Disclaimer: VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!
One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that.
Rascal Does Not Dream of:
A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C0
May 29th
"Hey," she whispered delicately. "Why don't we kiss?"
He forced a soft chuckle, hiding his shock. This was coming from the girl who had refused to acknowledge him as anyone more than someone just in it for a thrill - just some young boy tagging along.
She really was full of surprises...
"-chan."
'…Wait.' He managed to think, as he felt his mind lurch awake, his body shaking. '…Who is she?'
"It's morning."
Sakuta groaned.
Correction. Someone was shaking his body.
"Onii-chan, it's morning!"
A white light shone through the pitch-dark world.
Sakuta grappled the strength to open his eyes as his consciousness returned. His fatigued gaze met his little sister Kaede's face, who was bent over the bed. The light coming in through the crack in the curtains hurt his eyes.
"You have exams today, right?" Kaede voiced, worriedly. "You'll be late."
She proceeded to shake him once more, even though he was up.
"Ah, yeah." He stifled a yawn, pushing her off him. "That's right. I got midterms."
Sakuta struggled to sit up. His whole body felt heavy, like he'd caught the flu. Touching his forehead, he felt for warmth... He felt slightly hot, maybe clammy, but he didn't necessarily feel unwell. He was – he was simply tired.
Crushing down his urge to collapse back into bed and sleep off the rest of the morning, Sakuta tossed off his covers and got up. He didn't need be late for attendance on exam day. Taking the make-up exams would be far too much trouble for sleeping in today.
He looked his clock: 7:35AM
His mind raced, adding up the numbers. To get to school, there was a ten-minute or so walk to Fujisawa Station. Five – if he sprinted. Then, a little over twenty-minute ride on the 8:10 Train. The train ride would take normally twenty minutes, normally, and the 8:30 train would make him late. It was all rather close, but he'd done it many times before. He'd just have to leave the apartment before eight.
"You're a lifesaver, Kaede. Thanks for waking me."
"Waking up is my reason to be," she smiled cutely, but he couldn't praise that.
"You should find other ways of enjoying your life."
"Like washing your back?"
"That's a definite no."
"Aww."
"I meant something that doesn't involve me." As he spoke, he opened his closet to get his uniform. He took his school shirt off its hanger and in that moment, his hand slipped letting the shirt to fall atop a black paper shopping bag on the floor beneath it.
"What's that?" He asked himself. He didn't remember buying anything with that kind of bag.
He looked in the bag as he picked up his shirt. Kaede watched from the side and both of their gazes caught sight of the contents at the same time.
…A short silence filled the room.
"Onii-chan, wh-what is… What is that?!" Kaede pointed into the bag with a trembling voice.
Sakuta wanted to ask that too. There was a black leotard with a white pom-pom at the rear. There were similarly black stocking and several-inch-high heels, and even a bow tie. There were white cuffs and, to top it all off, a pair of bunny ears on a headband.
…It was a bunny girl costume.
"…Maybe I was going to get you to wear it," he said, unbelieving of himself. He didn't remember buying these. That was saying something; Sakuta considered himself having a pretty acute memory.
His mind lurched, itching like something was right on the tip of his tongue.
"Eh?" Kaede said as his hand riffled through the contents.
He picked up the headband and placed it on her head. Sakuta put his hand to his chin in a thoughtful mock gesture.
"Yeah, not too bad," he judged, jokingly.
Apparently, Kaede didn't have the same impression. She stiffened, before throwing the headband back at him, and rushing out from the room. "I'm not wearing that! It's still too soon for me to wear this kind of clothes!"
She slammed the door.
He hadn't particularly wanted to chase off his sister and make her hate him first thing in the morning. He'd need to apologize to her later. He had to get ready.
He returned the headband to its bag and kicked it back into the closet.
He turned back to his mirror and was met by his own bloodshot eyes and tired expression.
"Am I over-stressed?" he spoke to himself.
He put his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and buttoned it up. Next came his uniform trousers and then his red tie. It came out crooked.
"…"
He'd never cared much before if it whether it was straight or not, and would normally head out without a single care… but today, for some reason, it bothered him. He unknotted it and retied it, this time putting in the attention for it to come out straight.
Before he put his blazer on, he tossed his books into his bag. A green notebook on his desk caught his eye. Not recognizing it, Sakuta picked it up.
"What was this?"
He flipped through the pages, all of them empty, until about half-way through, he spied a page with neatly written sentences.
He'd thought for a moment that it was his Japanese notebook, but looking carefully, he could see it was not.
There were instructions at the top. And the rest was some sort of diary entry:
[Honestly. I think what will be written here will be absolutely unbelievable, but it is all the truth. Read this to the end! You have to read it to its entirety, me! Read it!
On May 4th, I met a wild bunny girl at the library. She is my… She is our senpai. She is a junior at Minegahara High, the famous _ to be precise.
This was the start of it: Our meeting. And I must not forget. I can't!
Even if I do forget, you must remember. Hold firm, future me. It is up to you. You have to remember! Remember _!]
Sakuta's eyes followed the words down the page. There were many blanks in the sentences, like some sort of puzzle or Mad-lib.
