“HAHAHAHAHA WHAAAAAAT???? NO, IT CAN’T BE, HAHAHAHAHA.”

“Oh, shut up already, it’s almost midnight.” 

“I know, I ju- I just can’t- pfffff HAHAHAHAHAHA, SEKU-MOTHERFUCKING-HARA! HIRO SEKUHARA, HAHAHAHA”

“Jesus…”

“So-sorry, oh, okay, I think I’m fine… Oh god, that’s hilarious… My stomach hurts…”

Upon seeing the surname written on the building in front of us, Hayato went completely mad. For some reason his best friend’s despair is the funniest thing he’s ever experienced. He didn’t believe me when I explained that my surname seems to have changed, but once he actually saw the proof… Yeah, this happened.

“I’m back!” Saki called out to me and Hayato from a few metres away.

“Oh, good. How did it go?”

“The surname matches and the keys I found in my backpack fit the keyhole. You were right, it is my house after all!”

“Yeah, of course I was…”

“Hm? Did you say something?”

“Nah, nothing important. Anyway, it means that we'll actually have a place to sleep tonight.”

When the time was rapidly approaching midnight we reached our destination. Saki went next door to make sure that the house was indeed labeled ‘Mikazuki’ and that she could open the door with her keys. I haven’t checked mine yet, but the surname is enough of a proof as far as I’m concerned.

“I still don’t get how you knew all that, Hero~” Hayato suddenly said after calming down at last.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, the fact that you guys now live here, even though we all have no idea where we are and why do me and Saki look so different. Oh, and that weirdly confident aura around you is quite unusual, I have to say. Not that I hate it though~ It’s really fun to see you in the ‘commander’ mode, Heero~” Hayato finally realized that something’s up. And that I’m much more decisive and serious than usual.

“Okay, listen up.” I decide it’s time to share my thoughts with them. They must feel uneasy in this wicked situation. “I know it’ll sound like nonsense… but hear me out.”

Their expressions stiffen as they both go silent and stare at me with a serious gaze.

“Everything that happened today follows the scheme of a cliche, school rom-com anime.” Both of them didn’t react, but I could almost see question marks popping up above their heads. “The girl running with a toast in her mouth, bumping into the protagonist, calling him a pervert for seeing her pants by accident, her turning out to be a transfer student at the protagonist’s class and hinting that they have some common backstory… It’s all just a first episode of a shitty harem anime or a first volume of an unambitious light novel created only to fulfill the author's sick fantasies.”

I make a dramatic break for a moment, before continuing. Gotta build up that tension.

“Plus, we ourselves resemble typical characters from such show. I haven’t changed much, since I look like a cliche Protagonist™ anyway, but Saki’s completely morphed into the Tsundere Childhood Friend™ and Hayato became the Trap™. Oh, and Gotou-san’s a textbook example of the Main Girl™. Soooo yeah, that’s what I think is going on…”

“…”

“…”

Saki and Hayato were completely dumbfounded. They were either shocked because of how obvious it all was or, more likely, thought I’m a complete idiot imagining stuff.

“That… actually makes sense.”

“Yeah, exactl- wait, really?”

“Well, yeah, some really weird stuff is happening, and if Hero says it’s all just like in anime, he has to be right. Hero is an otaku after all~”

“I… I also believe you… although it’s improbable and oddly specific… But if you say it with so much confidence…” Saki’s shining eyes suddenly start piercing mine with their kind gaze. “As your girlfriend I must believe you.”

“Saki…” I truly am moved by her genuine reaction.

“Ara ara, how cute~ Maybe you want to sleep in Saki-chan’s house today, Hero? I’ll gladly leave you guys alone if you need me to~” Hayato’s cheeky side has surfaced again.

“Wha-... sh-shut up! We’re discussing a serious topic!”

“Buuu~ Saki-chan seems to like that idea though.” He points at Saki with his eyes suggestively.

He’s right though. Saki’s face became red and her whole body stiffened up. As much as I want to do as Hayato says, my weeb senses tell me that I shouldn’t.

“Oh, sorry, but I have a tiny little question.” 

“Yeah?”

“What’s a ‘Trap’?” Hayato asks innocently.

“Huh? You don’t know…?”

“To be honest, I’m also not quite sure I understand what a ‘Tsundere’ is… sorry.”

“…”

I got carried away again and forgot that those two are essentially normal human beings only slightly stained by anime. Explaining all this might be more difficult than I thought…

“I’ll explain to you later, for now let’s just- What’s wrong Saki?” I feel her pulling onto my sleeve all of a sudden as if she wanted something but was too shy to ask directly.

“Ah, no, I just… It’s just that you mentioned… seeing Gotou-san’s underwear and… I just felt kind of uneasy…”

Crap.

“Oh yeah, he did mention that just now! Heeeero, you bastard, it’s not nice to cheat on your girlfriend like that ya’know~ Now I know why Gotou-san didn’t want to talk to you~” …Shut up before it’s too late, traitor!

