My Plain-looking Fiance is Secretly Sweet with Me

After we finished setting up and returned home, the clock showed 7 PM.
Not only physically tired but mentally as well… I thought as I collapsed onto the living room sofa without changing clothes.
“I’ve arrived at the airport. I’ll be at your place in about an hour.”
Nayu suddenly called just as I opened my phone.
Calling me before arriving was rare… given how badly she usually behaved, even this normal courtesy surprised me.
But isn’t she returning to Japan a bit early? I hope Dad’s wallet will be okay…
“Yuuka. Nayu will be here in about an hour.”
“Yes. Isami also called me, saying she’d arrive around that time.”
Yuuka said while placing her glasses on the table and removing her hair tie.
To attend tomorrow’s cultural festival from early morning, starting tonight, both Nayu and Isami will be staying at our house.
The last time all four of us gathered must have been before the Comiket…
I hope Nayu and Isami don’t fight again… I thought with a sigh.
―――At some point, Yuuka had disappeared from the living room.
“Huh? Yuuka?”
I changed my sitting position and looked around anxiously, when suddenly, with a “click,” the living room door opened.
“Ta-da!!”
Creating her sound effect, and entering the living room―――was Yuuka in a maid outfit.
It was a black one-piece maid dress design, with the skirt fluttering around her knees.
Between the jet-black long socks were her healthy thighs―――and the section dubbed the ‘inviolable territory’.
The white apron and cute frilly edges.
Her long black hair flowed straight down, she was adorned with a pure white headband.
From hair color. To eye color. And even body shape. Though completely different, it was as if―――Yuuna-chan in a maid outfit was standing before me.
“…H-How is it? Does it suit me? M-Master♪”
Yuuka smiled shyly while delivering a killer line.
“Oh, by the way, the original maid outfit had a long skirt! Showing bare legs to anyone other than Yuu-kun would be too embarrassing…”
She made excuses even though I hadn’t asked.
Yuuka held the tray for the cultural festival in one hand… and extended her other hand towards me.
“Yuuka always wants Master to be happy… I’ll do my very best! So… from now on, will you… always stay by my side?”
What’s this? Is this girl trying to bewitch me?
This extremely high-level situation could melt the mind of any high school boy.
“…Is that not okay?”
Yuuka whispered as if trying to suppress her anxiety.
Somewhere in her voice, there was a hint of worry.
Stimulated by Yuuka’s unnatural tone… unconsciously, I reached out and grasped her hand tightly.
“You don’t need to try so hard. Master is too much, but… if it’s as ‘husband and wife’. I want to be by your side… from now on.”
“…Thank you, Yuu-kun.”
After―――gently releasing my hand.
Yuuka began to hug me… tightly, very tightly.
Her sudden action caught me by surprise.
Following suit―――I wrapped my arms around Yuuka’s back and embraced her.
“…Can I tell you about something from the past?”
“…Sure.”
“In middle school, I… like Yuu-kun, had a period when I didn’t go to school, I told you that, right?”
Then Yuuka.
While hugging me, she began to open up about―――her “past wounds.”
“Isami, you know. She said that when I was little, I was quite mischievous, right?”
“Ah, that’s right. Like ‘I’m number one!’, right?”
I recalled the childhood photos of Yuuka that I had seen during the summer break.
“Well, even if I was mischievous, I gradually became calmer, but… anyway, my talkative nature didn’t change, right? Even in elementary school, or when I entered middle school, I still talked a lot with my close friends… so I was called the ‘talkative otaku.'”
“Yuuka was an otaku since back then, huh.”
“Yuu-kun also said you’ve been an otaku since long ago. It’s no different from me! I liked anime and manga, and I talked passionately about how interesting they were, about ‘the ideal development I thought of’―――”
Ideal development according to her thoughts!?
For a moment, I heard a piece of information rich in dark history… but it would be off-topic, so I decided to stop joking here.
“Well, in middle school, I also openly shared my otaku interests and talked very extrovertedly… so I can imagine.”
“I wasn’t extroverted like that! I just excitedly talked with friends who shared my interests in the corner of the classroom every day… but I was too noisy. You could say it left a bad impression.”
Yes, as soon as Yuuka said that.
I could feel the weight―――hidden in her hands, transmitting through my back.
“It was around the second year of middle school. Another group of girls, how should I put it… they started bullying us. ‘What are you whispering about when we’re talking next to you’, or ‘You’re avoiding us’. They kept pushing, even though our group wasn’t that big… I don’t know why they disliked me so much. Something like that.”
“So that means…”
Yuuka almost burst into tears, but she managed to control herself.
Yuuka had said “Bullying.”
Surely, what had happened couldn’t be summed up with such a mild word.
Somehow, just because of the trivial reason of being annoyed, Yuuka―――had been harassed by the girls in her class.
“At first, I endured it, you know? But my close friends didn’t want to get involved… and they stopped talking to me. It was like… our bond had been cut.”
“…I see.”
At times like this… not being able to say anything comforting made even me feel ashamed.
