Yuri Tama: From Third Wheel to Trifecta Volume 1

uhh...right! I’ll just play it off like I was kidding around! That’ll—gaaah?!”

Barely seconds after I’d sent the message, a little mark showed up next to it indicating that one, no, two people had read it. And an instant later...

What’s wrong?

Did something happen?

...they were worried about me. I didn’t even have time to try to claim it was a joke. That meant that if I stuck it out and went with the just-a-joke plan anyway, it’d probably only make them even more worried! No choice... I’ll just have to commit!

Me: Nah, I was just wondering why I’m so unpopular

What?! No! Committing too much! Dial it back, me!

Unpopular? You?

You know that’s not true, right?

That still left the big question unanswered, though: What was holding me back? If it wasn’t my looks, was it my personality?

Wait...is it my personality? I don’t think I’m, like, a bad person or anything, but it’s not like I haven’t caused my fair share of trouble here and there...

The more I thought about it, the more I began to feel a looming dread that my personality really did have some massive defect that was putting me out of the running. It was bothering me so much, in fact, that I found myself opening up a group chat I had with a couple of friends, typing, “Hey, am I just totally unlovable or something?” and hitting send—

Wait, gah! Wh-What am I doing?! It’s bothering me, sure, but that’s not the sort of thing you can just ask your friends apropos of nothing! And aagh, the way I said it makes it sound, like, super melodramatic, or like I’m fishing for compliments or something!

“I-It’s fine, no biggie, just have to delete the post and everything’ll be just—oh god I already sent it! You can’t unsend posts in this app! Crap, okay

apparently had three hotties fighting for her affection. One of them was even supposed to be an ex she’d dated during her first year! Let me tell you: Cannot relate! At all!

“Not that there are any guys out there who’d want to date a girl like me, anyway,” I muttered, punctuating my self-deprecation with a heavy sigh. That particular reality went back to long before high school. It didn’t matter if I thought back all the way to middle or elementary school either. I’d never had so much as the slightest taste of that bittersweet youthful whatever with a boy. Seriously, not even once.

It’s not like I’m ugly or anything, right? I had two little sisters, and both of them were as cute as could be. I might have been a little biased since they were family and all, sure, but that wasn’t just conjecture on my part; I also knew for a fact that they’d been hit on and asked out plenty of times. I had the same DNA as them, so in theory I shouldn’t have been playing with an appearance-based handicap, right? I’d have liked to believe that, anyway