Disclaimer: I don't own Love Hina obviously. If I did, I would've written it very differently. This is my first ever fanfic so let me know what you think of the chapter and any suggestions for improvements would be appreciated!
Anthony was sitting quietly in his room as he finished reading something. Sighing, he closes the webpage he was using to read the manga he just completed. The manga in question was titled Love Hina, a story about a 2-3 time ronin named Keitaro Urashima who moves into an all-girls dormitory due to his parents kicking him out of the house. He quickly becomes the manager of the dormitory due to his grandmother giving him the deed to the dormitory. The story develops as he interacts with the five girls who live there, a few more girls start living there too later on. Keitaro is trying to get to Tokyo University to fulfill a promise to a girl who's name and face he cannot remember. As Anthony had read a number of manga up to this point, he was familiar with the "promise girl" plot device. He thought it worked fairly well in Love Hina, and honestly thought the whole plot was decent in and of itself. However, there was one problem he had with Love Hina, one problem that was so severe that if this one problem alone didn't exist, he'd probably rate the manga a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1-10. Due to this problem existing, he currently rates the manga a 3 out of 10.
What was this one problem you may ask? Well, it's simply the girls' behavior towards Keitaro. Five girls lived with Keitaro at the start of the story, Naru, Motoko, Mitsune/Kitsune, Su, and Shinobu. Due to an initial misunderstanding when he and the girls first met, as well as seeing Naru in nothing but a bath towel, he and the girls got off to a rocky start. Understandable, Anthony thought, he wouldn't like to be seen in just a bath towel out of the blue either. However, even after the misunderstanding is cleared up, most of the girls are strangely extremely violent to Keitaro.
Naru constantly assumes Keitaro is up to something "perverted" or having perverted thoughts. Whenever Keitaro does so much as just look at a girl for a long period of time, he earns the wrath of the long brown-haired girl and she sends him straight into the stratosphere, curtesy of the infamous "Naru Punch". Naturally, he can't even get remotely near other girls without Naru immediately assuming the worse. Even after the misunderstanding is cleared up, she never apologizes for her behavior. Over the course of the series, she does lighten up slightly on the abuse she puts Keitaro through, but she never gets completely over it. No matter how many times the misunderstandings that most Anthony thought, shouldn't even exist in the first place are cleared up, Naru seems to never learn that Keitaro rarely, if ever, has any real perverted thoughts, despite the clear evidence for it. Anthony was upset at the end of the manga when Naru had the audacity to punch him at their freaking wedding for simply seeing her dress lifted up on accident! Safe to say, Anthony was not a fan of Naru and her violent tsundere personality. He couldn't imagine why Keitaro would ever want to be with her, especially after continually abusing him for over three years over the course of the manga. Although Keitaro does say at the end that he likes being punched by Naru, despite in earlier chapters saying he wished Naru didn't punch him so much.
Motoko, in Anthony's eyes, was more or less a "Naru 2". She is equally hostile to Keitaro at first but lightens up slightly over time. Like Naru, she attacks Keitaro constantly for simply talking or touching girls in completely appropriate places. Unlike Naru, her main method of attack is her sword, which she consistently uses a technique known as the "air-splitting sword" where blasts of air are thrown at her target. This attack constantly sends Keitaro flying at about the same force as a Naru Punch does. Motoko treats all males fairly equally in that she thinks all of them are nothing but "disgusting, weak, and vile perverts" and Keitaro is no exception. This line of thinking probably originated when her sister Tsuruko married her husband. Tsuruko was originally in line to become the leader of the God Cry School, a school where a lot of people who practiced kendo attended. However, due to marrying, she could no longer become the heir and Motoko was next in line. Motoko didn't like getting the all the pressure of becoming a proper heir of the God Cry School out of the blue. Despite this, she decided to push forward move to Hinata Inn in order to train to become a proper heir. Motoko blames Tsuruko's husband for making her abandon her responsibilities as the heir and assumed he made her weak and submissive.
