You awaken to the harsh sound of a beeping alarm and groan in displeasure. Your bed is far too comfortable to get up now. But the alarm is insistent, and as it forcibly pulls you from your slumber, memories start falling into place.
Adrenaline shoots through you when you remember what's going on and you realize that you're here. You throw the covers off of you and practically leap out of bed, silencing the alarm as you look around the room.
It's both familiar and completely new, which is a strange sensation. You have two distinct sets of memories in your head, one of your life here in this world as Saitou Akihiko, the son of a human and a Charmian, and one as the normal person in a boring world who signed up with the Company to become a Contractor. They both feel real, and recalling information from either of them is equally easy.
You step over to your closet and open it to reveal the full-length mirror so you can take a look at yourself.
You have pink hair and a slim build, but you look like your average anime boy otherwise. In a world like this, where abnormal hair colors aren't abnormal at all, your appearance doesn't really stand out beyond being considered fairly attractive. You're fine with this, you are a man after all, and love of pink aside, you prefer to present yourself as such.
You spend several minutes just appreciating your new appearance. While having pink hair yourself was never nearly as important to you as your waifus having it, it was something you desired. After a few moments though, your attention is drawn to a noise outside your window.
You glance out of your window and into your neighbor's yard and blink in surprise. Standing there is Yuuki Rito, the protagonist, watering some plants. Your memories helpfully tell you that the two of you are, in fact, next-door neighbors. Apparently, when the man from the Company had told you that you would be close to Rito, he had meant it. Being his neighbor isn't as good as living in the same house, but it does give you plenty of excuses to get involved.
Your memory also tells you that you're on good terms with both of the Yuuki siblings. You're not exactly best friends with either of them, but you occasionally played with them when you were younger, and you have each other over for dinner every once in a blue moon, either at Mikan's insistence or your mother's.
Rito finishes watering his plants and then heads back inside. You made the choice to leave him as a boy, though you were pretty conflicted over it. Removing him as a competitor, as the only real competitor, for Lala's affections would have made things easier. But there were options you could explore with him as a boy that wouldn't work, or would be more difficult, if he was a girl instead.
Interestingly, your memories also tell you that his lucky pervert stuff isn't a thing. You vaguely recall Mikado-sensei, the nurse, theorizing that it was a result of his own pent-up arousal and desires. So it makes sense that it hasn't started happening yet. Still, it's something you'll have to look out for.
Those are concerns for later though. You turn away from the window and start getting ready for school. It's a Monday morning, which means you have five days of school ahead of you.
You wash up and dress quickly before heading downstairs, following the smell of breakfast. "Good morning," you greet your mother cheerfully as you enter the kitchen. "Breakfast smells amazing as usual."
Your mother, a short woman with black hair kept in a ponytail, looks at you from where she's setting the table and smiles. "Good morning Aki-kun! Sorry, I won't be able to eat with you, I have to be in the office early today."
You nod in understanding, this is a somewhat common occurrence, and sit down to eat. "I hope it's a good day at work today then," you tell her. She smiles at you, gives you a hug, kisses you on the forehead, and then rushes out the door.
Your memories helpfully provide you with your own backstory. It's just the two of you in the house; your father died before you were born. It's a story your mother tells you often. She was just a normal woman who had just finished her education and gotten a job as a lawyer when she came across your father, dirty, nearly naked, and almost starved to death in an alley. She took him home and helped him recover.
He revealed that he was an alien, a rare race known as Charmians. His abilities as a Charmian were weak, but that still made him extremely desirable. He had been captured by slavers but managed to escape when they stopped on Earth to make some repairs. He had been avoiding people, both out of fear of accidentally charming them and a fear that they would try to lock him up, for a time when your mother found him.
But apparently, it was love at first sight for the two of them. You have your own doubts about this, on whether or not there had been a supernatural effect that had helped push that along, but you've never spoken that doubt. It doesn't matter anyway. After what your mother describes as a "whirlwind passionate romance" that only lasted a couple weeks, his condition suddenly worsened, and he realized he wasn't just malnourished, but sick.
He died less than a day after that, the realization coming too late for them to do anything about it. A week later, your mother realized she was pregnant with his child- you. So she raised you on her own, never again dating, working hard so she could give you a comfortable life.
