Social Anxiety and the Rock of Loneliness

Social Anxiety and the Rock of Loneliness

Author: 0404

Synopsis:

No simulator, no system—what now? Good thing I'm a pervert!

Can pleasing girls make them fall for you?

Can't a fun-loving guy do it?

Can't a pervert build a harem?! (Shouting)

Volume One

I'm a Pervert

A mundane life, work, facing people he did not want to face.

Every day, the only thing he looked forward to was an unchanged tomorrow, because change usually brought nothing good.

Though he had already been worn smooth, the rough sandpaper kept creating fresh wounds and grinding him down.

He used to numb himself with anime and games, but gradually, even that spiritual nourishment could no longer fill the ever-growing void.

"Haah..."

Amid that weary sigh, a dazzling yet heavy light drew closer and closer. The piercing, panicked blare of a horn grew louder, until...

Bang!

Ishikawa Hayato opened his eyes.

In that instant, light burst from his eyes. He threw off the blanket and leaped out of bed.

With his hands on his hips, he threw back his head and shouted.

"Today, I'm still plenty perverted!"

"Big brother! You're so loud!"

From the room next door, his younger sister shouted a complaint.

But as a pervert, how could he accept a complaint without responding?

Ishikawa Hayato flung open his bedroom door like lightning and charged into his third-year middle school sister's room without another word. He pointed from afar at his sister, who had just gotten out of bed and was still in her pajamas.

"O foolish little sister, you dare rebel against your elder brother?"

Ishikawa Hayato struck a dashing pose, his handsome face filled with righteousness.

Only, he was still wearing light-blue pajamas.

Ishikawa Hibiki's face instantly reddened—not from embarrassment, but anger.

With a brother like this, she would never have to worry about low blood pressure for the rest of her life.

"You! Get! Out!"

Without another word, she grabbed the nearest hard object. Rising to her feet, she took a small step back, displayed the skill of a ballet club president, kicked high, planted her foot to build momentum, then swiftly hurled the alarm clock.

An alarm-clock throw at a hundred kilometers per hour!

Clock throwwwww~!

Bang.

Ishikawa Hayato steadily caught the alarm clock flying at his face, set it on the floor, threw back his head with a laugh, and swaggered out.

He even shut the door behind him.

Back in his own room, Hayato changed into his school uniform. The dark-brown, suit-style uniform did not do nearly enough to highlight his good looks.

Still, he tilted his head back in satisfaction and picked up his small briefcase.

"The second evolution of a pervert—high school student—begins now!"

Ishikawa Hayato walked down from the second floor.

Having lived through a terrible life before, he had decided that this time, he would follow a different path.

If he still cowered as he had in the past, refusing to resist all the things that crushed him until he could barely breathe—

Then no matter how many lives he lived, he would only be an insect.

A tiny, dispensable insect that worked desperately.

"Good morning, Dad, Mom. This is a greeting from a perverted high school student."

Walking down the stairs, Ishikawa Hayato raised a hand to greet his parents at the dining table, one reading the newspaper and the other drinking coffee.

"Good morning, Hayato."

His mother did not care at all about his strange remark and answered him gently.

"Mm."

His father nodded.

After years of his perverted comments, the two of them had long grown accustomed to this minor abnormality in his greetings.

Ishikawa Hayato sat down at the table and began eating breakfast. Not long after, Ishikawa Hibiki came downstairs as well.

When she saw her biological brother sitting at the table, her brow twitched. After a moment of internal struggle, she walked over and sat beside him.

But she silently moved her chair a little farther away from that pervert.

While Ishikawa Hayato ate toast spread with sweet tomato sauce, he noticed the sound of her chair moving. He turned and glanced at his sister, dressed in her long autumn-and-winter school uniform with black tights covering her legs.

He stretched out a hand, smiled, and gave her a thumbs-up.

Ishikawa Hibiki instantly shuddered and looked toward their parents in horror.

Their parents, however, turned a blind eye.

For her own safety, Ishikawa Hibiki decided to redirect the trouble elsewhere.

