Chapter 1 (1/2)

In an untidy and windblown garden where the branches and leaves stretched around the whole area, was a little girl who stood alone.

Her name is Tsubaki, a girl who will turn four years old this year.

With black hair that was at shoulder-length and hair bangs that were neatly arranged unlike a child, except for her drop-shaped eyes, every part of her small face was well balanced. She is a girl with lovely looks as it is.

However, Tsubaki had a very different part of her that separated her from any of the other children that was at the same age as her. That is, she’s born with the memories from her previous life.

In her previous life, Tsubaki was an office lady that worked in a general corporation’s secretarial section. Born and raised in the countryside in North Kanto, she grew up surrounded by her relatives packed with their detestable countryside’s characteristics. Halfway in her life, she ran away to Tokyo. Within the workplace, she successfully obtained an employment. She withstood the sexual harassments she got from the executives of her job by completely ignoring them, a trait she got and was stuck with her ever since childhood.

Nevertheless, in the end, she died.

She guessed that she might have been in a hit-and-run sort of situation, a bright flash shone on her after she died to which she assumed that she got ran over by a speeding car.

To further prove that she had died an unjustly death, she was reincarnated and started life as a newborn, again.

That is why when she opened her eyes, she was met with an unfamiliar ceiling.

At first she thought she was on the hospital’s bed. And from the feeling of pain she got when she tried to moved, she thought it was because of the injuries from the car accident.

However, at the time when she was embraced by a beautiful woman, she began to notice that something was wrong.

Of course, she would find it strange when a woman that was approximately the same height as her was carrying her in the woman’s embrace so easily.

What’s more, the name she was called by the woman, was not her name.

Her tone when talking to me is as if she was talking to a baby… Could it be– Her complexion began to turn pale.

Slowly, she began raising her hands so that she can see them to try to confirm her doubt, and what she had met were her tiny, little hands.

At the beginning, she thought that she was in a vegetative state and was just seeing a dream, but when she tried hitting the railings from the baby’s cradle with everything she’s got, she felt the very real surge of pain.

Without a dream’s particular characteristics of sudden scenes change, a day slowly changed when she waited and — Ah, this is reality.– She began to understood.

At first, she was bewildered and caused troubles for her mother, but over time she gradually became familiar with the environment she was surrounded in, and some way or another she can came in terms about her previous life and live peacefully until now.

Four years have passed ever since the day she was reincarnated. For Tsubaki, who had never been outside the premises of her home for the entirety of her childhood, was once again viewing the carps swimming in the pond and was also sunbathing in the garden.

While she watched the carps gulping down the scattered fodder, together with the water, sounds of someone walking along gravel resounded behind her and she realised that the sound was getting nearer and nearer. She had thought that the servant had come and was calling for her because the time of the day was getting close to noon. With that in mind, she didn’t need to wait for the servant as she stood up and faced towards where the sound of crunching gravel was.

But never did she think that the one who was coming towards her was not a servant, but a girl who looked about the same age as her. The girl looked at Tsubaki with an indifferent expression on her face as she muttered, “She’s quite unlike the Tsubaki in the game…”

Tsubaki had seen this girl from somewhere before and she felt that this girl resembled someone. She the tried to recall from her memories of this life and her past life.

Suddenly, the girl in front of her called out her name and Tsubaki stopped pondering at once and looked at the girl’s eyes.

“Is your name Tsubaki?”

“Yes, it is.”

When the girl heard Tsubaki’s answer, her eyes started to shine. She began squealing and jumping up and down from the spot.

Hearing the girl’s peculiar high-pitched squealing, Tsubaki wanted to cover her ears. She didn’t know why this girl suddenly became excited over hearing her name. At the same time when Tsubaki was in motion of moving her hands to cover her ears, the girl began saying something incredulous.

“So that means this really is [Koi Hana]’s world! I already thought about this when I heard my name was Kurahashi Mio at that time!… But you really are pitiful, huh. To be driven away in this detached place. Maa, the parent and children together will only have a future where they’ll die anyway. You better sit still and be quiet as I make you my stepping stone so that I can be tied together with Kyousuke-sama, okay? Please wait for me, Kyousuke-sama!”

In an instant, when the girl in front of Tsubaki said the words [Koi Hana] and that her name was “Kurahashi Mio”, a certain memory of her previous world in Tsubaki’s brain vividly began clearing up.

A memory which told her that the world she had been born in was a Shoujo Game’s world called [Koi wa Hana no Gotoku Sakihokoru], shortened to [Koi Hana]. (TN: [Love bloom like a flower], [Love Flower])

The girl in front of her did not resemble someone because the girl is that someone herself, so there’s no one to be compared with. The girl is the main heroine in a shoujo game that she once played in her previous life. It’s natural if Tsubaki had a recollection of the girl because Tsubaki saw the girl’s picture during her childhood when Tsubaki played the game.

The name of the girl in front of Tsubaki who bluntly said those cheeky words is Kurahashi Mio, Tsubaki’s little sister from a different mother and the girl who will have the Love Pattern unfold for her in a decade together with the Heroes.