“It’s not like that at all! I said that it was by accident! She ran into me, we both fell on the ground and she was sort of just… lying there…and I happened to be looking in that general direction!”

“…”

Fate has come to take its toll at last. I knew it would happen sooner or later… I’d just hoped it’d be later.

“Okay… I believe you. But… you know you’re my boyfriend, right? You can’t just stare at other girls like that…” She’s an angel. The purest form of life in existence. A bit too jealous maybe, but still.

“Thank you. And don’t worry, it really was an accident.” I make sure to sound as natural and convincing as possible. It’s not like I’m lying after all.

“Okay.” Smile once again appears on Saki’s face. It went smoother than expected. Thank you, Fate, for being merciful. 

“Hey, since everything up until the lunch break was following the scheme, what about what happened after that? Did something not really common occur afterwards? You were panicking when you ran into me, so I suppose something was off?”

Hayato’s question makes the lightbulb above my head light up in an instant. Of course! My conversation with Gotou-san wasn’t a typical one according to the anime standards. Not only did I start interrogating her, but she also ran away from me. And both of those things don’t take place in school rom-coms. My actions were detached from the ‘story’. And since they were not meant to happen, wouldn’t they cause… problems?

“Yeah…” I only manage to answer bluntly and go silent, lost in my thoughts. Nothing else comes to my mind though.”

“Hiro?" Saki’s voice brings me back to Earth.

“Oh, sorry… Yeah, our conversation on the rooftop didn’t go as planned.”

“By which you mean it wasn’t ‘typical’?” Hayato’s still trying to help me figure out what this is all about.

“Exactly. We stopped following the scheme then. Plus…”

I try to focus on Gotou-san behaviour instead, to find more clues.

“At the beginning, Gotou-san was acting just like in the classroom. She was cheerful, but well-mannered. A classic ‘Main Girl™’. At some point though, she… I don’t know how to put it. It felt like… she became a different person?”

Everyone went silent. Probably because no one had a clue what to say. I try to once again mull over the events of today and find some answers, but to no avail.

“Hm, I guess it’d be best to ask her directly. I know she ran away, but she should still come to school tomorrow, right?” Saki assumed.

“I sure hope so. She’s our only trace for now.“

“I’ll try to convince her to talk with us. She doesn’t know me yet, so that might be our chance.” Hayato said in a serious manner that didn’t suit his usual personality at all.

“Sounds good, but judging by her today’s attitude, it won’t be so easy. Plus the time’s still crazy. If it doesn’t go back to normal by tomorrow, we’ll be in serious trouble.

“…”

“…”

“By the way, Hero, do you have any ideas why the time got messed up?” Hayato brings up the thing I’ve been most curious about.

“It’s not something from a school rom-com, I can tell you that.”

“Hm…”

“What’s up Saki-chan?” Hayato turned to Saki.

“It might be a stupid theory, but…”

“Go on, we won’t yell at you or anything.” I try reassuring her. The situation itself is pretty peculiar, so there is no such thing as ‘a stupid theory’

“I just thought that maybe the time sped up… because Gotou-san ran away?” She spoke up after hearing my not-so-nice encouragement and gathering her resolve.

“Huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything up until your conversation on the rooftop was following the ‘script’, right?”

“Correct.”

“And her behaviour was out of place, compared to that?”

“Yes… Wait, do you think that time got weird because we stopped following the scheme of the ‘First episode’?”

“...Yes.” She answers bluntly after some hesitation.

“…”

“…” Both me and Hayato don’t know what to say at first.

“Wow.”

“So me trying to interrogate her fucked up the world, huh.”

“That’s what you get for being so pushy, Hero. Haven’t you learnt that one ought to treat maidens with utmost care and appreciation?~” Hayato didn’t miss the chance to tease me.

“As if you were a saint yourself.” I point out, referring to the fact that every time I see him with a girl, it’s always a new one.

“Ah, you’re actually right. ‘Scuse me.“

“A-anyway! Let’s not blame each other, okay? We’ll figure it out tomorrow. It’s too early to jump to conclusions.” Saki tries to calm us down and to get back to the point.

“I guess you’re right.”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, for now let’s just go to sleep. We’re meeting here tomorrow at 7:30AM. We’ll discuss the plan on our way to school.” I take the lead over our small group and order a regrouping, first thing in the morning.

“Eeeh, why so early?~” Hayato’s obviously the first one to object.

“Shut up, you’d sleep on the street if it wasn’t for my generosity.”

“Haha, yeah, I guess so, sowryyy.”

“God…”

“Okay, I’m off to bed, don’t get too lewd out here~”

“Can I hit him? You wouldn’t mind, would you, Saki?”

“Ufufufufu.” Hayato slowly disappears into ‘my’ house while skipping like a kid that’s just successfully pulled off a prank. Me and Saki are now standing in front of the building alone as the lightning-fast clock strikes 1AM.