Mitsune, also known as Kitsune, which means fox in Japanese, is the most flirtatious one of the bunch. She claims to be a freelance writer, but never actually writes or publishes anything. Unlike the rest of the tenants, she is the only one who's rent is not paid by her parents or organization. As such, she is responsible for her own rent. However, rather than writing like she claims to, she instead goes out and seduces random men at a local bar for money. As she has a rather attractive figure, this usually works out in her favor. She seems to be vaguely aware of the potential consequences of this, but this doesn't stop her. Rather than spending the money she gains from this on rent, she spends the vast majority of it on beer and alcohol. Whatever she doesn't spend on alcohol is usually spent on gambling, specifically horse racing. Unfortunately for her, she seems to have rather bad luck and almost never wins. As she usually has no money for rent due to these factors, she often teases and seduces Keitaro to get out of or delay in paying rent. She likes to tease people in general, especially Keitaro and being supposedly "a pervert" with other tenants, which Naru and Motoko easily believe and subsequently punish Keitaro for.
Su is the rambunctious one of the tenants, constantly jumping all over the dormitory and playing with the other residents, with Keitaro being one of her most common playmates. Although Su's definition of "play" often involves operating extremely dangerous robots known as Mecha-Tamas that can fire lasers, rockets, and other dangerous mechanisms. Keitaro is often the sole victim of these attacks. If it wasn't for Keitaro's weird immortality, he would've been long dead from Naru, Motoko, and Su's attacks. Keitaro does indeed suffer a lot of pain whenever he is attacked, but his body always quickly recovers like nothing ever happened. Su likes to greet Keitaro with a kick to the face for whatever reason that Anthony cannot figure out. Despite Su's intense attacks directed at Keitaro, she interestingly holds no sort of malice towards him and actually really likes him. She is simply curious as to what drives Keitaro's immortality and tests his immortality to the limits.
Shinobu is by far the kindest of the tenants towards Keitaro. She never attacks him in any way, shape, or form. She doesn't pay rent, but she compensates for that by doing the cooking, cleaning, and other housework related tasks in the Hinata Inn, which she does an exemplary job at. One of the only flaws Anthony finds with her is that when Keitaro saves her from various incidents, like falling on the ground, he often touches her to move her away from danger. Unfortunately for Keitaro, right after saving Shinobu Naru and/or Motoko show up and see Keitaro touching her. They automatically assume that he is touching her inappropriately and attack him without remorse. One of Shinobu's flaws in Anthony's opinion is she does not help prove Keitaro's innocence. Even if she did explain that Keitaro did nothing inappropriate to her, Naru and Motoko assume Keitaro is making her say that and attack anyway. Sometimes when Keitaro is presumed to have done something with another girl by the other tenants, Shinobu easily believes them until it's proven the rumor is false.
Anthony thought about each of the tenants of Hinata Inn and felt really bad for Keitaro. He didn't deserve to be attacked so mercilessly all those times. He wonders why Keitaro never retaliates by kicking the tenants out or attacking back. Or, at the very least, dodging the attacks.
Anthony sighs and then thinks about that if he wrote Love Hina, he would've done things differently. For example, having the girls pay for their terrible abuse towards Keitaro in some way. He also considered completely writing most of the girls' characters to be much more kinder and understanding of Keitaro, or having the girls be cruel at first but then genuinely becoming more kinder over time. Kind enough to the point they never or almost never attack him anymore.
Oh well, no use thinking about it. Anthony thought, it's not like I can officially change the story anyway. Getting up, he starts preparing for bed, as it's quite late at night. He starts to perform his nightly routine by brushing his teeth. Going to the bathroom to brush his teeth for a few minutes, he comes back to his room to find that his computer fan running pretty noisily. This struck as odd to him, as the computer fan usually only runs when the computer is working hard to run programs. Anthony couldn't remember leaving anything up that would require a lot of processing power. He went to his laptop to investigate and couldn't find anything weird, until the website containing the Love Hina manga he just read came up all of a sudden.
