How To Ruin A Love Comedy – Chapter 2

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Nekorune
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The chirping of sparrows was grating on my ears.

The blazing sunlight was also piercing through my eyelids, disturbing my sleep.

It was strange. I always sleep with the blackout curtains drawn.

Frowning, I sat up in bed with my eyes still closed.

The feel of the blanket was strange.

Unlike my usual soft and thick one, this one felt rough and scratchy, like I was touching a blanket made of hemp.

Even the area around my hips felt stiff. It was like I was sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor rather than a bed.

“What the…”

I forced open my heavy eyelids and looked around.

A spacious room, the floor covered with several green-rimmed mats that looked like they were woven from straw…

Tatami mats? A faint scent of straw, reminiscent of the time I went to a Japanese Ryokan, wafted through the air. They probably were tatami mats.

I groaned as I sat up, as everything felt unfamiliar.

The interior design, the furniture, the structure of the house… I had never seen any of it before.

It felt like I was in someone else’s house.

“What the hell is going on…”

Wondering if I was having a lucid dream, I stepped over the open sliding paper door.

As I stepped onto the brown veranda connected directly to the living room, a small garden came into view.

It was poorly maintained, with dead plants everywhere.

Looking around, I saw several houses similar to the one I was in… They looked like traditional Japanese houses.

I didn’t understand anything. My mind was a mess.

Where am I?

As I tried to pull myself together, my eyes fell on a young man passing by.

He had a piece of toast in his mouth, a bag slung over one shoulder, and was running somewhere, sweating profusely.

A classic cliché from school-themed stories. The protagonist sprinting at full speed, stuffing his face with bread, in order to avoid being late.

Seeing it in real life, I felt the tension drain away and let out a small laugh before snapping my head back in surprise.

The man’s face was very familiar.

“That… That guy…”

I definitely, without a doubt, knew that guy.

“T-Tetsuya…?”

Miura Tetsuya.

The frustrating protagonist of Doki Doki Academy had just passed me by.

He was tall but had a slender build, and messy hair that made him look dull.

Even from behind, his features were unmistakable. That guy was definitely Miura Tetsuya.

Startled, I dashed out barefoot, hopped over the fence, and watched as Miura Tetsuya disappeared into the distance. Then,

Slap!

I slapped myself hard across the face.

It hurt. It hurt like hell, so much so that I saw stars.

I had to be dreaming, so why can I feel pain?

Was that whole thing about not being able to feel pain in dreams a lie all along?

“Haah… Haah…”

My breath quickened. I couldn’t understand this situation at all.

Swallowing hard, I moved my body and saw the tightly closed front door of the house I had just come out of.

And I noticed the nameplate attached next to the door.

The characters were engraved in elegant handwriting, with smaller characters, probably Japanese syllables, written next to them.

I don’t understand any Japanese, but for some reason, I could read the name written on the nameplate as naturally as breathing.

“Matsuda Ken…?”

I knew this name, too.

Matsuda Ken was the minor character who tried to make a move on Miyuki, the main heroine, but ended up getting taught a lesson by Tetsuya, who received the “protect my girl” buff. And that was the end of his role in the game.

He was just a disposable character meant to strengthen the bond between Miura Tetsuya and Miyuki.

Like me, he was an orphan who had lost both parents, and since he had inherited a sizable inheritance, I felt a strange sense of kinship with him.

It was also a shame that a character with more potential was used only as a minor character.

So, am I experiencing Doki Doki Academy from Matsuda’s perspective?

The moment I thought that,

“Ugh…! Gaaaaah!”

An excruciating pain shot through my head.

And then, it flowed in naturally.

Matsuda Ken’s memories.

“Haah… Haah…!”

As I was trying to calm my ragged breathing, a middle-aged woman walking down the street recognized me and asked,

“Matsuda-kun? Are you alright?”

Unable to answer, I ignored her and staggered back inside.

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Fortunately, the pain subsided quickly.

The memories settled in quickly, like synchronizing a cell phone, and my adaptability to this unfamiliar place increased dramatically.

Thanks to this, I was able to fully adapt to this place and was able to look at myself in the bathroom mirror in a calm state.

Short hair, an average-sized head, and distinct features.

Broad shoulders, a moderately muscular body, and slightly tanned skin.

After checking my appearance, I couldn’t help but gape in astonishment.

“So this is…me?”

The person in the mirror was me.

Not DDA’s Matsuda Ken, but the real me.

I was a little more muscular than before, but it was definitely me.

“Ah… Ahhhh…”

I tested my voice, like a singer warming up their vocal cords, and it sounded exactly the same as in reality.

So, did Ken become me?

