THIS IS A FAN TRANSLATION, THOUGH THE WEBSITE NAME...HAS MTL IN IT...

Touko-senpai’s ‘cute girl-ification plan’?

TL: Furby

ED: Danny

Friday of that week. It seemed that today too was a day for Karen and Kamokura’s cheaters’ date.

Karen had contacted me before saying that on Friday, she’d go shopping with a friend from her hometown and then they’d go play together. Meanwhile, it seemed that Kamokura too had told Touko-senpai that he had a meeting from his part-time job on Friday and that they’d go have some drinks together after it.

In Kamokura’s case, he had to change his excuse because his high school was the same as not only Touko-senpai, but also me. If he was careless and said something like ‘a friend from my hometown’, he ran the risk of us catching on to his lies in some way.

Even if I say so myself, today I was in slightly high spirits.

 This was because I had made a promise with Touko-senpai to go together to buy clothes for me.

This conversation was from back when we decided our ‘D-day’.

“There are many boys that don’t pay attention to their clothes, but it would still be best that you maintain a certain neatness.”

Touko-senpai told me that.

“Neatness of my clothes? But my parents wash my clothes nearly every day.”

“I’m not saying that your clothes are dirty or anything like that. My choice of words was poor. Maybe it would’ve been better to say that you mustn’t dress slovenly.”

“Dress slovenly?”

“Try remembering what the university is like. For example, in our Department of Science and Engineering, everyone wears worn-out sweatshirts or fleece jackets together with checked shirts and jeans. Those kinds of people abound, right?”

“Yes?”

As if reaffirming her words, I myself was currently wearing a fleece hooded jacket and a thick cotton shirt on top, paired with some jeans I had worn since high school. 

“If the clothes someone is wearing are worn-out or ragged, that’s reflected into the person who wears them and makes them look shabby.”

Hmm, she may have been right about that. I hadn’t paid much attention to it because there were many guys around me who did the same.

“It doesn’t have to be expensive clothes. Even clothes from Unishiro and ZU can give off a more than nice sense of neatness to your appearance.”
(TL Note: Unishiro and ZU are references to Uniqlo and GU, famous clothing brands in Japan)

But I didn’t have any interest in fashion in the first place. From the times I was a child, I almost always wore what my parents bought without saying anything. Not to mention that, rather than spending money on clothes, I’d much prefer to spend it on my hobbies.

“But I don’t have even the smallest bit of fashion sense. I don’t know what kind of clothes I should even look to buy.”

Touko-senpai then thought for a moment, after which she spoke.

“Fine. In that case, I’ll accompany you. The next time that Tetsuya and Karen-san have their tryst, we too will go shopping together.”

And that was how it was decided that today, I would go shopping together with Touko-senpai.

I arrived at the southeastern ticket gate in Shinjuku Station, and almost immediately, Touko-senpai arrived too.

“It looks like you were the first one to arrive today too.”

After seeing me, Touko-senpai smiled sweetly as she spoke.

“Ah, but today I barely had to wait. Maybe we were on the same train?”

Today, Touko-senpai was wearing a salmon pink jacket on top of a white light mohair sweater, together with a pleated suspender skirt. On her feet, she was wearing short boots that had a low heel. The thigh-high socks that Touko-senpai wore served to emphasize the captivating curves of her voluptuous legs.

I could tell that the eyes of all the men around us were focused on Touko-senpai.

Being the one with whom she was meeting, I had a complicated mixture of feelings, proud, yet at the same time embarrassed for being such an unbalanced partner for her. I guess clothing is important for men too.

We headed for ZU, a casual wear brand retailer that was close to Shinjuku’s Third Street.

Once we entered the store, we saw a great variety of mass-produced clothes lined up one next to the other.

“You feel overwhelmed by this amount of clothing when you come to look for clothes, right? Which would suit me best? Which would go well with one another? Are there any that match wellwith the clothes I already have?”

