Kuou Academy—that’s the private school I go to.
These days, it’s coed, but up until a few years back, it had been an all-girls high school, so there were still more girls than boys. The ratio was closer to an even split in the lower grades, but the girls outnumbered the guys overall.
Even in my second-year class, the female-to-male ratio was seven to three, and it went to eight-to-two for third-years. Girls still dominated school life. There were more of them on the student council, including its president. It was the kind of school culture where boys were kind of limited in what they could do, but that hadn’t stop me from choosing to attend.
My reasoning was simple enough. The place just had too many lovely ladies. It was wonderful! Yes, it was all thanks to my perverted nature that I’d been able to pass the infamously arduous entrance exams for Kuou Academy. I had wanted to take my classes surrounded by girls. That’s the entire reason I picked this place.
Is there something wrong with that? What’s wrong with being a pervert?! It’s my life! I won’t let anyone tell me otherwise! I’m going to make this school my harem! At least, that was my goal when I enrolled.
I felt pretty empty about the whole thing now, though. How foolish I was to think I could pick up two or three girlfriends here without even lifting a finger. Only the lady-killers, the real cool guys, had any luck. Girls wouldn’t even look at me. They ignored me as if I were a piece of trash lying in the corridor.
Dammit! I hadn’t taken any of that into account!
I was an idiot! If all had gone well, I should have been able to get my first girlfriend in no time! Then I could’ve broken up with her and met someone else, rinse and repeat for three years, and by the time graduation came around, I could have had them all fighting over me in an epic battle royal!
At the rate I was going, my dream would end up being nothing but a wild delusion! Maybe I was already deluding myself?
Where had I gone wrong?! Was I born in the wrong era? Had the tides of politics turned against me? Could it be…? Did the problem lie with me specifically?
Aaaaargh! I didn’t even want to think about it! I was at my wit’s end here. Sighing, I strolled into the classroom and took my seat.
“Yo, my brother-in-arms. How was that DVD I lent you? Titillating, am I right?”
The guy calling out to me was my friend, Matsuda. His close-cropped hair made him look like your typical sports guy, but he would come at you with all these lecherous comments that bordered on sexual harassment on an almost daily basis.
Matsuda had broken all kinds of athletic records back in middle school, but now he belonged to the photography club. He didn’t bother hiding his intention to catch each girl in our school on film from every angle imaginable. It was for that reason that people had taken to calling Matsuda the Perverted Baldy or the Paparazzo of Sexual Harassment.
“Phew… The wind sure was strong this morning, huh? You wouldn’t guess how many pairs of panties I managed to catch good views of.”
The guy with glasses trying to act cool was my other friend, Motohama. He had this special ability he called “Scouter” that let him size up a girl’s measurements with nothing more than those specs of his. When he took them off, though, his power level plummeted. This had earned him the nicknames Perverted Glasses and Three-Size Scouter.
Matsuda and Motohama were my two partners in crime. I’m not joking when I say that seeing these two first thing in the morning really made me depressed.
“I’ve got some good stuff here,” Matsuda said as he opened his bag and tipped its contents out on his desk without a hint of shame.
The books and DVDs piled up in front of him all had lewd and suggestive titles. “Eek!” One of the girls across the room let out a shriek. I couldn’t really blame her. I mean, it was still first thing in the morning. Murmurs of “They’re the worst!” and “Filthy perverts!” filled the room.
“Quiet! Who are you to deny us our worldly pleasures?! Look away, young ladies! Or I’ll imagine myself having my way with you all!” Matsuda had no issue saying crude stuff like that.
Not too long ago, my eyes would have lit up at this sight, and I’d have asked where my friends had found such treasures. Now that my mornings had gotten so rough, though, I just couldn’t get in the mood.
Matsuda let out a resigned sigh at my lethargic reaction. “Hey, come on. Why are you scowling like that when I’ve brought you all these goodies?”
“You’ve been really downbeat lately. Odd. Very odd. This isn’t like you,” Motohama said with obvious tedium as he adjusted his glasses.
“I wish I could get worked up over this. I’d like nothing more than to obsess over them. I’m just so drained right now.”
“Are you sick? Nah, that can’t be right. There’s no way you, the human personification of desire itself, would let something like a cold get in your way.”
I clenched my teeth in irritation at Motohama’s offhand comment. At that moment, Matsuda slammed his fist into his hand, as if in sudden realization.
“Ah, I get it. This must be because of that imaginary girlfriend of yours. Yuuma, right?”
“…Come on, you’re telling me you don’t remember her?”
Matsuda and Motohama just stared back at me with pity in their eyes.
“Like we said, we’ve never heard of her. Seriously, you should get yourself checked out. Right, Motohama?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how many times we’ve said this, but we’ve never even met this Yuuma girl you keep going on about.”
…That’s what they always said whenever I mentioned her. At first, I thought they were just messing with me. After having a serious conversation with them about it, though, I realized that wasn’t the case.