No, the owner of this body is me, and I’m currently in Japan, in the setting of DDA… so it’s more accurate to say that I’ve become Matsuda Ken.

Besides, when I was clutching my head in pain, that lady definitely called me ‘Matsuda-kun.’

It means she recognized me as Matsuda Ken.

To sum it up… I, while still being myself, have possessed Matsuda Ken.

It’s unbelievable.

Taking a deep breath, I went out to the living room and opened the refrigerator door.

I took out a bottle of water and gulped it down.

I didn’t know why this had happened to me.

Maybe the developers of DDA were gods, and they were enraged by my review.

That is a ridiculous thought, but seeing as I have actually ended up here, it isn’t entirely impossible.

But do those bastards have any right to be angry?

All I did was criticize a game and a writer that anyone could tell was trash.

Anyway, the thought of living as this guy from now on felt strange.

At the same time, I was excited.

Why? Because being in the world of DDA meant I could meet this game’s heroines, including Miyuki.

It meant I could win them over.

Just the thought of seeing those lovely ladies, experiencing academy life with them and their diverse personalities, brought joy to my previously mundane life.

Even if it meant suffering through frustrating situations because of the clueless Tetsuya.

Go back to reality? No way.

I’m not even going to try to find a way back.

I’m going to live happily ever after here.

With whom? With the heroines, of course.

Honestly, it’s better for them to like me than to suffer heartache while liking a dense guy like Tetsuya.

Chuckling to myself, I quickly snapped out of it.

“Let’s go to the academy.”

Ken… No, I was a delinquent who was always late or absent from school.

I hung out with bad kids and had a bad reputation.

Naturally, the heroines had a bad impression of me too.

The only saving grace was that I arrived before I did anything to Miyuki.

This alone was enough.

As long as I hadn’t screwed things up yet, I knew countless ways to win her over.

Every dating sim has events that affect your relationship with the characters.

And I knew every single event that would occur between Tetsuya and the heroines.

From now on, I was going to intervene in those events.

And I was going to make Miyuki, Renka, and Hiyori… all three of them fall for me.

Of course, if I intervened, the future would change, and there was a high chance that new events would occur.

But I didn’t care. Because I would be the main character in those new events.

I naturally opened the sliding door of the closet, put on my uniform, and stepped out of the house. The route from this house to the academy was already mapped out in my mind as if it were a familiar path.

I knew where to take the bus, where to transfer to the subway, everything.

“Heh…”

Letting out a giddy laugh, I walked with a light step.

Even though it was summer, it was cool rather than hot.

I was reborn.

In the best of all worlds, as the person I wanted to be.

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In the world of DDA, attending an academy was a compulsory part of education.

It was a place you had to enter right after graduating high school.

A step above high school, and a step below college.

That’s the ambiguous position this academy held.

And I was attending a prestigious private school in Tokyo called [Yeboni Academy].

As I racked my brain, trying to remember how someone who sucked at studying like me was able to enroll in this place, it hit me.

I won my enrollment at a lottery. How absurd.

Well, the details of this world’s setting weren’t important, so let’s move on…

On my way here, I thought seriously about how I should act.

I could always try to get the heroines’ attention by acting like Tetsuya.

But I didn’t want to do that.

Why would I imitate that… that idiot who couldn’t even hold hands with a girl even after an eternity of being given nothing but breadcrumbs?

I felt so bad for the heroines who had feelings for the oblivious Tetsuya… So copying such a passive guy was out of the question.

But that didn’t mean I was going to be a womanizer and hit on them relentlessly. That would just make them hate me.

After much deliberation, the answer I came up with was… to stay true to Matsuda Ken’s personality but add my own twist to it.

He was an incredibly lazy guy, but he had a warm side to him…

Someone who occasionally shows an unexpected side of himself and gradually changes for the better thanks to the guidance of the heroines…

That was the kind of character I was aiming for.

Of course, I would have to adapt my acting depending on the situation, but this would be my basic framework.

“Class 1-A… Class 1-A…”

After finding the classroom I was supposed to be in, I opened the door without hesitation.

Creak!

At the sound of the wooden door creaking open, all eyes in the classroom turned to me.

From the teacher to the students… Everyone was staring at me with their own pair of eyes.

Some were glaring at me, while others seemed intimidated and tried to avoid my gaze.

And… among the former, the one who was glaring at me the most intensely, as if she wanted to kill me, was…

Long, bright brown hair, eyes of the same color, a sculpted nose, and a sharp jawline.

She had a voluptuous figure with large breasts that looked to be at least E-cups, and a slim waist…

She was the very image of the girl I knew, sitting in the front row, the picture of a model student.

