Wednesday, Nov 19: Morning.

"OOOOOHOHOHOHOHO~!"

A haughty, elegant female voice rang out through the room. "The plebeians claim the early bird gets the worm, yes? Then you, worm, shall get-"

A tired hand dropped onto the anime alarm clock, silencing the arrogantly laughing oujo with more efficiency than any milquetoast harem protagonist would ever be able to achieve.

Hitoshi Kobe, age 18, lifted his head from his pillow to look at the time. Staring in silence at the face of his clock and trying to comprehend the numbers with a lagging brain, it took a moment for it to catch up–and dumped a large predator chasing him worth of adrenaline into his system when it did.

"OH, SHIT! I've got a test in first period!"

The unathletic young man leapt out of bed, and his thin underweight frame all but slid out of his pyjamas in his rush to find his school uniform.

"Found it!"

As the words left his mouth, Hitoshi threw on a pair of black slacks and a white button-up shirt, and stumbled into the bathroom.

"No time to clean up any better than this," he muttered, combing his unremarkable black hair into something that would look a little better than half-assed. Putting down the comb, he looked in the mirror and a fretting youth of average height with large eyes, framed by quite possibly the nerdiest-looking glasses in town stared back.

Darting back into his bedroom, Hitoshi's gaze fell on a picture of one of his classmates, an elegant and gorgeous beauty, then drifted to his beloved computer it sat next to. He tore his attention away from it with a cry of anguish as he ran into the kitchen for some bread. "I don't even have enough time to put this in the toaster…!"

Hitoshi staggered up to the school gate on shaky legs, brushing bread crumbs off of his shirt and wheezing for air. "Over... a damn… year, I've been living on my own," he muttered to himself between gasps, "and life still sucks."

Pathetic as it is, at least I'm getting what I deserve…

"So you found it in you to attend today after all…"

Hitoshi's palms grew cold and clammy with sweat, and only an irrational fear of admitting weakness kept him from wiping them off on his pants right then and there. That stern voice, like getting splashed with ice water…!

"And with more than a few seconds to spare, no less. Quite the improvement over your typical performance, Kobe."

Hitoshi raised up his head to look at the speaker, feeling like he had to physically strain against the heavy dread in his stomach to do it. His efforts earned him what had to be the worst prize ever: eye contact with his homeroom teacher, Menjo High School's own "Maneater", Professor Nitta. With a weathered, stern face that might well have been carved from granite and only the barest spark of human warmth in his eyes, the aging mathematician cut a figure that brought many a rambunctious schoolboy and girl to their knees in despair.

Ugh, how does he even remember a loser like me - oh, right, I stick out like a sore thumb because I don't even bother showing up nine days out of ten. And since I'm in his homeroom, I bet he takes every day I'm absent as a personal insult...

As the sweat continued pooling on Hitoshi's forehead, it was all he could do to force out a response. "Y-yes, sir."

What the hell is this pressure I'm feeling, demanding that I explain my absences from class and vow not to continue them… it can't just be his authority as a teacher, can it?! I've only felt this daunted once before in my whole life…!

Hitoshi broke eye contact and stared at the ground, putting one foot in front of the other to walk past and go inside. Feeling Nitta's withering gaze upon him every step of the way, only when he made it inside did he finally sigh in relief.

"I guess the Maneater has me in his sights like always," Hitoshi muttered as he dragged himself to his locker to change shoes. Well, it's not exactly any kind of surprise, so - huh?

There, resting flat atop his school shoes, was an envelope with a wax heart-shaped seal on it that had fluttered out of his locker when he opened it.

"Wow, you'd have to be pretty rich and classy to go sealing letters in this day and age," he noted in wonder. With a hollow chuckle, Hitoshi withdrew the envelope and looked it over. "Pity there's nobody like that who'd take an interest in some pathetic shut-in loser like–what the heck, this thing has my name on the front!"

Realizing how loud he'd almost been, Hitoshi slapped a hand over his mouth without thinking, but fortunately... Most of the other students have already gone inside to their classrooms or to hang out with friends, he noted while scanning the locker area with wide eyes. And the handful of other people still here look like they have better things to do with their attention than waste it on me.