You're pretty sure part of that is guilt. Not that you doubt your mother loves you, in fact, you'd say you inherited all the love she felt for your father as well, though not in any inappropriate way. But the way she works herself to the bone speaks of a habit born of guilt from not being able to save your father and making sure you're as happy as possible to make up for it.
Your pre-awakening self noticed it but never brought it up to her. You aren't sure if you will either. She's doing a good job at giving you a comfortable life, being able to afford this large house with too many bedrooms for just the two of you. And while you care about her happiness, she isn't pushing herself too far and she's already happy.
And honestly, that's as far as your concern goes. As long as she's happy and healthy, that's fine. It's not like you plan on adding her to your harem. You don't have a problem with incest, Company powers eliminate the dangers that come with that, but she doesn't have pink hair. Not that you're sure you'd be willing to accept a non-canon character with pink hair. Either way, it's a moot point.
As you eat breakfast you continue to pore over your new memories, examining them in the new light of you being a Contractor for the Company. Most of it is fairly mundane, though you note a few useful avenues of personal connections and information. And then you remember your Charmian ability.
Charmians are rare and information on them is scarce, but it seems that all Charmians have some kind of supernatural ability related to interacting with others, though not necessarily other people. As a half-Charmian, you aren't guaranteed to have such an ability, or at least not one strong enough to notice, but as a Contractor who paid 10 credits for an Extra, you are guaranteed to have that kind of ability. And your memories tell you that you've already discovered what it is- technopathy.
You discovered your ability to talk to machines at a young age, begging a vending machine that had failed to dispense the drink you had just paid for with the last of your pocket money. To your surprise, you heard a voice in your head say "Sorry," and your drink was pushed out, along with another of the same kind. You thanked the vending machine and ran off, pleased. Since then you've talked to all kinds of devices.
The exact bounds of what does and doesn't count for your ability are a little fuzzy, but you've managed to talk to things as simple as an electronic keypad to as complex as an airplane. Your ability to communicate with them doesn't afford you any inherent control over them, but you're pretty good at convincing things to do what you want, so long as it's relatively harmless.
It isn't very powerful right now, but with the right Talents and some dedicated training, you are confident you could grow it to absurd levels.
You glance at the time and realize how late it's getting. You've been distracted, getting used to all these new memories, and it has slowed you down to the point where you're risking being late. You quickly finish up breakfast, take care of the dishes, grab your bag and then head for the front door.
You find yourself humming as you lock the door behind you and start heading to school, a smile on your face. One week until Lala arrived, and you couldn't be more excited.
School isn't anything special. You've been through it before after all. The classes aren't exactly the same, but the version of you that grew up in this universe is a decent enough student. Combining the two experiences means keeping up with the material is downright easy.
During lunch, you pull out your bento, one made by your mother. Before you can start eating it, three more chairs are pulled up to your desk as Sawada Mio, Momioka Risa, and Sairenji Haruna join you, as they usually do.
"I really wish Honekawa-sensei would speak up a bit," Mio complains as the three of them sit down, not even bothering with a greeting. "It's hard to hear his lessons when you're sitting in the back. But every time I ask him to speak up it only lasts a couple of minutes before he's back to being quiet."
"I'll let you borrow my notes later, you can copy them," Haruna offers. Then she turns to you and smiles. "Good afternoon Saitou-san."
"Hey Sairenji-san, Sawada-san, Momioka-san," you reply, greeting the three before taking a bite of your food.
"When are you going to give in and start calling me by my given name, Aki-kun?" Risa replies with a teasing grin.
"When you stop attaching 'kun' to my name, I'll consider it," you fire back, causing her to chuckle.
Among all the students in your class, it's these three that you're closest to, often eating lunch with them, and every now and then doing something after school with them, such as visiting a shop or studying as a group.
The three of them have been friends since middle school, where they were also part of the tennis club, like they are now in high school. It wasn't until the start of this school year that you joined their group, despite not playing tennis. At first, you thought one of them had a crush on you, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Haruna is very obviously interested in Rito, and despite your Charmian heritage, she doesn't seem to hold any attraction to you. Which you are more than okay with. Blue is practically the opposite of pink, and you have zero interest in being anything more than friends with her.
