The next morning.

While the world around me was now far from ‘usual,’ I headed to school just like usual—only to stop in my tracks at a sight beyond my expectations.

“Whoa, Kokonoe-san is super cute!”

“What happened? Wow! That’s a total makeover!”

“You look way better without glasses!”

“Your hair’s all fluffy, it suits you so well!”

“Which salon did you go to?”

“You changed this much in just one day? That’s amazing!”

Kokonoe Touka was completely surrounded by girls.

She was utterly overwhelmed by the barrage of questions, reduced to flustered, frantic motions.

“Ah…”

And the moment I stepped into the classroom, Kokonoe’s eyes lit up.

Stop.

Don’t come over. Anything but her—

“Fukase-kuuuuuun!? P-please save meeeee!!”

Kokonoe sprang to her feet and charged straight toward me.

She clung to me as if throwing herself into my chest.

As expected, the girls who had been surrounding Kokonoe all turned their eyes on me at once, wearing expressions that clearly said, Huh?

“Y-you idiot! I told you not to come any closer!”

“B-but… I-I didn’t know what else to dooo!”

“I said let go! They’re gonna get the wrong idea! Just let go already!”

“I-I can’t!”

Turns out, the strength you get when you’re emotionally overwhelmed is no joke.

Kokonoe had a death grip on my uniform and wouldn’t let go, and no matter how hard I tried to pry her off, she didn’t budge an inch.

The stares burned.

And then the worst happened.

“………………”

Footsteps sounded right behind me.

I didn’t even need to turn around to know—it was Otomi Asuka.

After interpreting the situation entirely on her own, she spat out a single word.

“Gross.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?

The shock was immeasurable. I couldn’t focus on a single word in class that day.

Asuka’s eyes, drained of all light, and that one word—“Gross”—looped endlessly in my head.

I was the one who helped make Kokonoe cute, so why am I the one being punished like this?

◇◇◇ 

“Kokonoe, we’re here!”

Just as we’d agreed beforehand, I brought Aoi along and headed to the library right at six in the evening.

“Ah, th-thank you for coming…!”

The only one at the counter was Kokonoe. The moment she saw us, she hurriedly locked the entrance, flustered.

“S-sorry about earlier today… I, um, completely lost my composure…”

“You really did. Asuka hates me now…”

“I-I’ll make it up to you, I promise…!”

Will she really be able to make up for it?

If anything, relying on Kokonoe like this feels like it might just make things worse, and that honestly scares me.

“So—where’s this place you wanted to show us?”

“Y-yes… this way, please…”

We followed Kokonoe deeper into the library, stepping into a section lined with old history books near the back.

“Here… do this… and then…”

Kokonoe placed both hands against an utterly unremarkable wall and started pushing.

I was just about to retort—but in the very next moment, the target of that retort changed completely.

“…Huh!? Hey, what is this!?”

“A-a hidden room…?”

Without a sound, the wall slid open, revealing a space that could only be described as a hidden room, gaping before us.

It was the kind of gimmick you’d often see in manga or movies, but encountering it in real life hit on a completely different level.

“P-please… come in…”

Kokonoe beckoned us into the darkness.

“There’s no lighting… I’ll turn on my phone’s flashlight.”

When she did, the outline of the dim room became visible.

It was a small space, about four tatami mats in size, lined with dusty bookshelves. In the center sat a simple desk and a single set of chairs.

Aoi and I switched on our phone lights as well, illuminating our surroundings.

“So… does this hidden room have something interesting in it?”

“Um… first, this—”

Kokonoe took out an old, weathered book and gently opened it on the desk.

As the pages were turned from the cover onward, the contents became unmistakably clear.

Aoi and I exchanged looks in silence.

“…This is the structure of the male genitalia.”

“T-that’s right… These are materials about men that you’d absolutely never find online. This hidden room has… um…”

I see. So that’s why it was deliberately hidden away.

In this world, women have children with other women, men have been almost completely excluded, and even their basic human rights are becoming increasingly ambiguous.

No matter how much you search online, there’s absolutely nothing about penis. Even erotic images are nothing but women with other women.

Considering that, the book in front of us was a completely forbidden text.

“So you really are seriously interested in men, huh?”

“Y-yes… actually, one of the reasons I chose this school was because I heard the library was large and had all kinds of books…”

She’s got more drive than I expected.

“There are other things too. Th-this one, for example… um…”

“W-whoa… h-hey, wait… what is this…?”

Aoi’s reaction suddenly became very obvious.

It was a simple illustration showing a man and a woman in the missionary position.

It wasn’t a detailed drawing, so it wasn’t particularly lewd. Regardless, the imagery of the penis being inserted into the female was clear enough for Aoi to understand exactly what was happening

“Th-the ‘ochinchin’… it’s inside… the woman…”

“Ochinchin?” 

“Um… it’s another name for the penis. Is it not written in there?”

Kokonoe tilted her head slightly and looked over at me.

“There are several different names for the penis. One of them is ‘chinchin’.”

Why am I explaining this with a completely straight face…?

“I-is that so…? Somehow, um… it sounds kind of… cute…”

“Hehe, it’s a little funny, right? Recently, chinchin has been my personal favorite.” 

“Chinchin… chinchin… hehe. You’re right, it is kind of funny when you say it…”

Only you two could find that word funny.

But still, having an innocent girl say the name of the male genitalia stirred up a strange sense of guilt.

“…Apparently, a long time ago, men and women would have intercourse like this, and that was how children were born.”

Kokonoe composed her expression and returned to explaining the book’s contents.

“They say children can’t be born that way anymore, but there were also times when men would engage in these acts with other men… This room is filled with old knowledge I never knew before. …That’s why there’s a reason I wanted to bring you here.”

Kokonoe looked straight at me.

I felt she had become better at making direct eye contact than before. 

“Fukase-kun… you’re completely different from other men. In this world, men don’t try to get along with other men, and they almost never talk to girls on their own.”

—The gazes I’d felt ever since the start of the school year.

Only now did I finally understand that they had been Kokonoe’s.

So she’d been watching me that closely all this time.

“Most men in this world are afraid of women. They can’t even talk back. And then there’s your athletic ability during PE class—those records were anything but normal.”

“Yeah… I’ve thought so too, ever since the entrance ceremony. Kazuto-kun is different from the other boys.”

That explains it.

That must be why Aoi was always so surprised by the things I did.

“…Just who are you, exactly?”

Kokonoe’s question cut straight to the heart of it.

I took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

Then—after looking at Kokonoe and Aoi, I made my decision.

If it was these two, then it was okay to tell them.

“I’m… a man who seems to have been transported from another world—”