I was completely out of it. Under normal circumstances, my family would have asked, but since I had just gone - no matter how I denied it - to a date, they all kept quiet and left me to my own devices, though they danced around me in case I wanted to talk after all.
As for school, Kaoru and Tarou were very curious. I don’t know how many times they wanted to ask me and were beaten down by Yuji, who had somehow decided to act as my guardian. He probably guessed that my daze had to do with Mizuki.
Why would I think that?
Well, as they are aware, Mizuki has been spending a lot of time with an unknown person and I have stopped gossiping about him. Yuji also knows that we are acquainted and that I’m most likely gay, so he should have guessed that the mystery person was me. If I was acting weird, then Mizuki was likely to play a part in it.
My friend trying to give me privacy was a nice thing and it made me laugh how my other two friends would run and hide behind me when Mama Yuji came to scold them.
I was chewing on my bento, ears pricked to listen to the fujoshi group next to us. Don’t underestimate their network, they were a great source of information no matter the topic.
“I saw it myself, I swear!” The girl was whispering, her tone urgent. “She was a real beauty!”
“So, what, they were on a date?”
“No! Okay, listen. He was out with his sister I guess, since they looked quite similar. Came out of a store together.”
“Haah? His sister?”
“Sheesh, shut up for a second and let her talk!”
“So they came out together and were about to leave when this beauty called for Taizou! Long legs, blonde hair and brown eyes, she looked like a model!”
...Feels familiar.
“Anyway, Taizou immediately greeted her and they talked about something. That beauty didn’t seem to care about his sister at all, she was all about Taizou!”
...Yeah, probably because she already thinks of him as her brother-in-law.
“They appeared rather close. But don’t you think that’s suspicious? I’ve never seen her around before, but suddenly there is a beauty sticking so closely to Taizou… She even touched his shoulder before she left!”
That topic had all girls gaping, even the ones that were eavesdropping. Even some of the guys.
My group, too. For other reasons. After all, all three of them knew Haru and probably felt that the description was just as familiar as it was to me.
“Is Haru going out with Taizou?”, Tarou whispered in shock. After all, he quite adored my sister, though not to the point of crushing on her. It was an appreciation for her looks.
I shook my head.
“No, although I guess that was probably her”, I explained quietly. I didn’t want to keep too many things from my friends, so I ended up telling them. “She knows him from me. I’ve kinda become friends with him, he’s tutoring me.”
Kaoru sucked in a breath, pointing at me with wide eyes. “You’re the mystery person!”
“...Yes, I’m the mystery person. Actually he just wanted a reason to reject all those other people constantly asking him out.”
Yuji slapped a hand in front of his face. “...That one time when we called and you were super awkward because those two were gossiping about him…”
“He was sitting right in front of me and heard everything, yep. I accidentally had my phone on loudspeaker.”
A very uncomfortable silence descended on my friends as they realized what they had done.
“Sorry”, Tarou muttered. “Did we mess up your friendship?”
“No, I was lucky. He forgave me.”
Collective relieved sigh.
We went back to listening to the people around us and eating.
“So he’s not going out with Prez? Aw man, they would have looked so cute together… All those doujinshis…”
“At least we have those”, one of the girls patted the other and spoke in a coaxing tone. “Maybe he’ll switch after going out with her for a while.”
Their brains fascinated me. How had they decided so suddenly that a girl and guy that just got along were going out?
I chewed on a piece of meat until it lost taste. Would it be a good idea to try and push Mizuki into the direction of going out with me? I somehow felt bad for dragging him into this… Maybe it would be better to stay as friends as I had planned…
On the other hand, I didn’t want to?
Imagine you’re told your crush probably likes you as well, who wouldn’t want to progress things further? I’m not that much of a saint. I knew myself well enough; now that I had gotten this far, I’d try and do exactly what the system said. See if he can’t maybe get used to being a bit too close to me. I could just watch his reactions in the system, anyway.
“Can I ask you guys a question without you mercilessly annoying me for the backstory?”
Yuji nodded but Kaoru and Tarou stopped a second in their eating, their eyes looking into nowhere until they had found their answer.
“Nah.” "Nu-uh. Impossible.” “Yeah, impossible. You gotta spit out everything." “Hm-mh. Tell us.”
“You guys are shit. Look at Yuji, he’s being all nice and supportive. He’d help me even without asking. Can’t you be that nice?”
“No way.” “Absolutely not.”
At least they were honest. “Sheesh. Forget it, then.”
“You can’t do that to us”, Kaoru chuckled, poking me with his chopsticks while I made annoyed noises.
I jumped back with my chair to avoid him, bumping into one of the girls on accident. She squeaked, glaring at me.
“Hey! Watch out!”
My classmates were all listed as acquaintances in my list. Since my classmates were people I dealt nearly every day with, I had taken my time to look through all of their entries.
