Ch. 10

~Pov Tatsuya~

 'Oh man, that was one long ass conversation…' thought Tatsuya as he stretched his arms into the air, 'still, this really as anime world, huh?' The conversation with Koro-sensei still fresh in his mind, 'bright side is, I at least was able to score direct admission for not only myself but the other two as well' Tatsuya recalled how hard he had to try and butter Koro-sensei up to give the other two some help as well, 'though… this means they'll be dragged into this mess too' thought Tatsuya as he rubbed his temples, already trying to plan how to tell them about this whole mess

 "Knowing those two idiots though, they'll jump at the opportunity to help me out" chuckled Tatsuya, "well time to get some lunch and head back, I hate this sun" he said as tried covering his face with his hand, the summer sun blaring down on him

 After walking for a bit, Tatsuya had finally arrived at the small store near his apartment, before pausing and wondering whether he should approach the young blonde currently perusing the assortments of vegetable the store currently had

 'Well… Let's not get involved any more than I have to' he decided to not approach Mahiru, he honestly had nothing to do with her, so it would make it seem like he was trying too hard to get to talk to her

 After Tatsuya decided not to bother the girl, he quickly made his way to the ramen aisle, 'man, I wish one of us could cook…' he thought as he grabbed an armful of cheap ramen, enough to last him the week 

 Having grabbed enough ramen to last him a while, Tatsuya slowly shuffled his way to the register, to pay for his food and finally head home, as the cashier was scanning each of the cups, Mahiru who had also finished her browsing stood silently behind Tatsuya, silently judging his eating habits, 'is he really gonna eat all of that…?'

 After scanning the last of Tatsuya's items, he paid the cashier and was handed his bags, as he turned to leave, he noticed Mahiru standing right besides him, slightly smiling in her direction and nodding his head acknowledging the girl, he stepped to the side and headed back home, to probably try and take a nap

 As Tatsuya slowly made his way home, carrying two plastic bags full of ramen, Mahiru had hurried to try and catch up to Tatsuya, "you'll get sick eating only ramen"

 Hearing Mahiru's soft voice caught Tatsuya off guard, not expecting someone to talk to him, "Yeah…"

 "If I could cook, I wouldn't be eating ramen" lamented Tatsuya in a half joking manner

 "Hmm…" responded Mahiru as she got lost in thought, as the two walked side by side silently

 'I wonder if she's still somewhat scared to be out alone?' Thought Tatsuya, 'well, if I can bring her mind some sort of ease, I don't mind the silence' 

 After what Tatsuya would consider a grueling silent walk to his apartment, Mahiru walked away with out saying a word to him, seemingly lost in thought

 Not paying the girl much attention, Tatsuya decided to head inside and put away his absurd amount of ramen, Tatsuya then decided to lay on his bed and scroll through his phone; after unlocking his phone he chose to actually check what the phone contained 

 'I wonder if this body had the tendency to post everything about his life online' Tatsuya asked himself, as he noticed his old self had a few social media apps installed on his phone 

 As he clicked on the first one, what seemed to be this worlds version of insta*ram, quickly swapping over to his own profile Tatsuya noticed there weren't many photos, and the ones that had been posted seemed to be a couple of years old by this point, 'I think these were posted during the first year of middle school?' Tatsuya asked himself as he took notice of the pictures publish date, 'then why do I have so many followers?' He continued as he saw the whopping 10,000 people that had chosen to follow him on this platform, 'I haven't posted anything interesting on here in ages'

 The last post Tatsuya seemed to have made was a picture that contained himself and his two friends, with the caption that read 'Glad to have you back, if even only for a little while', a picture meant to capture his little get together with Akira, who seemed to be stopping by in Japan to visit his friends, 'glad to know that even in this world, we are still as close as ever'

 As Tatsuya kept scrolling, eventually onto the other social media apps the phone had, encountering the same situation, little having been posted but with an absurd number of followers, Tatsuya slowly began to doze off with his phone in his hand, until finally he ended up passing out

 After only thirty minutes Tatsuya was awoken from his sleep by a soft knock at his door, groggily standing up and heading for the door, Tatsuya was surprised to see Mahiru at his doorstep, not wanting to keep the girl waiting he quickly opened the door, "Oh, hey" Tatsuya said, a hint of surprise in his voice, "Did ya need something?" He asked

 "Quite the opposite in fact" said Mahiru as she handed him a plastic container, "I seem to have made too much food for myself, and since I saw your current eating habits, I figured you could use the help" after she finished her sentence, she began walking away before Tatsuya rushed back out, calling for her, "Hey wait!"

 "Are you sure? I really don't mind the ramen" he said

 "If you don't want it, feel free to toss it out" said Mahiru coldly, "I simply thought wasting food would be a bad idea"

 "Oh, no I mean I'm grateful" said Tatsuya, backing off a bit at the girls' sharp gaze, "I'll be sure to return the container sometime later!"