Risa and Mio are harder to judge. You're pretty sure they're secretly dating. Or just fucking. Or maybe something in-between? It's hard to tell, but they're very close, more than just being friends, and they have an obsession with groping girls, usually together.
They have flirted with you though, Risa more so than Mio. But you've been unable to figure out how serious they are about it. It doesn't seem to be that serious, because they never push it past light flirting, and you're hardly the only one that they act like that towards. So either they're slutty, or they're mildly interested in you. Either way, you've responded playfully, but tried to make it clear you're not interested back.
The four of you eat lunch as you normally do, chatting about lessons and the latest gossip. Risa and Mio are fantastic sources of the latest information about everything that happens within the school. Which, admittedly, is rarely all that interesting. But keeping aware of it all is important. Information is power, after all.
You notice Haruna frowning at her phone, angrily tapping the screen with a thumb. "Phone problems?" you ask.
"It's been very slow since last night," Haruna admits. "I don't know why. It's not old enough to start having problems like that yet."
You hold out your hand. "Want me to take a quick look at it? Work my magic?" This would hardly be the first time you've used your ability to communicate with technology to fix something. In fact, you've got something of a reputation for it.
Haruna flashes you a grateful smile and places her phone in your hand. "If you would, I would definitely appreciate it."
You accept the phone and bring it closer to you. "Now, what seems to be the problem, Phone-san?" you say. Unfortunately, you have to speak out loud to talk to a device, even if their reply is telepathic. It makes it more difficult to hide your ability, but you've managed to play it off as a small little quirk of yours by comparing it to a method of troubleshooting called the Rubber Duck method, where you talk through a problem with an inanimate object because the act of explaining something can help you put your thoughts in order.
You still have to be careful, balancing your actions and exactly what you say so it doesn't sound like you're holding a conversation with the device to others, but you can get away with a few things, such as asking the simple question of what is wrong.
"Greetings Saitou-san," you hear in your head. You've talked to Haruna's phone before, and it remembers you. Its voice is mostly monotone and mechanical, but there's just a hint of Haruna's tone to it. "I apologize for the performance issues. There is an app using a lot of my resources running in the background."
"Hmm. High resource usage, huh?" you pretend to muse out loud as you navigate the settings menu. "Now, which app is causing the problem?"
"Daily Love Horoscope is the app in question," the phone explains to you. You check it and see that it's using over 90% of the phone's memory. You look into the app some more and find that it was installed yesterday. A quick perusal of the app store shows that the app has a ton of 5-star reviews that all look suspiciously similar, and a ton of 1-star reviews that are all angrily talking about how many resources it uses.
You force-stop the app and then hand the phone back to Haruna. "There we go. I'd uninstall that app you downloaded yesterday, the horoscope one. There's something suspicious about it, it was running in the background and using up way more resources than it should be." You wish you could have investigated a little deeper, but that would mean pointed questions that you wouldn't be able to disguise.
Haruna's face reddens slightly as she accepts her phone, but she nods. "I forgot I downloaded that," she says. "I'll delete it right away. Thank you!" She bows her head slightly in thanks.
"That feels much better. Thank you Saitou-san," her phone says as well.
"You're welcome," you reply. "Just make sure to carefully look at the reviews of any apps you download, not just their average rating."
"Jeez Haruna, you should be more careful," Mio chastises the other girl.
"Sorry," she apologizes again. "I just saw it in an ad the other day and downloaded it on a whim."
As the three girls talk, Mio and Risa teasing Haruna about the app, you try to focus on your food and ignore the heated glare you feel on your back. You don't even need to turn around to know who it is. Yuuki Rito, the protagonist of the setting and boy in love with Haruna.
It isn't the first time he's stared at you jealously while hanging out with Haruna. He doesn't actually seem to hold any enmity for you, as he's still very friendly when you talk to him. But you can feel how much he wishes he were in your place from his gaze alone.
You had decided to leave Rito a boy when you entered this world. You were conflicted on it, but in the end, you decided that the benefits of having him around outweighed the negatives. For one, as a protagonist of a harem anime, he's useful for drawing the affections of other girls away from yourself, so you don't have to deal with any ugly- any non-pink-haired girls.
