By the time night fell, Hanadasaki Ame returned home.
Most of the things he had bought earlier as part of his excuse to strike up a conversation with Yukinoshita Yukino had been left at the villa. The only thing he brought back with him was a little deer plush toy.
His father, Hanadasaki Tatsuya, had not come home. Who knew where he had gone off to with Nagasaki Nozomi? Hanadasaki Ame could not be bothered to ask.
After grabbing a can of Monster from the refrigerator at home, he slowly drank from it as he made his way next door to the Nibutani residence.
Entering the yard, he pressed the video doorbell beside the entrance. In less than a minute, Nibutani Shinka came pattering over in slippers and opened the door.
"Good evening!"
She greeted him with a bright smile, full of energy, like a lively little deer.
Hanadasaki Ame suddenly remembered the deer he had once seen in Nara… well, fine, deer were not lively at all. They were dull and blank-faced.
He handed over the little deer plush toy he was carrying and said,
"Good evening. Got any ideas for how to kill time tonight?"
Nibutani Shinka accepted it with delight, not even bothering to ask whether he had specifically bought it for her.
She had already decided that he had.
"Nope. Want to play games together?"
As she spoke, she took a pair of slippers down from the shoe cabinet beside the door and handed them to Hanadasaki Ame so he could change and come inside.
After changing shoes, Hanadasaki Ame followed her further into the house.
"Even though I hardly ever play games, you know as well as I do that whenever something requires skill or brains, I'm extremely good at it. Are you planning to lose all night?"
"Heh-heh~ Then just try it and see!"
Nibutani Shinka smiled with a hint of mystery but did not explain.
Hanadasaki Ame was not in a hurry to ask. After greeting Nibutani Shinka's parents, who were watching television, he followed her to her room.
Just as Nibutani Shinka often came to his room, he also visited hers frequently. Her parents were long used to it and paid no mind.
Whether they were simply childhood friends, or whether there was hope for something more, either way it was all fine. Her parents had no intention of interfering.
The moment he entered Nibutani Shinka's room, so full of girlish atmosphere, Hanadasaki Ame immediately saw the game displayed on her computer screen—
Yasuhati!
He could not help shooting her a rather dark look.
This stupid game does not even use your hands!
It was a voice-controlled game. The volume of the player's voice controlled the little note character on the screen, making it jump.
Its real charm lay in one thing:
forcing the player to make ridiculous noises!
It was a bit maliciously amusing, but Hanadasaki Ame had no intention of losing.
He was extremely confident in his vocal control too!
After shutting the doors and windows to make sure they would not disturb the neighbors too much, they began playing, taking turns controlling the note through the obstacles with their voices.
Nibutani Shinka had learned a bit of music theory before, but she was no match for Hanadasaki Ame, who actually had genuine talent in that area. After failing several times, she began resorting to off-field methods, occasionally using her hands to interfere with him and disrupt his vocalizations.
Hanadasaki Ame did not show her any mercy in return. He retaliated in kind.
Under this vicious style of competition, they did not spend long actually playing the game before it escalated into a scuffle, with Hanadasaki Ame ending up pinned to the floor by Nibutani Shinka, his hands trapped.
Nibutani Shinka looked down at him from above, her breathing slightly quickened from the exertion. At some point she had forgotten whether she had won or lost the game, completely ignoring the sound effects still ringing from the computer.
She felt that tonight—
she was going to win.
Seeing that she was becoming a little too flustered, a little too carried away, Hanadasaki Ame said:
"A little while ago, I met an interesting girl. She never loses."
Nibutani Shinka's eyes immediately cleared.
Her IQ and EQ both snapped back into place.
She let go of Hanadasaki Ame, then simply flopped down beside him and asked in a strange tone,
"And then?"
"And then she became a planned member of my institute. She has the capital to keep winning."
Hanadasaki Ame answered softly.
The girl he meant was, naturally, Shinjou Akane.
"Getting along with that kind of girl would be exhausting."
Nibutani Shinka muttered a disparaging remark.
"Perhaps. Then today, I met another interesting girl."
Hanadasaki Ame did not avoid talking about other girls in front of Nibutani Shinka, because she understood perfectly well that he hardly had any male friends at all.
His overly cute appearance was a challenge even to other boys. Very few of them dared gamble with their sexual orientation and come close to him.
Hanadasaki Ame himself did not mind that in the least. If anything, spending all day interacting with soft, adorable girls suited him much better.
"What kind of girl?"
"She's… only sort of alright."
Hanadasaki Ame weighed his words and gave a rather subtle evaluation.
"That already sounds awkward."
Nibutani Shinka tilted her head slightly and glanced at him.
He was not seriously planning for his entire research team to consist of cute girls, was he!?
"Yeah. A very awkward girl. She's not a genius in scientific research, so I originally had no intention of inviting her into the team."
"But?"
"But she wants to join with funding."
"..."
Nibutani Shinka rolled her eyes.
Right.
Hanadasaki Ame had run into a rich girl.
Granted, he did not actually lack money himself, but there was no reason to reject an angel investor either.
After thinking it over a little, Nibutani Shinka felt a rather strong sense of crisis rising in her heart.
Hanadasaki Ame recruiting members for his institute was inevitable. She had no way to interfere.
Someone wanting to invest in the institute was, for its future, an extremely good thing. She could not stop that either.
And just like that, more and more girls were going to gather around Hanadasaki Ame.
And yet, she had no real way to deal with it.
Right now, Hanadasaki Ame was lying right beside her, within arm's reach, and yet she felt that there had to be a thick wall between them, something preventing their relationship from smoothly changing from childhood friends into lovers.
That wall had been built up bit by bit over the course of her three years of chuunibyou.
It was that past self of hers that had made it impossible for Hanadasaki Ame to see her as a maiden just coming into bloom.
Thinking of this, Nibutani Shinka gnashed her teeth in hatred toward her past chuunibyou self and wished she could travel back in time just to punch that girl hard in the face!
If she had not wasted all that time on such nonsense, then with how close she and Hanadasaki Ame already were, they might even have had a marriage arrangement by now!
And now, just as they were about to enter high school, just as she had finally begun to change her image and wash away some of the embarrassing impressions she had piled up in his mind—just as she was starting to shift his view of her from "the goofy, chuunibyou girl next door" to "a budding young maiden"—
a whole new batch of beautiful girls was about to arrive!
She had thrown away her first-mover advantage with her own hands.
Just thinking about it made her heart bleed.
After thoroughly despising her past self, Nibutani Shinka said to Hanadasaki Ame,
"With a team composition like that, won't your work efficiency become ridiculously low?"
The ratio of men to women in a team had a huge impact on work efficiency. At the moment, it looked like Hanadasaki Ame was the only boy—and that might well remain the case.
"Probably. I just hope they don't spend all day drinking tea."
Hanadasaki Ame tossed out the remark casually.
In truth, he did not care that much. As long as he himself was not held back, the research would definitely proceed efficiently.
Come to think of it, he had also tried contacting an upperclassman, Shikibu Mayu, about joining, but that had not gone very smoothly. She still had not replied, and he had no idea what the situation was.
If contacting her in advance did not work, then he would just have to wait until school started and block her in person!
He wondered whether she had a Key of the Heart…
…
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 119)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter79)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter125)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 73
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 55
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 66
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 63
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 55
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 31
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 31
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 31
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