Tristan Hill

What is true love?

I pondered the question on my phone’s screen as I flopped down onto my couch. I was looking at the official website for a TV drama that had started airing this past April. May had arrived, Golden Week had come and gone, and I still hadn’t seen so much as a single episode of the show.

It was supposed to be a bittersweet high school romance sort of deal, I guess. Honestly, the only reason why I’d looked it up in the first place was thanks to an article I’d found that gushed about how it was “the best show on TV,” supposedly. It was also apparently “beyond real and romantic to a tee,” and watching it was like “taking a step back into my own youth.”

Anyway, between that review and the tagline plastered at the top of the show’s website—“What is true love?”—I found my mind wandering to another question.

What does “real” mean, anyway...

I, Yotsuba Hazama, was a very real sixteen-year-old girl who had just started the second year of her equally real high school experience. That said, there was one big point of inconsistency between my real and the so-called real in that show.

“Forget true love—I haven’t even had a brush with fake love,” I idly mumbled to myself. I wasn’t exaggerating either. So far, my time in high school had been as ordinary and mundane as could be.

But then again, let’s look at this from another perspective: If that TV show’s world of romance counted as “real,” then wouldn’t that make my life anything but ordinary? I’d been in high school for a year and change, and I hadn’t experienced so much as the slightest spark of romance. I didn’t have any guy friends, much less a boyfriend! Heck, I wasn’t even on an exchanging-casual-greetings-in-the-morning basis with any boys!

The protagonist of that supposedly beyond-real romance drama was a second-year, just like me, but according to a plot outline I’d read, she

apparently had three hotties fighting for her affection. One of them was even supposed to be an ex she’d dated during her first year! Let me tell you: Cannot relate! At all!

“Not that there are any guys out there who’d want to date a girl like me, anyway,” I muttered, punctuating my self-deprecation with a heavy sigh. That particular reality went back to long before high school. It didn’t matter if I thought back all the way to middle or elementary school either. I’d never had so much as the slightest taste of that bittersweet youthful whatever with a boy. Seriously, not even once.

It’s not like I’m ugly or anything, right? I had two little sisters, and both of them were as cute as could be. I might have been a little biased since they were family and all, sure, but that wasn’t just conjecture on my part; I also knew for a fact that they’d been hit on and asked out plenty of times. I had the same DNA as them, so in theory I shouldn’t have been playing with an appearance-based handicap, right? I’d have liked to believe that, anyway

That still left the big question unanswered, though: What was holding me back? If it wasn’t my looks, was it my personality?

Wait...is it my personality? I don’t think I’m, like, a bad person or anything, but it’s not like I haven’t caused my fair share of trouble here and there...

The more I thought about it, the more I began to feel a looming dread that my personality really did have some massive defect that was putting me out of the running. It was bothering me so much, in fact, that I found myself opening up a group chat I had with a couple of friends, typing, “Hey, am I just totally unlovable or something?” and hitting send—

Wait, gah! Wh-What am I doing?! It’s bothering me, sure, but that’s not the sort of thing you can just ask your friends apropos of nothing! And aagh, the way I said it makes it sound, like, super melodramatic, or like I’m fishing for compliments or something!

“I-It’s fine, no biggie, just have to delete the post and everything’ll be just—oh god I already sent it! You can’t unsend posts in this app! Crap, okay

uhh...right! I’ll just play it off like I was kidding around! That’ll—gaaah?!”

Barely seconds after I’d sent the message, a little mark showed up next to it indicating that one, no, two people had read it. And an instant later...

What’s wrong?

Did something happen?

...they were worried about me. I didn’t even have time to try to claim it was a joke. That meant that if I stuck it out and went with the just-a-joke plan anyway, it’d probably only make them even more worried! No choice... I’ll just have to commit!

Me: Nah, I was just wondering why I’m so unpopular

What?! No! Committing too much! Dial it back, me!

Unpopular? You?

You know that’s not true, right?

What is true love?

I pondered the question on my phone’s screen as I flopped down onto my couch. I was looking at the official website for a TV drama that had started airing this past April. May had arrived, Golden Week had come and gone, and I still hadn’t seen so much as a single episode of the show.

It was supposed to be a bittersweet high school romance sort of deal, I guess. Honestly, the only reason why I’d looked it up in the first place was thanks to an article I’d found that gushed about how it was “the best show on TV,” supposedly. It was also apparently “beyond real and romantic to a tee,” and watching it was like “taking a step back into my own youth.”

You’d do that for me...?”

“You said it yourself—in for a penny, in for a pound, right?”

“Right... Right!” I said.

How is she this nice, anyway? I thought to myself. She was giving me a look of pure, earnest attentiveness, and it hurt to know that I’d have to bend the truth and keep secrets from her, but I also knew that it would be way better for both of us than telling her the complete truth. Fortunately, I knew just what to do.

“S-So...a friend of mine has a problem!!!”

“Huh?!” Koganezaki gaped at me. “Oh...oh, of course. If that’s how you want to do this, then by all means, go on.”

“My friend has sisters, right? Two of them!”