On top of that, making Rito a girl from birth could have unexpected butterflies. Nothing massive, Universal Calibration makes sure nothing important is changed, but relationships between him and others could have been tweaked, and who knows how Lala would react in those new circumstances of arriving in the bath of a girl?
You remember the manga reasonably well, about how Lala's initial declaration of her intent to marry Rito was mostly just a ploy to try to get Zastin, her bodyguard, and her father to back off and stop setting her up with marriage candidates. Though that only lasted for about a chapter before it was revealed and she declared that she was actually falling for Rito.
Which is a legitimate threat with Rito still a boy, but you can think of a dozen different ways to make sure it doesn't happen. Worst case scenario, you have enough credits to buy back your Stamp, and you can use that. But you'd rather spend those credits on more useful things.
The best method would be to intercept her before Rito ever meets her. There are a few different ways to do that, ranging from finding an excuse to be in the Yuuki household bathroom when she warps there to finding her before she warps. You're not sure how you would do the latter, but you have a few things you can investigate.
Which brings you to an important decision you need to make now, and that's how you want to handle Rito.
After thinking over it for a bit, you decide that befriending Rito and getting close to him just makes too much sense to pass up. Otherwise, it would have been better to just turn him into a girl. While he may not have much of a role later on besides you directing other girls towards him as best you could, befriending him is worth it just for hooking him up with Haruna. If they're an item when Lala appears, then Rito won't accidentally confess to her, and you'll have a chance to draw her attention.
Mind made up, you turn your head to look over your shoulder and make eye contact with Rito, who is still staring intently in your direction. Rito jumps slightly, surprised at being caught, but you just give him a smile and a small wave. He looks nervous and unsure about what to do, but he waves back awkwardly and averts his gaze.
You turn back to your lunch-mates and discover that Risa and Mio were too busy groping Haruna for them to have noticed your little interaction with Rito. You mentally shrug and return your attention to your food. This was a common scene that you had long gotten used to.
Lunch continues normally, and so does the rest of the day as you start to put a plan together in between classes. So when the final bell rings, you pack your stuff quickly, say your goodbyes to the girls who are headed to their club, and head for the shoe lockers so you can leave.
You spot Rito already leaving when you get there, so you hurry to put on your shoes and rush to catch up to him. Even that leaves you winded, this new body of yours is just as unathletic as your last one.
"Yuuki!" you call out to him, getting his attention and causing him to turn. He stops and waits for you to catch up.
"Saitou-san?" he asks, curiosity tinting his tone.
"Want to walk home together?" you ask casually as you stop beside him. "It's been a while since we've talked."
He immediately smiles, not even showing a trace of surprise at your request. "Sure thing Saitou-san." The two of you start walking toward your homes.
"Hey, what's with calling me Saitou-san?" you ask, putting a teasing tone in your voice. "We've known each other long enough for you to call me Akihiko."
"Ah, you're right," he admits, chagrinned. "You called me Yuuki, so I sorta panicked."
"Guess I'm guilty of it too," you laugh it off. "Alright, Rito it is. Sounds good?"
"Eh? No honorific?" He sounds surprised, but he's also smiling, and the two of you laugh together, easily falling back into the friendship you had as children. It helps that Rito is a pretty friendly guy at heart, so it's easy to play that role once more.
"How's Mikan?" you ask after the two of you chat for a bit. "Are you still making her do all the chores?"
"Not all of them!" he protests. "I help out a bit. She's just so reliable she beats me to them most of the time."
"Uh-huh, sure," you tease. "Poor Mikan, having such a burden of a big brother."
Rito sighs. "You're right, I should do more. Maybe I should do something nice for her."
There's the opening you were waiting for. "I've got an idea," you say, perking up. "For dinner tonight I was going to try a new recipe, and it's gonna leave us with a lot of leftovers. Why don't the two of you come over and join us so I'm not eating it for lunch for the rest of the week?"
Rito hesitates, his normal reflexes wanting him to turn down any offer where he might possibly inconvenience someone, but you phrased it as him doing a favor, not only for you but for Mikan as well, on purpose. It's an offer that Yuuki Rito cannot refuse, by his nature.
