Chapter 4: Rascal Does Not Dream of Logical Witch #1

Rio Futaba holds up a test tube and examines it contents. The state of the art laboratories come with specialized equipments, though she is satisfied with what she has at the moment. The bigger labs are always crowded and it requires a teacher's supervision to carry out experiments. She would rather prefer working alone. It has never bothered her. Besides, scientific experiments require personal attention. She wouldn't want anyone interfering with her work.

Lately this is all she has, her experiments and this empty lab. She tries not to think about her problem and shakes the content of the test tube. It turns into a desirable shade. It makes a small smile appear on her face. Why couldn't life be just another scientific experiment based on cause and effect, she wonders.

"What's your name?"

Rio Futaba places the test tube back in its holder and looks at the man at the entrance. There is no one in the lab other than her. It means he is talking to her. Why would he want to talk to her, she doesn't know yet. She doesn't remember seeing him on campus. Neither is he in one of her many classes. But from the looks of it he is a fellow university student. But that answers nothing.

She adjusts her glasses before speaking. "Societal norms dictate one introduces himself before asking others for an introduction. Who might you be?"

"My name is Hachiman Hikigaya."

"The name doesn't ring a bell." She replies bluntly.

Rio Futaba takes in his appearance. He is red in the face and panting, clutching onto his phone in his right hand for some reason she doesn't quite know yet and there is something wrong with his eyes. Maybe some sort of vitamin deficiency.

She doesn't want to speculate.

He is an average guy, black hair with an ahoge sticking out, taller than her, but then who isn't and there is a peculiar way he stands, like that of an old man, with a slouch. She wonders whether no one had bothered to correct his posture. From this she deduces he isn't all that friendly, maybe a bit of a loner.

But then a loner wouldn't go out of his way to talk to her. Unless he has something specifically to talk to her that goes beyond the boundaries of idle chit-chat. She hadn't been looking forward to whatever he might want to say to her, but now this adds another dimension to it which she doesn't want to discuss.

But that is unlikely to happen.

Hachiman Hikigaya is blushing, she notices, but he stomps his way down to her side of the lab like your average neanderthal and then swings his phone around her face like a caveman with a club. His voice is breaking, but not altogether incoherent. It takes her a second to realize he is embarrassed and furious at the same time.

"I live at the men's residence on campus and I have three guys for roommates and we on principle don't really bother butting heads in each other's business, makes it easier to live without trying to kill each other every other day of the week. But even then, when I find lewd photos of a woman on my phone, someone who I don't even know about, and worse of all, the guys see me checking them out, out of curiosity I might add, it leaves me in a rather uncomfortable position, having to kneel down in a dogeza and explain something I have no idea about in the first place. Do you get what I am trying to say?"

Rio Futaba was really taken aback with his rant and she had tried to pay attention to his each and every word, but he had been speaking rather fast and most of it sounded like utter nonsense, full of useless information which she didn't want to know. But in the end, she understood the gist of it, even though she replied in a tone of uncertainty.

"I get what you are trying to say."

"And that is?"

"My name is Rio Futaba."

He gave a small giggle which sounded half neurotic.

It looked like he hadn't come to terms with the insanity of the situation. She could empathies. If a guy sent her a risqué photo, whether she knew him or not, it doesn't matter, she would have lodged a complaint with the police and that would be the end of the matter.

Wait a minute, he couldn't possibly do that, she realized. Society held certain double standards it seems. This is why she was a woman of science. His problem wouldn't exist in her world of cause and effect, logic and rules and experimentation where everything happened because of a reason and followed a fixed pattern as explained through verified theories.

For example,

"How did you know it was me?"

"As I said, out of curiosity I looked at some of the photos."

"Pervert."

"Says the woman sending erotic photos in the first place."

"But my face wasn't visible in none of the photos. Then how did you…" she trailed off.

He coughed and looked away. "There were other distinguishing features in the photo," For a second his rotten gaze returned to her face. He didn't look down while answering. "I guess you can't write about them as identifying features while filling out a form."

Rio Futaba tried not to blush. She had kept her stoic expression throughout this small bit of exchange. This was just another way of learning, gathering more data and then deciding whether it would be worthwhile to continue further research.

"You can delete the pictures." He unlocked his phone and slid it across the tabletop to her rather smoothly "I'm sure that would put your mind at ease. Still don't know why you did that in the first place."

She took his phone and deleted the pictures immediately. He wasn't a rascal after all, she thought. He let her do it because he knew it would put her mind at ease. But he didn't have all the facts with him even now and she wondered whether telling him would do her a world of good and solve her unusual problem.

He wasn't quite the neanderthal she had earlier come to expect.

"You found out where I was through studying the pictures. One of them was taken in this lab, I see."

"Don't make it sound easy. It involved a lot of work. I don't come to this side of the campus. In fact, I try to avoid it whenever I can."

"Not a man of science I see."