The girls didn’t dislike me, it was more of a mutual indifference towards each other.
“Sorry”, I immediately said, moving my chair back forward to give her space. She huffed in annoyance.
To tell the truth, there were many times in my life where I had wished to be someone like the president. He was universally liked at school. More than his talent or his looks, I was jealous of the fact that he always found the right words to say.
My thoughts often got stuck - not just with Mizuki. I had trouble thinking the moment I felt that I had to choose my words carefully.
To give an example: I had no problems telling people when I liked or disliked food. I even got quite detailed, saying when I thought too much salt was used, or the meat was burnt or things like that.
Then there was the day when Haru made chocolate for valentines, wanting to give it to her crush and asking me what I thought of it. I began to worry that my opinion might not be the same as her crush’s, lowering the quality if she adjusted it to my taste, and freaked out.
I refused to try even the slightest bit of it.
Basically, I get easily worried about my words having a bad influence in any way or hurting someone or making them misunderstand. Whenever I got to that point, my thoughts would turn around and around what I should say and I’d often end up saying nothing at all.
...Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what the system is helping me with? Huh.
I pulled a face and sat down quietly, glaring at Kaoru who gave me an apologetic glance.
”My fault”, he mouthed to me.
We moved the table a bit so that it was closer to the window, creating a larger gap to the girls’ table.
“Hmm, how late is it?”, Tarou changed the topic quite obviously. We all glanced at the clock. There was more than enough time left of our break.
“Wanna play a game then?”, he suggested, pulling out his phone. We all had the same app; a pokemon-like game where you gathered monsters, trained them and competed. It was fun enough for wasting some time.
“Sure.” We all agreed.
I unlocked my phone, making a surprised ‘Oh’ when I spotted a message blinking on the top of my screen. Mizuki’s name was written to the side.
Curious at my reaction, my friends all leaned over my phone, revealing surprised faces when they read the name as well. Tarou and Kaoru opened their mouths before hurriedly holding them shut.
Thank you very much for not screaming through the room that I’m on first-name basis with him! Geez!
I glanced around to make sure no one behind me could read the message, then opened it.
I hope you all remember the poll of what you'd like to read next? Have another poll! (Without reward tho cause the last one didnt work, aw)
This time there's story snippets under the spoiler from the answers that had the most voters, so you can vote which one would interest you the most! They're not finished snippets, just random ones. Also, it's always with 1) a happy ending, 2) no harem, 3) considerable amount of comedy. If you have questions, feel free to poke me :) the poll is no definitive decision, but it definitely has a lot of influence~
Spoiler
Story 1: Another AI helping with the dating
[Milan is a robot - the newest work of a genius albeit slightly crazy man. He was created to fully imitate a human, to the point of having full body functions. But emotions are something to learn, so the crazy scientist decides to send his 'son' to school to interact with people. Following him is Rye, a highly intelligent A.I. created to help Milan in how to act like a human. The only problem is, Rye was created as a perfectly logical being and while she tries her best, she still doesn't understand human emotions enough to avoid chaos...
Another MC-is-top story]
-------- Snippet 1
"Your eyes are freaky", Allan said with a deadpan face, lifting up Milan's long fringe.
The robot's eyes widened in shock.
"Ah? Did I forget to change them?", he shouted, hurriedly searching his memory. No, he definitely had, the clockwork shouldn't be showing, but Allan had said...
Rye, Rye!
[You didn't forget. They're dark brown, as they should be... He must think of dark brown as a weird colour], Rye answered promptly, voice serious and thoughtful. It made sense to Milan, though. Allan probably didn't like dark brown eyes...
"You wear coloured contact lenses? Huh." Allan continued to mutter something, then let go of Milan's fringe and stepped back, relaxedly putting his hands into the pockets of his pants. "You really are a freak. How interesting."
[Human history does have happenings of exhibitions containing other humans with weird looks.]
Oooh... So... he likes looking at weird things?
Milan sent a virtual nod to Rye. That was a good thing to know. He was fond of Allan, so if he liked that kind of thing, then he had to search around for it. Maybe there still was some sort of exhibition he could invite Allan to...
-----------Snippet 2
The tears kept on falling down.
"Rye, what's happening?", Milan asked worriedly, turning to the red bird that had finally fluttered down to him.
[It seems you are sad. Crying is a sign of sadness.]
"Oh, so that's sadness", Milan muttered with mild surprise. He hadn't expected that. The feeling was warm and sweet and he liked it, but his whole head felt like it was flowing over so the tears just came out. It was rather overwhelming, all in all. "Am I sad that Allan said he likes spending time with me?"
That stunned Rye. For a moment, she was quiet, then she answered. [It is your task to interact with as many people as possible. That Allan is now planning on monopolizing your time must be very distressing.]
