Mahiro and the Locked Room

~~~PART 1~~~

I wanted to get Shinohara more sociable and less of a delinquent so he could properly enjoy his youth instead of wasting it on things he'll regret later. And so far, things haven't progressed much. However, I only need to be patient because slowly but surely the results will flourish. Hopefully.

But I can't put aside my own character growth for his own, I'm still in the middle of Mihari's "rehabilitation program" after all. I might be narcissistic, but I would say I'm doing fairly well for someone who wouldn't leave the house just 2 years back. All of this help is thanks to my friends and the people around me, which is what I hoped would happen to Shinohara as well.

But despite all my growth for the past 1 and a half years, I don't think I'm capable of finding more friends yet. In the end, I'm still me and old habits die hard.

One of my biggest examples of old habits die hard is my reaction to the recess bell. Everytime I hear that chime in the middle of a boring class, my brain is filled with dopamine and my excitement goes beyond the roof.

And the reason for that excitement is because I get to see scenes like these.

"Asahi, can you share me some of your sausage? I'll give you my meatballs in return."

"Thanks Momiji! I was just thinking about the same thing."

"Nayutan, there's some rice grains on your face."

"...ah…"

Aaah, what a wholesome sight.

This is way different than what I would usually see back in high school. Back then, I would eat alone at my table or some random quiet place and play games until class was back in session. Sometimes, I would fall asleep at the library where no one was present and be absent for the rest of the afternoon. If I do that now I could only imagine the kind of scolding Mihari would do to me. How scary.

"I'm kinda thirsty… What do you guys want? I'll go buy drinks."

"Melon soda please."

"I'll take cola."

"I want coffee."

"...In that case, let me buy them for you…"

Asahi was about to leave her seat to go to the vending machine before being stopped by Nayutan who had the natural instinct of helping people.

"Ah wait, let me go instead. I don't want to put more burden on Nayutan."

Feeling like I don't want to keep relying on my friends, I offered to help instead.

"...It's fine… I'll do it."

"No no no way, I'll do it."

"...Please, I insist…"

"I insist too."

Somehow, both of our kindness became the cause of a stalemate. Oh no, my social skill and intelligence levels aren't high enough to counter this situation, what do I do?!

"...No choice then… Mahiro-chan, rock paper scissors…"

A solution! Thank you so much!

Ironically, I relied on Nayutan once again to break this ordeal.

"Alright you're on! Fufufu… I'm gonna play paper."

"---ah…! That means…"

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

"Fua—! ah um— Shoot!"

I played paper.

Meanwhile Nayutan played rock.

"Hahaha! I won!"

What an easy victory brought out by me. Don't mind the fact that I was against a 13 year old girl, that's irrelevant.

Nayutan has that researcher blood in her, which makes her a very curious person. She's observant and studies her surroundings carefully. One of her favorite pastimes is even accompanying her Onee-chan at her lab. Knowing all that, I managed to gain a win by exploiting her characteristics!

Her memorable characteristic is her curious nature, which helps her academic skills. But that very same characteristic is her very detriment! If you're curious about everything, you're going to end up overthinking about everything!

So when I said I was going to play paper, she was too busy figuring out whether what I said was the truth or a lie and her misjudgment gave me that free win.

If there's a goal, I can win.

Too easy.

"Well then everyone, I'll be right back!"

"... I lost…"

I feel like I missed the entire purpose of getting drinks for everyone in the first place, but oh well.

~~~PART 2~~~

This school really is big.

I haven't really had the reason to go around the school grounds much at all and mostly kept things to myself by going to the places I actually needed to go. I had a vague layout of where certain places are but beyond the classrooms I go to and the toilets I don't frequent anything else.

The walk to the vending machine was pretty long and I was pretty nervous when I had to pass some kids I've never met. But eventually, my perseverance and determination won over my lazy attitude and managed to get everyone's drinks.

"Now then, back to class… Hyah?!"

A group of people were walking down the hallway towards my way, they were all cramped together basically creating a wall.

Now this I can't maneuver.

"Gotta go find an alternate route."

I ran to the opposite side of where I'm supposed to go. If my memory serves me right I should be able to loop around the building and eventually make it all the way back. The drinks are going to be a little warm by the time I get there but a win is still a win.

"Carrying these drinks sure is tiresome, wish I brought a bag or something."

There were 5 of us in total and I was carrying 5 cans of drinks.

In hindsight, it should've been both me and Nayutan to carry the drinks instead of making one person go. Sigh what an idiot I am. My pride got in the way of my practical thinking, I really should reflect that.

However, as I was mulling over my past decision, something caught my attention by the corner of my eye. It was the profile of somebody I knew, somebody I had just met only recently and someone who wears such a messy style of clothing you would get scolded in class if not for your name.

"Hey, that's Shinohara. What's he doing in the… Archives room? The heck is that?"