"If your mother is okay with it…" he says, trailing off with uncertainty.
"Please, you know my mother," you reply. "I'm surprised she hasn't been bugging me to invite you two over sooner. It's been a while since the last time you guys were over."
Rito lets out a small laugh. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Sure, I'll tell Mikan once I get home."
You clap a hand on his shoulder and flash him a smile. "Thanks, man. I really appreciate it."
The two of you chat some more, catching up as you walk home. With this, you've completed the first step in your plan, but there's still a long way to go to get Rito and Haruna together.
"-so I get home and the kitchen is just filled with bubbles," Mikan says with a teasing grin as she tells a story while the four of you eat dinner.
Your mother covers her mouth as she utterly fails not to laugh. "H-how did he even do that?" she asks, shoulders shaking in mirth.
"I thought that was a normal amount of soap to use," Rito mutters, embarrassed at the story Mikan is telling.
"On the bright side, I bet the kitchen was sparkling clean by the time you guys cleaned it up," you comment, also amused.
"It practically sparkled," Mikan agrees. "Though by the time we finished cleaning up we were both exhausted and didn't really appreciate that. And the dishes still had to be done."
All of you, except Rito, laugh at that. Rito doesn't actually look upset though, just a little chagrined and embarrassed, but there's a smile on his face as well.
There's a brief moment of silence once the laughter dies down, but it's one your mother fills in quickly. She smiles at Mikan. "You know, I'm glad Aki-kun invited you guys over. I was worried you were drifting apart."
You exchange glances with Rito before both of you guiltily look away, though it's an act on your part. Because she was correct, you had very much been drifting away from the Yuuki's before awakening your other memories and deciding to use Rito.
"I've been busy," you say, making up an excuse as is expected of you in this situation. "High school isn't as easy as middle school was."
"I suppose that's true. You'll be in high school next year as well, won't you Mi-chan?" your mother asks, using her nickname for Mikan.
Mikan nods. "I'll be going to Sainen High as well."
In canon, Mikan was several years younger than Rito. But, when setting up Universal Calibration, you aged her up as much as you could. Canon certainly hadn't treated her like her age considering the amount of fanservice of her there was. Even if you have no interest in her yourself, it makes you more comfortable for her to be older, in case she falls victim to Rito's Lucky Pervert shenanigans again. And there is also the option of using Mikan for various potential plans you have that require her to be older than her canon counterpart.
Your mother smiles at her before turning to you and pointing her chopsticks at you. "You make sure to show her around and make her comfortable when she arrives, got it?"
You resist the urge to roll your eyes. Your mother has, in the past, been rather unsubtle about how much she thinks Mikan would make a good wife for you, and every now and then she tries to push the two of you together.
"That sounds like a job for Rito, no?" you counter. You glance at Mikan to see how she's reacting.
Thankfully her face is blank, maybe mildly amused. You aren't sure if she has picked up on what your mother is doing or not, but she's not blushing or looking hopeful, which should mean she's not really interested.
"It's a job for both of you," your mother insists more pointedly.
You exchange glances with Rito again. He just smiles in a commiserating way but doesn't say anything so you just shrug. "Of course, it would be my pleasure." Though it wouldn't happen for another six months or so. You aren't even sure if you'll still be here in six months. It depends on how quickly you accelerate the timetable.
Your mother nods, satisfied. "Good. And, if you're finished with your food, why don't the three of you go to the living room while I wash the dishes?"
You nod and stand up, ready to move on to the next part of your plan. It's fairly common for your mother to wash the dishes when you cook and the Yuuki's come over. And it's also common for…
"I'll help," Mikan volunteers right on cue as she stands up as well.
"Thank you Mi-chan, I'd appreciate it," your mother agrees as she usually does, leaving you and Rito alone.
The two of you go to the living room, which has two decently sized couches and a nice TV arranged around a coffee table, and sit down to relax. You grab the remote and turn the TV on, and it starts playing Explosive Heat Girl Magical Kyouko Flame.
"You watch this too?" Rito asks, bemused.
"Sure, sometimes," you say with a shrug. "It's fun and the fire effects are really good."
