Chapter 01…
The First Drinking Party!
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When I look down—there’s a huge, beautiful chest so big I can’t even see the ground!
Smooth, translucent white skin, slender fingers!
“Gyaaaaaaaa! Eeeeeeeeeeeh!?”
The voice echoing throughout the castle is mine… yet it’s a beautiful woman’s voice I’ve never heard before!?
I… I’ve turned into a girl!?
“The Night Before My Otherworld ‘Reincarnation’”
“Isn’t the happiest life for a human one where nothing happens—plain, peaceful, and you just die? Don’t you think so, little brother?”
“…Are you drunk?”
A small, run-of-the-mill izakaya (Japanese pub)… It’s just past 9 PM, the place is starting to get lively.
“Oh, you noticed? Well, it’s a drinking party—getting drunk is normal! Nom! …Phew! This fried chicken is amazing! Why is izakaya fried chicken so damn good!? It’s lethal! And of course, with fried chicken you need this—sake!”
Like a scene out of an anime, he’s eating “tempura” chicken and guzzling sake straight from the flask. His name: Katsura Tadashi.
“…Your voice is too loud, and drinking sake at 26 is so old-man-like,” says the one responding coolly to Tadashi—Katsura Hiroyuki, Tadashi’s younger brother by two years.
“Listen, once you’re past 25 you round up to 30! I’ve got one foot in the uncle zone already! No matter how I try to act young, you can’t run from aging. From here on, I’m aiming to be a dandy old man!”
“…Huh.”
Hiroyuki half-listens while sipping his cassis orange.
“…Bitter.”
“You really are bad with alcohol. Cassis orange is basically juice to me. Anyway—back to what I was saying—I don’t think my life has been that ordinary.”
“…True. In high school you got failing marks in every subject and nearly had to repeat a year.”
“Ugh… I’ll have you know I was actually pretty smart up until second year of middle school!”
“…Come to think of it, why did you stop going to school in second year of middle school?”
“Hmm… That’s…”
Tadashi pours a new sake into the glass that had water in it, downs it, then calls the waiter for a refill.
“Yeah, I guess it’s time to tell you.”
“…?”
“When I was in second year of middle school… I was bullied.”
“…I see.”
“That’s it? That quick? Look, that’s the awkward age, right? You care about what people think. As you know, I was a chubby kid back then. That’s why I got bullied… by girls.”
“…By girls.”
“Don’t underestimate it! Girls at that age are seriously scary. At school they act all cute in front of dumb delinquent guys, but behind the scenes it’s a seething social hierarchy! They’re monkeys—monkeys, I tell you! Sure, maybe there were some good ones, but to me all girls looked like enemies.”
He’s always been talkative, but now it’s like someone poured oil into his mouth—endless complaints about “women.”
“…Calm down, brother.”
There are, of course, female customers in the izakaya, so Hiroyuki steps in to prevent trouble.
“Oops, my bad. Anyway, the one who bullied me was the queen bee at the top of the student pyramid. On her orders most of the girls bullied me, until I hated going to school and became a truant.”
“…”
“Mom took me to a counseling clinic, but after weird questions and a strange room, they came back with the result: gynophobia.”
“…Gynophobia?”
“Yeah. I looked it up online. It said: ‘An abnormal psychological state involving an extreme fear of interacting with women, blushing badly when speaking with them, or feeling severe discomfort in their presence.’ In my case that ‘discomfort’ is intense—I seriously feel like throwing up.”
“…That bad?”
“Oh yeah. Even if I die and reincarnate in the cycle of rebirth, there’s absolutely, positively, completely no way—”
Tadashi slams back his drink and thuds the glass on the table.
“I’d ever want to become a woman!!!”
“…You, as a woman… haha.”
“Oh, you laughed? You brat. Even if I turned into a woman, I wouldn’t let you grope my boobs!”
“…Come to think of it, didn’t you bounce back in your third year of middle school?”
“…Heh, my brother. Look at me now!”
“…”
“During that time out of school in second year, I absorbed tons of anime and games, and studied books about ‘how to move people’s hearts’ and ‘basic mind techniques.’ And my conclusion!”
“…Yeah?”
“It’s happier to live without thinking too much or worrying!”
“…”
“What’s wrong?”
“…No… nothing…”
“Well, I’ve gotten better than before, but at the core I still feel a strong discomfort toward women.”
“…I see…”
As they talk, time and drinks flow on—
“Excuse me, customers, this will be last call.”
Most of the other patrons have already gone home; Tadashi and Hiroyuki stayed until the end.
“Ehh? For real?”
“…Brother, let’s go.”
“Woo! I’m still drinking! Second bar!”
He’s clearly very drunk.
“…You really like drinking, huh.”
“Drinking is great! It makes you forget your pain and your troubles! Lalala, I’m an old man with good vibes! In other words—it makes you feel good!”
“…You said earlier not to think too much…”
“I forgot that too!”
“…Excuse me, check please.”
After that, Hiroyuki somehow managed to get the staggering Tadashi home—
“Ugh…”
The moment he got home Tadashi rushed to the toilet and vomited spectacularly.
“Urrrgh! Gah…”
He was so drunk his vision flickered.
“Ugh, this is bad… I’m definitely gonna have a hangover tomorrow… my head… I drank too much…”
After throwing up, he crawled like a zombie to his room, enduring the pounding headache—
“Hot… pants… in the way…”
He stripped to just his underwear and T-shirt and collapsed asleep like a dead man—