If it were Isami, she would use flattering words even if she had to. If Yuuka heard something like “it’s okay,” she might be a bit skeptical.
Still, I didn’t want Yuuka to feel anxious.
Instead of saying nothing―――I hugged Yuuka tightly and gently patted her head.
“…Ehehe. Yuu-kun, thank you.”
“No need. I haven’t done anything for you to be thankful for.”
“That’s not true. Yuu-kun always makes me… leads me to a brighter world.”
Then Yuuka―――began to tell me about the time she didn’t go to school.
Yuuka, after being isolated by friends who no longer wanted to talk to her, gradually became afraid of going to school, and then she shut herself in at home.
Thanks to reading light novels, and manga, and watching anime, she gradually forgot her emotional wounds, but.
When night came, she would cry for no reason.
When she woke up in the morning, she would suddenly feel stomach pain.
In that miserable state, Yuuka… isolated herself from the outside world for nearly a year.
As for me, after being rejected by Raimu, I had holed up in my room for just about a week.
You call that despair, huh?
I felt ashamed of myself.
Because compared to my foolish depression――――Yuuka’s “past wounds” were ten thousand times greater.
“Seeing me like that right next to her… that’s why Isami became overprotective, I understand that. Because my condition back then was that bad…”
“So, even if she acts like a prince, Isami is still Isami.”
“Ahaha. That’s right. Ah, I like her way of hitting on girls, I wish she would respect her older sister more. Really.”
After I made a joke, Yuuka also released her feelings and responded as if complaining.
Then, Yuuka took a deep breath.
And she hugged me again, but this time even tighter.
“…In the third year of middle school, I auditioned for ‘Alice Stage’. Even though I had shut myself in my room for a year, I was surprised! Both my parents and Isami were speechless… I wanted to create my own ‘world of stories’, just like how manga and anime had supported me during my toughest times… I thought that. And then, I got accepted!”
After that, Yuuka gathered all her courage… and went to school for the remaining few months.
Then, pushing aside her emotions, she moved to Tokyo.
During her time living alone, Yuuka balanced her high school life with her voice acting career.
Then―――the sudden marriage story appeared in her second year, leading up to now.
“…That’s all! I’m sorry for telling such gloomy stories. And… thank you for listening to me. Yuu-kun.”
“No, I should be thanking you… for telling me. Yuuka.”
Then, without knowing who initiated it, we gradually separated from each other.
The Yuuka before me, after finishing her dark story… was smiling radiantly, like the brightest star in the sky.
“Why are you grinning like that, Yuuka?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just seriously thinking about how much I love Yuu-kun! Seriously.”
“Was there such an element in the story just now?”
“Of course, there was, right? Even though I became a voice actress, I still wasn’t doing well, the one who gave me courage back then was ‘The Reaper Lost in Love’-san. Even now, I’m happy every day thanks to Yuu-kun. Thinking back… isn’t it that I’ve loved you so much?”
“No, no. It’s the opposite, the opposite. Yuuna-chan was the one who gave hope to ‘The Reaper Lost in Love’. Even now, thanks to Yuuka, though each day is a bit noisy, I always feel happy. So I’m the one who―――”
“You’re the one who what?”
“Ah, uh… nothing. It’s nothing.”
“That won’t do. You have to answer clearly, or I won’t let you go~”
“Let me go where? This is our home, you know?”
“Don’t mind the details! Now, hurry up and say it. You’re the one who? …L? …ove?”
“What kind of direction is that!? Besides, wasn’t Yuuka the one who just said―――”
“Hey. I’m getting impatient, you two should go spend the night together already. Seriously.”
Then, while we were engrossed in our conversation.
I suddenly heard the voice of my annoying little sister coming from the hallway.
Our faces, mine and Yuuka’s, suddenly touched, then slowly turned toward the hallway.
There was―――Nayu with a frown, and Isami smiling in her princely way, standing next to each other.
“Nayu-chan. That’s why reading the atmosphere is important. Now that these two look so lovey-dovey, once night falls, things will heat up. Well, Nayu-chan is still a child, so you probably don’t understand.”
“Huh? Noisy, you fake prince of atmosphere.”
“Fake prince of atmosphere… I can’t let that comment slide, sister.”
“What? Have you already started arguing? What’s going to happen later?”
“Nayu, Isami… how long have you two been here?”
“Huh? It’s been almost ten minutes already? Just keep hugging in your little world. Tch.”
“As expected of Yuunii-san. To make Yuuka act so spoiled… ‘You have to answer clearly, or I won’t let you go~’, aha… Yuuka is so cute.”
“Isami, you’re teasing me, aren’t you!? Idiot, idiot! Geez!! If you two had arrived at the house, you should have at least said something! It’s embarrassing, geez!!”
―――And that’s how things unfolded.
The night before the cultural festival was even more lively than usual.
And―――finally, tomorrow would be the cultural festival.
For both me and Yuuka… to make tomorrow’s cultural festival the best one ever, we would have to do our very best.