"Not really."

He was a man of few words now that he had regained his composure.

This was his real self.

Real self, she thought and gave a dry chuckle. The word struck differently when it was used by her. For a moment she wondered whether she could even use it. After all, it was scientifically possible that she was the one who wasn't real.

"Those pictures were taken by my twin sister." She told a lie which would be more believable than the actual truth. "Recently she has developed this habit of posting risqué pictures online. I don't know how she got your number though."

He was silent for a second. Then he told her to do something stupid.

"Check your phone."

"Why?"

"No reason. Just do it."

Rio Futaba gave a bored sigh and decided to humour him. Till them she didn't understand why she hadn't asked him to leave yet. He was interfering with her experiment and cutting in on her private time. This type of behaviour wasn't to be tolerated. But she did, maybe because she in turn had caused him a bit of problem with those photos.

It was a non issue. But then she checked her phone and found his name saved in her contact list. It had been recently added, but there was no doubt about it. It was there, his name and what she figured was his number. All of a sudden, she didn't know what to do.

"How is this possible?"

Hachiman Hikigaya had taken a seat in a revolving chair. He leaned back and looked at the ceiling, but what he said was meant for her. He started off by tearing her lie apart without so much as a spare thought.

"You don't have a twin or any sibling for that matter. I know this for a fact, because I have one. Komachi, my younger sister and I can tell you, even if our relationship was going through a rough phase, I would never throw her under the bus like you did. Which can mean either of two things, one, you don't have a sister or two, you are lying about your sister. I don't know what to believe."

She decided to come clean.

"I don't have a sister."

"Okay, and?"

He looked nonplussed.

Rio Futaba decided to wipe that look with a through explanation.

"I have recently come to understand that the urban myth known as adolescence syndrome is in fact a real phenomenon and I have been afflicted with it for the last three days. The effects of it have split me into two versions of myself. One, who wants attention by posting lewd photos of herself online and the other, that is myself, who doesn't want to get any attention because of the measurements of her own body."

She further went on to elaborate, understanding well and good the fact that he might not completely understand her. "My problem can be connected by the theory of quantum teleportation, comparing my clone to one's perception of a blueprint with enough information to construct a perfect replica. In other words she is me and I am her. Only we know the difference, no one else."

He listened to everything she had to say and summarized her problem perfectly in a single word. She won't repeat it because she had better manners than a simple-minded boy. But from the looks of it there was more to him than what she had initially given credit. For example, he hadn't called her crazy and run back from wherever he came from.

No, he stayed around, and by this time, she would be honest, the experiment of hers had lost all interest. She thought about studying him as a specimen. After all, the human mind was a scientific marvel in itself and it still had a number of things to uncover.

"Why is it called the adolescent syndrome? I mean you are not some brat going through puberty."

"I don't know. Azusagawa came up with the name from some online source."

She cocked her head to the side, having taken a seat as well and just to make conversation asked for his opinion.

"What would you have called it?"

"First world problems."

A small dry chuckled escaped her lips and she thought he had a sense of humour which didn't go well with his overall persona. He was a loner. There was no other reason to justify why he was sticking around, that was what she thought. But then he surprised her by calling up someone. She could only hear one side of the conversation and that only confused her more.

"Yeah, Yuigahama, bring her as well. What? No, I don't know anyone named Himejima. What does she look like? What do you mean, I should stop flirting with other girls while one the phone with you. You are the one who asked - okay, uh-huh, sorry, you know what bring everyone to the lab."

Rio Futaba looked horrified. "What do you mean everyone? I can't have people interfering with my experiments at this stage. They might cause a fire to break out in the lab or they might cause all the lights to go out for some reason."

"I'm sure those are all things that happen with your experiments. Besides, this is important." He smirked and she had to be honest, it made him look a bit more handsome. "I found a way to solve your supernatural problem."

"It's not a supernatural problem." She argued, bluntly. "It's clearly based on science."

"So are the Dragon Balls."

Rio Futaba let him have this one. He didn't look like he was of a scientific bent of mind. He kept eyeing the microscope and the glass slides and the test tubes and the numerous other science oriented paraphernalia including the skeleton at the corner with an evil look in his eyes like he was waiting for them to commit some horrendous crime and put the entire blame on him.

"Science doesn't hold the answers to all of life's problems." He said gruffly.

"Then what does?" she asked, snappily.

The same roughish smile,

"Philosophy."

"That's a dead subject."

"That's arguable. But you have to admit, adolescent syndrome does sound like something Freud would have come up with, not Einstein. What you are suffering from is a psychological problem and its treatment can be understood from a philosophical point of view."

Rio Futaba found herself intrigued. "What do you have in mind?"

He didn't answer her. Instead he asked, "Why do you wear this labcoat?"

She tried not to blush and failed. "I grew into a rather healthy looking woman before my other classmates."

"The way you said it makes you sound fat." He replied. "You are not, if you are wondering."

