The night breeze blew gently over Saitama Prefecture. Clouds drifted slowly across the skyward, carried by the wind, partially veiling some of the stars and the moon that shone high above.
After saying goodbye to Kaguya, who had dropped him off in front of his house, Isagi didn't go inside right away. He needed time to think and decided to take a solitary walk around the neighborhood.
Now he walked slowly down the narrow street that led back to his area, hands buried in the pockets of the navy-blue coat he wore, his gaze lost somewhere between the stars and the asphalt.
Old streetlamps lit the way with a dim, yellowish glow, weak enough to cast long shadows on the sidewalks.
The houses around him showed lighted windows here and there—families having late dinners, elderly people watching TV, students cramming for exams that were coming far too soon. In some houses everything was already dark, leaving only the flickering blue glow of televisions behind the curtains.
But none of it managed to hold his attention. His mind was too full, submerged in everything that had happened during that "date" with Kaguya—from the simple moments, like the two of them enjoying the festival together, to the most intense and complicated ones, like the kiss and her confession. And, of course, everything that came afterward… when she declared that they were now dating and that, for her, the fact that he liked her "enough" was already sufficient.
No matter how absurd it sounded, even knowing that he also had feelings for other girls, she had still chosen to be with him. Some would say that was a bad sign—maybe even dangerous, a possible case of emotional dependency.
Starting a relationship with someone in that state… it rarely ended well.
But he did like her… or rather… did he love her too? Honestly, he didn't know. He had never loved anyone in his previous life, though he had fallen in love a few times.
One of his best friends from that previous life used to say that passion was "fire" and love was "earth."
According to him, passion was fire: it came quickly, burned fiercely, consumed everything around it. It was impulsive, irrational, intoxicating. It made the heart race, the mind fantasize, and every little detail seem extraordinary. But precisely because it was so intense, it was unstable. It depended on the thrill of the moment, on novelty, on the expectations one projected onto the other person. It was a feeling that could vanish as fast as it appeared, because it lived more on what one imagined about someone than on who that person truly was.
Love, on the other hand… love was earth. A slower, quieter feeling, but far deeper. It didn't arise from impulse; it grew from shared time, from care, from choice. It was less about explosion and more about permanence. It wasn't merely an emotion: it was responsibility, acceptance, commitment. Love was looking at someone and seeing their flaws without idealizing them; it was wanting to stay even when the enchantment faded; it was being there because you chose to be, not because your heart was ablaze.
In other words…
Passion was wanting.
Love was staying.
And that was the problem—he had never experienced that second kind of feeling. He didn't know what it was like to truly love. He didn't know how to recognize love inside himself. So how could he claim something as huge as "I love Kaguya"?
Yet he hadn't lied when he said he "liked" her. He genuinely had feelings for Kaguya and wanted her as his girlfriend—but that was exactly the issue. He also had feelings for Alya, Maria, Marin, and Yuki. Each of them occupied a different place in his heart, and that was what had caused all the conflict from the very beginning.
Alya… his feelings for her began the day he saved her from that drunk and took her home. On top of that were all the memories from the past year, when they had been seatmates. When she spoke Russian and called him cute, or when she showed jealousy, he found it irresistibly adorable.
Her sister Maria was a more complicated case. There was a strange mixture in her of affection inherited from his predecessor and something new, genuinely his own. And little by little, he was genuinely starting to fall for her too.
Kaguya was an old presence. She had existed in his memories long before all of this—both because of the memories left by the original Isagi and because of the past month of real, intense, profound, and unexpectedly complex coexistence with a young lady no one would have predicted. She had always been there… and he had always felt something for her, even without knowing how to name it.
Then there was Yuki, who also carried that same dual weight: old memories blended with feelings that had blossomed in the present. Familiarity and novelty coexisting inside him.
And finally, Marin.
With her, everything had started when he helped her with cosplay. Her cheerful personality, her contagious energy, the sparkle in her eyes… and yes, the moment she fell on top of him definitely stirred his most basic instincts—he couldn't deny it. But afterward, what remained wasn't just physical. He really liked her.
