This was really happening, wasn't it?

This was actually real.

At first, when she suddenly remembered everything, she hoped it was some sort of strange dream. Then, when it became clear it wasn't, she hoped that it was some kind of bizarre coincidence and she hadn't [i]actually[/i] been reincarnated as the protagonist of an otome game after having previously been a very much male university student. Maybe it was just a coincidentally similar world.

Those hopes were dashed when she entered the school. When she saw the people here. When she set foot in the courtyard.

The entrance ceremony was exactly as she remembered it from the intro to the game.

Matsuoka Ryouji, or rather Anne Marielle as she had been known for the past sixteen years in this world, now found herself standing in the aftermath of the intro to Starveil Academy.

In the world of the otome game Cross Heart Academy.

As its protagonist.

What this meant was hardly lost on her, as she anxiously eyed the crowds around her.

Perhaps being the 'generically cute every girl' would work to her advantage. Nevermind the fact that being a girl in the first place was a tremendously awkward experience(in away she was thankful for those sixteen years she spent without remembering her old life, because that meant that she'd not had an even rougher adjustment period). In the real world, she wouldn't be that noticeable. And this was real now, not an otome game where every guy was destined to notice her.

Surely it would work out differently, right? Even if that entrance ceremony had been identical.

Anne wasn't the type of person who had played this game for guys to fawn over her. If anything, back when she was Matsuoka Ryouji, it was only natural he was much more into some of the female characters. The protagonist herself was cute, albeit deliberately generically so. And there was that one teacher too.

There was no way she wanted to end up marrying some guy.

She wasn't going to pursue [i]any[/i] route. This was absolute in her mind. This was a zero route game. She'd think about the [i]other[/i] stuff when she had the chance, but the most immediate problem was ensuring none of them would approach her.

It couldn't be hard, right?

Anne sighed inwardly, relieved at her own hopefully-true assumption. That's right. In real life, as long as she made a good, solid rejection, guys like that would let it go, right?

Of course she'd have to be careful, in this world where status mattered so much, but all the protagonist's romance options were at least decent guys, right?

They practically had an ocean of other girls to choose from, too.

Right?

Somehow her optimism was crumbling by the second.

Well, maybe if she made her way out of the courtyard as quickly as possible, to avoid even the slightest chance of a flag raising...

[@PKMNB0Y]