Chapter 38: Father Appears
The man who got out of the car was a handsome gentleman in his late 30s to early 40s.
He slowly got out of the car and walked over to me…
“Hey now, no need to be so wary.”
That’s what he said.
Normally, if you’re suddenly spoken to by an unidentified stranger, it’s normal to be cautious, and I think that a person who doesn’t react that way is somewhat questionable as a human being.
Therefore, it’s quite difficult for me to agree to the request from this mysterious man.
“Well, I can’t really blame you for that attitude. If some guy who hasn’t even introduced himself tells you not to be suspicious, of course you’d react that way, right?”
“Uh… well…”
“My name is Fuyunagi Kanemasa. I’m the father of your girlfriend, Fuyunagi Shizuku.”
“What?”
“Mm?”
“…”
“…”
“What?”
“No no, hold on. After all that long thinking, the best answer you could squeeze out was another ‘What?’ Really now? I’d say your vocabulary is a bit lacking.”
“Well, I mean, who expects their girlfriend’s dad to suddenly show up acting like a suspicious stranger…?”
“Calling your girlfriend’s father a suspicious person on your first meeting—your vocabulary may be limited, but you certainly have guts.”
“…”
What is with this guy…?
Isn’t he way too eccentric?
Seriously, what business does he have coming up to me like this…?
I’m honestly kind of scared here.
“Uh… is this that whole ‘You’ll never have my daughter!!’ thing…?”
“Haha! Don’t worry, I’m not the kind of old-fashioned dad who says stuff like that!”
“Uh… then you’re totally fine with giving your daughter to me?”
“If that’s what you want, sure.”
What is with this guy… seriously…
I can’t read him at all.
What he’s thinking…
What he means…
I have absolutely no idea.
“Well, that’s only if you have the backbone to keep that girl in check. If you ever get tired of her, you’re free to walk away anytime, you know? I won’t blame you—so rest assured.”
“…I’ll be blunt. What exactly do you want from me?”
“Right. I wanted to talk about your future with her.”
“Our… future…?”
“Yes. Do you love Shizuku?”
“Eh…? Why would you ask something like that…?”
“I may not look it, but I am a father. I care about where my daughter’s love life is heading. Shizuku is obsessed with you. But from my perspective, I’m not convinced you have enough charm to warrant that. As her father, naturally, I’m concerned.”
“……”
“You can’t even say ‘I love her!’ with confidence… as a father, I am somewhat worried about leaving my daughter with a man like that.”
“……”
“But if things continue as they are, Shizuku will almost certainly be married off to the Kuzuryuu family’s son.”
“Are you… unhappy about that?”
“Well… from a general perspective, you could say it’s about as ideal as it gets, wouldn’t you agree? After all, the Kuzuryuu family is a global corporation. Becoming part of that household is a miracle most people couldn’t even dream of. But that ‘miracle’ only exists because of Shizuku’s beauty. However, Shizuku herself feels very strongly about rejecting it. She’s turning down this ideal engagement because she wants to be with you.”
“……”
“And I want to respect her wishes as well. I don’t want to be the kind of adult who forces something on his daughter when she hates it.”
“So… you’re against it?”
“What parent takes joy in forcing something their child despises?”
“Fuyunagi-san’s mother… your wife… is forcing her though.”
“………Haa… well, yes, that’s true… haha… you hit a sore spot there.”
The mysterious, unreadable aura he’d had until now scattered away, replaced by a weary heaviness, and the worn-out air of an exhausted adult man clung to Shizuku’s father.
“……”
“Shizuku’s mother… my wife… is a pitiful woman, trapped by the old traditions of her family. When I was young, I desperately wanted to pull her out of that world and save her. But… I didn’t understand her at all. Her heart—both then and now—remains bound and restrained by those traditions. No… she herself has become the embodiment of those old customs.”
“Become… the embodiment?”
“Her parents, Shizuku’s grandparents, subjected their child to indoctrination. They raised her as a tool to push the withered, declining Fuyunagi family back into its former glory as a major corporation. Her marriage to me… even the fact that she bore Shizuku… all of it was for the sake of restoring the Fuyunagi family’s name.”
“…So then…”
“My own family isn’t as wealthy as the Kuzuryuu family, but we were still fairly well-off… I met my wife back when we were in high school, and we’ve been together since then. I truly thought we loved each other… that we were the ideal couple. I never imagined she was dating me to maintain a strong connection between our families. I was young back then… too young to notice something like that.”
“You didn’t marry her because you loved her…?”
“Of course, I loved her. I still do. She was my first love.”
“Wha—seriously…?”
“It’s my weakness, I suppose. Honestly, from then until now, there has never been a woman who captivated me as much as her.”
……
This man was probably like Sado-san…
Enchanted by the overwhelming charisma and beauty of Shizuku’s mother, he went along with everything she said, dating her, then marrying her.
And honestly… if Shizuku inherited her looks from that woman, it all made sense.
That level of beauty—she didn’t look anywhere near her late thirties. At most, she could’ve passed for her twenties.
Captivating a man wouldn’t be difficult for someone like her.
“I love her… which is why I want to grant what she wishes. But I’m not going to live as a tool. I’m not going to hand over my daughter’s freedom.”
“………”
This man doesn’t see things through the strange lens the rest of the Fuyunagi bloodline uses.
There are no warped filters on his perspective—he looks at the world in an ordinary, straightforward way.
It’s wrong for a child to be sacrificed for the sake of their parents.
He still holds that simple, normal sense of right and wrong.
“ I… I’m scared, honestly…”
“Scared…?”
“I keep wondering… does Fuyunagi-san really like me?”