Touko-senpai then pointed at the model in the photo panel displayed on the inside of the store.

The model was a famous young actor who donned denim pants and a gray jacket over his shoulders. Below it, he wore a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt. 

“Don’t think too hard about it. You can’t go wrong if you choose a set from the apparel they have on display at stores like that one. Those are something that a professional puts together, after all.”

But, for me to wear the same clothes as a model so famous that even I know them, wasn’t that a little too much to ask?

“Isshiki-kun, your height might be average, but you’re of slender build. I think that most clothes would suit you well.”

Saying that, she brought the same clothes as the model in the photo from just now and tried lining them on top of my body.

“I wonder if this is good enough for a black and white outfit? Next, it would be better to have one which is a tad more casual and with a brighter vibe.”

She then went on and chose some beige cotton pants, a denim jacket of the same color, and a moss green hooded sweatshirt vest for me.

“Try these on first for now. If the size doesn’t fit you, tell me and I’ll change them.”

I did as I was told and went to a fitting room to try on the clothes she had chosen for me.

 Every time I put on a new piece of clothing, I had Touko-senpai, who was waiting outside, take a look at me.

“Mhm, it’s nice. It suits you really well.”

She spoke noticeably pleased with herself.

The men and women that were nearby were staring at us. Could it be that they thought we were a couple?

Though a bit embarrassing, choosing clothes together with a girl like this was unexpectedly fun.

I bought one last set: some slim fit jeans and a dark green sweater. In total, I had purchased three sets of clothing. 

While we waited for them to finish adjusting the length of the pants, Touko-senpai and I went to a nearby coffee shop.

As she drank her café latte, Touko-senpai spoke.

“I say it should be fine if at first you mostly wear them in the same combinations as we bought them. Then you could gradually buy more clothes that combine with those. Even if the bottom is the same, simply changing the top can give a considerably different impression.”

“Uh huh…”

I gave a vague answer.

“Also, so long as you don’t get any confidence with your clothing, it may be better for you to avoid clothes with patterns on them. Even if you think those clothes are well-matched, other people may think that isn’t so. Apart from that, I recommend you stop wearing old clothes. This is because it’s complicated to make out what to think of old clothes.”

“I see.”

That was all I could manage to say in response to that.

“And another thing of importance is that no matter how good your clothing is or looks, if your posture or gait are bad, it’ll all be for nothing. So be careful about those two points. First of all, a hunched back is no good. Perhaps because they use the computer a lot, but there are many students, especially in the science departments, that have a hunchback. Keep your back straight at all times, just as if you were being pulled from the top of your head with a thread. As for the gait, I’ll explain carefully on the next occasion with more time.”

As I was taking in all the advice she gave me, a single question came to my mind.

… I wondered how Touko-senpai was so knowledgeable about fashion. And she wasn’t just fashionable as in simply following the latest trends. She could even give her advice confidently to someone like me about common everyday male clothes. Not to mention that she even knows about postures and walking styles. Did she have some foundations on them…?

“Touko-senpai, how is it that you’re so knowledgeable about fashion?”

For an instant, she stood startled in shock.

“Eh? I mean, I am a woman.”

“But what we’re choosing right now are men’s clothes, right? And we’re not choosing the latest trends in fashion, but clothes that your average boy would think of as looking sufficiently nice. Moreover, I can feel something like confidence from those that you select. Not to mention that you even point out my posture and gait in order to better show off the attire. It almost feels as if you had some basis when you chose them…”

Touko-senpai averted her eyes from me when I said that. She stared at the floor for a while.

Soon after, she raised her face and spoke in a resigned manner.

“The truth is, I had kept it a secret from everyone, but I once worked as an amateur model for a fashion magazine. In doing that is how I had many opportunities to listen and learn about various kinds of fashion, both for men and for women.”
(TL Note: “amateur model” is not exactly the correct term. 読者モデル is what it’s used, and it refers to a young woman (student or office worker) who is a reader and is asked to model for the portrait, but not as her main job.)

