I'm in Love with the Gorilla Sitting Next to Me - Volume 1 Chapter 2.1

From my first encounter with Gorilla-san to the present 1

——It all started during the summer break of my sixth-grade year when I began to see the opposite sex as animals through my eyes. I remember it clearly, even the date: August 11th.

The day before, I had baseball team practice from noon, and in the evening, I had plans to go to the shrine’s festival with some other friends.

At the appointed time of 6 PM, I arrived at the bridge near the shrine where we were supposed to meet, only to find a girl in a yukata I had never met before. According to her, she had been invited by one of our group members who attended the same cram school, but all the others had gone to the pool, and due to some accident, the train service was halted, and they couldn’t return immediately. She had received this news just before leaving and had been asked to relay the message to me.

Hearing this from the girl I had just met, I remember thinking, 『Damn it』 Not because I was alone with a girl I didn’t know, but because I was worried we wouldn’t be able to go to the festival I had been looking forward to.

Being a kid who was equally enthusiastic about playing baseball, soccer, and video games regardless of gender, I persuaded the girl, who was about to head home, to come with me to the festival, saying, ‘If I go alone and get found out, I’ll be scolded, so please come with me.’

She didn’t seem very outgoing, but after some thought, she nodded in agreement.

So I went to the shrine with her and enjoyed the festival. There were so many things we wanted to eat and do, so we pooled our money and made the most of it.

We gorged on takoyaki, yakisoba, cotton candy, and chocolate bananas, and at the shooting game where you could try three times, I took two turns and, as a gesture of thanks, I gave her the prize of a candied apple.

It was crowded, so we held hands to not get separated and we also joined in the bon odori dance and played with the sparklers that were being handed out for free. I’m surprised at how well I remember it all. It must have been that memorable.

After playing until our wallets were nearly empty, we naturally held hands on the way back, chatting about various things until we reached the bridge where we had met, and said goodbye to the girl whose parents had come to pick her up in their car.

As soon as she left, I was suddenly overwhelmed by loneliness and ran all the way home.

Arriving home out of breath, I hardly talked about the festival with my family, took a bath in a daze… and that’s when I finally realized I hadn’t asked for her name.

It was a shock to have spent such a long and fun time together without even knowing that.

Regret washed over me, but it was too late. I went to bed recalling her smiling face, her disappointed look when she failed at the shooting game, and her figure as she left, and I fell asleep with an inexplicable sense of unease.

Looking back on it now, I realize that was probably my first love.

——Now, here comes the crucial part of the story.

The next morning, on the fateful day of August 11th, I was awakened by my mother’s voice saying, ‘Come on, it’s time for radio exercises!’ As I opened my heavy eyelids in a daze, I was confronted with the close-up face of a cow, and I let out a scream that echoed through the neighborhood.

No surprise there—It was a cow, you know?

I had never seen one up close except on TV or in picture books, and there it was, peering into my face as I woke up. Of course, I screamed.

Completely panicked, I was taken to the hospital after a while instead of going to radio exercises and was diagnosed with ‘no abnormalities’. I remember wanting to cry out in protest, as the nurses and patients all looked like animals, and it felt like a bad fever dream.

When I returned home, my grandfather and uncle from another prefecture, who had arrived at some point, looked at me with pity and said, ‘It seems the day has come for Kouta too’, with a look of regret.

Confused and still seeing my mother as a cow, I sat at the table surrounded by my relatives and was told a shocking truth.

Our family is cursed——they said.

What I heard next was a story so ridiculous it was almost funny.

In the early Meiji period, one of my ancestors had a dispute with a sorcerer named Yamamoto Manjuuta, and as a result, a curse was placed that ‘the eldest son of the Saiki family will see the opposite sex as non-human creatures when he comes of age.’ The whole incident started because the sorcerer fell in love at first sight with my ancestor and insisted, ‘Let us become husband and wife!’

Naturally, he was rejected, became enraged, and left with the parting words, ‘I’ll curse your bloodline to ruin!’

It wasn’t until a decade later that they realized it wasn’t just the howling of a sore loser. The eldest son, who had been growing up healthily, suddenly exclaimed one day, ‘Mother has turned into a faceless ghost!’ After consulting with a renowned priest, they learned that ‘the curse is on the eldest son who will inherit the Saiki family, and it will be passed on to the next generation.’

Unfortunately, they couldn’t find a way to break the curse. It was a small consolation that the curse didn’t affect the second son, and it would be lifted from the eldest once the second son had a male child.

In conclusion, our family line has been passed down to the second sons, and the birth of a second son is eagerly awaited, as the eldest sons are cursed from the start… apparently.

Hearing this, you can imagine how I felt. It was explained to me in simple terms, but that made it all the more absurd.

——There’s no reason for me to suffer like this!

It was just my ancestor who was unjustly resented, and it was the sorcerer with the strange name who cursed everything. Besides, the curse doesn’t manifest until at least a decade later, by which time the caster would probably have long forgotten about it.