Huh? Anthony thought, I didn't ask the computer to restore my web history. What's going on here…? Closing the webpage again. He was about to get up again when the webpage came up again. He closes it again, but it just came right back up again. This back and forth between closing the page and reopening by itself continued for around another 30 seconds. Anthony got frustrated What the heck? This is super weird. Websites are not supposed to keep opening themselves up. Maybe the computer has a virus? He was about to run the anti-virus program when the website once again appeared. He attempted to close it again but this time, the website refused to close. Now it refuses to close entirely? Oh, come on! Suddenly, the computer screens start to glow. Computer screens are naturally bright, but this was a different type of glow. Light particles started appearing around the screen, as if a magic spell was being performed. Suddenly, the computer instantly enlarged the webpage the manga was on and started sucking Anthony into the screen. He screams out on instinct and thinks M-m-m-m-mamma mia! What is going on here?! I'm getting sucked in! In a couple of seconds, the computer completely sucks Anthony in, closes the webpage, shuts itself off, and closes the lid.
Spurring out of unconsciousness, Anthony wakes up and sits himself up. He looks around and notices a small building next to him, along with some stairs right beyond the building. He realizes that he is on a hill, and looking up the hill he sees a grand building. It was at least a two story, with a few huge balconies coming out of the front of the building. The building both next to him and beyond him look oddly familiar. Think, think! Ok, I just got randomly sucked into the computer and I wake up here. Now that I think about it this building next to me looks a lot like the Hinata Teashop, and the building up ahead looks like the Hinata Inn! Wait, don't tell me…
Before he could finish this thought, something came flying out of the grand building. It broke part of the roof in its flight and was flying overhead him down the hill and into someplace unknown. He heard the flying object say "I'm innocent! I swear! I'm sorry!" Anthony widened his eyes and realized to his horror, Oh gosh, I must be in the Love Hina universe! That website had the manga for Love Hina up right before I got sucked in! And if I had to guess, Keitaro just got launched! He decides to examine himself, and realizes he has a few cuts and bruises on him. Just then, a figure emerged out of the teashop and saw Anthony on the ground.
"Who do we have here?" The figure, clearly a woman in, what Anthony assumed, was her mid-30's or 40's. Looking at her face, he recognized her almost immediately. This was Haruka!
"Oh um, hi there. I'm Anthony" Anthony looked pretty nervous, he was pretty shy and was afraid to talk to new people. Sure, he knew who these characters were because he read about them, but they were supposed to be fictional! Not right here in front of him in flesh and blood!
"Anthony hm?" Hakura had a cigarette in her mouth, and she took a breath in and let out the cigarette in order to exhale the smoke. "I thought I heard a crash right next to the teashop, I assume you caused it?"
Anthony panicked internally a little, he didn't want to make an enemy right off the bat! Externally he kept calm and replied, "Um, I guess I did, I'm really sorry, but I woke up just now and I have no idea what happened before waking up." It'd probably be a bad idea to bring up that I come from essentially another world. Also, she mentioned a crash? Perhaps I fell on the way here, that would explain the cuts and bruises.
"Hm, alright then. You look fairly beat up, why don't you come inside and I'll treat you?" Haruka offered.
"Is that alright? Even though I don't remember much, I just randomly barged in here without any warning."
Haruka smiled inwardly at this boy's kindness. It reminded her a lot of a certain somebody. She replied with a neutral expression "Yeah, that's fine, I'd feel bad leaving you out here when you don't remember what just happened to you." Haruka directed Anthony inside the teahouse and he followed her. Right before going inside Anthony decided to ask her, despite already knowing it, "What's your name?"
"Haruka"
"Nice to meet you Haruka." Anthony said, then reached out his hand. Haruka took it, shook hands with him, and replied, "Nice to meet you as well Anthony."
Haruka inspected Anthony and applied simple medicines and ointments for his cuts. Haruka asked him if he remembered how he got the cuts. Anthony said he didn't but told her that since she mentioned that she heard a crash next to her it was probably him she heard and he probably got the cuts from the impact. If my injuries are this minor, I must've not had a very big fall. Maybe I appeared in the middle of the air not far from the ground? He pondered this and figured this was the most logical conclusion. As Haruka applied the treatment, he still couldn't believe that he was talking to the Haruka of the Love Hina manga. This should be impossible!
"All right, all done." Haruka told him
"Thank you very much, you're pretty nice."
Haruka got slightly choked at this statement but managed to keep her calm expression. "T-thanks. All right, moving on. Do you know where you live?"