“Amateur model?”

Though I asked her back that question, I wasn’t that surprised about it.

Someone with the looks and body of Touko-senpai could easily be taken for a model. 

“Yes. I was scouted at Shinjuku during my high school days. But I only started working as a model after I had passed my entrance exams into university. At first, I had rejected them, but the person scouting me was very enthusiastic, and after I later investigated the agency, I discovered that it was a reputable place. Ah, I did bother entering the office in person before. That’s where I thought that maybe it’d be fine if I could get to wear some cute girly clothes.”

“So that’s where you learnt not only about how to combine clothes, but even about how to walk with them? How long did you work with them?”

“For the whole of last year only. I appeared in a few issues from a magazine called ‘SAKURAKO’.”

“Does that mean you aren’t doing it anymore?”

“Mhm. It sold more than it had been anticipated and I didn’t want to be unable to lead a normal school life. There was also that around spring, the people from the agency started to ask me if I didn’t want to try for gravure modeling too. I wasn’t so interested in it to go that far.”

Honestly speaking, Touko-senpai had the figure to more than pass as a gravure model herself.

A body that was the yearning of all women and the dream of every man.

“Please, don’t tell anyone else about this! I have kept this as a secret this whole time, after all.”

Touko-senpai spoke to me as she looked at me with supplicating eyes.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about this.”

That was when I once again found something strange.

“If you have already worked as a fashion model, then even without asking me for help, couldn’t you have asked plenty of other cute girls from there, or didn’t you already wear that kind of clothes?”

However, Touko-senpai shook her head sideways.

“If I were forced to say which, I’d say I was put in charge of chic-style fashion most of the time. That’s why I didn’t get any kind of interaction with the fashion of the girly, cute kind. Not to mention that what I want to know is not the clothes that girls find cute, but in general, what in a boy’s perspective constitutes a girl who is cute or who they want to protect.”

I see, just because she was beautiful didn’t mean that everything would go smoothly for her, huh?

After waiting for nearly 1 hour, we went back to ZU, took the clothes that we had bought, and started on our way back.

I gave my thanks to Touko-senpai inside the train.

“Thank you very much for today. It is because of you that I managed to buy three sets of clothes which I can confidently call my best sets.”

Because, as you know, these were the clothes that Touko-senpai chose for me. There was no mistake about it.

“Likewise. It was also my first time choosing clothes for a boy. It was quite enjoyable. And if with that I managed to make you have some confidence, Isshiki-kun, I’m glad for it.”

She replied back to me with a bright smile. Seeing that, I felt as if I was being healed in a way.

“On the next occasion we have some time, perhaps I could ask you to help me choose winter clothes together?”

“Sounds good. The D-day is in winter after all, so we have to make sure we are fully prepared to finish it at that moment.”

After she said that, she thrust her finger at me.

“But before that, make sure you don’t forget about ‘my reward’.”

“Don’t worry. I’m already putting all my thoughts about it together in my head.”

“Do you know when I could ask you to show them to me?”

“Hmm, just my opinion wouldn’t be enough for a decent sample, so I was thinking of asking a few other guys for their opinions too.”

“Wait! Don’t spread the gossip too much! Imagine how embarrassing it’d be for me if it was discovered that I was the one asking!”

“Ah, I apologize. You’re right. But my opinion alone is a little…”

“It’s fine, just your preferences are enough, Isshiki-kun. Hurry and tell me!”

“Understood. Then, around the start of the next week, on Monday.”

“Honestly, if I hadn’t stopped and warned you, you’d have gone and asked all around the internet for opinions!”

I made a bitter smile because, in actuality, part of me had been thinking of doing precisely that.