Tsubaki already found it strange at the time that she had been born together with her memories of her past life still intact.

Still, after realising this fact, she had always thought of herself as a normal girl who was born in a normal household.

Because her mother in this world is a beauty with slender figure, though she has never seen her father even once after she was born, she always checks herself in front of a mirror as she grew up and was certain that in 8 or 9 cases out of 10, she will grow up as a beauty too. My life ahead will be an easy life– thought Tsubaki optimistically.

But never did she thought that she had been reincarnated inside a shoujo game’s world. She always heard from her mother and the servant that her father was busy with work, never even knowing how he looks like, and Tsubaki herself had never been allowed to go beyond the garden. All of these situations that had happened made it impossible for Tsubaki to understand on circumstances she was surrounded with.

Actually, Tsubaki thought that the house that she resides in was the main house. For anyone who would see a house surrounded by a wide garden, never would they think that this was a detached place.

In the first place, her mother always called her [Tsubaki-chan], though the only servant who worked here always called Tsubaki as [Ojou-sama]. There was no one who called her with her family name so Tsubaki never had a chance to learn about it.

Besides, the Tsubaki from the game always had her hair bangs hang over her eyes. With her hair bangs like that, she carried a gloomy, dull, and an uncanny impression. It was not possible to expect that from her current face.

Though she always had a feeling of deja vu whenever she meets with her mother, at that time the area below her eyes got darker and can’t really explain the feeling of familiarity. That’s why Tsubaki never imagined that [Koi hana]’s Kurahashi Tsubaki was she herself. But now, she had finally realized it.

From the many shoujo games that I have played in my previous life, to think that this kind of fate was chosen for me– Tsubaki started to be at loss.

Furthermore, if Tsubaki’s memories are correct, then she should be the villainess that will eventually die in the end of the game.

Tsubaki tried to reach out deep back into her memories, and tried to remember the original work [Koi hana]’s settings.

If I’m not wrong, then [Koi wa Hana no Gotoku Sakihokoru] was a shoujo game where the stage is set at a private school, Takamine Academy, where rich children attend to.

Tsubaki remembered that this was a generic shoujo game that can be found almost anywhere with a story setting that can be found in any shoujo game made.

The only thing that had set this shoujo game apart from its other similar games, is that this game was made famous because of its bad aftertaste.

Firstly, regarding Tsubaki’s setting in the game. Kurahashi Tsubaki in [Koi Hana] is Kurahashi Mio’s, heroine of the game, big sister from a different mother. She is the villainess that will hinder Mio’s love path. The rival and the villainess of the game always got hate from the players. But, Tsubaki’s case was a little different. It’s because there were a lot who sympathize on Tsubaki’s upbringing.

First, Tsubaki’s mother is the daughter of a large enterprise. One day, she fell in love, love at first sight, when a man visited the company for business reasons.This man was Tsubaki’s father. But in spite that the man already had a lover, he made Tsubaki’s mother drunk on alcohol and assaulted her. When she told him that she was pregnant one day, he took her away to forcibly marry her.

Tsubaki’s grandfather and uncle, who were opposed on the idea of the marriage, reluctantly gave them permission when they heard that Tsubaki’s mother was pregnant.

Though it looked like it was supposed to be a happy marriage, by the time Tsubaki was born, everything had changed suddenly.

Tsubaki’s father did not break up with his lover. In addition, he had a child with that lover, and so that the lover thought that she should not trouble him, she gave birth and raised the child alone. That child was named Mio.

Since then, Tsubaki’s mother became more and more suspicious of her husband. After thoroughly investigating her husband’s suspicious behavior, Tsubaki’s mother began pressing questions on her husband, hoping to get an honest answer out of him.

And the husband answered quite boldly, that the one he loves, even to this day, was his old lover and also the child that they both had.

Tsubaki’s mother, who had a very beautiful appearance and figure, was very prideful due to her upbringing like a princess from the start. She couldn’t tolerate the fact that her husband had betrayed her, and also the fact that there was someone who really didn’t truly love her, she gradually became ill-hearted.

Since then, the husband left and never came back home, and that made the fragile heart of the wife became all the more shattered. As time went one, the situation slowly approached a horrible ending.

In the end, her mother who couldn’t bear with it anymore and ended her own life… and the first one to discover this was her daughter, Tsubaki.

From that day onwards, Tsubaki has never opened her heart to anyone and secluded herself. She began to hate her father, the one who had driven her mother to a corner like that. She also hated his other lover, the one that her father truly loved, and also to their child, Mio, who had a loving father and a caring mother. She hated this family.

And that was Kurahashi Tsubaki’s upbringing story, the child of a mother who was wronged and died unjustly. The players who had realized this and understood her, they began sympathizing with her. “Tsubaki was not in the wrong then!” the other players would say because it was clear in front of them that she was also a victim.

Tsubaki would just end up as poor, misunderstood villainess at this point.

However, because of the twists and turns from the twisted consequence, Tsubaki had an obsession for Mio the point that it was really abnormal and kept on assaulting her in any way possible.