"I'm eighteen this year…"
"I… I'm fifteen…"
"I've got a little sister who's ten years younger than me…"
"M-me too…"
"My dog's name is Jimi Hen…"
"Ah, mine too…"
"Your school is Shūwa High in Shimokitazawa…?"
"Yes…"
"And your birthday?"
"F-Feb… February twenty-first…"
"Then… if you hear phrases like sports day, the culture festival, or anything that includes 'summer,' 'youth,' or 'campus romance'—"
"I'll die…!!"
That was basically the old me.
Gotō Hitori stared blankly at Gotō Hitori.
This girl had the exact same name as him, and her features looked pretty similar, too.
Could it be…
That I—me from another world—had crossed over into mine?
Could something that unoriginal and uninteresting, the kind of cheap fantasy even Dengeki Bunko wouldn't bother publishing, really happen in real life…?
Or maybe I hadn't woken up, and this was just a dream?
Gotō Hitori pinched his cheek hard. Pain shot through him. No question about it—this was reality.
Which meant the girl in front of him wasn't a mirage or a hallucination.
She was a real, living person.
You could touch her, hold her, talk to her like a normal human being.
He had no idea why she'd appeared beside him, but there was one thing he was sure of:
For a long time from now on, he'd be living alongside her.
And once he pictured his quiet solo life turning into a "two-person world" of a man and a woman—especially when that woman was apparently another version of himself—
A feeling he couldn't even put into words surged up inside him, and for a second he wanted to slam his head into a wall.
And then he remembered how he'd woken up that morning with his arms around her.
His forehead pressed to hers.
Close enough that they could feel each other's breath brushing their faces.
Worst of all, the pale softness of her skin wouldn't leave his mind.
"I'm so, so sorry…!!"
His sudden apology startled her so badly she scooted straight into the corner of the bed.
After a moment, she cautiously inched back to her original spot, hands clasped nervously to her chest, and asked in a tiny voice,
"Um… uh… w-why all of a sudden…?"
"I-I mean… this morning… when I woke up…"
Gotō Hitori's ears felt like they'd turned into boiling kettles.
For the first time in his life, he was grateful that doing a dogeza was such a convenient thing. He could bury his face and talk without having to show it.
When he mentioned what had happened, her cheeks heated up instantly as well.
She vaguely remembered hugging something. She'd thought it was a blanket, so she'd held tighter and tighter—her legs wrapped around it, too—and she'd even made sounds like "mmnh…"—
Now the answer was clear.
It hadn't been a blanket.
It had been a living human being.
In that instant…
Gotō Hitori felt like everything in the world was drifting away from her.
A rosy blush bloomed across her delicate skin, spreading from her snow-white neck up to her ears, turning them a vivid red. Even her features seemed to collapse into chaos, warping in every direction at once.
For two people who'd never dated, never even read romance manga, and who would react to any "youthful campus rom-com" like vampires being blasted by sunlight—
Just brushing fingers was enough to make them blush.
So waking up and realizing you'd slept next to someone?
That was a realm they couldn't even imagine.
Like an unspeakable Lovecraftian horror—just looking at it from afar would drop your SAN points below zero.
Her mind went blank. The cute face she wore fell completely into "eldritch meltdown mode," her complexion flashing green, white, then red like she'd eaten hallucination mushrooms.
Luckily, Gotō Hitori's apology was loud enough to yank her consciousness back from wherever she'd exiled it in the far reaches of space.
Seeing him still in a dogeza, her body reacted on pure instinct—and she did the exact same thing.
He dogeza'd, so she dogeza'd.
He apologized, so she apologized.
And just like that, the second round of "social anxiety showdown" began.
One of them red-faced like Guan Yu, the other talking a mile a minute like Zhuge Liang.
On one side, apologies fired at Gatling-gun speed; on the other, admissions of fault delivered with the earnestness of a legendary devoted husband.
If Leonardo da Vinci had lived a few hundred years later and witnessed this, he wouldn't have claimed perpetual motion was impossible. If Guiguzi were still alive, he'd sigh in awe that the essence of persuasion hadn't been lost.
By the time the "battle" ended, oceans had dried and mountains had crumbled. Heaven and earth had changed color.
This tiny island nation simply couldn't withstand the social-anxiety might of two emperors. A single apology casually spoken by either of them was enough to stir the river of time and kick off the prelude to the apocalypse.
To prevent the annihilation of all living things, the two emperors finally chose to make peace—no more reckless hostilities—and agreed to let the whole mortifying incident be history.
Gotō Hitori felt like, in a single morning, he'd used up an entire year's worth of speaking.
It seemed she felt the same.
They just sat there on the bed, neither daring to look the other in the eye, as the atmosphere slid back into a strange, awkward silence.
After back-to-back apology wars, their emotional distance had shortened quite a bit. Both of them felt the other seemed… surprisingly easy to get along with.
But they were still young. Even if they'd agreed not to bring up the "waking up together" thing again, they couldn't quite get past the knot in their hearts.
One of them secretly picked at their fingers.
The other quietly dug at the floor with their toes.
In the end, Gotō Hitori was the one who spoke first.
"I'll… go pour you some tea. We've been talking this whole time and I forgot to… you know, host you…"
"Ah… n-no, you don't have to be so polite, I'm not thirsty…!" she hurriedly shook her head.