{ED/N: Degen redditors like me be like “ That’s what i thought of doing” Kek
No offense to those who use reddit }

I spent the whole of that week’s Saturday thinking about the ‘cute girl’ stuff that Touko-senpai had asked from me. Even now I was lying on my bed thinking about that.

… ‘Cute girl’, huh. She must be a pretty girl; she has to be kind and keep herself collected normally. But every now and then, she must show a clumsy side…

As I was thinking about those things, for some reason, Touko-senpai came to my mind as if it was the most natural thing.

She was beautiful, prim and proper, graceful, and she still had the kindness necessary to comfort me during my painful moments. Add to it that last week, she was only a girl who cried after seeing her boyfriend cheating on her…

Wait, no, that was wrong.

It was Touko-senpai who asked me what constituted a ‘cute girl’, wasn’t it?

What kind of an answer would ‘You’ be?

… Errmm, what else then… She has to be good at cooking and at looking after the house; someone who would not only spoil me occasionally, but also let me spoil her. A girl who is cold to other men and shows her s**y coy side only to me…

Again, I ended up involuntarily imagining Touko-senpai.

Touko-senpai wearing an apron as she cooked a meal for me.

She smiled as she happily said to me, ‘Today’s stew came out especially good’…

After eating, I would watch TV on the sofa together with Touko-senpai.

I would put my arm around Touko-senpai’s shoulder, and she would cuddle and stick close to me like a kitten… And then she would whisper into my ears.

“I love you, Isshiki-kun…”

Ngh! What were you thinking, me!? There’s no way we could tell this to Touko-senpai! In the first place, aren’t these all my wishes!?

… It may be a bad idea to think about this while on top of the bed…

Having thought that, I got up from the bed and turned on my laptop that was on top of the desk.

… Isshiki Yuu, summarize the definition of a ‘cute girl’ in at most 50 characters…

I made that order to myself in my mind. I launched the editor and enlisted the qualities that made it up.

Cute girl: She needs to be pretty and kind. Normally she acts cool but in reality, she has a weak side of hers too. And she only shows that weak side of hers to me…

Eh, isn’t this connected directly to Touko-senpai just like before!?

No good. Was my mind presently fully dominated by Touko-senpai in all matters that concerned women at the moment?

It was at that moment that my smartphone vibrated. Looking at it, I saw it was an SNS message from Ishida.

> (Ishida) Yuu, are you free today?

> (Yuu) There’s a little something I’m thinking about, but it’s no real problem, I’m free.

> (Ishida) In that case, I’m going to buy some stuff now, wanna come together with me?

> (Yuu) Hmm, well, fine by me but, how far are we going?

> (Ishida) To Shibuya!

> (Yuu) Geh, for real? Isn’t that a bit too far?

> (Ishida) There’s a nice leather jacket that arrived at a secondhand clothes shop in Shibuya. It’s an authentic leather jacket from a pilot from the American army. If I don’t buy it now that I found it, who knows when I’ll get another chance.

Hmmm, going all the way out to Shibuya is honestly a pain but, I do owe Ishida for his having been together with me on so many things concerning the love affair between Karen and Kamokura-senpai.

> (Yuu) Got it. I’ll go.

> (Ishida) Thanks! Then, see you at 12 o’clock at the ticket gate of the JR’s Makuhari Station.
(TL Note: JR is the Japan Railways Group)

> (Yuu) That’s quite soon. Understood, I’ll start getting ready to leave right now.

I put away my smartphone, got on my bicycle as soon as I could, and headed for the Makuhari Station of the JR.

My house was a single building located on a seaward exit from the Japan National Route. Ishida’s house was an apartment building that was closer to the Japan National Route. From whichever of the two, it would take you close to 10 minutes to the station by bicycle.

I met up with Ishida at the station and we traveled for a bit longer than an hour to Shibuya. Ishida bought the leather jacket he was looking for in a second hand clothes shop that was on the backside of the central district. 

Ishida wasn’t the type to worry about fashion, but when it came to things that he liked, he could be very finicky.

