Epilogue
After separating from Mao, Keiki walked down the hallway with mixed feelings.
"To think that Nanjou would be drawing BL mangas with Shouma and I as the characters…"
To be fair, no one could have predicted that his classmate would be producing R-18 manga.
"Well, it looks like Nanjou isn't my Cinderella."
Nanjou Mao didn't have any feelings for Kiryuu Keiki. What she loved wasn't Keiki himself, but rather a personified image of him, so she couldn't have been the sender of the love letter. While he was thinking this, Keiki stopped in front of the shoe lockers.
"If Nanjou isn't Cinderella, then is it Sayuki-senpai or Yuika-chan, after all?"
In the end, he was back at square one. It looked like it would still take some time until he could find the Cinderella that dropped her panties.
"...…I guess I'll go home."
As he opened his locker with a big sigh, his hands stopped. Going "Ugh" unconsciously, his face twisted in disgust. On top of his shoes, there was a weird-looking envelope.
"Again with this… who could it be this time?"
Sayuki had told him that she wouldn't approach him for a while, so this one must be Yuika's work.
"As long as it's not another bra. I don't think I can survive another terrorist attack like that."
Trying to keep himself optimistic, he tore the seal open and pulled out the paper inside. The moment he did, however, he immediately regretted his prior optimism.
"...…"
The reason for that was the single photo he took out of the envelope. Said photo showed the calligraphy clubroom, with a boy and a girl pair.
Tokihara Sayuki, with her hands in handcuffs, wearing a rather revealing maid uniform. And Kiryuu Keiki, who was in the process of plunging his hand deeply into the valley between her breasts.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT?!"
The actual truth of the picture was that Kiryuu Keiki had to get the key to the girl's handcuffs because it accidentally fell into her chest. But to a casual observer, it definitely looked like a high school student had forced a girl into a maid costume and restrained her with handcuffs.
"Who the hell took this picture…?"
At first, he thought of Sayuki but — that couldn't be the case. Judging from the angle, it was taken from outside the windows, and it was taken at the perfect moment, so it couldn't have been an amateur. In addition to that photo, there was a message inside the envelope. It wasn't a person's handwriting, rather it was a printed letter. It read:
Kiryuu Keiki,
If you are reading this, come this to location immediately:
Astronomy club room on the third floor.
If you decline, your dignity may suffer greatly.
"So basically, they're threatening to publicize that photo, huh."
Although the choice of words seemed a bit off, there was something else that greatly interested Keiki. Even though it was addressed to his name, there was no name of a sender anywhere on the paper. Although the seal was different, and the text wasn't handwritten, it still resembled Cinderella's love letter a bit.
"Did Cinderella leave this letter in my locker?"
If that were the case, he might get a chance to meet the girl who he had been looking for. He might finally find out the identity of the girl who had dropped her panties.
"The astronomy club, huh…"
Although he had barely finished his conversation with Mao, there was no way that he couldn't go there now. Of course, he also couldn't ignore the threat of him, and also Sayuki, getting expelled for doing something like this on school grounds.
With these thoughts, Keiki closed the locker and headed towards the location mentioned in the message.
"So this is the astronomy club room, huh…"
The room was in the deepest part of the third floor. As he knocked, he received a short "Come in." What greeted Keiki after he opened the door was pitch-black darkness.
"Eh, why is it so dark in here…?"
Although he could barely see, he could make out a few machinery parts in the darkness.
"...."
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.
"Umm, I saw the letter in my shoe locker and came here as requested," He tried calling out in hopes of receiving an answer.
But, instead, he heard the sound of the door closing behind him.
"—Eh?" Turning around at that sound, he spotted a human shadow. "Uwaaaaa?!" Bumping into that person, Keiki fell onto the floor. "...Ouch."
As he muttered that, he felt like he was being pushed down onto the floor by that shadow. The person pushing him down was wearing a sweater with a hood. Because of that and the darkness inside the room, he couldn't make out person's face. However, seeing an outline of a skirt and feeling a soft butt, Keiki thought that his person was a girl.
"—Please don't move," A voice echoed in the dark room.
A smartphone screen was shoved into his face. Shown on it was the same photo that had been inside the envelope.
"If you make even the slightest movement, please consider your social life to be over."
"Somehow, it feels like this stuff keeps happening to me…"
Being told to become the owner of a collar wearing girl, or getting freshly-worn panties stuffed into his mouth, he wasn't even surprised by this sort of experience anymore.
"If you listen to my request, I will get rid of the photo."
"Request?"
"That's—" Underneath the hood, the girl's cheeks slightly blushed.
Maybe because his eyes had started to grow accustomed to the darkness, he could see the girl's face more clearly now.
Although she looked a bit young, she was still quite the beauty. She was fidgeting slightly, and that was also pretty cute. Because she looked like she was about to confess, Keiki gulped.
S-So is this girl really Cinderella…?
Her hand softly gripped Keiki's uniform. And, with quivering lips, she said:
"…I think… that this is love…"
From her words, this clearly looked like it was going to be a confession.
"At first, I was just happy with watching from afar… But, after a bit, I couldn't stop my feelings from overflowing and I didn't know what to do, so I happened to threaten you with that photo…"
"W-Woaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!"
It looked like he had finally met Cinderella. After being terrorized by masochistic Senpai, a sadistic witch-like Kouhai, and a fujoshi classmate, this girl looked like an absolute goddess to Keiki.
W-Woah, this girl is actually really friggin cute!
Still being pushed down by her, he tightly gripped her hand in response.
"Alright, let's get married!"
"Excuse me?"
"Mhm?"
"Why do I have to marry Kiryuu-kun?"
"Eh?"
The moment Keiki realized that they weren't talking about the same thing, a soft breeze blew in from the open window and lifted up the curtains. And that ray of sunlight lit up the room.
"...Eh?"
The sight in front of him was so abnormal that his thinking process stopped. The interior of the room was decorated with countless photos. Not only on the walls but also on the ceiling, photos covering every square inch of the room.
"W-What the hell is this?"
And on every last one of these photos was one single male student.
A photo where he was drinking a freshly bought cola from a vending machine.
A photo where he was talking to his classmates inside the classroom.
A photo where he was swinging his racket on the tennis court.
Shown in these pictures was a person that Keiki was very familiar with. A dear friend of his, who he knew was a complete lolicon.
"I'm sorry. I am happy about your feelings, but my target is Akiyama-kun after all, so I can't marry Kiryuu-kun."
The person who Keiki had thought was his destined goddess was actually nothing more than a stalker with Akiyama Shouma as her target.
Like the girl that wanted him to become her owner.
Like the girl that wanted him to become her slave.
Like the girl that was actually just a fujoshi.
For some reason, around Keiki, perverts seemed to gather to no end. Even though he just wanted to experience a normal love. Finding out the identity of the love-letter sender, getting her as a girlfriend, and being lovey-dovey with her was all he had wanted. Even so, it had once again ended up completely different.
Would he be eaten up by all these perverts?
Or would he be able to get a normal girlfriend before that happened?
He was a prince with a name as sweet as candy, but Cake-kun's story wasn't sweet at all.
The girl that had left behind the love letter and dropped her panties: Cinderella. And that girl, even now, hadn't shown her tail in front of the prince.