“So, I guess we should also go to sleep. I wonder whether it’ll feel like 15 minutes or actually 6 hours of sleep.” You can’t really predict how this kind of time abnormality  will influence our bodies.

“Yeah…”

“Hm? Something wrong, Saki?” Troubled look appeared on her face basically as soon as Hayato left. Have I finally crossed the line of her weebness tolerance? I did sound like a mad scientist explaining his eccentric theory to the uninterested crowd after all. Judging by her reactions, I’m guessing she’s simply disappointed in me.

“H-hey, sorry about that, I just got a bit carried away. It’s not like I’m some kind of a shut-in psycho that has waifu posters all over the walls in his room with glass cabinets to store all the half-naked figurines, or something, I guess…” Yeah, just because you can’t afford all of that, dumbass. It’d totally be like that if you could. "I just, uh, happened to watch one or two shows like that, so uh, yeah-”

“Couldn’t we…” She speaks up hesitantly after my monologue. 

“?”

With bright red still smeared on her face, she clenches her fists and takes a deep breath. Here comes my judgment

“Couldn’t we… maybe, sleep together tonight?”

“….”

“….”

“….”

“….”

"Huh?"

"'Huh’?"

"HAAAAAAAAAAAA?!" I scream in disbelief, forgetting that if you’re in an anime, you’re supposed to do that while the sky's still blue.

“What, are you done already? Herooo, that was too fast even for you!” 

…

Someone please, tie him up or something. Or maybe not. He’d probably enjoy that…

“Sooo, you’re not disappointed in me or anything?” Ignoring Hayato’s resplendent remark, I try to confirm what Saki meant. 

“ Why would I be?”

“Well… Okay, nevermind. Anyway, that might not be a good idea.”

“Why? Don’t tell me… Have I said something wrong? Are you upset?”

“No! That’s not what I mean! It’s just… we shouldn’t.”

Saki goes silent for a while and lowers her gaze to the ground.

“Is it because… maybe… you can’t stop thinking about Gotou-san?” And once again, we’re back at Gotou-san, huh? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it out loud! Please, pretend it didn’t happen!”

“Saki… are you really that jealous of her?”

“I-I don’t know what you mean! I didn’t say anything like that!”

As much as I love Saki, she needs to stop being this suspicious of everything that involves me and another woman. Though I have to admit, she nailed that tsundere-esque line perfectly, without probably even realizing.

“What I meant is that, if me mishandling the dialogue on the rooftop caused so much trouble, the Protagonist™ sleeping in the same bed with the Tsundere Childhood Friend™ in the third chapter would probably end up in a meteorite falling down directly on us. We need to stick to the school-romance script as much as we can so we don’t break the world even more.”

The truth is, that something like that hardly ever happens in those kinds of shows or novels, let alone in the first episodes/chapters. It would be a fatal mistake and who knows what effects it would have. It’s not like I want to avoid Saki, but we have to be careful with our actions.

“But I’m your girlfriend, not some childhood-friend-character from a stupid anime…”

“I didn’t quite catch that, what were you saying just now?” She mumbled something to herself quiet enough, that even though I was standing next to her it was impossible to hear.

“…No, nothing, forget it. If that’s what you say, then I guess we have no other choice.”

“Saki.” I call out to her softly.

“Hm?”

“I got this.” I fake my confidence to the point even I am starting to believe it’s real. Right now, I want to make sure she feels safe here with me.

“...” Saki exhales in an over exaggerated manner as if all the tension from her body was relieved. Then, out of nowhere-

“Woah!” She goes in for the typical Saki-style surprise hug.

“I know. I believe in you. Thank you for being here for me. I’m a bit scared, but I know you’ll do your best to figure out what exactly happened to us.”

“Saki…”

My mind fills with fluffiness and rainbows as I hear what I needed to hear at that moment. It’s up to me to take care of this wicked situation we’ve found ourselves in. But in order to do that, I need to become the very monster that I swore to destroy. Saki may not like it, but it’s the only way. Time to dig up my past degeneracy has come at last. The filthy otaku version of me that was starting to fade away slowly. The weird guy that knew every opening song from every seasonal anime and tormented his fellow weebs with useless trivia I once was… has returned. And although I had planned to leave him behind… I yet again bow down to him and ask for a favour. For now, me, Saki and Hayato need the worst, most degenerate version of me to guide us through this utter nightmare that is a generic, school rom-com.

…

Saki and I hug in silence for a few more minutes before parting our ways. The time seemed to have slowed down. Literally. According to the clock in what appeared to be my room later on, it was ‘only’ 20 minutes since Hayato went to sleep. Was the scene with Saki considered a part of the script that partially fixed the time? Well, heart-warming scenes make for a good ending of a story segment. Wait, so does that mean that this is the end of this chapt-