I Really Don't Like Atobe

Someone once wondered what Akimoto Natsuki thought of Atobe Keigo.

The girl, who always spoke gently, sat on a swing and kicked her legs as she bluntly said, "I hate him."

Natsuki really did hate Atobe Keigo.

She hated how handsome he was, how talented he was, how loving his family was, and how almost 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 handed her a handkerchief and hugged her when she cried. She hated that even knowing how much she hated him, he still said he liked her.

She didn't like Atobe Keigo one bit. She hated him more than anyone.

*

Natsuki had always felt like she was living in some ridiculous melodrama.

Out of nowhere, she went from being the only daughter of a wealthy family to a fake heiress who'd been switched at birth.

After finally making it halfway through her senior year, she was in a car accident and lost her memory. When she woke up, she discovered that her family planned to casually arrange a marriage for her as soon as she graduated.

Akimoto Natsuki: .

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

Unwilling to keep following the melodramatic rich-family script, Natsuki turned her attention to Atobe Keigo, who had inexplicably become her desk mate after repeating a year.

If she could make Atobe fall for her, she could use his family's influence to escape this ridiculous household, and make the Atobe she hated bend to her every whim. 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 semester ended.

But before their relationship had even settled enough for her to announce it to her family, her biological younger sister suddenly confronted her, eyes red and face full of resentment.

"You're pretending to have amnesia, aren't you!"

"You didn't really forget that Atobe liked you. You're deliberately stringing him along and refusing to get back together with him to get revenge on me!"

Natsuki: .

What kind of melodramatic love triangle was this now?

Natsuki: ...Wait.

She and Atobe had gotten back together?

Unable to believe it, she asked Atobe to confirm, hoping to dispel this absurd misunderstanding.

But the other person involved simply replied with calm confidence, "It's not a misunderstanding."

He said, "We really were dating before your accident."

Reader's Guide:

◇ The story is set in high school and does not involve the new plotlines. There is lots of OOC characterization and many original elements. This is purely a romance, with everything serving the romance. As the blurb says, it contains melodramatic rich-family drama involving a fake heiress and a real heiress. The heroine's family situation is extremely dramatic. Although she started school a year early, she is the same age as Atobe.

◇ The heroine is a child starved of affection, prone to extreme overthinking, and different on the inside from how she appears. Her personality is not especially likable.

◇ The romance is mostly everyday life before and after they get together, though the melodrama brings some twists and turns.

>>>>> Here's another work I'm writing: "[Western Crossover] So You're My Ex Too?"

Freya lost her memory.

The good news: she had a System.

The bad news: the System's data had been attacked by an unknown source, and it had "lost its memory" too.

The human and the 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 quests that pays a hundred million after you finish it, 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 think you have an ex who really loves you. How about you give getting back together a try?"

Freya, who had absolutely no desire to suffer, thought that sounded like a great idea.

So she put out a missing-person notice.

*

A huge, pitch-black bat came looking for her.

He gazed at Freya, his eyes intense yet restrained. "I knew you were still alive."

Seeing how desperate Freya's circumstances were, he generously gave her a black card and discreetly showed off his luxurious manor, saying she could move in whenever she liked.

Freya had only meant to open a blind box, but discovering that her ex was both a superhero and a rich man, she happily decided to latch onto him.

But just as she was about to go home with him, the System suddenly glitched and dumped Freya in the past.

She even landed in the bed of a much younger Bat, who didn't know her yet.

"Who are you?" he asked warily.

Still broke and now without an identity, Freya thought for three seconds, then kissed his cheek. "Your girlfriend."

Bat: ?

To keep a closer eye on her, Bat denied it while tacitly allowing Freya to stay by his side.

Not long afterward, Bat indulgently caught his little girlfriend as she launched herself at him. "You'll fall if you do that, Freya," he admonished.

Bat was great. He was a little controlling, but Freya was spoiled absolutely rotten.

But he didn't take care of himself and often came home nearly dead. After trying and failing to talk him out of it, Freya decided she didn't want to become a widow and broke up with him.

Once Bat had been promoted to ex-boyfriend, Freya returned to her original timeline.

Freya, utterly baffled: ?

The very next day after she got back, another man claiming to be her ex showed up at her door.

This time, he was a quintessential American sweetheart.

He hugged Freya tightly, looking as if he was about to cry. "I finally found you."

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

Looking around, she spotted only one familiar face: her "ex," in his younger, thinner form, waiting nearby for a blind date.

She walked over as if they were old friends. "Hi, I'm your girlfriend."

Soldier: "But I don't have a girlfriend?"

Freya: "Well, now you do."

After hearing Freya spin a whole load of nonsense, the doubtful soldier still took her in.

Some time later, the soldier stammered, his face red, as he asked, "Would you be my girlfriend? I mean, officially..."

Though she was poor, Freya got fresh roses, hot meals, kisses, and hugs every day.

But once the soldier grew stronger, he was often away from home. Freya always felt like she came second in his heart, so when he went off to battle yet again, she broke up with him.

Back in her original timeline, Freya finally understood.

The so-called ex-boyfriends were all men she'd met by traveling to the past, then broken up with.

Soon, a third ex showed up at her door.

He was a ridiculously handsome Kryptonian in a skintight suit.

Freya was thrown into the past again, where she repeated the whole process of turning a newly met ex into a boyfriend, then back into an ex.

Then she met a fourth ex, a fifth ex, and so on...

Freya was sick of time-traveling, so she hurriedly took down the notice looking for her exes.

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

But the moment she stepped outside, aliens invaded.

After the superhero dealt with the crisis, he turned around, saw her, and rushed over to grab Freya's hand.

"You..."

Before he could finish, Freya traveled through time again.

Freya, already numb to it all: ...

How was this one an ex too?

How many more ex-boyfriends was she supposed to create? Was this ever going to end?

Theme: Love yourself first