Peering carefully at the letter from multiple angles as though it were a mystifying specimen or confusing post-modern art piece, the nerd tried to make sense of the unprecedented situation. No matter how I look at this, it's got my name on it with the correct kanji and everything, so that has to mean that whoever wrote it can't have meant it for someone else and put it in the wrong locker by mistake...

"Well," he mused, "I won't know what it's about unless I read it."

Swallowing in nervous anticipation, he broke the seal to open the envelope, and pulled out the note held within.

"Hitoshi Kobe, I understand that because of your habits it might be days before this letter finds its way to you, but that doesn't matter to me. Please wait for me behind the gym during first period..."

-Kimika Asou"

Next to the signature, Hitoshi saw something that made him hot and sweaty all over again. His heart pounded harder and harder until he could hear his own pulse, his vision narrowed and darkened into a tunnel that couldn't even see how badly the letter was shaking in his trembling hands, and if his pants got any tighter he'd have to adjust them for decency's sake!

There's no possible way anyone with eyes could mistake that lipstick kiss mark! This is… this is a love letter! From Kimika, the gorgeous and fabulously wealthy idol that everyone in the whole school looks up to!

Sure, it seemed a little strange that the nouveau-riche corporate princess was taking an interest in him…

"But then again," he muttered to himself with crossed arms, "there's that old saying, right? 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder'… what if I said or did something one day without realizing it that got her attention, and all my mysterious absences from school caused her feelings to escalate? What if she's been secretly longing for even so much as a glimpse of me, and I've been unwittingly making her wait all this time?"

What if she's been trapped for weeks in a searing desert of passion with nowhere to go, begging in silence for me to appear before her again and quench her thirsts?!

Yes, Hitoshi could see it all in his mind's eye, with perfect clarity...

Kimika would be waiting for him there in the courtyard, eyes gleaming with passionate tears she'd been holding back.

"Oh Hitoshi," she'd say, "you've been in my thoughts and dreams since the moment I first laid eyes on you!"

Hitoshi, of course, would be manly and cool about the whole thing. "Oh, is that right," he'd ask with a confident smile, encouraging the woman to open up with her feelings.

"Yes! I've been denying the truth ever since I realized it, because for a while I couldn't even believe it myself - I'm a gorgeous, fabulously wealthy woman with a body that men and women have sold their souls for and still be unable to buy, and you're a socially awkward yet stunningly brilliant computer networking engineer and programmer who almost never comes to class, but…"

The emotional dam would burst, then, as the sobbing woman would tear off her blouse and throw herself into his arms!

"But Hitoshi, my heart can't lie anymore! I love you! I want to be with you!"

As she embraced him and pushed her spectacular, perfectly-shaped boobs into Hitoshi's chest and bumped her crotch against his, Hitoshi would whisper against her neck, "I've always dreamed about you too," and Kimika would cry out in wild ecstasy just from the sheer relief of her feelings being requited!

From there, the business of a man and woman deeply in love would take its natural course as they swore themselves to one another and pleasured each other to their souls' content, proving that in this bleak world there was indeed hope for anyone to get a 'happy ever after' ending!

"Hm hm hm!" Hitoshi chuckled with his hand on his chin and a cocksure smirk, eyes alight with a spark that hadn't been there in well over a year. "Even in my wildest dreams I never thought this day would come, but it seems that luck can make a turn for the better as well as for the worse."

And so, having forgotten all about the important test he'd been so worried about earlier, Hitoshi eagerly strode to the school's courtyard to wait for his crush behind the gym as requested.

But what about Nitta, some small part of his brain asked.

The rest of his brain considered that for a second. Nitta, Nitta… that's some kind of fermented bean dish, right?

Hm… yeah, the first part agreed, I guess that doesn't sound too far off! Now let's go meet our woman of destiny!

And with that, Hitoshi broke out into a sprint.

Hitoshi made it to his spot in the courtyard in short order, but found himself alone. "I guess she's not here yet," he mused. "Still, she asked me to wait, so there's no sense in being impatient."

Undeterred, Hitoshi picked out a place in the courtyard where he could lean against a wall and be comfortable in the morning sun, but also be easily seen and identified from any entrance, not knowing where Kimika might approach from.