The problem was simple, yet painful:
He couldn't choose just one.
Each of them meant something different, awakened distinct emotions, pulled at different parts of his personality and memories. And even when he tried to rationalize it all, to sort passion from love, desire from affection… in the end everything tangled into an impossible knot.
He sighed. How had he reached this point? Was it his inability to choose one without hurting the others? Or the cowardice of running away and convincing himself everything was fine? Man… after all this, he was still incredibly immature. Most young people from his original country were too, so maybe he'd been shaped by that culture. Not that he wanted to blame something so distant and irrelevant, but he couldn't deny it had played a part.
Deep down, though, he knew the truth.
He had always thought with the "lower head." Saying he didn't want to hurt any of them was just a comfortable excuse. The raw truth was that he wanted them all for himself, wanted to sleep with all of them. And admitting that disgusted him, because he knew how ugly it was for someone Kaguya had called "far too kind."
Maybe it had all started the moment he realized he had been reborn into a world formed by the fusion of several anime. Somewhere deep in his subconscious the idea had taken root: the fantasy of having a harem, a polygamous relationship (or, as they called it back home, a "harem") relationship with women so beautiful they would make the models from his previous life look ordinary.
And now he was here, drowning in the consequences of having believed—even unconsciously—in that fantasy.
It had been a mistake to cower and hope everything would resolve itself like a romantic comedy. He should have been selfish from the very beginning…
Isagi stopped walking.
Not because he was tired.
Not because he had reached any destination.
But because, suddenly, something inside him simply… overflowed.
The yellowish light of a streetlamp fell over him, casting his long shadow on the damp asphalt. The cold wind swept through his hair, yet it couldn't cool the uncomfortable heat rising in his chest—the acidic heat of shame.
He clenched his fists.
First weakly, then strongly, until his fingers shook.
His jaw tightened so hard that a muscle on the side of his face throbbed.
Isagi lowered his head, eyes fixed on the ground, breathing deeply—not to calm himself, but to keep from exploding.
"I'm trash…"
The whisper escaped through clenched teeth.
"Complete… trash."
He clenched his fists even harder, as if he wanted to break something—or break himself. His chest ached, not from sadness, but from revulsion. A revulsion so deep it seemed to come from a place buried beneath months of self-control and cowardice.
"I should have settled this from the start…" he murmured, his voice almost vibrating. "I should have chosen. I should have been honest. I should have been… truly selfish instead of hiding behind this bullshit kindness."
Isagi raised his head, but not to look at the sky—he didn't have the courage. He looked straight ahead at the empty road, as if that silent street were a cruel mirror showing who he really was.
"I just wanted everything…" A bitter laugh escaped, dry and humorless: "I wanted all of them for myself. I wanted everything without facing anything and without trying. Like a spoiled brat."
The memory of Kaguya saying he was "too kind" stabbed through his mind like a knife.
"Kind?" The laugh died right there: "I'm not kind. I'm… disgusting."
He opened his fists only to clench them again even harder, nails digging into his own skin.
"I almost ruined everything and kept lying to myself. I'm still lying to myself."
His breathing grew heavier—not from tears, but from pure, suffocating frustration.
He felt small.
Ridiculous.
Like someone who had finally been stripped of all his own illusions.
And for a moment he thought he probably deserved to feel that way.
He stood there, breathing deeply, staring at the ground as if that was all he deserved to see.
But gradually, something began to change.
It wasn't relief, nor a sudden epiphany, nor a magical answer that would fix his life. It was more like pain growing so large, so unbearable, that it finally forced him to change in order not to face it…
Isagi slowly raised his head.
The cold wind struck his face, scattering his hair, but his expression was no longer just disgust—something new had appeared. Something born from exhaustion itself.
Determination.
"Enough…"
The word came out low, but heavy.
"Enough running… enough hiding… enough lying to myself."
