I don’t have a very pleasant personality. Frankly, I’m awful.
I’m a contrarian, a lair, an egoist, a sore loser, and that’s just the start of it.

I’m pretty sure people are going to call me names, so I admitted it first.
I believe the impression a person leaves on others can vary depending on whether they show self-awareness or not, you see.

I have a childhood friend.
She’s pretty and cool and cute.
A super perfect beauty.

However, she’s not really perfect in every and all aspects.
In fact, objectively speaking, she’s a total social misfit—not perfect at all.

She can’t wake up early. She never keeps track of time. She shows everything on her face. She sleeps in her underwear. She has an awful fashion sense. She’s moody; her temper changes at the roll of a dice.
She tells corny jokes with a smug face. She occasionally refers to herself using “ore”. She keeps calling herself a super beauty.

And that’s just what came to mind while walking to school.
If I start mentioning the smaller stuff, there wouldn’t be an end in sight.

But even with all these flaws, she’s perfect to me.
Perfectly charming.

「*Haa*…」

At my seat, I let out a small sigh.
From here, the last seat in the room, my gaze is drawn to a certain window-side seat. The childhood friend whom I commuted with had her face flat on her desk.

Lately, Misaki has been growing prettier and cuter.
If I had to borrow her words, her super beauty-ness has reached an even higher level.

Her chest-length hair is smooth and shines bright golden underneath sunlight.
I love her pretty double eyelids. I love how her lips curl up when she smiles. I love the focused look she has when reading a manga, too.

Her praise makes my heart jump. Her close-up stare makes my heart race. Her sudden touch nearly squeezed a weird voice out of me.

She might just be messing around from her perspective… But it gnaws on me. Her carelessness pierces through me.

But due to her personality, she isn’t particularly seen as the orthodox school beauty many would be green-eyed over.
She’s the type many would silently have a crush on but wouldn’t say out loud. I call this latent popularity. In other words, she has many secret admirers.

Us being first years just starting the school year and still trying to be familiar with everything also could have played a part.
In short, the storm has yet to come. At some point, things might reach a breaking point, and it’ll all crash down like an avalanche.

In middle school, she was a boyish girl.
The so-called ‘weird but interesting woman’ type.

Lately, it seems like the repeated corrections have worked, and she’s become relatively more feminine. Still not enough, though.
In other words, she’s still immature.

Sometime in the past, she suddenly spouted some nonsense of having turned into a girl or something; it was honestly concerning…
In the first place, there’s no way such a cute girl like her was a boy.

It’s her fault that my sexual proclivities are all messed up.
Always showing off in front of me, now that’s all my eyes see, causing me to grow this twisted.
This is the consequence of being fed delicacies every single day. Far from getting sick of it, she’s only looking more delicious by the day.

I reached inside my bag for the pouch with my smartphone in it.
The pouch had two keys hanging from it, the keys to my house and Misaki’s apartment unit.

Currently, Misaki is practically living alone.
Misaki-mama’s parents were hospitalized due to illness, so she’s back at her family home.

She gave my mom a spare key in case there are emergencies with Misaki. And I took the liberty to keep it with me.
For your information, since she’s worried about leaving Misaki to her own devices, Misaki-mama did also ask me to check on her whenever I have the time.

For that reason, I can enter Misaki’s room whenever I like. I can wake her up in the morning and secretly take photos. Pull some mischief, as well.

I lightly touch my finger against my lips.
Recalling what happened this morning, my cheeks melt into a smile.

*Hwa～h, Misakitan’s sleepy face was so cute～ Makes me wanna give her a big old kissy wissy～ Got yourself secretly smooched on the cheek today, you know? Hey, hey, how did that feel～?*

… Eh? What was that just now? Scary.
Some gross old man just popped out. Old man Miyu just appeared.

It seems like there’s a monster dwelling inside of me. No, a demon, perhaps?
I shake my head to exorcise it and regain my composure.

Today, the Misaki Sleepy Face Collection has grown further.
I take out my smartphone to check the highlights of the day.

I told her to stop sleeping in her underwear before, so she’s wearing a t-shirt now. But since it’s all worn out, you can see the strap of her bra peeking from around her nape.
She could’ve just worn cute pajamas, but instead she has these weird printed shorts with the logo of an anime.

Her sleeping posture is so bad; her blanket’s not even covering her. Her stomach’s exposed, heck, her boy shorts are peeking out. Seriously, so untidy.

Ahh, geez, she’s so defenseless I can’t take it any more; is she waiting for someone to pounce her? Honestly, she is, isn’t she? I kept telling her to have some proper clothes on, but isn’t she sexier with more layers now? Being barely visible leaves more to imagination, I guess? But wait? Does she even have a bra of this color?

「Morning! Whatcha looking at, Miyu?」
「*Hii!?*」

I slammed my smartphone display first onto my desk. Got a weird voice out of me.
My classmate Rion popped her head from behind me. She had a puzzled expression.

「Whazzup? Your phone’s gonna break.」

It’s fine; I have a cloud backup of everything.
… I mean, do you think it’s just normal to peek at someone’s phone?　
With a big grin, Rion asked,

「Were you looking at an erotic manga or something?」
「Nope.」

It’s something even worse.
Not wrong about it being erotic, though.

「Wanna go karaoke today?」
「What?」
「I was told to invite Miyumiyu and stuff.」

When? By who? And why?
Explain in proper detail.

「Not going.」
「I see. Oh, right, right. Miyu, did an upperclassman confess to you recently?」

So loud. Still, where did she get the wind of this?　
I intentionally held off giving a reply.
I thought things might get troublesome if I rejected him without second thought.

「I’ll probably turn him down.」
「Hmmph? Why? Do you like someone else?」

You oblivious lump of tactlessness.
This is exactly why Misaki nicknamed you S.S. OblivRion.¹

「I do.」
「Eh, so you do? Incidentally…」
「You’re not going to ask me who it is, right?」

Is this what they call a dark smile?　
With this smile, S.S. OblivRion retreated.