Oh. She was jealous of…Riku? Maybe it wasn’t the misstep into the Riku route I should be worried about, but the villainess route? Just kidding, because that wasn’t an actual route…right?
Sighing conspicuously, I continued with my best tsundere impression. “All right. This time, but don’t think you’ll be making a habit of it.”
Underneath, though, I was having fun. It felt so liberating to finally be able to interact with Nonoka in a positive manner instead of tearing her down all the time. There was still the eventual betrayal to keep in mind, but as long as I didn’t think too hard, yeah, I was having fun. Shoving that worry to the back of my mind, I continued to jot away in my notebook.
✦ ✦ ✦
HEAPING spoonfuls of prickliness with just a sprinkling of affection here and there—this was the perfect recipe to catalyze Nonoka’s growth, now as a supportive friend instead of a cruel adversary. Days passed, finals came and went, and then our grades came out. During lunch break, I headed to the corridor to check the bulletin boards where the exam scores were posted.
I scanned the bulletin boards and there it was—Nonoka’s name, in the top fifty. And she was solidly in there too, not just barely managing to squeak in like her character had in the game, meaning we were doing better than expected. I said “we” because I had also improved. By adjusting my targets to keep up with her growth, I could maintain that perfect gap between her rank and mine—not too large as to be insurmountable, not too small as to give her the impression she could catch up with ease.
I then spotted Rikka and Ruki’s names up there, which was no surprise, but also Asuka and Sayaka’s. Those girls had clearly put in the work. They weren’t in the top fifty, but had improved significantly since midterms—thanks, at least in part, to our joint study sessions.
It was frankly heartening to see them do so well. They might have been my underlings in the game, but here in the real world, they deserved so much more than to suffer a fall from grace alongside me.
The goal was to spare them that fate, but that was a concern for way further down the line. The immediate goal, the one I should be devoting all my energy to in addition to motivating Nonoka to better herself, was to bring her closer to Ruki. Currently, the two were no better than classmates. I carried myself to the courtyard to better ponder this question—of how I might bridge the gap between. As I stood there against the trunk of an ancient tree, the afternoon sun softly dappled my face through the leaves, I heard footsteps approach.
Just as I hastily fixed my hair and smoothed my uniform, Ruki appeared.
“Mio, funny running into you,” he said.
“Indeed, what business have you out here?” I replied.
“I was ruminating on a particularly thorny problem, but—” He took a step closer to me. “I think I may have just found my answer.”
“And what you mean by that is?”
“Summer break is coming up.”
“Yes, I’m well aware. What of it?”
Peering over my face, Ruki propped an arm on the tree I was leaning on. “I need you, Mio.”
My heart skipped a beat. But then I realized the odd phrasing. “I need you?” Yeah, as in, “I need you to come shopping with me,” right? Come on, big boy, give me your best shot. You can’t fool me. Your heart belongs to Nonoka, not me.
To center myself, I swept my hand through my hair and switched into villainess mode. “You’ll need to try harder to get a rise out of me.”
“Hm?” Ruki said before catching on. “My apologies, I left out some important context there, didn’t I? I need you, Mio—to be my fiancée this summer.”
Hah. That’s what I thought.
Wait.
What?
“Y-You need a…a…what?!” I said. Maybe yelled.
In contrast to my outburst, Ruki was completely unruffled. “A fiancée. Wife-to-be, a woman to whom I’m engaged to be married.”
“I-I-I know what a fiancée is! Just…why do you need one? And why are you asking me?!”
“Because why not you?”
“E-Explain yourself.” I hugged myself tight, now thoroughly on guard against Ruki.
“Remember when you said that getting in with me, the Yukishiro family’s future head, was the obvious choice?”
Did I? I thought to when I took his hand to dance at the new student mixer. “I suppose I did. What of it?”
“You forgot, didn’t you?”
I didn’t respond, just turned away in a sulk. The nostalgia with which I now held that memory surprised even me. But now that I thought about it, those were the good old days, weren’t they? Back then, I had the freedom to make choices, to deviously manipulate Nonoka and Riku by cozying up to Ruki. Now, I was just this emotionally constipated, unable-to-be-honest-with-herself trainwreck of a girl.
“Well, this is your in,” Ruki continued. “So why are you so hesitant to take it all of a sudden?”
Ruki was right. This was my “in”—if an in was what I had been after! At the time, I had only wanted to say that to seem irredeemably self-serving, not to actually have him offer me this chance or whatever!
Another thought popped into my head.
“All right. There’s something in it for me, but what’s in it for you?” I asked.
Ruki looked at me like I was the sorriest thing in the world, and sighed. Really?!
“What are you plotting?” I pressed.
“‘Plotting,’ really. I’m hurt. But I’ll admit, I may have omitted a few choice details. The true request is that I would like you to pretend to be my fiancée at a party this summer.”
“It’s a request, is it?”
“Mm-hm. And I believe you owe me one, don’t you?”
Well, now I really couldn’t say anything. That darn favor—I knew it would come back to bite me in the ass someday.
Ruki must have thought he had me cornered with this move. That I’d be the kind of person who would honor my word no matter what. And maybe, in most cases, he would be right. I would uphold my promise to most people, to Rikka, even—but not to you, Ruki.
You were destined for Nonoka, not me. You were the other half of the key needed to unlock this good ending, and if there was one thing that was absolutely off-limits for me, it was to do anything that might jeopardize your future relationship with her.
So yeah, sorry Ruki. You really thought you had me there, huh? That I would be a woman of outstanding integrity and honesty? That’s just too bad for you, because that just isn’t the kind of girl I—
My phone buzzed. What now? I was just about to reject Ruki to his face.
It was the notification of a new mission being added to my app. I quickly excused myself from Ruki and opened it.
[Accept Ruki’s proposal, and earn the trust of the Yukishiro zaibatsu.]
You’re kidding me. How did she even know about this? But that tired line should’ve been the last question on my mind. Why was she instructing me to get close to Ruki? Wasn’t that completely counter to my mission of bringing him and Nonoka together, the pairing I’d been hired to facilitate in the first place? Or was there something she knew that I didn’t?
Then again, none of that mattered. Because ever since that fateful day, I had pledged to trust Shizuki completely. Blindly, even. She would be the one to save Shizuku. So, whatever she commanded, I would obey. Reaffirming this to myself, I calmed my racing heart and, as always, swept my hand through my hair.
Now then, let’s get to villainessin’.