She was beaming, sticking out her chest with a proud face.

“I have theories!”, she declared happily. “But I won’t tell you!”
“Oh come on! What’s up with that?”

“First off, you wouldn’t believe me, and second, it would be way funnier if it was true and you didn’t know!”
“You’re my sister! Why are you on the system’s side and not on mine?!”
“Cause the system is more interesting?”
“I hate you.”
“You don’t. You love me a looot!”

She drew me into a hug, pulling me tightly into her arms as I grumpily ignored her.

“I’ll tell you if nothing changes until after your exams or once you've done an event, how’s that?”
Not a bad idea. I needed to concentrate on the midterm exams anyway, so anything else would just distract me more from studying. I hummed to show my agreement.

“So until the end of your exams, if you could set up an event, just do that. If you can’t, don’t stress yourself.”
“Easy for you to say… What should I do as an event?”
“What are you two listed as?”
“Friends.”

Haru tapped a finger against her lip. “Why don’t you try asking him to do something other than just studying together? Is there anything you know he likes to do? Something not obviously romantic.”

“I have no idea what I could invite him out for. If I do something with my friends, it’s always with the whole group. I don’t know what two guys can do together without it being weird.”
“A horror or action movie, maybe?”

Obviously, Haru as a woman wasn’t certain about two guys spending time together either. I still felt her suggestion wasn’t too weird. Eating fast food and going to watch an exciting movie together should be normal..?

If he even liked watching movies. His list of likes and dislikes was ridiculously shorter than anyone else’s. I had trouble figuring him out, he was just that kind of private person.

Haru poked me. “Come on, ask him.”
I looked at her incredulously. “What? He just left. I can’t suddenly ask him if he wants to go see a movie with me.”
“Why not!”
“It’s awkward!”

She huffed. “Coward.”

Yes, I am. Problem?

“I’ll ask him in a few days”, I mumbled, hiding my phone. “I’m still trying to get my studying done, okay?”
After all, my grades were one of the things worrying me and I was still trying to lessen anything stressing me before Hamada would decide to drag me to a psychologist. At least my stress level had gone down.

Haru suddenly grinned to herself.

“Hmm, maybe waiting a few days would actually have a better effect? Alright, do your thing.” She lightly boxed my arm. “I’m rooting for you.”
“You just want a real-life gay couple right next to you.”
“True, but not my only motivation.”

Rotten, but honest.

The surprise math test wasn’t as bad as it had usually been, to the point that even the teacher glancing at my paper gave a surprised ‘Hm!’ as praise.

I rubbed my fingers, trying to ease the discomfort. Writing fast with a tension-cramped finger is something all students know about, so no one would find me giving my fingers a massage weird.

Almost without thinking, I grabbed my phone from under my table and typed a message to Taizou.

'I just had a surprise test in math. All stuff you taught me before!'

The answer came fast, causing me to twitch in surprise at my phone vibrating.

'So how did it go?'

'Not bad at all'...

Just when I thought that was enough of an answer, about to send it, I got a choice. I hadn’t thought that there would be choices even for text messages, but I looked over them anyway.

[(Please choose what else to write.)

• “Teacher, your student kept your honor!”
• “You’re a great teacher”
• “I didn’t even have to cheat”]

I was pretty sure number three would make him furious. Even the system agreed with me that he liked honesty, so I had a feeling he wouldn’t like that joke. Number one and two were both fine, one joking and the other earnest.

I had a feeling the system had mentioned something about that before, so I quickly opened the conversation backlog and let it scroll up.
When I had started the joke, it had commented that he was fine joking around like that, so it should be okay?

My fingers typed the additional sentence the moment I had decided on it, freeing my vision from the choice box.

I waited with a sense of tingling expectation, hoping he’d take the joke well.
When my phone vibrated again, I licked my lips before opening the message.

'Student, if everyone knew I was your teacher, then your loose tongue would have destroyed my honour already'

...He joked baaaaack?!

'Sob… Teacher, I didn’t tell anyone!'

'Good. Well done.'

I beamed, feeling all fidgety at his praise. I opened my system, went to the second tab and looked at my information and hint.

The information had an important addition:

• Prefers not having to take the lead in a conversation

And the current hint was similar enough:
[The host should initiate conversations that can be kept both long or short, to allow the target to retreat when he feels uncomfortable. Jokes, in small amounts, can help ease the relationship.]

That was the hint that had appeared a while after we had turned friends, so not too long ago. It helped a lot that the system told me how to advance. Up until now, that had lead to Taizou talking a whole lot more to me, which was good.

Well, by that I mean only that he answers me. During lessons, he only talks about what he’s teaching, and during breaks, he gives me full answers instead of just humming.

Not really initiating conversations.

Still great.

Another chat flashed on my phone and it vibrated, so I switched over to Yuji.

'Can see you grin from ear to ear'
'Good news?'

'Did well on the test~~ How bout u?'

'Eh'
'Could be worse'
'Tarous gonna cry i think'

'Aw QAQ'
'Hope he does'

There was an instant switch to how I usually wrote my messages. I still kept grammar and spelling nice when I talked to Taizou, making sure I had everything in one message.
Whenever I talked to my friends, I’d end up writing a dozen messages with sometimes only a word or two.

Risa hated it when I wrote to her that way, so I did it on purpose when texting her, everyone else I chatted with either didn’t mind or did the same.

Juuust with Taizou I still wanted to appear… I don’t know, just a bit different. But who doesn’t want to show their crush their tidy and clean side?

I put my phone away, looking through the class. Tarou really did look devastated, but that was our idiot number one, so it was to be expected. Idiot number two, Kaoru, had a face of resigned peacefulness.
I guess he gave up already.

I have to admit, the system wasn’t thaaaat bad to have sometimes. For example, my friends’ descriptions confirmed that our closeness was mutual, which was quite the relief and had also helped in lowering my stress level.

Now if I could just get rid of that stupid teacher-

But you can’t just murder people, so that couldn’t be helped.

I fiddled with my pencils, instead directing my thoughts back to Taizou.
Somehow, I needed to get a special event started or the points would be stuck… And I had been really happy to see them go up like that!

I had asked Haru whether asking him to play a game with me would count as well, but she denied it. The events were supposed to be different from daily life, and playing an MMORPG together would happen more than once if he agreed, so it wouldn’t be special as the system demanded.

She kept on pushing me about the movie thing, so I felt pressed to do it.

Just… not today...

Owl

I actually don't like the rating system of novels... You get a bad rating, okay, but you can't ask why D: Did the people just not like the story, or were they annoyed by sth the author missed? It would be so much more useful for us writers to get feedback along with ratings, ugh OTL

Totally forgot I had some sketches, have one: