Tezuka, My Neighbor's One and Only Frequency

[Tezuka x a heroine with high-frequency hearing loss, somewhat taciturn early on]

On the first day Mizunotsuki Nana moved in, a pipe burst...

With no other choice, she grabbed her new neighbor and classmate and hurried home with him to fix it.

Tezuka, pulled through the door: ...?

Tezuka didn't particularly like his new neighbor.

On the first day, when he brought over a cake his mother had baked, the girl watched him through a crack in the door for a moment, then quietly shut it without saying a word.

After that, Tezuka Kunimitsu thought of her as “slight, quiet, and rude.”

Then, a few days later, his mother invited her over for dinner and brought out an old photo album...

Wait, who was this little girl who used to chatter away as she followed him around?

His gaze fell on the quiet girl beside him who couldn't speak...

Sorry, I think there's something wrong with my childhood friend.

*This is my take on Tezuka, so he may be OOC. I'm mainly writing what makes me happy. Besides, everyone's interpretation of a character is different.

*For reasons related to her experiences, the heroine will be mostly taciturn in the early and middle parts, though she's actually a natural airhead. She's a bit wooden but eager to learn, and will gradually open up without realizing it.

*Information about high-frequency hearing loss comes from online sources. Please point out any mistakes, or read it as an alternate universe. Everything beyond the original setting is made up by me.

*Everyone is assumed to be old enough to date. There's no real career storyline; it's mainly romance! Long live romance!!!

*Most revisions are for typos and word choice. The plot itself will rarely change.

*Ship the self-insert however you like, but I won't pair canon characters with each other outside their original pairings [most important]

I've started a follow-up story next door. You're very welcome to preorder it!!!

"Please Stop Eavesdropping on My Thoughts, Sadaharu!"

The first thought Saotome Chinatsu had when she saw Sadaharu playing tennis was

[Sadaharu must be a hot nerd, right?]

So for a whole week, she kept showing up outside the courts during tennis club practice.

On the eighth day, Sadaharu stood in front of her and asked earnestly, “Could you please stop coming here?”

Saotome: Huh? Does he hate me?!

…

Sadaharu Inui had sensed something was wrong the moment he heard the words [hot nerd], but everyone around him had looked perfectly normal, as if they hadn't heard a thing.

Throughout the match, he could hear a constant stream of nonsense.

For example:

[Sadaharu is so handsome. He'd be even more charming without his glasses, right?]

[Oh, this angle is perfect. He's totally a hot nerd.]

[His proportions are perfect, and his legs are so long...]

He couldn't take it anymore! His hand slipped, the ball veered off the angle he'd calculated, and he lost...

Being able to hear Saotome's thoughts was undeniably a nuisance for Sadaharu Inui.

He longed for his mind to be quiet, every second of every day.

Then one day, the voice suddenly disappeared completely. Yet, relying on what he'd always heard, he still picked the cilantro out of her bowl for her.

“…”

Wait.

Something about this wasn't right.

Theme: May everything go smoothly, and may you be healthy and lucky~