"Thank you, but I have seen a mirror, and you know what I am talking about." This time she indicated her breast much to her inner chagrin. Her face even lost some of its usual stoicism. "All everyone notices are my breasts, not me."

"That's what you think." Hachiman Hikigaya grabbed a piece of paper from her notes and after checking whether she had written anything in it, he politely asked her a childish question with the facsimile of a smile.

"Futaba-san, how do you make a line smaller without touching it?"

To further drive home his point, he drew a straight line on the piece of paper and gave her a pen. She took it in her hand and looked at him while making a face that said calling him an idiot would be an insult to all the other idiots in the world.

But she humoured him.

"You draw a line bigger, beside it."

Rio and Hachiman looked at the line she had drawn above his initial line. Like she said, it was bigger than the one he drew and now it looked smaller in comparison. But she didn't understand what he was getting at by making her answer this simple childish riddles.

But as she was about to ask him to explain what this was all about, the door to the lab opened and three women walked in. Rio Futaba blinked as she took them in. Had her initial perception been this wrong, did Hachiman Hikigaya, who she had thought of as a loner knew such kinds of beautiful women. It didn't make sense.

She didn't know what to believe. Meanwhile, he made quick work introducing the others.

"Right. This is Yui Yuigahama." He motioned towards the pink haired university student who was eyeing her rather suspiciously. "And this is Hiratsuka-sensei." He waved towards the female teacher wearing a labcoat. She had never taken her class before. "And this," he looked at the third women, who had a rather voluptuous figure. "I don't know who this is." He said looking uncertain.

"My name is Akeno Himejima." She introduced herself with a bow. "Nice to meet you, Hikigaya-kun."

He looked at her rather suspiciously for a second and then shook it off. He clearly had more important matters to attend to. However what she didn't know was that, he would turn to her and speak with such a tone which belied some kind of secret knowledge of her present situation.

"Now you understand how I plan to make you smaller, Futaba-san."

"I don't understand. What-"

Then she noticed all the three women. They all had voluptuous figures. They all had huge breasts like her. Hiratsuka-sensei like her even wore a labcoat. And the third women had breasts even bigger than hers. With all of them in the room, she could imagine a scenario where all the attention would not be leveled solely on her and even if it was, she could handle it, like the others were handling it.

"It can't be this simple."

She couldn't believe it. All she had to do was meet other woman who might or might not face a similar situation as her, because of their body types and the kind of attention it warranted. But even then her problem couldn't be solved. She didn't know them, she couldn't talk to them and it wasn't necessary they faced the same problem as her. They probably led a different life and likewise their problems would be different.

"Nothing is simple." Hachiman replied. He held up his phone. "This took a bit of work."

"What do you plan to do now?" Rio asked.

"Beat fire with fire," he replied. "I'm gonna take a picture of all four of you and post it online. With your permission of course." He said looking at all the women individually.

"How about we make it a selfie?" said the girl named Yui Yuigahama.

"I don't know…"

"This was your idea, Hikigaya." Hiratsuka-sensei said. "You better be there in the picture with us. Or else…"

Akeno Himejima nodded. "That would be desirable."

Hachiman Hikigaya turned to her and smiled one last time. He spoke in a whisper for her ears only.

"I bet a picture of four beautiful women would get more likes online than that of a faceless woman in a risqué pose."

Rio Futaba didn't know what would be the final outcome, whether this would lead to her other self disappearing, but she found some kind of courage, or maybe she had been taken in with his stupidity and she found herself agreeing to his ludicrous proposal. "Okay. Let's do it."

"You could take off your labcoat if you want."

"That's sexual harassment. Besides, Hiratsuka-sensei gets to keep her on."

"That's because she has a dandruff problem."

"Oh," Rio Futaba didn't know whether he was lying or not. But she didn't take a chance. "Then, I am standing beside you for the photo."

He blushed.

"Okay."

A/N: This chapter is over 3100+ words. I'm sorry if it was a bit of a bore, but I got invested in solving the problem, though I left it open-ended.

This chapter couldn't be possible without a GUEST reviewer who initially suggested her. There were others too like, "Rascal", "Beans", "Jasserru", "Ichigo Oga", "Mr. Self-Deprecation", "Neve", and a couple of guest reviewers. Thank you for suggesting such a great character. Hope I was able to do justice to the character.

Tell me what you think?

As always please leave the names of the girls you want in the reviews or PM me.

Now for those of you who want chapters with the already suggested female characters, here are the options:

Option 1: Rin Tohsaka –Fate.

Option 2: Anastasia – Fate.

Option 3: Mordred – Fate.

Option 4: Ami Kawashima – Toradora.

Option 5: Chitoge Kirisaki – Nisekoi.

Please pick any of the above or suggest a female character of your liking in the review or through PM.

Hope everyone enjoyed reading this chapter.

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Won't betray your dreams.