Looking up at the sign above the door, the text displayed "Archives room". Based on the name alone, it appears to be a room for archiving… Stuff. These things are too nerdy for someone like me to comprehend so I've never paid attention to this room before.

"Wait a minute, isn't this supposed to be locked? How did he enter?"

For a while all I did was stand by the front of the twin doors and stared into the room through the door window at Shinohara. He's still wearing his usual broken outfit, but there was a certain aura to his appearance that felt different than usual.

Instead of towering over me intimidatingly, instead of taking a stance to fight off another person, instead of standing still over the vegetable aisle mindlessly, right now, he's calm. He's sitting quietly on a chair, leaning against a table with his left hand supporting his chin, gazing out towards the window to the outside world.

His peaceful aura was encapsulating. It was so mesmerizing in fact that I almost forgot I was holding 5 cans of drinks and nearly dropped them.

"Hyahaha—no—! Nice! I didn't drop them!"

Phew, well that was close.

I can't believe someone could have the power to be so majestic that other people start forgetting they're holding onto medium sized cans of beverage. Anyway, back to the window.

As I turned my focus away from the cans and back to the window in front of me, the scenery was different. Instead of showing Shinohara sitting peacefully, it displayed the front of a messy boy's jacket.

And soon after, one of the doors opened without warning.

"H-hweh—! Ah noo—! I dropped them!"

"..."

What a blunder… After heroically saving them like last time I was too shocked to save them this time. But moreover, Shinohara is right in front of me. Standing right at the door frame with his usual emotionless expression like always.

"H-hi there, Shinohara-kun… You startled me a bit…"

"I'll help you."

Without even responding, he quickly bent down and gathered the dropped cans on the floor to retrieve them for me. But instead of giving them to me one by one and letting me put them into positions comfortable to carry, he dropped all 5 cans on my arms like a box and called it a day. It's a miracle that it didn't drop for a second time and I definitely would have preferred if he didn't do that but beggars can't be choosers.

"Thanks…"

"You're being too noisy, please be quiet."

As cold as ever, huh? At least he could've said you're welcome.

But he never said you're welcome, instead, he grabs the door handle to close it. But I can't let that happen.

"Ha—Wait, don't close the door!"

I can't just let a perfect opportunity slip away.

And after stopping the door from closing, of course, he didn't say anything and only stared back.

"I actually want to enter the archives room but it's always locked, since it's open now can I come in?"

"...Sure."

His grip let go of the door and proceeded to walk back to his chair. I quickly waste no time for this opportunity and let myself in as well.

"Pardon for the intrusion…"

This is perfect.

According to my dating sim knowledge, I'm still somewhat of a stranger to Shinohara. And that is a problem, so how do I fix it? Well, if it goes where the script is supposed to, I just need to encounter him a bunch of times for the affection level to naturally go up. It doesn't matter what kind of encounter it was, as long as we get to meet and talk, that's enough.

Of course, I'm not trying to conquer him and make him fall in love, so theoretically, I only need a bit of that affection to make the both of us as friends.

I had already planned to follow him again after school, but this is even better.

"So uh… Do you frequent this place, Shinohara-kun?"

"..."

No reply.

He didn't move an inch. He only kept staring at the window outside while ignoring my presence.

Sigh, this is gonna be harder than I thought. This is why I needed to come up with a conversation topic earlier! I should've come up with one sooner!

With no other options than to quietly calm down and place all the drinks on the desk, I pulled out a chair diagonal to him and sat peacefully while contemplating on what to say.

What should I talk about? About yesterday? About his relationship with Kujo? Wait, is that too personal? Argh, but if it's not any of those, what else do we talk about?! In the first place, what does he even like? Well he's rich, so he must like money right?--- or not, what kind of thinking is that?! I'm such an idiot…

It was at moments like these where I realized I can't just rely on dating sims to make human relations. Instead, I have to go out into the real world to talk to people normally. Aww Jeez! Why can't the real world be as easy as the game world?! This is taking too much of my own energy.

Feeling defeated, I lay my head flat on the desk. I took a side peak at him to see exactly what he was doing. And to no one's surprise, he's still looking out of the window.

He's been doing that for a while now… What's he looking at?

Thinking I had a lead, I got up quietly and went behind him to examine what it was he was so diligently staring.

"That's… Just an alleyway."

I thought I was imagining things, but following the direction of his glare, it ended at the alleyway.

Am I missing something? Maybe I just didn't see it?

But no matter where I looked, he was just staring right at that alleyway just outside of the school grounds. The alleyway in question was wedged in between a ramen shop and a small candy store and no one was seen in sight.

So then, if it really is the alleyway he's staring at, what's so special about it?

I decided to wait it out for a bit to see if anything will happen.

I've changed seat positions to be closer to him, or more specifically, I'm directly behind him. This guy really is tall… If I try sitting at the chair next to me, I won't be able to see the alleyway very well, so I had no choice but to sit behind him.

And trust me, no matter how much I wedge and try to get out of this spot, then I wouldn't be able to see the target.

I suppose there was another option, which was the option of sitting next to him, but let's not go there shall we?

And thus I waited behind this tall guy.

And waited.

And waited.

And I almost fell asleep but I still waited.

And as I checked my phone, apparently only 5 minutes had passed. The hell? Was I really that bored that 5 mere minutes felt like an eternity? Now this feels kind of stupid. I also need to deliver these drinks to my friends, which I may or may not have forgotten about for a second.

Alright I give up. 5 mere minutes may have been too little for everyone else, but the atmosphere of this room was starting to make me nod off a little and I still have other things to do.

But I can see why he likes this room now. It's quiet, the large window was pouring a lot of heat into the room which makes this very cozy. And not to mention there's also a very majestic feeling of being surrounded by old, worn out books.

I wish this place was open more often. They always lock this place.

But, my friends are waiting, so I need to leave.

"I'm gonna go back to class. Bye, Shinohara-kun."

This mission failed…

I didn't even get to have a short talk with him. His affection points had not increased at all which prompted me to go back to plan A; the after school meeting.

…Or so I thought.

I had already accepted defeat, but something unexpected happened

Just as I wasn't looking, the window behind me suddenly opened and the thundering noise of the sliding window hitting the wall sent a shiver down my spine.

"Wha wha what was that?!"

Checking behind me, I saw Shinohara on the window, about to jump out and head outside.

Uuuh, this is only the first floor of the building so theoretically he should be fine but the shock of how fast everything went by made me numb and stood in place.

And before I could question him or stop him, he's already out of the window

"W-wait!"

Either I was ignored or he couldn't hear me, he didn't turn back and kept going.

I tried looking at the alleyway to see if I'd missed something, and just as it was about to disappear, I saw the sliver of someone's arm walking into the narrow alley.

Was he chasing that guy? This is bad, I don't want him to go out and cause a pointless commotion again. But what should I do? If I just ran off like he did, that would mean more waiting time for my friends and surely by then they would get worried again. I haven't even given them their drinks yet.

Is there some way to inform them somehow? Someway to give them the drinks while also stopping Shinohara?

Sigh, I could really use someone's help right now.

"...Heeeh, so this is what you've been doing all this time…"

In the most unexpected of times, in the most desperate of times, she's always there. My second savior. Who am I talking about?

Well it's none other than,

"N-Nayutan?!"

"...Looks like you were pretty busy, onii-san…"

"W-what are you doing here?"

"...We were wondering what took you so long… turns out Onii-san was having fun with a guy… it makes me feel lonely…"

"It's not like that! Anyway, I'm thankful you came here. Can you deliver these drinks back to everyone please? And tell them I'm just going to the toilet. I need to do something real quick."

"...O-okay… but Onii-san, are you really going to chase after that guy…?"

"Well yeah. Anyway, give everyone my regards, I'll be back soon!"

"... I've never seen Onii-san this serious before…"

Sorry Nayutan, I needed your help in the end again. I'll treat you to something later, I promise!

~~~PART 3~~~

The students of a certain middle school in a certain area of Japan are as lively as ever. Everyone's enjoying their well deserved lunch break and chatters were heard all over the building.

One of those chattering were the footsteps of a certain blue-haired student who was sent out by her friends to check up on their other friend who suspiciously hadn't returned from errand duty. The blue-haired student had been worried for her friend who she thought was in need of assistance. Such things happen all the time, and she was prepared to help her in any way she could. But never in her history of helping this one particular friend that she thought they would have a different kind of problem.

One, where she could not directly solve on her own.

"Ah, there you are, Nayutan! Hm…? Where's Mahiro-chan?"

Nayutan had returned to her classroom where her friends were waiting for her and their friend's arrival, but only one out of the two came back.

"...Mahiro-chan seemed like she needed to go to the toilet… so I came here first…"

"Is that so…"

Nayutan had successfully done all of her tasks given to her. She brought her friends the drinks they asked for, and convinced them that Mahiro was fine and needn't be concerned.

However, despite the completion, she feels troubled.

Perhaps she was troubled over the fact that she couldn't fully help Mahiro this time, or perhaps she was troubled because she still didn't know the kind of relationship Mahiro and 'that guy' was.

Whatever the reason may be, it drained her appetite and made her lose interest over her food. Her mind instead wandered off thinking about the encounter she saw earlier.

Nayutan has some researchers blood in her. She's a curious person by nature and is very observant. If she does not know about something, she studies it very carefully. She also likes to overanalyze and try cracking the mysteries around her.

And today, she had met a mystery so endearing, so thought provoking, that she just can't help but to find out the truth.

"...Onii-san… What are you up to…"