Prologue – The Pretty Boy
My name is Nio Isagi.
A boy.
Well... a pretty boy, to be exact.
No, I'm not being cocky or anything—I really don't like saying this. But facts are facts, no matter how much I sigh about them. I'm only 162 centimeters tall, thin, and cursed with a body that's—how do I even say this—curvy. You know, the kind of curves guys aren't supposed to have.
Even my face looks like a girl's. Soft cheeks, pale skin, big eyelashes... Every time I look in the mirror, I feel like I'm staring at a sister I never had.
Seriously, what the hell, genetics?
I didn't ask for this face.
I didn't ask for this body.
And yet here I am. Trapped.
"Cute," people always say. Like some kind of human bunny.
Even worse, when strangers see me walking around, they whisper behind my back:
"Hey, is that girl... a guy?"
Or sometimes they don't even realize.
"Wow, such a pretty girl..." they'd say, nodding to each other as if I can't hear them. I always hear them. Always.
That's why I don't go outside.
I prefer staying inside my parents' bookstore.
A quiet, cozy, little place tucked between a barber shop that never has customers and an old takoyaki stand that smells like burnt sauce. The bookstore smells like dust, ink, and loneliness.
The best part?
It's always empty.
No customers. No noise. No people pointing or staring or whispering.
Just me, the old wooden counter, and rows of untouched books. Some of these books have probably been here since before I was born. Their pages smell old, their covers faded, and they sit on the shelves like tired old men, waiting to die.
I should be bored out of my mind here... but I'm not.
I like the quiet.
I like knowing that no one's going to walk through that door and say,
"Excuse me, miss—oh, wait, you're a boy?!"
Yeah. That happened before. Once. Only once. But I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.
What could I do? I was born this way.
This cursed pretty face, this weirdly soft voice, this small body that never grew like the other boys in middle school. Even my hands are small. Even my waist is too slim.
Honestly... what kind of guy has a waist this thin?
Maybe I'm a mistake of nature. A bugged human. A misprint straight from God's printer.
Anyway.
My life is this: I wake up. I eat whatever my mom made. I open the bookstore. I sit behind the counter. I wait for no customers. I close the bookstore. I go home. I sleep.
Rinse and repeat.
My phone gathers dust. No friends to text. No plans to make. No calls to answer.
I'm an indoor person—a certified hermit of society. And I like it that way.
…No. That's a lie.
I hate it.
But what else can I do?
Go outside, and the world will stare at me again. Boys will tease me. Girls will give me weird looks. Old ladies will smile at me like I'm their lost granddaughter.
I don't want that. I don't want any of that.
So here I am. Day after day. In this quiet prison of books.
And yet, some stupid part of me always thinks:
"Maybe tomorrow will be different."
Maybe someone interesting will walk into the shop. Maybe something exciting will happen.
But that's impossible.
Nothing ever happens to me.
I'm just a pretty boy working at a dead bookstore.
The most boring protagonist ever.
Right?
…Right?