Antique Shop?BEAR? - Chapter 30
Chapter 30 – Princess Hand Mirror
From then on, Ami was a different person.
I want to lose more weight!
I want to be more attractive!
I have to lose more weight!
By the time the weight gradually dropped off and she became a more regular body type, the customers started to drift away and her manager told her not to lose weight anymore. The manager explicitly stated that chubby girls were in demand, but cabaret girls with a normal body type, no ability to interact and no beauty were a bore, thus she resigned from the store.
After quitting the cabaret, she renewed her life, colored her hair back to black, and gave up smoking. She also started working part-time at a bakery in Hosho Station, and discarded all the clothes and dresses she had worn in the past and replaced them with neat and clean clothes. For her diet, she completely switched her meals and started to buy vegetables and meat and cook for herself.
I want to lose more weight!
I want to lose more weight!
Ami’s reflection in the hand mirror grew increasingly charming. Each time she slimmed down, she became more radiant. Ami couldn’t part with her hand mirror and spent more and more time gazing at it.
From the time she woke up in the morning, after her morning makeup, before she went to work, and after she came home until she went to bed. Even while eating, she would gaze at it, and the time she spent watching her phone was decreasing rapidly. Eventually, she began to carry it around in her bag (even carefully placing it in a cushioned case). In a state of narcissism, she would stare at her hand mirror while commuting to work and even during breaks.
The day of her coming-of-age ceremony in January. Her friends, who hadn’t seen Ami in a long time, were astonished when they realized who she was.
“Eh. I was wondering who you were.”
“You startled me! I didn’t recognize you at all!”
Everyone in the school year, friends and non-friends alike, were staring at Ami. This morning, before leaving the house, Ami spent an hour studying herself in the hand mirror. She even kept it in her bag.
After a successful diet, she was now 45 pounds, the thinnest she ever was in her life, and by all accounts she was adorable. She could look back at her old friends! And the day dawned with the greatest feeling in her.
Ami exchanged contact information with a classmate named Karayama, whom she drank with at the after-party, and began to keep in touch with him from time to time.
At long last, the two of them agreed to meet, and Ami anxiously made her way to the movie theater. When Karayama didn’t show up after waiting for a while, Ami called him and he announced that he couldn’t attend due to a work conflict.
Why?
Even though I am this cute, why didn’t you come?
Why didn’t you come to see me when I’ve become so stylish?
Maybe if I lost more weight?
Do I still have excess fat?
I need to lose more weight!
The next morning, Ami examined her swollen, tear-stained face in a hand mirror. Even though her face was swollen and ugly, her red eyes looked like a rabbit’s, and Ami was enthralled as she took a glance in the mirror.
Subsequently, Ami exerted herself more and more for the sake of beauty.
“Otokawa, you seem to have lost quite a bit of weight lately?”
“What? Is that so?”
Ami eyed her waistline with her apron on. Her figure was shaping up closer to ideal. Recently, her midriff was distinctly visible and the flab on her stomach had disappeared. Her chest had also shrunk quite considerably, but that was not a problem as long as she put on corrective underwear.
“Are you eating properly?”
What a nuisance part-time woman you are.
“I am eating properly.”
During her lunch break, Ami would eat salad that she bought cheaply at the company discount along with a glass of water. The only meal she consumed these days was the salad from the company discount. All she drank was water.
Salads are tasty, nutritious, slimming, and a great way to save money on food.
But if I cut out salads too, I could lose more weight.
And water too, if I don’t drink it, I’ll shed more weight.
More.
I need to lose more weight.
Ami’s weight had finally been lowered to 35 kilograms. In the full-length mirror in the bathroom, her skin was flaky, her abdomen was bony, and her arms and legs were scrawny, but not so in the hand mirror. The reflection was of a slender Ami with a small face, resembling a mermaid princess.
“I could watch this for hours.”
Ami was absorbed in the hand mirror. Going to work, eating, sleeping; everything seemed to be forgotten as she was fascinated by it. Everything she saw in the hand mirror was her, and the rest of the mirrors were nothing of her.
After a long time, Karayama contacted her. Ami replied that she wouldn’t meet someone who would disregard their meetings. However, Karayama expressed his desire to make up for the last time and wanted to meet her. Hence Ami gave in and agreed to meet him at the same movie theater as last time.
“Otokawa?”
A voice called out to her from behind, and she turned around to see Karayama.
“Ah, Karayama.”
Karayama stood silently with his brows wrinkled.
“Otokawa?”
“That’s right?”
Karayama stared in astonishment at Ami. “W-What’s wrong with…?”
“What do you mean?”
“… I am sorry. I guess… I should be going back after all…”
Ami was dumbfounded. “You invited me over, now what do you mean?”
“I think it’s better if you go to the hospital.”
Karayama uttered a few words and ran off. Ami, chasing after him in vain, left the movie theater in a hurry.
Still not enough… Still… need to lose more weight.
She can feel the eyes of people passing by.
Do people look at me because I am adorably slim?
Or because I look wretched?
Ami pulled out her hand mirror from her bag and gazed at herself enraptured.
Don’t worry. I’m still as lovely as the Little Mermaid.
At that moment, her own reflection flashed through the display window. Ami was horrified. Her arms and legs were bony, her skin was wrinkled, her face was pale, her cheeks were mossy, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her lips were bluish-purple and chapped.
“A lie…! This is a lie…!”
Right at that point, Ami dropped the hand mirror. She panicked but was too late. With a resounding sound, the hand mirror shattered and scattered on the floor.
“…”
Lies… lies lies lies lies lies lies lies…
“Aaahhhhh!”
Ami shrieked out. In her panic, she gathered up the pieces of the hand mirror and cut her finger, but managed to place the pieces back into the frame of the hand mirror. From below, she moved her face to the mirror and found the same hollow face as in the display window.
“Lies… Lies… Lies… Lies Lies Lies Lies…”