out of
your chest.”
“No, I don’t want to! Please don’t make me remember anything of
that!”
I thought she was a kind person, why did she say such terrible things so
suddenly! I flinched and tried to escape again, but the arms holding me
wouldn’t come off.
“But you have to. Both you and Reiji-senpai are men, so you often focus
only on finding a solution and neglect the rest. I don’t know about
Ayame-chan either, since that girl can literally do everything, for all
intents and purposes. So maybe those two just overprotected you and
didn’t touch the tumor of the problem, am I correct?”
I choked. Milly-san hit the bullseye. It was as if she had seen through
everything.
“I knew it… It was just a guess, but it’s probably not too far from the
truth. Anyway, that’s the reason why you’ve stored up so much painful
stuff. But… talking it out to someone else is more important than you
think, you know?”
Her voice changed to a serious tone and whispered softly, as if
admonishing.
“People tend to think of particularly traumatic events in fragments,
detached from their past, so they become really afraid when they recall
about them. You’re in that position right now, not yet moving on from
the past. But the fact that you’re here means that you’ve been saved,
and that past of yours has ended. So, even if it’s scary, you have to sort
through what happened as a ‘done story’ and properly accept it into
your life.”
“B-But… I’m afraid I just can’t take it… I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine for you to be scared, to cry about it. I’m here
to listen to your past. That’s why…”
I felt a hand gently rubbing my stomach. I felt my strength draining
away. Tears were slowly building up in my eyes. I wondered if it was
okay to show my vulnerable parts without hesitation, but I didn’t have
to hide them.
“I’ll listen to you no matter how long it takes, and if it doesn’t work the
first time, I’ll come back to see you and listen to you again. Just… tell
me everything, okay?”
Without prompting, I told her everything. I was afraid at first, but once I
started talking, I couldn’t stop as if a dam had been broken. Yes, I had
been wanting to get it out like this for a long time. About the incident in
my former world. About my sister. My encounter with Reiji. The story
of how we had been together for so long. And then, what happened
after I came here.
Being caught was humiliating, scary, painful, I lost my words so many
times I couldn’t make sense of them, and I cried many, many tears.
What was happening to me now. A body that had changed from its
original world and even its gender. The fear that I might not be myself
made me more miserable and distraught than ever.
And… my worries that if I didn’t do something, I’d become an unwanted
presence who was nothing but a burden to those two. Frustration and
anger toward the two people who, in spite of this, didn’t even listen to
me.
I think I really exposed a lot of things that were disgusting. I said many
selfish things that I had been afraid to say out of fear that they would
leave me. But every time I was hugged and gently stroked without
saying a word, I felt the waves of my emotions calming down.
When I had finished talking, the sun was already setting, and the
western sky was tinged with red. I was sobbing so hard that my eyes
were red, but I felt strangely refreshed compared to before I spoke. She
said something earlier about women wanting someone to listen to
them, not the solution itself. When I was a man, I thought it was
irrational. But now that I saw it this way, I realized that it’s an important
wisdom to live.
“…Alright then, Iris-chan, you’ve done two things wrong. Allow me to
point them out for you.”
“…Please do…”
I straightened my back. I was full of remorse, especially now that I’d
calmed down about what happened yesterday and today, and I felt
fidgety and restless, as my misgivings were found out.
“First, you went out without permission. This is a breach of promise to
someone who cares about you in whatever way, or to put it another
way, you have disrespected someone who cares about you. Do you
understand?”
“Yes…”
It would be a shock for them if I were to suddenly disappear. I would
have caused them so much worry. I felt so guilty that I had lost track of
such things.
“And second, You let your emotions get the better of you and ended
the conversation. Yes, they might have been clueless, but if you were
serious, you had to talk it out and convince them about your idea. If
you got angry and cut them off, that was running away, wasn’t it?”
“Yes… You’re right, now that I think about it, it’s really embarrassing…”
If there was a hole right here, I would jump into it out of shame. I
couldn’t just throw a tantrum and say that I didn’t understand them
because I didn’t get my way.
…Wait a minute.
It occurred to me that this girl is a friend of Ayame’s, which means that
she is younger than me in real age, right? What is this? She looked so
motherly.
“So, with that in mind, what do you want to do, Iris-chan?”
“…I want to apologize… And then I want to hear them out properly in
the future…”
“Mmm, good. How about you do it right after they come back, nya?
You can do it, nya?”
“Yes, this time I’ll make them listen to me!”
I laughed a little, brushed the tears from the corner of my eyes with my
fingers, and with a smile and a clear mind, I readily agreed to do so…
uh, why was she looking away from me?
“…That Ayame, she left me a really huge mess to clean up, nya…”
She held her mouth shut and mumbled something in another direction,
and I just tilted my head with a question mark above it.
“…Ayame-chan and Reiji-senpai haven’t come back, nya. Are they
always this late, nya?”
“No, they should have returned before evening… Something must have
happened.”
Anxiety was slowly creeping inside me. Come to think of it, it was
awfully quiet outside, even though now was a time when the place
should be bustling with people on their way home from work. I started
to feel uneasy.
“…Guh, aaaaaaah?!”
“Iris-chan, what’s happening?!”
Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced my entire body. I had a feeling that
something dangerous was approaching. I remembered this pain. Not
long after I came to this world, in that forest…!
Then suddenly there was a commotion downstairs. Someone was
running up the stairs. The door was opened violently, and a panicked
Mrs. Miranda jumps in, gasping for breath and yelling.
“Thank goodness you’re here, miss. You should hurry up and go…
there’s a strange monster in town!”
“…!”
I felt as if my heart was being squeezed.
“Um, I have some fighting skills, I can help people evacuate- Hey, where
are you going?!”
“I’m so sorry but, I have to find Reiji-san and Saul-niisama!”
I took the staff that was propped up against the wall, slipped through
their hands, cast a body enhancement spell on myself, and ran out into
the town. There was no way those two would lose so easily. I believed
that, but my heart was still pounding, and it was getting worse and
worse.