"The one who shouldn't be polite is… me. It's just some tea and snacks, um… you don't need to worry about it. We've talked a lot, so your throat has to be dry, and… I still have things I want to ask. So—so the conversation can go smoothly—please don't hold back."
Two introverts could spend forever being polite over something as simple as tea.
Gotō Hitori hauled the little table he usually used for his laptop onto the bed, then piled it with a bunch of snacks he thought were tasty.
As for tea… he had no proper "guest tea" at all, because he didn't have friends. In the end, he brewed the barley tea he normally drank and handed it to her.
"Thank you…"
She held the cup in both hands. The warmth seeping into her palms helped settle the storm in her chest, just a little.
"No need."
He shook his head, quietly relieved. She didn't seem to hate his barley tea.
He'd been worried a girl might dislike that rich, slightly bitter flavor. Turns out he'd overthought it.
This girl named Gotō Hitori wasn't just similar to him in personality—her tastes seemed similar, too.
From their conversation, it was obvious she cared about other people's feelings just like he did, and even her personal details matched his.
It was like she'd been carved from the same mold.
Other than "a parallel-world version of himself," he couldn't think of any explanation that made sense.
And yet…
She was too pretty.
Even he could tell: she was a one-in-ten-thousand beauty.
Soft, pale skin. Delicate, perfectly shaped features. A tiny face you could probably hold in one hand…
She was undeniably cute.
Could a guy as unpopular as him really have another "self" that looked this good…?
The more he thought about it, the less confident he felt. Without meaning to, he glanced up at her—only to meet her eyes directly.
They both looked away at the same time.
The awkwardness they'd just escaped returned in full force.
To keep it from spreading, Gotō Hitori forced himself to speak again.
"…You said your name is Gotō Hitori, right?"
"Mm." She nodded lightly.
"Is your 'Hitori' written in kanji or kana? Mine's kanji." He pointed at himself.
"…Mine's in hiragana."
She said it softly, and it seemed she understood why he was asking—having the same name made it hard to tell them apart.
"Um… about what to call me, I don't really mind… I'm used to people calling me 'hey' or 'you'…"
…Same.
Gotō Hitori lowered his gaze in instant empathy. That was exactly why he didn't want to address her casually.
For people like them, the way you address someone mattered.
But their names sounded exactly the same. It was impossible to distinguish.
Calling each other by their last name would feel weird. Calling each other by their first name would be no better. And he was absolutely certain neither of them could bring themselves to say the other's first name out loud.
So that left one option.
A nickname.
Hmm…
Hitori… alone…
"…If you don't mind… how about I call you 'Bocchi' from now on? Using your given name feels… a little too intimate… or something."
His gaze drifted aside, afraid she'd hate the half-baked nickname he'd come up with in a few seconds.
"Eh… I-I can? Um! B-b-b-b-b-b-Bocchi desu!"
Her eyes lit up instantly.
To her, a nickname was proof of closeness. She'd been invisible for so long, with not a single friend. Hearing someone willingly give her a nickname made her so happy she could barely contain it.
"If you like it, then…" he let out a quiet breath of relief. "Then, Bocchi, you can call me Gotō."
"…O-okay, Gotō-san!"
It sounded kind of strange.
But for some reason… it also made her happy.
Gotō Hitori awkwardly looked away. Being addressed by a pretty girl made him restless, but he quickly pulled himself together and held out his hand.
"I guess this means we've… officially met. Um… nice to meet you, Bocchi."
"Ah, I… I-I-I'm also very happy to meet you…"
Why was she using polite speech again?
Gotō Hitori looked at her—she'd practically turned into a slime creature from sheer fluster. By now, they should've been familiar enough that she didn't need to be this formal.
He had no idea that in her eyes, Gotō Hitori was the embodiment of every positive word she could think of—an impossibly handsome guy she could never defeat.
Completely different from a timid loner like her. The chasm called "looks" had sliced through any sense of kinship she might've felt.
What "same kind," exactly?
All she saw was an ignored piece of roadside trash… and a quiet, awkward youth-popularity god.
She could tell. If they stood in the same place, people would obviously like Gotō Hitori more—handsome enough to rival movie stars.
As for her…
She'd probably just fade away into ashes in some forgotten corner…
"B-Bocchi, are you okay?!"
Seeing her body seem to crumble into dust, Gotō Hitori panicked.
"Ah… I'm fine… please don't worry…"
How could he not worry…?
He rubbed his forehead, heavy-hearted, lips moving without sound. After a long moment, he gathered his courage and asked,
"Is it… because the shock was too much…?"
"Bocchi, you've really been through a lot. If it were me… I'd probably want to just end it all right now…"
"Huh?"
She blinked in confusion.
Looking into eyes that matched his in color—and were even similar in shape—Gotō Hitori knew she still hadn't grasped how serious this was. Or rather… she was instinctively avoiding reality.
He couldn't bear it and turned away.
It felt like a thorn had lodged itself in his chest.
It wasn't exactly pain.
But it was deeply uncomfortable.
After a brief silence, he finally spoke.
"…Um. Don't panic. Please calm down and listen to me."
In the simplest words possible, he explained their situation.
"This place… is probably not your original world anymore."
-------
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