Translator: Haruto

“Stop it! Gimme back my doll!”

A kid two or three times my size stands in front of me.

He’s taken my doll.

Why? Just why would he do something like this?

Have I done something wrong?

“Ha! This is what I do to ugly dolls like this one!!”

It’s the only doll my parents have gifted me.

They make me spend almost all my time studying something called “calamities,” and they are pretty strict with me, but I still think they’re kind.

After all, they praise me with gentle words like, “well done” whenever I do well in my studies.

Anyhow, they gave me that doll as a birthday present. It’s really dear to me, and yet…

He’s taken it.

And now he’s throwing it around like a ball.

I try to recover it the best I can, but the difference in our heights prevents me from doing so.

“Haha! You and your little doll are both freaking creepy! I mean, just look at that weird hair of yours!”

“I, the great Kamen Rider Yuuki, shall defeat you.”

The boy pushes me.

Being a small and frail girl, I fall quickly to the ground.

He sees me there and steps on my belly without a second thought.  

It hurts! Stop!

Why?

Is it my hair? Is it because I’m different?

“Ugh!”

No one is coming to my rescue.  

I look for my mother but because of the small hill between us, I can’t ask her for help.

I’m on my own, and the only thing I can do is endure the pain.

As that realization hits me, tears well up in my eyes.

No, I shouldn’t cry. My father told me to never cry or act scared in front of my enemies. He said they get a kick out of it.

I grit my teeth and bear it.

His foot knocks the wind out of me.

Something dribbles down my cheeks.

They’re a bit salty.   

A metallic taste fills my mouth, accompanied by the taste of salt, and an indescribable feeling of frustration simmers in my heart.

“Stop right there, oh heroes!”

But then, a voice cuts through the air…

“Huh? What do you want?”

“I’m an evildoer, the one and only Magic Boy! I detected your holy powers and I’ve come to put an end to you!”

A boy who calls himself an evildoer appears.  

He’s rather mysterious. He seems gentle and mature for his age…

And yet, he exudes the kind of vitality that is so characteristic of children.

His dark blue eyes, in particular, are so deep I feel I could drown in them.

“Magic Boy?”

“Mwahahahaha! Behold my great power!”

The boy picks up a rock and clenches his hand around it for some reason.

An instant later, he throws it up in the air.

The rock flies straight into the sky, almost without resistance.

When it reaches its highest altitude, it explodes with a loud bang.

Rocks don’t just explode for no reason.  

That’s something even a three-year-old like me understands.

While the kids are distracted, the boy disappears from sight and reappears shortly after behind the big kid, holding him in place.

“Wh-?! When did you…?!”

“It’s one of my spells! Instant Teleportation!”

“Damn it! That’s cheating!”

“You’ve let your guard down!”

The boy relaxes his body briefly and then, the air around him seems to distort. A second later, the big kid goes flying, or should I say, he was knocked off his feet.

“Gwaah!”

He falls about one meter away.

“Crap, you’re strong. I’ll have to use my secret skill!”

“Secret Skill: Rider Beam!”

“Whaat?! Nooooo!!”

The boy is hit with the big kid’s secret skill (?) and falls to the ground.

“Alright! Now’s our chance! Beat him up!”

Following the big kid’s lead, his friends start kicking and punching the boy.

“Hey, wait…”

Kick, kick, kick…

Without lending an ear to his pleas, the kids keep raining blows on the boy.

I want to help him.

But, for some reason, my body won’t budge…

The pain and fear—still fresh in my mind—have frozen my little self in place.       

I can’t do anything but remain hidden while the kids keep ganging up on the boy.

I’m the worst…

Such a thought crosses my mind.

My mom told me that I should always lend a helping hand to people in need or in trouble.

It’s both a family belief and the right thing to do as a person.

And yet, despite knowing that, I’m unable to move. I’m awful.

My mom tends to say that I have some sort of power within me, but I doubt it. If I had strength, I wouldn’t have let my doll be stolen from me, and the boy wouldn’t have been hurt as a result.

At that moment, I realized how powerless I was… and what a terrible thing it was to be that way.

The kids kept beating the boy up for a while, and then…

“We defeated the evildoer!” they said, before going home with smiles on their faces.

“Urk, those assholes kicked me to their hearts’ content,” the boy whispers, as I get ready to talk to him.

“U-Um, are you okay, Mr. Evildoer?”

My voice shakes but I somehow manage to let the words out.  

“Yeah, I’m fine. Ah, right! This is yours, isn’t it?”

He takes my doll out of the tall grass and turns to hand it to me.

“…!” Blush.

The boy’s face stiffens when he looks at me.

Did I do something rude?

Well, first things first—I need to thank him.

“T-Thank you for what you did. Does it hurt?”

“It hurts like hell.”

“Um, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

“Don’t worry about it. Are you hurt?”

“No…”

“I’m glad.”

“…”

“Haa.”

The boy holds my face in his hands.  

H-Huh? What’s he doing? Is he going to yell at me?

“Whaa-?”

He raises my face a little.

“Alright, let me see a smile. Such a cloudy expression doesn’t suit that face of yours.”

“Smile. When things get tough, when you feel sad, a smile will help you get through it all. No matter how rough life gets, no matter how many tears you shed, you should always be smiling in the end.” 

“My mom taught me that.”

“…! Okay!”

I doubt I fully understood the meaning of his words, but…

What I did understand was that smiling can help you drive sadness away.

Breaking into laughter, I can tell how all the negative emotions I had a moment ago are beginning to fade.

In response, the boy’s cheeks redden adorably…

“So cute.”

“Huh?” Blush.

“Ah, my bad, I couldn’t hold my tongue.”

“Pff! Ahahahaha!”

“Oh, look at you laughing.”

“I’m sorry, it was just so funny.”

“Right…! What’s your name?”

Ah, I haven’t introduced myself!

“Himeyuri Amane.”

“Alright, Amane-chan it is! I’m Shimizu Shuu.”

“I’ll call you Shuu-kun then.”

“Okay, let’s go play together!”

“Yup, let’s!”

We played until it got dark.  

Shuu-kun played house, doctor, and hide and seek with me.  

“Bye! Let’s play again some other time!”

“You got it. Bye!”

“You seem to have gotten rather close to Shimizu-san’s son.”

“Yup! Shuu-kun is my friend!”

“Haha, that’s great news for our shrines! Listen, Amane, if Shuu-kun’s ever in trouble, I want you to help him, okay?”

At the time, I didn’t understand the true meaning behind those words.

…At home.

Shuu-kun… My friend…

I rolled around on my bed while thoughts of him filled my mind.

I feel so nice and warm when I think about him.

The girl feels a little twitch coming from her lower half.

Unbeknownst to her, a seed of opportunity and love has been planted in her heart.

Without even discerning the difference between filial affection and romantic attraction, the girl fails to realize her own feelings.

Nonetheless, the fact that her life energy has started to grow as a result remains.

Love is not only an opportunity to escape a bleak future, it is also the ultimate expression of life.

Therefore, no one would ever object to the idea that love can elevate one’s life energy.

…A discrepancy with the original storyline begins to form… Events are either rushed or delayed.

Yet, such a discrepancy has granted some time for a small seed of opportunity to be sown within her. Whether that seed grows or not will determine how her life energy shall augment.

A lone girl stands before us.

She’s fallen in love with the little boy who came to her rescue, Mr. Evildoer.

She might be blind to it, but love has undeniably taken a place in her heart.

It represents a seed of opportunity that has yet to germinate.

The day it blooms, however, is still a little ways down the road.

Previous Chapter – Contents – Next Chapter

Consider supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee!