If You're No One And You Know It... (High School DxD SI Chapter 4)

"Kaichou, I really don't think this is a good idea." Tsubaki Shinra usually isn't one to actively go against her King, but in this case, she felt the need to point out how pushing her boss and friend was being.

"We are merely inspecting, Tsubaki. There is no need for concern." Sona said with her usual elegant prose.

"You are literally stalking your Rook's little brother on his date, because you hope it goes badly, so you can recruit his date to your Peerage." Tsubaki deadpanned.

"Tsubaki, do you really have to say it in the worst possible way, that could be interpreted?" Sona winced. "And I don't hope it goes badly...I'm merely letting probability and statistics run their course. If things work out for them, that's good, and Tsubasa would be relieved. And if they don't, I'd imagine Jiro wouldn't wish to remember such horrible experience, and Eri would need a friendly shoulder to lean on." Sona rationalized.

"And now you sound like a predator, Sona." Tsubaki words struck her King like barbed arrows.

"Do you have to say that?" Sona sighed and took a drink from her coffee to calm down.

"I'm sorry, you sounded like Lady Leviathan when she's chasing after you."

Sona choked on her drink.

A sound of sniffing and crying went on from where they were hiding.

"Eri-chan~~."

Akira wanted to sigh as Kouji was bawling his eyes out.

"Dude, pull yourself together. Come on." Akira rolled his eyes, at his friend's overdramatic crying, as he watched his other two friends hang out through his binoculars. He then switched the other two groups following them.

Or rather one group made up of Sona Sitri and Tsubaki Shinra, and his sister following them independently on her own.

"I," Kouji sniffed. "Wish their love," another sniff. "All the best!" He said followed by a loud blowing into some handkerchief, that went on.

And on.

And on.

Akira slowly turned to his tanned friend to see him continuing to blow his nose.

"Dude. Seriously."

Kouji finished, rolled up the ball of tissue and dropped it in the garbage pin. Akira shook his head, as he went back to monitoring the situation.

"Okay, we're gonna have to wait for all three to get into one place, make a distraction to keep Sitri, Shinra and Tsubasa occupied and..." Akira stopped as he heard pencil scratches behind him. He turned to look, to see Kouji still with his wet face, writing something on one of his notes pads. "What are you doing?"

"Writing...my best man speech for their wedding." Kouji said with a resigned sigh, before nodding to himself in a resolved manner, to wish his friends the best and to be happy.

Akira snatched the notepad out of his hands.

"Hey!"

"Kouji. Seriously. She's not asking him out on a date, she just wanted to hang out with him." Akira said.

"...So why are we date stalking them?" Kouji said, looking like a lost puppy.

"Because, there are nosy people around them, and we have to protect Eri." Akira said in an exasperated manner.

"Well, why didn't you just say so!? Okay, what do we do? What's the plan?" Kouji pulled a 180, and was now completely focused and onboard.

Akira facepalmed and shook his head, before deciding to just focus on helping out Eri and Jiro.

He stretched his hand in front of him, and a holographic globe appeared along with several mechanical looking bugs.

"Alright, let's do this." Akira then opened up his laptop and as usual let Globe Nostradamus connect to his computer, as he accesses the security of the theme part, and let his Information Sacred Gear get to work.

I am tired.

Not sure about emotionally, but physically I'm definitely tired.

In the past three hours I have walked more than I ever exercised in my life. This one at least.

First Eri dragged me to a theme park, running from ride to ride, then went to a movie. Only to change her mind five minutes into the screening, and we left and got our money back. We passed through a mall, where randomly Eri would go into one shop or another. It wasn't even all clothes stores, sometimes it was a pawn shop, a bookstore or something or other.

I think Akira's message wasn't a friendly advise, so much as a warning for me to brace myself.

Did find some neat novels and meta-philosophy books though, but I couldn't afford any right now, and I didn't want to get something that I would just put on a shelf. We ended up talking about window-shopping and how it applies to books. How much skimming was 'window shopping' and how much was 'technically stealing'.

Surprisingly...talking with Eri wasn't bad. Turns out she did like stories, anime, manga and the like. There were stuff we could talk about. I...was kinda excited to talk to her about my publishing attempts, even if they didn't work out. It felt...fun.

Then suddenly she dragged me and ran to another place in a hurry, and we ended up in another, different, theme park. We were about to get on a very scary roller coaster, before-thank God-Eri had another Ooh Shiny! moment, and wanted to go on another ride.

Then the lights went out in the whole theme park while we were in the mirror house. When we left, Eri took me and ran till we caught a train to a different station before finally slowing down, as we entered a diner.

"Welcome back, Goshujin-sama! What can I get you?" Said a teenage maid.

"Wa...water!" I tried to shout, but all that came out was a raspy cry.

"I'll have an Oreo Shake, a Strawberry Sundae, and a Berry Mix. We'll order afterwards." Eri said with a smile. I blinked at her a few times, at her just casually ordering three drinks for herself. "What?" She pouted with a blush. "I like my sweet drinks. Don't judge me."

"I'm not," I found myself chuckling, as I felt a pleasant sore as my body cooled down.

We chatted for a while as our drinks came.

"Today was fun. Didn't go how I planned, but it was still cool." Eri said. "How come we never hung out like this before?" She said casually.

...I kinda started to get the feeling that this wasn't a date. Yeah, Eri never outright said it was, and there were a few inconsistencies about it. It felt like two friends...just hanging out. Or attempting to hangout.

I felt...it stung, but isn't this what I wanted? Hoped for?

I mean, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but that wouldn't be bad, right?

My hands clenched under the table.