During the whole time that Ishida had been doing his shopping, I had continued to think about the ‘homework’ that Touko-senpai had left me.

Once we had finished shopping, we entered a family restaurant.

After we sat at the table, Ishida stared at my face with a suspicious look.

“Yuu, something happen? For the whole of today, you’ve had this pensive face.”

“Hm, that so? Oh, well, nothing much.”

{ED/N: Don’t roast me over lack of grammar, they’re talking that way }

“What’s with that? Makes me curious. Spit it out! It couldn’t be something about Karen-chan, could it?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s not that serious of a matter, in the first place.”

“Then out with it. It’s not thing serious, right? I’ll think about it together with you.”

He was right. I couldn’t get my thoughts together by myself. It might be best for me to also listen to Ishida’s opinion.

“What’re the qualities that make up a ‘cute girl’ in your opinion, Ishida?”

“Qualities that make up a cute girl?”

Ishida had a confused face as he asked back.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday.”

“Hmmm.”

Ishida crossed his arms and began thinking.

“Well, I guess she needs to be a pretty girl. Also, maybe it’s best if she has a title like ‘the top of the school’ or ‘the yearning of’ attached to her.”

… The yearned-for pretty girl, Touko-senpai, right?...

“Next, of course she has to have huge b*****s. A slender body and huge b*****s, that’s more than enough to pack a punch.”

… Slender body and huge b*****s. That’s Touko-senpai, alright…

“Also, it’d be exciting if she were something like a tsundere or kuudere, right?”

 … Touko-senpai falls under the tsundere or kuudere categories, no? Though her dere elements are very few…
(TL Note: Tsundere and kuudere are actually words that come from two onomatopoeia cojoined. ‘tsuntsun’ is basically aloof, ‘deredere’ is lovestruck, and ‘kuu’ is from ‘cool’.)

“Blonde hair and twin-tails make for a nice moe image too.”

… Touko-senpai has long black hair, but because her facial features are so perfect, blonde hair could also suit her nice. Twin-tails may be nice too…

“A girl that’s in a band is nice too!”

… From the image she gives off, if it were Touko-senpai, a violin or saxophone feel more natural though. Ah, a saxophone could be part of a band too, no?...

“A childhood friend or a sister that’s not blood-related to you; those kinds of situations really get you excited.”

…? That may be good in a way but… I’d be happy Touko-senpai suddenly said, ‘I became your elder sister-in-law’ and started living in the same house as me!…

“Animal ears are great too. Especially cat-ears and fox-ears.”

… ?? … Ah, actually a Touko-senpai with cat ears would be really cute…

“Magical girls are also hard to forget. Those highly revealing clothes are just!”

… ??? Magical girls? That’s already in the realm of cosplay, no???...

“Hey, Ishida. What are you talking about?”

Ishida had a face like he’d just been pulled back to reality from a dream.

“Eh? We were talking about the qualities for a cute girl, right? Like those from anime or manga.”

… I was a fool for asking for your opinion…

I lightly pressed my hand to my forehead. And then we had me, who was getting on board with Ishida’s delusions and making Touko-senpai appear in every single one of those stupid fantasies.

“You… If magical girls or beast-girls really existed, you think you could go out with them?”

“I can do it. My love doesn’t discriminate! Be it a magical girl or a beast girl, they’re all acceptable!”

Ishida declared with great confidence. 

I gave up. I would find an answer to this problem with my own strength, without relying on anyone else. At the end, I spoke again.

“I have no intention to complain about your preferences, but it’d be better if you stopped it with the ‘little sister attribute’. If your real sister, Meika-chan, found out, she’d be disgusted with you.”

Those kinds of delusions were only allowed to single childs like me or for guys who only had brothers.

“Oohh, not that you mention it, Meika was worried about you, Yuu.”

The topic of conversation changed all of a sudden. Come to think of it, a while back, this guy said that Meika-chan had heard everything about Karen and Kamokura’s love affair.