"It's just so…weird though," Rito replies. "The effects are good, but everything else is so low budget, and the actual plot is all over the place."
"That's just part of its charm," you argue. Rito shrugs, seeming to accept that, and silence falls between the two of you as you watch TV. Though your focus isn't really on the show.
Talking to Rito, inviting him over to dinner, and catching up with him were all for this moment, to set the mood for this talk.
"So Rito," you start, keeping your tone casual. "You were staring pretty hard at Haruna again today. You have a crush on her?"
Rito practically jumps out of his skin in surprise, his head whipping to face you as his face grows red. "W-w-w-w-what?" he squeaks out.
"Sairenji," you clarify, using her last name even though you know damn well he thinks of her as 'Haruna' in his head. "You have a crush on her, right?"
"I don't- I mean I do- but no I mean- I uh," he stammers, stumbling over his words as his hands flail in the air, caught between reflexively denying it and not being able to deny his feelings.
"Breathe, Rito," you interrupt his rising panic. "It's obvious that you do, and have for a while."
Rito deflates, giving up. "It is?"
"To everyone except her, it seems," you reply. "I'm pretty sure everyone other than Haruna herself has realized it by now."
"Uwaaa," he moaned. "I don't know how I feel about that…"
You shrug. "I'm mostly just wondering why you haven't confessed yet."
"I've tried!" he moans, frustration clear in his voice. "But it never works. I always lose my nerve, or something interrupts us before I can say it."
Ah, right. That. You remember several occasions where one of them nearly confessed to the other, only for the universe to seemingly conspire against them and prevent it somehow.
"That just means you need to try harder and hesitate less," you say. "The sooner you confess, the better. Either it means you'll be with her longer, having more happy days, or you'll get rejected sooner, and spend fewer days in this terrible state of trying to work up the nerve."
He suddenly looks very nervous. "Do- do you think that's likely?" he asks. "Do you think she'll reject me?"
You open your mouth to reassure him that she definitely wouldn't, but you refrain. You have no problem revealing their feelings for each other- you're not Lala who would let the issue waffle for months just because you think it would be more romantic if they heard it from each other.
But once revealed, it couldn't be unrevealed, and there was a good opportunity here for Rito to grow a bit.
You lean forward. "Well, what do you think?" you ask him. "How do you think she feels about you?"
"I mean…she'd definitely reject me, right?" he guesses, shoulders slumped and eyes averted. "I'm nobody special, and she barely even knows me. We've just been in the same class a few times since middle school."
"Those sound a lot like your own feelings, not Haruna's," you point out. He looks up at you in confusion, so you sigh and lean forward. "Look, let me give you a bit of advice when it comes to dating. No, when it comes to interacting with other people in general. The single most important skill you can have is empathy. People are a lot less scary and a lot easier to deal with when you understand them. Someone is angry and yelling at you? Calm down, take a moment, and think about why they're angry. View the situation from their point of view. Are they really angry at you? Or just the situation? Or at themselves and they're not good at directing their anger in the right direction? Once you understand, you'll know how to deal with it, and what to expect from them."
Rito is frowning, his brow furrowed as he thinks over your words, so you continue. "Let's go over an example. When was the last time Mikan got angry with you? I don't mean super angry, Mikan is pretty level-headed. I mean the last time she was annoyed at you or snapped at you or something."
He tilts his head as he thinks. "Last week I guess? I went to ask her about some shopping that needed to be done and she just blew me off and told me to get it myself. I don't really know why."
You nod. "Okay. Now, what was the context of this? When during the day? Where did it happen? Did anything happen earlier?"
He takes a moment to think about it. "It was a couple hours after dinner. Mikan was in her room, doing homework, and I entered to ask her if she had bought more shampoo since I was running low. She was just at the store so I thought maybe she had bought some."
You sigh, already noticing a couple red flags. "So, first off. Did you tell her you were low on shampoo before she went shopping earlier that day?"
He pauses before shaking his head. "No, I forgot."
"Second, Mikan cooks dinner for you two, right? So her day was to go to school, go home and make dinner, do the shopping, take a bath, and do homework. She hasn't gotten a chance to rest all day, right?"
"Th- that's right," Rito confirms, worry growing on his face.