Oh shoot. Anthony thought, he knew this question would probably come eventually, but he didn't expect it so quickly. He obviously didn't have a place of residence in the Love Hina universe. After all, he just arrived here! Well, she already seemed to believe he had amnesia of sorts, so he figured he'd just keep up with that and say he didn't know.
"I'm not sure, I don't really remember much prior to waking up. So, I don't know where I live."
"Hmm. That's a problem. Well, it can't be helped. I'm sure your parents or relatives will look for you eventually, right? Perhaps I can get my nephew to let you stay at Hinata Inn for the time being."
Anthony's eyes went wide at this. Hinata Inn?! That place is an all-girls dormitory! Plus, if we can assume the rest of the Love Hina universe is accurate, those crazy girls live there! Well, Shinobu isn't crazy, she's actually pretty sweet, I'd like to meet her.
"But wait, isn't Hinata Inn an all-" Anthony stopped himself, he was just about to say that Hinata Inn was an all-girls dormitory! If Haruka believed he really had amnesia, then he shouldn't know that! Phew, caught myself just in time. "Actually, never mind, forget I said anything."
Haruka was confused, "ok…" but decided not to push it.
"Anyway, are you sure I can stay there? I don't want to intrude." He was honestly unsure how he could even get into Hinata Inn in the first place, since it was an all-girls dorm after all. Keitaro was allowed to live there since he was the manager, but obviously Anthony wouldn't be a manager and would instead live as a tenant. Isn't that illegal? He thought. He was also scared about the girls who lived there, he read many chapters of Love Hina where Keitaro was constantly attacked by Naru and Motoko due to misunderstandings generated from Naru and Motoko. Ultimately Anthony resolved himself to try to be as polite as possible, despite his dislike for most of the girls living at the dormitory. If one of them tried to attack them, he would either avoid the attack or retaliate. He wasn't going to be a doormat like Keitaro and just let them hit him however they pleased. However, deep down, he was quite scared and wasn't sure if he could follow through on what he just declared in his head.
"I'm sure my nephew would allow it. He's really nice and despite the Hinata Inn being an all-girls dormitory, I'm sure he can make an exception, at least temporarily. I'll call him and tell him to come down here." Haruka was about to go to the telephone when Anthony called out to her and said "Wait! I have a feeling he isn't at the inn right now."
"Hm? How would you know that?" Haruka found it suspicious that this stranger would know, or at least thought he knew, that Keitaro isn't at the inn at the moment.
Anthony sweated a little as he probably said a little too much just then, but he realized he had a saving grace. "Just after waking up, I saw someone fly out of the Hinata Inn, crying that he was innocent of something." He figured he knew or pretty much knew exactly what Keitaro was saying he was innocent of, but he made sure not to mention that to Haruka.
"Oh, that must've been Keitaro then." Haruka said calmly.
Anthony was a bit annoyed that she seemed to not care that her nephew was literally sent flying out of the inn, but he maintained his composure. "Keitaro? And aren't you concerned about him? He was sent literally flying! Falling from that height would mean instant death!" He pretended to not know who Keitaro was obviously and despite knowing Keitaro would be fine, he wanted to know what Haruka thought of Keitaro being attacked.
"Keitaro is the nephew I mentioned earlier. He'll be fine, he seems to have this sort of immortality in which no matter how much he takes damage, he always recovers super quickly. It's an odd phenomenon." Haruka explained calmly.
"Immortality? Really? Even if that is the case, aren't you concerned of him being in extreme pain?"
"You think he suffers a lot of pain?"
"Of course I do!" Anthony screamed a little. Then he realized that despite how much he despised Haruka's attitude towards her own nephew's safety, he didn't want to get on her bad side. He's seen that Haruka is just as capable of punching people as Naru is in the manga. He certainly didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of those. He calmed down. "Sorry, I'm just really concerned for him."
Haruka formed a small smile, "Thanks for being concerned for him, but he's really fine. I guarantee you he's on his way back right now."
Almost as if on cue, Anthony looks out the window and sees a man coming up the steps and seems to be in a neutral mood. Haruka looks out the window too and says, "Well what a coincidence, here is Keitaro now."
They exit the teahouse and go out to greet him. Anthony is quite nervous to meet the literal protagonist of the Love Hina series. It feels like a dream to him, yet at the same time, it also feels very real.