"When is Pervert Brother going to get himself a girlfriend?"

Her daughter-obsessed father did not even raise his head from the newspaper as he casually chimed in.

"After high school, it gets harder to meet a girl you like."

"Mom agrees too. Hayato, you can't keep being such a pervert. You'll scare all the girls away."

Facing the attack from all three of them, Hayato washed down the last bit of bread with coffee.

He stood up.

"In two months, I'll show you the power of a harem king!"

With that, he confidently walked over to his parents.

"A goodbye kiss from a high school student!"

Amid their helpless yet pleased expressions, he kissed each of them on the cheek.

Finally, he walked over to his sister. Ignoring her terrified gaze and desperate resistance, he kissed her cheek as well. Then he picked up his schoolbag and headed for the entryway.

"Good afternoon! That was an advance greeting from a pervert! Bye-bye."

"Have a good day~"

His mother bid him farewell with a smile.

After leaving the house, Ishikawa Hayato generously raised a hand to greet the elderly neighbor watering flowers next door.

"Good morning, Grandpa. Please give me your granddaughter's LINE!"

"She's only seven! How would she have one?! Get lost, you brat!"

Hearing the old man's laughing scolding, Ishikawa Hayato smiled and quickened his pace.

Along the way, he greeted everyone he knew. Faced with his ordinary perverted greetings, some people ignored the perverted part entirely and smiled as they replied; some teased him; some even answered him in a similar tone.

He smiled all the way.

Until he saw a girl standing in front of a shop window, and the smile on his face turned to surprise.

"So that's how it is..."

Although he had knowledge from his previous life and all sorts of literary and artistic works, Ishikawa Hayato did not particularly want to use them.

He wanted to live a different life here, relying on himself.

Maybe he would encounter terrible things. Maybe he would fail. Maybe he would still fall into rock bottom.

But he felt that if he took other people's works from his memories and used them as a brick in the tower of his own success, would that not make him the kind of person he had hated most in the past?

Those who acquired wealth by any means necessary and appropriated others' efforts as their own status.

Perhaps his thinking was a little extreme, but he had his own pride.

He did not want to be corrupted.

He had already lost everything once, but if he lost even the last bottom line in his heart—

What would he have left?

Therefore, over the past decade or so, he had only lived an ordinary life. Though he was somewhat talented and occasionally wrote novels with novel plots to earn some pocket money, he had always remained ordinary.

But that did not fit with what he wanted.

Just how was he supposed to live differently?

He had been thinking about it all along.

Then today, when he saw that girl in a pink tracksuit, carrying a guitar on her back, wearing all kinds of band charms on her hands, and with several band badges stuck to her bag, inspiration suddenly struck him.

He knew her—no, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he might know of her.

If he was not mistaken, her name was Gotou Hitori. She was an extreme social anxiety sufferer, a character he had known from anime and games in his previous life.

And now, she stood right before him.

Alive and three-dimensional.

She looked at the window with some anticipation, a vaguely confused smile on her face. Then, after shifting her gaze, her expression suddenly tightened, and she stiffly walked forward.

Ah, she noticed him.

Ishikawa Hayato did not feel the slightest bit guilty about staring at the girl for so long and frightening her.

Instead, he unhurriedly followed behind her.

"As a pervert, stalking should be perfectly normal, right?"

Ishikawa Hayato thought it over. It was entirely reasonable, so he paid no attention to it and followed the increasingly nervous Gotou Hitori.

Declaration of Independence

W-What should I do? I'm being followed!

Gotou Hitori nervously quickened her pace, but...

He quickened his pace too!!

Hitori felt a life-or-death crisis approaching and desperately racked her brain.

That person was wearing the uniform of the same school as her. He should just be heading to school normally... No! Then why did he speed up when she sped up?

C-Could it be that he saw all the band merchandise on her and came over to hit on her?

Hitori stopped walking and stiffly, warily looked behind her, but her head was like a jammed gear, completely unable to turn.

This is bad!!