Nothing to do now but hang tight and wait for destiny to unfold, he decided.

And so he waited.

And he waited.

And continued waiting.

At long last, when his efforts at waiting seemed like they might pay off… he elected to wait some more, a contented smile on his face all the while.

Nearly an hour had passed before he checked his watch. "Jeez… first period is almost over. What's keeping her?"

"… Wait," his eyes grew wide, "wouldn't it be just my luck if she had to stay home today because of a sudden cold or something?! Damn, I should've thought of that earlier…"

But then he thought of something else that made him bite his thumb in stress. "But then, what if she was just running late and would've only gotten here after I left on thinking she'd be absent outright?! Heck, what if she saw me leaving and got the idea I gave up on her?! That'd have to be one of the worst possible impressions-"

"Hey, Kobe!"

That perfect, angelic voice! She came after all!

His heart skipped a beat, his palms got sweaty again, and he whirled around to face the direction the sound came from - and found himself looking… up?

There, gazing down at Hitoshi from her typical seat in the third-floor classroom like an angel of heaven, was Kimika Asou! With her beautiful, elegant face framed by such long and straight black hair, there was no possible way to mistake her for someone else!

She opened her mouth, and Hitoshi's heart began to truly soar-!

"What are you doing down there?"

-and then it crashed like a lead balloon, right down into and through his stomach.

"Don't tell me," Kimika asked with an eyebrow up to her bangs and no end of amusement in her tone, "you forgot there was a test today?"

As Kimika was projecting her voice well enough for Hitoshi to clearly hear her three stories below, the rest of the class soon turned to see what had caught their idol's attention…

"Holy cow, he actually showed up!"

"No way, he didn't think she was serious...?"

"God dammit, my phone can't zoom in far enough to catch that stupid look on his face! Anyone got an actual camera?!"

"Damn, I guess you won the bet after all - he really is that gullible! Hey Hitoshi, can I borrow ten thousand yen?! I prooooomise I'll pay you back next week! Aaahahahahahahaha!"

As the jeering laughter of his classmates spread and strengthened, Hitoshi tried to swallow… but he couldn't. His throat was too thick, it wouldn't listen to him.

Kimika raised a hand to cover the lower half of her face, but the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice still told him exactly what she thought of this whole situation.

Specifically, that it was fucking hilarious. "The note might have said 'please wait', but it never said I'd be there!"

Hitoshi stared up at the laughing young woman, his dumbfounded expression frozen in its shift to shameful realization. I really am a worthless idiot. Even after this whole year living by myself, I still got so caught up in what I wanted to happen, I managed to forget the fundamental truth I've been carrying with me this entire time.

Catching himself, Hitoshi threw his head back and laughed, boisterous and loud as he clapped his hands. "Hahaha, you really got me, Kimika! That was a good one!"

She smiled at Hitoshi, and it felt like a knife twisting into his heart. "Let's do this again sometime, all right?"

This is reality, where hopes get crushed.

A steel grip clapped Hitoshi on the shoulder, instantly causing his body to lock up in terror as one particular set of Kimika's earlier words echoed around his brain.

"Don't tell me... you forgot there was a test today?"

"Arriving early today was a fine set-up for this practical joke of yours, Kobe. It's put me in the mood to show you one of my own in appreciation."

… Oh shit. Without meaning to, I skipped his class. On a major test day.

Having to fight his fear for every centimeter, Hitoshi turned to look behind him and found the walking incarnation of a night terror.

Shit shit shit shit shit! Nitta looks like some ancient oni, marched up straight from Hell to drag my soul down into eternal darkness!

"Professor, I really-"

"Tomorrow, your makeup exam will consist entirely of essays. And in light of your atrocious posture," Nitta's grip tightened as Hitoshi's despair climbed to a level he could scarcely have imagined, "you will sit in seiza for the entire duration."

Hitoshi's eyes grew watery, and he wanted to explain with clenched fists that he hadn't meant for this to happen–that he'd been tricked, that he was a sucker being played by his classmates for a quick laugh…!

But the tension drained out of his body, instead.

It doesn't matter.

He hung his head.

Nothing I say or do ever will.

To be continued...