Chapter 30 - Why is the Mob Heroine Following Me Instead of the Protagonist?!
Something felt wrong. This romcom… something was off about it!
Mogami-san! You were just chosen by the protagonist! This is the scene where you're supposed to be focusing on him!
“Sanada-kun… you finally called me by my name.”
“M-Mogami… so this is what you really look like.”
“Ehehe. I’m so happy you’re finally looking at me.”
"You seem to have changed a lot. Did something happen?"
"Nothing, really. I just mustered up the courage for the person I admire."
—That’s how it was supposed to go!
Give the audience something to go 'kyaaa' about!
So, why… why wasn’t Mogami-san reacting to Sanada at all?
"It’s because... I made you a bento, Sato-kun."
“A bento?!”
Wait a minute. Wasn’t that supposed to be… for Sanada, not for me? Hold on. Was I the one misunderstanding something here?
(No, this isn’t right. You can’t just say you made lunch for another guy in front of Sanada…!)
She was acting like some next-generation heroine. Hmm, a heroine who had absolutely zero interest in the protagonist… no, that wouldn’t work. The readers would never root for her.
Something was wrong. This was different from the manga I read.
This manga, I'm So Done with Rom-Coms! (sob)... while the art was fantastic, the plot was painfully cliché. It had zero originality and just rehashed every traditional rom-com trope in the book. It was such a blatant copy that even calling it "second-rate" felt like being too nice. It was just a rom-com overflowing with that "seen-it-all-before" feeling.
That's why it got cancelled after only two volumes. The publisher was known for being creator-friendly, usually letting series run at least four volumes. Cancellations were rare. Yet even they had to pull the plug on this one because it was just that unoriginal.
I was an otaku, so, when all was said and done, I could still even appreciate a work this painfully unoriginal. But it failed to resonate at all with its main target audience of middle and high schoolers, and it ended up being one of those series that just quietly faded away.
And that's why... precisely because it was that kind of predictable manga… that this new development was so unexpected that I was genuinely thrown. It's not like me to say it, but I'm usually a pretty calm and collected guy.
“Hurry…! E-everyone is staring at us…!”
She must have gotten impatient with me just standing there stunned, because Mogami-san grabbed my hand and started pulling me away.
Ah, stop. Sanada is directing so much hostility at me. He's glaring at me, like, "who the hell is this guy?" It's not like that, Sanada! I'm on your side, man! In fact, you need to get your act together, please!
I felt a flicker of irritation at this typical spineless, indecisive protagonist… but that wasn’t the point right now.
"H-Hey! Mogami-san, is this really okay?"
As we walked down the hallway, I tried to confirm her intentions.
“…You mean about Sanada-kun?”
Yeah. If she wanted to, she could still fix this. ...I mean, I've got a bad feeling it's already too late, but she could still appeal to him as his heroine.
But Mogami-san... she didn't seem to have any intention of doing that at all.
“Well... yeah. I think... it’s fine, maybe?”
“Seriously?”
She nodded without hesitation. I couldn't sense a shred of that admiration or those deep feelings she'd had for Sanada. What was strange was that her expression wasn't exactly indifferent, but rather vacant. She looked as if the whole thing was just a trivial matter to her.
"That aside... was it... a bother? Me making you bento, Sato-kun..."
‘That aside!?’
Did she really just refer to the entire situation with Sanada as... 'that'?!
J-just what was going on inside Mogami-san’s mind right now?
I can't figure out this change of heart at all. And I'm the one who was so sure I understood everything, precisely because I knew this was a manga. But right now, a story I don't know is starting. And because of that... I have no idea what to do.
“No, I’m really happy. Thank you. I can’t believe you actually made a bento for me, that’s so cute.”
I don’t know why, but I just complimented her on pure reflex. It was a habit I'd picked up over the summer—just counteracting her negativity with positivity. It was a perfect "two birds, one stone" situation, really. I could use "reforming her mindset" as an excuse to just say my honest feelings. Thanks to that, Mogami-san brightened up a lot. But maybe… I had gone a little too far.
“C-cute…? Hehe.”
Mogami-san had this incredible smile on her face. It was a pure, innocent smile... one she had never shown to Sanada.
W-was it a smile for me? Mogami-san, aren't you supposed to be showing that smile to Sanada? I don't get it. I really, really don't get it.
There was the prologue. Then the long summer break. And now, the story was finally moving forward. Up to this point, it had all followed the template. But from here on out... it was completely uncharted territory.
This rom-com that was supposed to get cancelled... what in the world was going to happen to it now? That... was something that even I, who had now become a character in the story, had no way of knowing—.