 "Mm." Said Mahiru simply in return, as she headed back into her apartment, leaving Tatsuya alone in the hall, wondering exactly why the girl had chosen to feed him, 'Is eating cup ramen that bad?' He asked himself, before shrugging it off and heading for Kurayama's apartment, 'I'm sure that idiot has forgotten to eat' thought Tatsuya as he recalled his friends' habit to forget to take care of himself, sometimes becoming too enthralled by whatever subject he was researching, causing both Akira and Tatsuya to have to forcefully pull him away from his computer screen

 Swiftly knocking on the door, Tatsuya was surprised to see that Kurayama had actually opened the door, "hey man, ya hungry?" He asked, as his friend slightly nodded and made way for Tatsuya to enter his apartment, as the two sat on the floor, Tatsuya made mention of the lack of furniture their places seemed to have, "we should really buy a table or something, would make the place seem more… homey?" he said

 As the two quietly ate the food provided by Mahiru, Kurayama couldn't help but ask, "did you make this?"

 "Nah, a friend of mine had leftovers" responded Tatsuya with a mouthful of food

 "Yeah, I figured" Said Kurayama, "Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Asked Tatsuya, "I mean… the foods actually edible, it's amazing actually" 

 Tatsuya having never been one to cook could only grumble as he continued to stuff his face with Mahiru's food, 'I get what Kura is saying thought, this is amazing!'

 After the two had finished their small meal Tatsuya asked Kurayama what he had been up to while he and Akira were away, "Oh that?"

 "At first I decided to catch up on some studying, make sure I was ready for the Shuchi'in entrance exam" explained Kurayama, "but that plan fell short once I realized that everything on the test we'd already learned back in our old world" he continued, which earned a small nod from Tatsuya, "makes sense, these worlds seem to be pretty much identical, barring the anime characters n' such" said Tatsuya while in front of Kurayama's sink, currently cleaning the plastic container given to him by Mahiru

 "Seeing as I don't really need to study up on anything, I then decided to do some research on how the three of us actually fit into this world" said Kurayama

 "Right, that reminds me" cut in Tatsuya, before Kurayama could explain what he went about during his day, but Kurayama only nodded, knowing that his friend wasn't one to cut his friends off with out a reason, "when I finally met up with the mysterious message person, the weirdest thing happened" he said

 "Weirdest, weird how?" Asked Kurayama

 "When I saw this mysterious person, I immediately knew who he was" explained Tatsuya, "Almost like my body was acting on muscle memory, his name then suddenly popped into my head"

 "Which like, thank the goddess right, it would have been awkward coming up with an excuse to not remember a person" said Tatsuya which earned a small nod from Kurayama, "And that not the only thing, as our conversation went on, bit and pieces of my memories started flooding in, almost like my body was catching me up on what it had been up to before we were sent here"

 After Tatsuya finished talking, Kurayama fell silent, slightly touching his chin as he tried forming an explanation as to what might have caused this to happen, letting his friend finish gathering his thoughts, Tatsuya wiped the plastic container so there wasn't any water left on it, before leaving it on the counter and joining his friend on the floor

 Once a few minutes had passed, Kurayama finally spoke, "well… It makes sense that your body would have its own life experience"

 "How do you mean?" Asked Tatsuya

 "Yeah, I mean we obviously went to middle school, the two of us together at least" said Kurayama as he motioned to his school I.D, "So our bodies weren't just magically made the moment we arrived" explained Kurayama

 "And in doing so, it makes sense you'd have memories you yourself never actually experienced" said Kurayama to Tatsuya, who was sitting on the floor attentively listening to his friends' words, "the only question remaining is, why are they only appearing in bit and pieces when you encounter certain things or people?" Asked Kurayama in a quiet voice

 "Maybe Gaia-sama didn't wanna overload our brains?" Said Tatsuya, "I mean the fact that we were sent here with our memories intact, having to get adjusted with our new world, having a ton of memories suddenly flooding in would have been too much to handle all at once"

 "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, this does pose a bit of a problem however" said Kurayama, already having processed the fact that they had taken over bodies that seemed to belong to someone else, "If we keep falling into a daze when we encounter certain situations, people are gonna start asking questions"

 "Nah man, I think you're beginning to over think things again," said Tatsuya as he started to pacify his friend's anxious nature, "people overlook the most obvious things at times, you shouldn't worry about that"

 "You're right, once again. Thanks" said Kurayama as he started to calm down, his paranoid nature having gotten the better of him once again

 "Moving on from that though, what kinda results did you get from your research?" Asked Tatsuya, seeing his friend having finally calmed down

 "Oh, that?" Responded Kurayama, "I actually didn't get to do much of it, I wanted to be thorough with the whole studying thing, so I read a few of our middle schools textbooks to make sure it was mostly all the same" he said, sheepishly rubbing his head, at the thought of his nature once again having taken over him, causing him to thoroughly check everything, making sure he knew enough to pass the exams

 "I see, saved you sometime then" said Tatsuya in response, slightly shaking his head at his friend, "how so?" Asked Kurayama

 "Well, this means you don't actually have to run a full background check on the three of us, right?" Said Tatsuya, "I mean if things are slowly coming back to us then why waste the effort, plus I'm sure you'd just run yourself ragged trying to find answers to that you simply cannot find online" he continued, nodding his head sagely

 "I… Guess that makes sense" responded Kurayama wearily, wishing he could have the same carefree nature his friends had, "I envy how laid back you are with most things, Tatsuya"

 "Meh, don't worry about that" said Tatsuya, "Your overthinking habits have saved us like, most of the time dude, so don't even worry!"

 "I guess you are right, you two idiots would probably have died long before that building collapsed in on us, without me" said Kurayama