He didn't remember why he'd written this. Or when. But scrutinizing the handwriting, the characters were definitely his own. He made a quick glance at his trash bin, spying the litter of energy drinks he'd downed over the last few nights of studying. He wondered if they'd somehow put him in a sort of delusion, but the words were too neat and well-formed to be the result of some late-night madness.
As he kept reading the words etched onto the page, the more painful and maddening it was. It continued to describe his time with the ideal girlfriend, entries filling a dozen more pages. It talked about them conversing on the platform, on the train, and at school, and even consisted a date where they went to Ogaki.
He had indeed gone to Ogaki several days ago, when he had a sudden urge to travel and to see something new for a day – meaning to break his routine – but he vividly remembered going alone.
But what frustrated him the most – the thing most alarming – were the blank spaces. There were empty gaps in the lines, where someone's name should be in the sentences.
Had he concocted some sort of love tale for himself, and would fill it in when he'd manage to find a girl he liked? It was a rather embarrassing idea.
He pushed those thoughts aside, flicking the notebook into the trash with his litter of drink cans. He had exams today, and he needed to have a clear head. While he normally never cared about his grades, for some reason, he simply needed to get perfect marks for this one. He would have to think this all over after-school.
Yet, those blanks on the page chilled him.
'It was all simple rubbish. Writings from a mad-man,' he thought, trying to convince himself.
And so, grabbing an apple from the kitchen, and shouting a quick, 'See you later' to Kaede, he headed out, for another day of school.
May 2nd
He hadn't planned on going out that day to the library. It was like fate, one might suppose. A set of coincidences bringing two parallel paths to cross.
That day, his little sister Kaede had begged him to get her a few new books to read over the weekend. After succumbing to a series of adorable pouts (and acknowledging that she was a rather suffocating presence to be around when she was bored), he decided he might as well go out for a ride.
There was only one library in their area. The library was a twenty-minute ride on his bike, all the way across town. The day was sunny, yet crisp. A soft breeze fluttered against him as he rode through winding neighborhoods on small streets. It brought him passed many nagaya buildings and Shonandai Station.
After stopping to park his bike in the half-full bicycle lock, Sakuta set foot into the library.
The library was a large sprawling place with three floors of knowledge, and thus was always busy. Today was Friday afternoon, possibly the busiest of time of the week for the place. Even though he had gone there many times before, the tranquility that libraries had was hard to get used to. It always seemed unnatural to him with this many people in one place to be this quiet.
He walked passed the magazine and newspaper machines that were lining the entryway. He looked around, first in the direction of the small public computer lab, and then towards the Youth Fiction section.
He'd had half a mind to get on a computer and take a rare look around the web. He almost never used computers – or the internet in general – but he did live in the Modern Age. However, it seemed every computer station was already occupied, most of them by students, some of which he recognized from his school.
The internet wasn't worth a wait to him, and so he moved on.
Like instinct, a pattern built from the numerous times he'd frequented the place, his feet carried him to the "Yu" shelf.
Kaede had asked for him to get her many books, but she had insisted on one in particular. The title of the book was The Prince Who gave Me A Poisoned Apple and the author was Canna Yuigahama. Many of the books which decorated his sister's shelf back home had that name on their spine. Canna Yuigahama was by far his sister's favorite writer.
They'd made a habit between them: he'd go out to check out the next book in the series, and if she fancied the book enough, he'd get her her own copy.
Sakuta's eyes scanned the shelf, before narrowing onto a white spine with a rather juicy looking apple on its cover. He pulled it out, flipping through the pages. The book was well-worn, having been in use for several years at the public library. Many of the pages had crayon scribbles on them, although the words were all still legible and the colored visuals clear.
It would work.
He raised his head, intent on looking for more books for Kaede when he saw it.
Or rather, he saw her.
On the other side of the bookshelf, standing in front of Sakuta, was a bunny girl!
He blinked several times, doubting his eyes for a moment, but the blinking didn't change the scene before him. He could still clearly see her figure.
She wore bright black high heels. She had long slender legs that were wrapped in black stockings transparent enough to see the color of her skin. Similarly, a black leotard highlighted the lines of her slender, well-defined body. Her chest made a firm, modest valley against the stretch of the fabric. White cuffs accented her wrists, while the neck was adorned by a black bowtie.
She was maybe 5'6, minus the added height of her heels. Her long black, silky hair rained down to just past her shoulders, almost as pure as the noir of her clothing. She wore a cold expression, almost bored, which contrasted drastically against her choice of clothing. In all, everything about her was off-putting.
At first, an idea sprung up in his mind that someone might be filming. They were always doing public shoots and stuff for late night commercials and whatnot in his town. Fujisawa City even had a local studio of its own, although nothing too large. However, when he looked around, there were no television staff, no cameras, and not a single paparazzi.
She was completely alone: A lonely bunny girl.
Of course, in the early afternoon at a library, a girl dressed like that would bring up quite a lot of serious attention. After all, she was out of place, as bunny girls tended to reside in Casinos or shady places.
But nobody was looking at her.