I remembered Meika-chan’s face. She was two years younger than us and every now and then she’d cling to Ishida and come to play together with us. Her brother, Ishida, had a rough face, but Meika-chan ‘s face was that of a very lovely girl. For someone like me, who doesn’t have any siblings, she was an existence I was jealous of.

“I see. Please tell Meika-chan that I’m okay and thanks for me.”

“Got it. But you know, Meika wanted to ask you many different things. She was quite persistent about it.”

“She’s at the age where she’s interested in those kinds of stories, man.”

However, Ishida shook his head.

“No, it’s probably not that. Meika’s interested in you, Yuu. I could tell from our talk.”

I was surprised by those words and raised my head. I thought that maybe Ishida was once again joking around, but his face was serious. Ishida continued to speak.

“I had already gotten that sensation from a while back. Whenever you came, Yuu, Meika put a lot of care in her appearance after all. She also cleaned her room, which she normally didn’t do. However, it’s now clear to me with the events of this time. She likes you, man.”

I had no idea how I should react to hearing that kind of revelation from my best friend out of the blue.

As I stood there bewildered, Ishida answered to me first.

“Although, as you are right now, you don’t have leeway to worry about Meika, Yuu. You first have to get your revenge on Kamokura and Karen-chan! And after that, at the ‘last moment’, you steal Touko-senpai!”

I nodded in silence. But I wonder, just how much percentage of that plan had I completed by now?

I didn’t have any confidence that I had advanced the slightest bit.

We left the family restaurant and headed for MEGA Danke. We looked around at leisure seeing if there weren’t any bargains. Though we didn’t have anything we needed at the moment, just going around seeing what kind of stuff they had was fun.
(TL Note: MEGA Danke is a play on MEGA Don Quijote, the biggest of the goods stores chain Don Quijote, often abbreviated as Donki)

After we had gone around the store’s interior once and were about to leave the store, it happened.

About two meters in front of us, mixed in between the crowd were two familiar faces passing by as they continued their way. It was Kamokura Tetsuya and a sophomore girl from our group.

Kamokura had his arm around her shoulders, and they walked with the complete atmosphere of a couple around them.

“Hey, right now that was…”

Ishida seemed to have noticed them too.

“Yeah, it was Kamokura-senpai, right?”

“And together with him was a sophomore girl from our group, no? If I’m right, she was Hirota Rumi-san?”

“Right. She doesn’t really show her face around the group a lot, but there’s no mistaking it.”

Ishida looked at me.

“Yuu, let’s try following after them for a bit.”

The whole pinpointing the place of Karen and Kamokura’s cheating thing had already been taken care of, so there wasn’t much meaning in doing that, but I too was interested in what the two of them were doing.

“Yeah, let’s do that. We don’t want to get found, so we won’t overdo it and will keep our distance as we follow them for a bit, ok?”

Nonetheless, we lost sight of Kamokura and Hirota-san a while after that at the intersection in front of the Tokyu Department Main Store.

That said, the place the two of them were heading was Maruyamachou, a district in Shibuya with many love hotels in it.

“Yuu, this is an area with many love hotels, right?”

“Yeah, it’s the love hotel district.”

“That bastard! He’s got his hands not only on Karen-chan, but also on other girls!? Is he three-timing the girls in our circle!?”

“The girl who was together with him was someone who didn’t show up much at the group, right? Maybe she doesn’t know that Kamokura-senpai is going out with Touko-senpai. And of course, the same goes for the matter with Karen.”

“And as such, taking advantage of it, frivolous-Kamo is doing as he pleases, huh…”

Ishida spoke with disgust.

… With how things are, there may be many other people who fell victim to Kamokura…

“Yuu, don’t lose to a guy like that. I swear, someone needs to give that guy a good lesson for all of us.”

With anger burning inside of me, I listened to those words from Ishida.