His chest still hurt—shame, guilt, fear, confusion, all mixed and burning. But this time he didn't try to extinguish it. He let it hurt. He let it burn. He let it expose what was broken.
"I… I told her I would sort out my feelings."
His voice almost broke, but he continued.
He remembered the silent interior of the limousine, the soft light coming through the windows as Saitama gradually approached. Kaguya sitting beside him, their hands clasped…
He remembered what he had said to her, the bitter warning that had slipped from his throat at that moment.
"Kaguya… I'm going to sort this out. But it might not be the way you want."
And she, instead of pulling back, instead of hesitating, instead of crying… had simply answered with her usual elegance and superiority:
"Even so, I want to date you."
"Even if it's not the way I dream."
"You're the only one with whom I can imagine a future."
"You might get hurt. If one day… I can't resist my feelings for another girl and end up with one of them… the one who'll suffer is you. Even knowing that, even though I have no confidence in myself about this… do you still want to be with me?"
And she… smiled.
A gentle, yet genuine smile.
"I know, but it was my choice, wasn't it?"
"Even so… I want to be by your side, Yoichi…"
Isagi closed his eyes for a moment… It might be childish, but he couldn't ignore the thought. She had basically made it clear that even if he were with another girl, she would still want to stay with him. And that only raised an uncomfortable question in his mind: just what had his predecessor done to make her fall so deeply in love?
Anyway, even if they hadn't had that subtle conversation, Isagi knew that in the end he would have made the same decision: move forward and try to build a polygamous relationship with the women he cared about. If this second life was given to him to do everything he couldn't before—to face his regrets, correct his failures, achieve what he desired—then why not try?
Just as he wanted to become the best striker in the world in this new existence—something he hadn't achieved before—he also knew he would regret it if he didn't at least try to live like those men on the internet who were envied for having more than one woman.
Regrets had already marked his first life too much. He didn't want to repeat the same mistake.
With that thought, even if Kaguya had never said anything, even if she hadn't agreed to date him as he was, even if she hadn't made that absurdly, painfully sincere confession…
He would still have tried.
He would still have gone after it.
He would still have pursued… the harem.
Calling it that sounded dirty, wrong, selfish—and it was. But it was also honest. It was the desire he had been burying beneath pretty justifications like "not hurting anyone," "not wanting to cause pain," "being kind."
Kindness, my ass.
He wanted it.
He had always wanted it.
And now he had stopped lying to himself.
"If I was given this second life…" he murmured, his voice low, almost carrying a proud resignation. "Then why the hell should I let it pass me by?"
Yes.
It was petty.
It was narcissistic.
It was lustful.
But it was his.
In his previous life he had been a famous player, so women had never been in short supply. Yet he had always envied those guys on the internet—who didn't have a third of his looks or money—who managed to date several women at once. He had never thought he could pull it off in his old world for various reasons…
But now?
Now he was in a world that seemed spat straight out of an anime.
A world where the odds were different, where logic was different, where the "impossible"… simply wasn't so impossible.
"I've already decided I'm going to be the best striker in the world," he declared to himself, a thread of hard pride in his voice—something I didn't accomplish before."
He resolved not to make the same mistake twice.
He wouldn't die regretting what he hadn't tried.
"So why should I regret this too…?"
Why should he pretend to be a saint when his heart was full of real desires?
Why should he lie to himself when this life was precisely the gift—or the punishment—that forced him to face his ugliest truths?
Why not try to become one of those men he himself had envied?
The answer was simple.
He wanted to.
And now, he was ready to admit it.
Thanks to everything that had happened with Kaguya…
Isagi took a deep breath, his eyes filling with a raw, even cruel, but finally honest determination.
"I'm going to try."
A quiet but firm declaration.
No illusions, no fantasy, no romantic comedy.
"I'm going to be selfish. In my own way."
Now all that remained was to find out whether he was strong enough to handle what came next.
And it was at that precise moment that the greatest egoist in the world was born…
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