“……”
“I still can’t be sure that the feelings she shows me are genuine. I keep worrying that someday… for no real reason at all… she’ll dump me. That someday like that might come, and it terrifies me…”
“…So you do think about Shizuku properly.”
“I like her. I do. She’s my first girlfriend… and she directs such intense emotions at me that—well, sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming. But I’m… pretty weak to that sort of thing, so I get won over. Still… I can’t say ‘I love you’ in front of her. If I honestly laid out my feelings… I feel like she’d lose interest in me. Like she’d get bored of me if I did…”
“Haah… looks like the two of us ended up falling for some very troublesome women.”
“Yes… but…”
“But?”
“Well, you seem like the type who’d be popular, sir. Unlike me, you don’t strike me as someone completely ignored by everyone except Fuyunagi-san.”
“Haha! Well, I am quite the handsome guy, after all!”
“Wow, he really just said that himself!”
“Ahahaha!”
“Hehe… ahaha.”
A high schooler and a man in his mid-thirties.
There’s a big age gap, but in the end, they’re both men.
There are things you just naturally understand.
“Where your relationship goes is up to the two of you. It’s not something other people should interfere with, and that includes parents. So make choices you won’t regret. That’s the only advice I can give you.”
“……”
“But no matter what path you and my daughter choose, I’ll support it wholeheartedly. That much, I can promise. That’s my duty as her parent.”
“…Okay.”
“That’s about all I wanted to say today. Sorry for springing this on you so suddenly.”
“Haha…”
And so, this unexpected conversation with Fuyunagi-san’s father ended.
It really was sudden, and we barely managed a proper conversation before it was over.
I kind of regret blurting out things I didn’t need to say…
Character Summary (non-official)
- Majima Takuma / Taku (真島 拓真 / タク) — Taku is an utterly average high school boy in both appearance and ability. His hair and uniform are always neat but unremarkable, giving him the classic “background character” characteristic.
- Fuyunagi Shizuku (冬柳 雫) — Fuyunagi Shizuku is a stunning black-haired high school beauty with a mature, graceful aura. Her long, silky hair, elegant posture, pure and innocent atmosphere, and impressive figure—including her large chest—give her an appearance so gentle and comforting that a tired working adult might instinctively want to cling to her and call her “Mama.” Her looks alone make her feel like a UR-rarity heroine. At school, she’s admired as a pure, wholesome, and almost ideal girl—popular among girls, constantly confessed to by boys, and always at the center of her class. In private, however, Shizuku reveals a selfish, bratty, and emotionally unstable side. She’s clingy, easily upset, mentally fragile, and relies heavily on her boyfriend for emotional support while demanding secrecy and setting controlling conditions in their relationship.
- Sakurada Nagisa (桜田 凪咲) — Sakurada Nagisa is a gyaru and one of the central members of Fuyunagi-san’s friend group. With light-brown hair, piercings, and perfectly applied bold eye makeup, she has a flashy style but is undeniably beautiful—cute enough to stand out even among the popular girls. Sado Kengo’s current girlfriend.
- Natsume Kano (夏芽 華乃) — The class president. A dignified, serious beauty whose pure appearance gives her a charm distinct from Fuyunagi-san. She prioritizes efficiency, logic, and rationality above all else, resulting in a rigid, no-nonsense personality that makes her unpopular with most classmates.
Sado Kengo (佐渡 健吾) — A high-spec soccer club member who once acted as Shizuku’s fake public boyfriend. He is now Sakurada Nagisa’s actual boyfriend.
- Katou Susumu (加藤 進) — The textbook “protagonist’s best friend” character. He’s a founding member of the self-proclaimed “Unpopular Men’s Club”. Although he’s extremely jealous of Takuma for landing a girlfriend like Fuyunagi—thus “betraying” the Unpopular Men’s Club (a group Takuma never actually agreed to join)—Kato remains loyal to him despite both his jealousy and the negative public opinion surrounding Takuma.
- Fuyunagi Reiko (冬柳 澪子) — Fuyunagi Shizuku’s mother. A stunningly beautiful woman whose refined looks make it obvious where Shizuku inherited her charm. Beneath that elegance, however, lies a strict and controlling parent with deeply traditional values. Reiko is determined to restore the Fuyunagi family’s former prestige, and she sees arranging Shizuku’s marriage as a necessary step toward reclaiming their past glory.
- Fuyunagi Kanemasa (冬柳 兼政) — Fuyunagi Shizuku’s father. A highly capable and successful man who even took the Fuyunagi family name in order to marry Reiko. Despite the family’s rigid traditions, Kanemasa is the one person who genuinely supports Shizuku, encouraging her to live freely and choose her own path—including whom she loves. The only reason Shizuku’s mother and grandfather don’t openly oppose his stance is because his success and value to the family make him too important to antagonize.
- Kuzuryuu Shiori (久豆流 詩織) — Souma’s younger sister—a beautiful, sharp-tongued genius with strikingly foreign features. Despite her Japanese-sounding name, she is a natural blonde with radiant golden hair, inherited from their great-grandmother, and possesses elegant looks that stand out strongly against Souma’s more traditionally Japanese appearance. Cold, dismissive, and brutally honest toward her brother, she seems to harbor open disdain for him, even though she once adored him as a child. Academically, she is a prodigy who skipped grades at fifteen, now attending university with multiple acclaimed research papers to her name. Her intelligence creates a stark contrast to Souma, fueling his inferiority complex and twisted sister-obsessed longing.
- Kuzuryuu Souma (久豆流 創真) — Fuyunagi Shizuku’s arranged marriage partner.