He watched for a few minutes as she meandered around shelves and sat on counters where she would swing her legs wildly. She would walk around with a tune, almost prancing – dare he say hopping – with her arms out wide, swooshing about, and emanating an engine's 'vrr' sound, like a child playing airplane.
Along the way, the bunny girl would stop by certain people. First, she peeped at the face of a female college student engrossed in a textbook and started playing mischief by making rude gestures and poking her tongue out. She next went to an older gentleman who was on a tablet, placing her hand between his face and the screen, waving it up and down.
Both adults did not react.
She continued her dance, next to a male high school student who happened to be one of Sakuta's classmates, although he couldn't place the boy's name. The bunny girl stood in front of the boy, while he looked down at his phone, and started pulling the top of her leotard down and even doing a small lifting gesture at her chest. Almost any teenage boy would've killed to be in his position, being shown off by a pretty bunny girl.
Yet, the boy didn't even blinked. Not a single flinch.
Then, the unthinkable happened, as if it hadn't already.
The bunny girl abruptly jumped on top of a counter by the center of the library. She stood there, silent for a moment, looking at all the people around her, before cupping her hands around mouth like a loudspeaker and shouted, "Hello?! I'm here!"
She must've had large lungs. Her voice carried throughout the building.
Yet, no one looked up from their books. Nor from their phones. Nor their computers.
A librarian walked right below her and swept the dirt off the table top that the bunny girl must've tracked up with her, and then walked away.
"What the hell?" he thought. Only a second later, did he realize he had spoken aloud.
"Shh!" Another old librarian glared at him.
Sakuta apologized profusely before looking back toward the bunny girl.
The bunny girl's blank expression had faltered, it seemed. She wasn't looking his direction, but she seemed almost as troubled as much as he was, maybe even more so, about the lack of response to her commotion.
Sakuta had never seen a bunny girl in live daylight before. He'd never been to a casino, and his apartment was far from the shady places. He did not have experience with how other people would react to a bunny girl.
But looking around him, he didn't think this should be their reaction.
Or rather, non-reaction.
With such a stimulating image aside, students with even the best serious faces would have been struggling to keep their eyes on the pages. Older men that were reading papers would have been taking peaks. Librarians, who always paid careful attention, would have approached and said, "Your clothes are…"
But her presence was acknowledged by none.
It was like she was a ghost. A ghost bunny girl.
A ghost bunny girl that only Sakuta could see.
Cold sweat started to go down his back. He didn't feel comfortable here. Something was going on… Kaede would have to make do with just the one book.
Sakuta kept his eyes down as he walked to the self-checkout stations.
He wouldn't be part of this scene any longer.
He found a station unoccupied and placed Kaede's book on the counter. He looked down at his uniform trousers, pulling out his wallet to find his library card.
And then, the Bunny Girl came up to the newly vacated station beside him.
She had apparently gotten a book herself. On the periphery of his vision, he was able to capture its title: The Delicate Flower.
She placed her book on the counter, looked down at the top of her leotard, and pulled out a library card from within.
But when she looked back up, their gazes met.
There was a long moment of silence between them, neither of them sure how to react to the other. But it was deep violet her eyes that let him recognize her…
"This is surprising," she said, scanning her card and then the book. There was a slight sense of mischief in her voice. "It seems, that you can see me."
The sass in her remark would've implied that she should be invisible to him.
But clearly, she wasn't.
"Uhh," his voice cracked.
"Well then," she gathered her things. "Goodbye."
She was leaving. She turned her back to him and made one step away, before he managed to stammer out, "Y–you're Mai Sakurajima, aren't you?"
Her feet stopped in their tracks.
"What?" she said, her voice loss with all the lip she'd had moments ago.
"Aren't you Mai Sakurajima?" Sakuta repeated. "You're a year above me."
She turned and took a serious long look back at him. She seemed to only see him entirely for the first time.
"By your uniform… Are you a student at Minegahara High?" she questioned.
"My name is Sakuta Azusagawa. Azusagawa spelled like the service area, and blooming taro, for Sakuta. Altogether it is, Sakuta Azusagawa.
"Well, then," she replied dryly, "I am Mai Sakurajima. Mai spelled like Mai in Mai Sakurajima, and Sakurajima, like Mai Sakurajima."
"I know. You're famous." And absolutely stunning.
"Is that so."
She seemed off. She stared hesitantly around her, as if she was suddenly fearful that everyone else would begin to see her.
Then, she spoke, "Sakuta Azusagawa."
"Yes?"
"I'll give you one piece of advice."
"Huh?"
Why couldn't his brain think of anything more than one-word responses?
"Forget everything you saw today," she told him firmly. He opened his mouth to respond, but, before he come up with something cohesive to say, Mai continued, "If you talk to me thinking I am weird, you might become weird as well."
Well… That was certainly advice.
"If you understand," she spoke slowly, "Say yes or nod."
He did neither.
"...Hmph." Mai's face flicked shades of anger and annoyance at his non-response, before immediately taking long strides to the exit.
Meanwhile, everyone was still not paying attention to Mai.
He was tempted to chase after her. He almost did. But instead, he did nothing except stand there like an idiot and gawk.
He hadn't chased her. He didn't need to.
He would just see her on Monday, at school.