"Third, I bet she was doing her homework in her bedroom, and you didn't knock before entering."
"Is that a bad thing?" he asks with a wince.
"Yes, it's a bad thing," you reply a little harshly. "Empathy lesson one. Bedrooms are safe places. In a house that is shared among several people, a bedroom is a place that is entirely yours. You sleep there, you relax there, you customize it, and it's where you're most vulnerable. Intruding on that space so suddenly is going to make it feel unsafe, which is going to put her on edge. Especially when you tell her, two hours too late, that you needed something from the store and she was just there."
A look of comprehension dawns on his face, followed quickly by one of horror. "Oh man, I was a real jerk, wasn't I?" he stands up. "I have to apologize-"
"Slow down Rito, we're not done with your lesson," you stop him with a raised hand. He freezes, giving you a strange look, before slowly sitting down. "This is what I mean," you continue. "Slow down and think. If you rushed in there and apologized for something that happened last week, how would Mikan take it? Right here, right now?"
He frowns, mulling it over. "She'd…be thankful?"
"A bit, probably," you agree. "But that's just one part of her feelings."
His brow furrows further. "She'd…be annoyed, probably. She'd tease me over taking so long. No, would she? It would be strange, wouldn't it? For my behavior to suddenly change? Wouldn't she get suspicious?"
You make a so-so gesture with your hand. "Close. She'd still appreciate the apology, but she'd find the suddenness and circumstances of it strange. Maybe a little suspicious. She's a smart girl, she'd probably figure out that I pointed it out to you. Now, that's not a bad thing, getting help from others, but it would make her happier if you grew on your own."
"You think so?" he asks. "How do I show her that then?"
"Don't apologize," you state. He opens his mouth but you hold a hand up to silence him. "She was likely annoyed by you on that day, but I'm almost certain that she was over it within a day or two. Apologizing wouldn't do much at this point. No, the best way to 'apologize' would be to show her that you've changed. Knock on her door from now on, try to think ahead, and just generally be more thoughtful and aware of her feelings. She'll notice and appreciate the change, I guarantee it."
"I guess that makes sense," he agrees. "But, wait, what does this have to do with Har- I mean Sairenji?"
You decide not to comment on his slip-up. "You like her, right? If you want to ask her out, you'll need to understand her better than you currently do. Right now you have a tendency to just imagine a version of her that may or may not line up with reality, and you need to fix that problem. So, I'm giving you a project, homework if you will. Tomorrow, when you're doing your 'stare at Haruna' thing, I want you to not get lost in fantasy land. Instead, pay attention to her, and try to empathize with her. How is she feeling, what is she thinking, that sort of thing. Think you can do that?"
His back straightens as he puffs out his chest. "Yeah, I can!"
You grin, showing a bit of teeth. "Good. Then you'll have no problem meeting me after school and telling me what you observed, right?"
He nods confidently. "That's totally fine."
"I like your confidence. You'll need it. If you do a good job figuring her out I'll support you and help your attempts to confess to Haruna. If you don't though," you shrug. "Well then, I don't think you'd deserve a chance at dating my friend, and I'd warn her off of you. But that won't happen, right?"
Rito froze at the sudden pressure you've put him under, but you're not worried. One of his best traits that he consistently showed in canon was his ability to act under pressure, and not hesitate to take action. Granted, most of those situations were him being ready to fight various aliens and monsters to save the girls, though usually failing, but that didn't matter. The point is that Rito hesitates less and is more proactive when under pressure.
"R-right!" he says after he gathers himself. "I won't disappoint you Akihiko!"
"I really hope you don't," you say. "You're a good person, and I think you and Haruna would make a good couple. So I'm hoping you can prove to me that you can be more empathetic." You hear the sound of Mikan and your mother approaching the living room. "Looks like our guy talk time is up though. We'll talk more after school tomorrow, got it?"
He nods in agreement right before the others join the two of you in the living room. The conversation goes mostly the same as dinner, with the four of you catching up. You're satisfied to know that step two of your plan is complete, and that tomorrow should yield interesting results.
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This is the story-only edit of a Quest I run over on Questionable Questing! If you'd like to participate in the Quest and vote on decisions the character makes, head there!
