“Ah, eh? Ehm…… Err…. err, ehm…… that is……”

Kohiruimaki Karen was in an awful state of confusion.

‘How did I get into a situation like this?”

She did not understand. She did not understand at all. 

The 183 cm-tall person, who had an atypically high stature for a nineteen year-old Japanese girl, had her back pressed against a wallpaper. She could feel the chill of the wall with her back.

Beside her head, with its short, black hair, was a hand.
The man’s muscular right hand was pressed against the wall beside her left ear.

And in front of her was of course the owner of that hand. His burly chest that caused his T-shirtto stretch, and his face with a sharp gleam in his eyes, was awfully close to her.

‘Aah……, is this….. the so-called…… 《Kabe-don》? ……

In her confusion, Karen was somehow able to understand that much.

Kabe-don.

This was explained as something like 〝the act of a man cornering a girl against a wall, and pressing his hand on the wall with a ‘don’ sound〟.

As for what he was pressing her for, if the man wasn’t seeking money, he would usually be seeking intimacy. A use of force by a man irritated by the girl’s vague attitude.

She understood that, but could not even imagine that this would be done to her. Even in her wildest dreams, Karen could not imagine falling into such a shōjo manga(1) heroine-like situation.

‘I’m glad that the man is tall to some extent……’

Karen thought deep in her heart.

Although the person in front of her was shorter than her, he was still at least 175 cm tall. One way or another, the kabe-don was carried out just like in the pictures.

The man, who seemed to be an ikemen(2) several years older than her, shouted in a tensebaritone voice.

“Have you ever seriously loved someone? Have you loved someone so much that you’d be willing to devote your life to them?”

Still confused, she did not have the time to make up a lie.

Karen answered honestly, as if she had been given a truth serum.

“W-well no……”

And then, the man,

“Then, you absolutely don’t understand how I feel right now!”

Shouted once again, with an expression filled with sorrow, pain and anger.

‘Ah? Why? What’s going on?’

One after another, question marks floated in Karen’s mind and became entangled.

This was an event that took place at 15:42 on Sunday, 16th of March, 2026.

An event before the opening of the second Squad Jam on the 19th.
 

V1 Afterword

Index

SECT.1

1. ^ Manga aimed at a teenage female readership.

2. ^ An ikemen (イケメン) refers to a good-looking man. The English equivalent would be “hunk” or “cool guy”.