Uesugi-kun wa Onnanoko o Yametai

Uesugi has always been the kind of boy who turns heads for unexpected reasons—slight of build, delicate in feature, and easily mistaken for a girl at first glance. Beneath that dainty exterior, however, beats an entirely ordinary heart, one that has quietly carried a long-cherished crush on a girl he has known since childhood. Everything changes the day he overhears her offhand remark: wouldn't Uesugi be utterly charming if he were a girl? The careless words strike him like a blow. Worse still, standing in the shadow of Eito—his other childhood friend, who is both taller and far more capable in his studies—Uesugi begins to feel small in every sense of the word. Confronted with the gap between who he is and who he believes he ought to be, he finds himself nursing a wounded heart and a bruised sense of self. One dispirited afternoon, while out on a mundane errand, his feet carry him to the grounds of a quiet shrine. Buried in gloom and longing for things to be different, Uesugi pauses before the sacred grounds and, almost without realizing it, offers up a heartfelt wish...