She was the class president of Yeboni Academy’s Class 1-A, Tetsuya’s childhood friend, and the main heroine of DDA, Hanazawa Miyuki.

My first impression of seeing her in person was that she was absolute perfection.

She had insanely beautiful features and a killer body.

Barely suppressing the urge to jump for joy, I greeted Miyuki internally and avoided her gaze.

It wasn’t easy to ignore Miyuki, whom I had been longing to see… but I had to endure it for the future.

“Matsuda-kun, you actually came today.”

“Yeah,” I replied curtly to the elderly teacher’s words and went to sit in the empty seat at the very back.

Glancing to the side, I saw Tetsuya diligently scribbling away with his pencil.

He was a guy who liked to draw, so he would often doodle during breaks. Seeing it in person felt strangely moving.

I snuck a glance at Miyuki, then nudged Tetsuya with my elbow.

“Hey, Miura. What are you doing?”

“Ah, this…? It’s nothing.”

Tetsuya quickly hid his notebook with his arm.

Scoffing at the useless guy, I was about to get up from my seat to tease him some more.

Just then, Miyuki pushed back her chair, stood up, and approached me.

The reason Miyuki hated me was partly because I was a delinquent, but mostly because I would occasionally play pranks on Tetsuya.

For example, I’d snatch away his drawings and stick them on the blackboard, or when he was about to go to the bathroom, I’d tease him about smelling like poop… childish pranks like that.

Every time, Tetsuya would just laugh it off, but I knew he hated it deep down.

Anyway, it seemed Miyuki had come over to stop me, thinking I was about to bother Tetsuya again.

As I turned my gaze to her approaching figure, I thought,

‘The way I address her… I think I should just go with what I know, right?’

What I was most careful about right now was the use of honorifics.

The titles used to address people in Japan.

Of course, there were standard rules, but the criteria varied depending on the situation and the individual, which was a headache.

In Miyuki’s case, the only one allowed to call her by her name without any honorifics was her longtime childhood friend, Tetsuya.

If you were a close friend, you would call her ‘Miyuki-chan,’ and if you were just a friend or a classmate, you would call her ‘Hanazawa.’

And for the rest of the riff raff, it was “Hanazawa-chan” or “Hanazawa-san,” if I remember correctly?

Well, from her point of view, I was part of the riff raff, so it would be appropriate to call her ‘Hanazawa-san’ or ‘Hanazawa-chan,’ but…

‘-san’ felt too distant, and ‘-chan’ sounded way too chummy.

Let’s go with ‘Hanazawa.’ Matsuda Ken also called Miyuki that, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

Quickly making up my mind, I said to Miyuki, who had reached my desk,

“What’s up, Hanazawa?”

As expected, Miyuki didn’t question the way I addressed her.

However, she made it clear that she didn’t like me.

That look of contempt… Strangely, it wasn’t that bad.

“Matsuda-kun, if you’re going to be late anyway, you can just come in after class. Why do you have to be a pain to everyone?”

Ah… her voice was so beautiful. I almost lost myself for a moment.

Hold it together. I had to endure.

Calming my pounding heart, I replied curtly,

“Doesn’t being absent deduct more points than being late? I need to start focusing on my studies too, you know.”

“You don’t care about that. You’ve already given up on studying.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t say it like that. You’re hurting my feelings…”

“I know you don’t care. Just please don’t do it again.”

I wanted to tell her that I understood, that I would obey her every word.

“Alright, alright. I gotta listen to the class president when she speaks with such venom in her voice.”

“I’d appreciate it if you listened properly instead of being sarcastic.”

“I said I got it.”

Annoyed by my reply, Miyuki gave me yet another glare like the one she gave me the moment I stepped into the classroom, and then spoke to Tetsuya.

“Tetsuya-kun, I want to go to the store. Want to come with me?”

“Ah… yeah. Let’s go.”

Tetsuya, who had been watching our exchange, quickly replied.

The two of them soon disappeared out of the classroom.

Miyuki was probably badmouthing me right now, and Tetsuya was probably just agreeing with her every word.

Miyuki and I were worlds apart.

The fact that she had such an attitude towards me, even though she was the class president who had to look after all the students, spoke volumes.

I understood, considering my past misdeeds.

But it was okay. As I thought before, I knew everything that would happen to Miyuki.

It meant I was confident I could get close to her quickly.

It was currently July 10th. The timing of my arrival here was perfect.

Why? Because tomorrow, a classic cliché of romantic comedies is supposed to unfold.

Originally, it was to be an event that should strengthen Miyuki’s feelings for Tetsuya… but I was planning to intervene.

From that point on, Miyuki’s attitude towards me will soften considerably.

And as for Tetsuya… of course, that good-for-nothing will not be involved in that event.

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