"I guess I...didn't feel we have much in common. Sorry." I said with a chuckle before taking a deep breath again.

"Sorry if I dragged you around. I kinda got a feeling of being followed, and wanted to just go from place to place quickly to lose them." Eri said with an apologetic grin.

I sat up straight as I thought back to how this day went, in light of this new information. Eri was perceptive, although sometimes you can kinda forget that from how absent-minded she can act at times. So this whole thing wouldn't have happened, and she would have just talked to me, about what she wanted to talk about in the beginning to this date, if she just didn't feel someone was following us.

Wait, why did I think of this as a date? It's obviously not gonna be that.

Either way, I took my phone about to type a message to a certain someone.

"Hey, Jiro," I looked up to a concern expression. "Are you okay?" Asked Eri.

"Yeah, just think I found the source of our problem." I typed down the message.

It was only a hunch. It could be wrong, and I would just be acting out of anger, thus potentially hurt her feelings.

Today was fun. I actually liked it. I liked Eri.

But if today was just Eri wanting to hang out. As just friends, which was fine, it doesn't meant this person didn't cause us, me a lot of problems.

I should think this through, and not be hasty.

I pressed Send.

Jiro - "I FUCKING SEE YOU!"

A few moments later.

Tsubasa - "I'M SORRY! I WAS JUST WORRIED! I DIDN'T MEAN TO BOTHER YOU! HONEST!"

I placed the phone face down, nearly slamming it into the table, as I pinched the bridge of my nose, closed my eyes, breathing deeply to calm down, ignoring the ping sounds of my phone.

"Jiro," Eri spoke up. I looked back making sure to smile and look friendly. I wasn't angry at her. Eri wasn't the one who wasted today. No, today wasn't a waste, calm the fuck down. "I'm sorry if I bothered you today."

"Don't...don't apologize. You didn't bother me. Today was fun." I said hastily back, before looking away focusing on my breathing. Oddly enough my frustration was keeping the feeling of tears away from my eyes, almost like they were drying up in the heat in my chest. "What did you want to say to me at the start? Why did you invite me out today?" I finally asked.

"I, um," Eri stumbled for words for the first time, since I could remember. "I...wanted to ask you to help me practice how to confess to a boy. Since well, you're a boy too. And I did want to hang out, because it always felt like you were avoiding me."

"I'm not, I mean..." Now it's my turn to stumble for words. I covered my face with my hand, as I took a deep breath. As I let it out, I now felt tired, as if my mind finally caught up to my body. "I just...didn't think we had anything in common. That's my bad. You were Akira and Kouji's friend, and I didn't want to seem like I was intruding when you're around, so I kept some space, that's all."

"No, no! You weren't intruding," Eri quickly said back, waving her hands around. She looked like an adorable hamster, making chuckle at the image. "Seriously, I should have said something, and...that's on me. I'm sorry, if I made you feel excluded."

"No, look, that's on me, I'm sorry and...let's just stop apologizing." I chuckled to which she thankfully did so back.

"Hehe, guess we're just two Sorry Birds."

"I don't get that reference."

Apparently it was San*io character that were popularized by appearing in a Per*ona game.

I fucking hate this world with it's parody companies and media. Seriously.

"Anyways, about the confession part." I sat up and addressed Eri as seriously as I can, pushing down any confusing emotions, so I can just focus on being a good friend. "There is no practice. There is no secret. Just like in Kun Fu Polar Bear." Fuck this world. "'There is no secret sauce'." I swear if there was ever a reason for a Self Insert to be a supervillain in this world, it's all the parodies. "You just go up to the person, I'm guess Akira or Kouji,"

"Eeek!"

Sweet, right on the money.

"And say 'I like'..." I can't say 'you'. It would feel too much like I'm actually saying it. That's too embarrassing. "You know, them."

"Right!" Eri nodded seriously with a serious pout. "I just go up and say 'I like them'!"

"D-Don't use that exact wording but basically the point." I'm almost worried she'd actually do that. "Also don't bother with hints. Everyone says 'communication is key' so I will tell you right now, as a guy," I held my hands together to emphasis my seriousness. "With my full life experience as a guy, don't bother with hints. You need to be obvious, you need to be blunt."

"No hints, got it."

"I can not stress this enough. Do not try to communicate anything, relationship-wise, with hints. Guys don't get them, we won't understand. Your hints means nothing to us!"

""Yes, love coach, sir!""

Eri and I slowly turned to the side to see all the cosplay maids listening very intently to my lecture.

After a bit of embarrassed shuffling they went back to work. Eri and I couldn't help but laugh at this sudden random situation.

I heard later on, there was a sudden jump of confessions in that maid cafe. Not sure if I was to thank, but I'll take the credit anyways.

"Kouji!"

"Um, yes, Eri-chan?"

Eri confront Kouji the next day as the four of us hanged out again. Akira was standing next to me, after saying thanks for indulging and enduring Eri yesterday. I told him it wasn't that bad, and even fun, which was mostly true.

"I like!" Eri looked toward me for a second and I gave her a thumbs up. "Them!"

"T-them!?...Them what?"

I covered my face with both hands.

"Y-You know, them!" Eri desperately tried to gesture to all of Kouji.

"Do you mean his junk?"

I turned to Akira with my jaw dropped, as he looked on with a mischievous smirk.

"W-What?" Cried out Kouji in fright.

"NO! I mean, technically, but no! That's not what I meant!" Eri said back, waving her arms in panic.

"KYAAAAA!" Kouji screamed while covering himself.

I laughed so hard I think I almost fainted.

There are perks to living in an anime world, every once in a while.