Name: Pretending to Be a Couple with Bokuto
Author: Distant Tangerine

Synopsis

Please check out my new stories, I Really Don't Like Atobe and [Western Crossover] Why Are You My Ex-Boyfriend Too? The blurbs are at the very bottom.

Blurb for this story:

ShiomI Yori had always thought that Bokuto Koutarou was an incredibly good person.

When they first met, he chased off the delinquents harassing Shiomi Yori, then bought a huge meal for Yori, who had lost her wallet and was starving.

Once they became close, he brought Shiomi Yori along to hang out. She met a whole lot of friends, finally stopped failing gym class, and had a nearly perfect high school experience.

Later, while she was in grad school, a persistent suitor wouldn't leave her alone, and Shiomi Yori desperately needed a fake boyfriend to get out of the situation.

Bokuto Koutarou showed up right on time again, saying he was more than happy to help.

He would have a fake relationship with Shiomi Yori.

Bokuto took the favor very seriously.

Since he had never dated anyone, he kept asking her how couples should act to make their relationship work.

Watching him earnestly call her by name for the sake of their fake relationship, and make time to act out dates with her, Shiomi Yori gradually began to feel guilty.

Her friend was helping her with such heartfelt sincerity, yet sometimes she found herself wishing their fake relationship would never have to end.

-

Eventually, the suitor finally gave up.

Yori immediately sent Bokuto a breakup text, afraid she might lose control and say something that would ruin their friendship for good.

But he seemed so deeply immersed in his role that she felt he would have rushed back from overseas to cry with Shiomi Yori if he hadn't had a tournament to play in.

At the same time, she unexpectedly learned from an underclassman that Bokuto Koutarou had been in love with her since high school.

And it had been love at first sight.

Yori: ?

Yori: Wait, who had a crush on whom? Bokuto? Since when?

Reader's guide:

◇ This is a romance-focused story. Everything in the story serves the romance, so please keep that in mind (important).

◇ The main story begins after university. She is in grad school, and Bokuto has graduated and joined the Black Jackals. Lots of OOC and headcanon, my take on adult Bokuto. Haikyuu only, no other series. Mostly everyday life, with almost no matches.

◇ The heroine is very slow to recognize her feelings, timid and indecisive, and comes from a troubled family. She is not perfect, and you could call her a blockhead before she figures things out. She only falls for Bokuto after they start fake dating; before then, she sees him as a friend, nothing more.

◇ Please don't scrutinize details about academics or careers.

Please check out my new story: I Really Don't Like Atobe

Blurb

People had once wondered what Akimoto Natsuki thought of Atobe Keigo.

The usually soft-spoken girl sat on a swing, kicking her legs, and bluntly said, “I hate him.”

Natsuki really did hate Atobe Keigo.

She hated that he was handsome, hated that he was gifted, hated that he came from a happy family, and hated that practically everyone liked him.

She hated that even when he knew she was deliberately giving him a hard time, he still did everything she casually asked of him.

She hated that he offered her a handkerchief and a hug when she cried. She hated that, knowing how much she hated him, he still said he liked her.

She didn't like Atobe Keigo at all. She hated him most of all.

*

Natsuki had always felt as though she were living in a melodramatic novel.

For no apparent reason, she went from being the only daughter of a wealthy family to a fake heiress who had been switched at birth.

Just as she had managed to get halfway through her third year of high school, she was in a car accident and lost her memory. When she woke up, she discovered that her family planned to arrange a marriage for her as soon as she graduated, to just anyone they chose.

Akimoto Natsuki: .

An arranged marriage? Not even a dog would agree to that.

Unwilling to keep playing out the melodramatic rich-family plot, Natsuki turned her attention to Atobe Keigo, who had somehow ended up as her seatmate after repeating a year.

If she could make Atobe fall for her, she could use his family's influence to escape her awful home life and make the detestable Atobe obey her every whim. Wouldn't that be killing two birds with one stone?

Once she had the means to get away, she could break up with Atobe. She was only using him, after all. It wasn't as if she liked him.

Convinced her plan was brilliant, Natsuki worked hard to start a secret relationship with Atobe before the end of the school term.

But before their relationship could settle down and she could come clean to her family, her real heiress sister suddenly stopped her, eyes red and face full of resentment.

“You're pretending to have amnesia!”

