Passing notes.
For students, it's the most common form of idle chatter, second only to whispering.
It usually appears in classes taught by strict, sharp-eared teachers, or in extremely quiet environments.
With a piece of paper and a pen, two desk-mates can chat from the south to the north, from family backgrounds to mobile games.
In the library, where everyone was studying quietly, it wasn't that you couldn't talk in low voices.
But our kind-hearted and beautiful Shiina Hiyori still chose to use note-passing to ask her rare friend this question.
[If you had one chance to leave a message for your favorite author, what would you say?]
…What kind of question was that?
Looking at the line on the paper, Asakusa Tetsu raised an eyebrow.
Leaving messages and such—most authors nowadays had social media accounts. As long as you tagged them, they'd usually see it.
So the key point of this question was "directly leave a message."
Translated a bit, it was basically:
"If you had a chance to meet an author you really like in real life, what would you do?"
"..."
Normally, when people encountered a question, they'd first think about the answer, then consider related things.
But Asakusa was different.
He preferred to guess the other person's motive first.
So…
Time for speculation.
Why would the library's resident NPC suddenly ask this?
One: She just had a random thought and asked a hypothetical question.
Two: She saw him supervising others doing problems nonstop and thought he looked too idle, so she decided to mess with him.
Three: She had a chance to leave a message for her favorite author and wanted toreference his opinion.
Four: She liked him.
During student years, it wasn't uncommon to set up all kinds of hypothetical situations and discuss what you'd do under those conditions.
The most common ones were:
"If you had money, what would you do first?"
"If you were an adult, what would you do?"
"If, if, if—"
Most of these were just thoughtless, spur-of-the-moment questions.
But sometimes, they showed that you wanted to understand the other person more deeply.
In other words—
She liked him, so she asked this.
After a mental storm, Asakusa reached a conclusion that even he found ridiculous.
What a cringe self-centered guy.
Whether she liked him or not, it probably wasn't that simple.
Maybe because of his looks.
Maybe because they had spent some time together in the library.
He figured Shiina Hiyori probably had a bit of goodwill toward him.
But goodwill was just goodwill.
He naturally had goodwill toward all pretty girls, but that didn't mean he liked all of them.
…Still, messages, huh?
The moment he saw that word, he thought of the messages he hadn't received in days.
He'd gotten two messages from Little Princess and Handprint Sis at the end of April.
But after that, it was like the function vanished completely.
He'd thought Horikita, after becoming friends with Kushida, might leave him a message.
But she seemed to have forgotten about it entirely.
…Could it be that Hiyori was asking this because she planned to send him a message?
The thought suddenly popped into his head.
But he quickly denied it.
"Message" wasn't a diary-exclusive word.
Thinking about what to write only now would be way too late.
Besides, would anyone really treat the person behind the diary as their "favorite author"?
Whether they liked him or not aside, writing a diary didn't make him an author.
And if that were true, asking him in person how to write a message to himself…
That'd be pretty awkward.
Smiling, Asakusa stopped overthinking her motive and began seriously considering how to answer.
No need to think too hard.
This wasn't an exam.
But if he really had such a chance…
Picking up his pen, he wrote his answer on the paper and passed it back to Hiyori.
"..."
Perfectly timed, the library doors opened again.
The long-late Ichinose Honami and Kanzaki Ryūji arrived and sat down beside him and Shiranami Chihiro.
"How's it going, how's it going?" Ichinose whispered to Chihiro.
Chihiro quietly pushed her "results" over.
After glancing at the notebook, Ichinose smiled and whispered in her ear:
"Oh, not bad."
"Nice job, nice job."
Her gentle voice and breath brushed past Chihiro's ear.
Her earlobes instantly turned red.
Having someone you like talk to you like that—how could you not react?
Great.
She felt like she could work twice as hard now.
After encouraging Chihiro, Ichinose slowly stood up, moved behind Asakusa's chair, grabbed the backrest, and leaned forward.
In the same whispering-by-the-ear way, she softly said:
"Asakusa-kun is amazing too~"
"..." Without a word, Asakusa raised his hand and pushed her back.
Was she comforting a kid?
Anyway, aside from the absent Shibata Sō, Ichinose's study group was now complete.
Though only Chihiro really needed to work harder, having "atmosphere members" was also important.
When you looked up wanting to slack off and saw everyone else still studying, you'd somehow think:
Maybe I should keep going a bit longer.
"..."
Soon, the group entered study mode.
Aside from pages turning, only the scratching of pens could be heard.
Shiina Hiyori didn't intend to disturb Asakusa again.
She quietly unfolded the paper he'd returned.
On it, Asakusa had written:
[I'd ask him what it feels like to French-kiss Herzog]
Shiina Hiyori: "...?"
…Which author is that supposed to be?
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