"I see. That makes sense."
Story 2: Transmigrated into a love interest of a visual novel dating sim
[Cole finds himself born into the world of a common dating sim after dying in an accident. He grows up avoiding the main character Amelie - because he dies in any other route than his own - only to notice that the probably transmigrated heroine frames him anyway! Well, he's gotta complain then, because there's no way he's gonna let his best friend fall to her hands! ...In the background, Lethe sighs and fetches his sword. Little Lord wants to destroy someone again, he will have to clean up afterwards...]
--------Snippet 1
"Milord?", he asked seriously, his voice rough and husky but still somehow pleasing to hear.
Cole looked him over.
That was someone who would never betray him, absolutely not. The novel's word was annoying, but Lethe was really incredibly nice to have around.
No matter what he needed, Lethe would get it for him. If he wanted a massage, he'd get massaged, if he felt like drinking, Lethe would buy him good wine, if he wanted to eat something special...
"Buy me some wine on the way back", Cole commanded and Lethe bowed lightly while walking.
"As you wish", he responded. ...It wasn't part of his job, actually. He could reject it, as Lethe was paid by Cole's father to protect him. Anything above that was something that he could refuse to do unless Lord Dover ordered him to do so.
Well, his little Lord didn't need to know that. It was fine, anyway.
Satisfied with Lethe's reaction, Cole marched on towards their carriage, hands folded behind his back.
"I need to get that bitch off the prince", Cole muttered, wisely ignored by Lethe. "I can't have her ruin him... I guess I gotta step in after all..."
Lethe glanced at the bright blue evening sky.
God beware anyone heard his little Lord talk like that. At least he knew not to do it in front of anyone else.
--------Snippet 2
Lethe sensed his little Lord's anger, quietly simmering under his calm countenance.
The one thing Cole Dover did not allow was betrayal.
If he reacted wrongly, Cole would certainly kick him out immediately, but Lethe had no desire to act up.
Quietly, he took a step closer, causing his little Lord to twitch nervously. That reaction was a bit painful, but Lethe ignored it and slowly went down on one knee.
Head lowered, he offered up his sword.
"I will always be by your side. I will never betray you. I will never leave you. Milord, I am your sword and your shield. Until the day you discard me, I will be yours."
And even then, he continued inside his mind, even then I will follow you to the depths of hell.
Story 3: Transmigrated into the hero of a novel
[Noah wakes up as the hero of a novel he really liked, until the author killed the main character in the end. Pissed, he sets out to set the hero's - his - life right and kill the demon king. ...Although... he hadn't expected... the demon king... to be so attractive... Also, isn't he actually quite nice? And he hasn't noticed Noah is the hero yet, so there is no real reason not to flirt a bit... But how is he going to explain that to his party, considering they are still marching on to kill the demon king?!]
---------Snippet 1
White hair and skin so fair it was almost translucent, accompanied by two ruby red eyes that burned like molten rock, two precious gems shaking with surprise.
Even at that age, he had known about albinoes, despite the fact that he had never seen one before.
The albino spoke - his voice uncertain and shy, quivering, at first, then hurriedly changing into a determined and strong tone. Had the boy’s hands not shivered nervously, he would have believed the other’s show of strength.
“W-who are you, intruder? How did you get here?”
“I dunno”, he had said, curiously mustering the other child that looked like a precious doll. “Who are you?”
The albino boy tried to keep a proud face. “You may call me Kalua.”
He had grinned brightly, inching closer to the boy. The albino shied away, then fixed his face. He was terrible at displaying disdain, so there was no real feeling of threat.
“I’m Noah! Your name sounds pretty-”, Noah said happily.
--------Snippet 2
Noah kept himself from swooning under the man's eyes. They were bright red, as you would expect from a demon king, but looked quite gentle. His pitch black flowed in the wind, creating gentle waves.
"I can help you. There is something I have to do around here, anyway", the demon king said, voice like the most beautiful song.
Noah opened his mouth. It should be possible to form a full sentence for once! Sure, he was attractive, but that didn't mean he had to-
"No-no, I-I-I don't want to dis-disturb you...", his voice came out instead, a quiet and sweet whisper.
...Alas, he was doomed to act like an idiot after all. Nervously wringing the fabric of his cuffs, Noah glanced up at the beautiful man with a lowered head, feeling his face heat up terribly.
How fun that would be, to appear in the castle like this. The hero confronts the demon king and then turns into a shy little flower...
Story 4: Quick transmigration!
Greedy? Want everything? Alas, I decided to add an option with a quick-transmigration setting! Aaaaand, of course, the mysterious lover is always the same~? No details or snippets for this, as theres too many worlds xD I guess the MC would be the top in this case, the overbearing and calculating type~ Take it as a bonus for the most votes on the game system, since of course that one is around, too!
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