“You never forgot that Atobe liked you. You were deliberately leading him on and refusing to get back together with him just to get revenge on me!”

Natsuki: .

What kind of melodramatic love triangle had suddenly been served up now?

Natsuki: ... Wait.

She and Atobe had gotten back together?

In disbelief, she asked Atobe to confirm, hoping to deny this absurd misunderstanding.

But the other lead simply answered with calm assurance: “It's not a misunderstanding.”

He said, “Before your accident, we really were dating.”

Please check out my new story: [Western Crossover] Why Are You My Ex-Boyfriend Too?

Blurb:

Freya lost her memory.

The good news was that she had a System.

The bad news was that the System's data had been attacked from an unknown source, and it had “lost its memory” too.

Human and System stared at each other for a long time.

Freya looked at her empty wallet and asked the System, “Do you have one of those little missions that gives me a hundred million after I finish, so I never have to worry about food or money again?”

System: “...I'm not a wishing machine!”

The System sifted through its data stream. “But I found out you seem to have an ex-boyfriend who loves you a lot. How about you give him another chance?”

Freya, who had absolutely no desire to suffer, thought this was a great idea.

So she put up a missing-person notice.

*

A huge black bat came looking for her.

He stared at Freya, his gaze ardent yet restrained. “I knew you were still alive.”

Seeing Freya's desperate situation, he generously gave her a black card and casually showed off his luxurious manor, saying she could stay there whenever she wanted.

Freya had only wanted to try her luck, but when she discovered her ex-boyfriend was both a superhero and a rich man, she happily decided to cling to him.

But just as she was about to go home with him, her suddenly garbled System sent her back to the past.

She even landed in the bed of her “ex-boyfriend” the Bat, who was much younger and didn't know her yet.

“Who are you?” he asked warily.

Still broke and now undocumented, Freya thought for three seconds, then kissed him on the cheek. “Your girlfriend.”

The Bat: ?

To keep a closer eye on her, the Bat denied it even as he tacitly allowed Freya to stay by his side.

Not long afterward, the Bat indulgently lifted his little girlfriend as she threw herself at him, then chided her, “You'll fall if you do that, Freya.”

The Bat was great. He was a bit too controlling, but Freya was spoiled so much she could practically do whatever she wanted.

But he took such poor care of himself that he often came home barely alive. After her advice had no effect, and not wanting to become a widow, Freya decided to break up with him.

After the Bat became an ex-boyfriend, Freya returned to her original timeline.

Freya, completely baffled: ?

On the second day after she returned, another man claiming to be her ex-boyfriend showed up.

This time, he was a picture-perfect American sweetheart.

He held Freya tightly, looking as though he were about to cry. “I finally found you.”

The moment he finished speaking, the System glitched again and sent Freya into the past.

Looking around, she saw only one familiar face: her “ex-boyfriend,” looking much younger and thinner, waiting nearby for a blind date.

She walked over with easy familiarity. “Hi, I'm your girlfriend.”

The soldier: “But I don't have a girlfriend?”

Freya: “Now you do.”

After hearing Freya spin a whole heap of nonsense, the soldier took her in, still half-convinced.

A while later, the soldier stammered, blushing as he asked, “Would you be my girlfriend? I mean, officially...”

Even while poor, Freya received fresh roses, hot meals, kisses, and hugs every day.

But once the soldier got bigger, he often didn't come home. Freya always felt she came second in his heart, so when he went off to the battlefield yet again, she broke up with him.

Back in her original timeline, Freya suddenly understood.

The so-called ex-boyfriends were all men she had traveled back in time to date and then break up with.

Soon, a third ex-boyfriend showed up.

He was a super-handsome Kryptonian wearing a tight-fitting suit.

Freya was sent back again and repeated the same process, turning a newly met ex-boyfriend into a boyfriend and then back into an ex.

Next, she met a fourth ex, then a fifth...

Freya had traveled back so many times that she hurriedly took down her notice seeking ex-boyfriends.

Ignoring all the newly minted exes who were eager to get back together, Freya took her black card and decided to enjoy life for a while.

Then she ran straight into an alien invasion the moment she stepped outside.

After dealing with the incident, a superhero turned around, saw her, and rushed over to grab Freya's hand.

“You...”

Before he could finish, Freya traveled through time again.