“This is… some kind of strange notebook…”
Hiiragi Shuichi instinctively thought it was some edgy kid’s OC setting collection, but the situation reminded him of a certain suspense thriller manga that required knowing “your name.”
The scene was pretty similar, wasn’t it?
And so, an idea formed in Hiiragi Shuichi’s mind.
‘What if Aoba Tomoyo could fall in love with me… after all, she did say she only helps people close to her?’
‘No, no, no… Since when did I become so childish, actually believing in something like this prank?’
‘Reality isn’t a shonen manga. Where would something like this even happen?’
With that thought, Hiiragi Shuichi took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and decided to first check the rooftop.
Maybe someone left something up there and it got blown down, right?
But when he stepped onto the rooftop, there was no one to be found—just bedsheets swaying in the breeze and a few articles of clothing hanging on the drying rack.
Before this, Hiiragi Shuichi had never seen anyone go up to the rooftop either, so he ruled out the possibility of someone deliberately discarding it.
Who would leave such a brand-new notebook on the rooftop for so long?
Any exposure to rain or wind would’ve prevented it from looking fresh out of the factory.
How could it possibly be this pristine?
Hiiragi Shuichi suddenly felt his heartbeat quicken.
“Come to think of it…”
He immediately returned to his room and, at his small desk, carefully read through the rules written on the inside of the front cover.
[A person whose name is written in this notebook will fall in love]
[When writing a name, you must picture the person’s face in your mind, so people with the same name can be distinguished]
[Love requires two people, so a single arrow or double arrow may be used to indicate the direction of the person’s love]
[A single arrow may be used to point toward the notebook’s holder, but the holder cannot point arrows at anyone through their own writing—meaning the holder cannot make themselves fall in love with someone else by writing their own name]
[They can only make others fall in love with them]
[The moment a person’s name is written, feelings of love will immediately arise]
[It takes at most 40 seconds for the person to become aware of these feelings]
“Heh, this prank is awfully thorough… wait, thorough?”
The rules also included content about same-gender pairings being ineffective, misspelled names being ineffective, and pages torn from the still working—all extremely detailed.
But precisely because it was so thorough, Hiiragi Shuichi began to doubt whether a prankster actually existed.
The prank itself was too low-grade, yet the writing of the rules was far too detailed.
There was a contradiction in that, wasn’t there?
There were even rules written on the inside of the back cover, but Hiiragi Shuichi didn’t rush to read those trivial rules.
‘Why not just try it? After all, if it was fake, writing a name wouldn’t matter, right?’
Hiiragi Shuichi immediately spread the notebook flat and pulled the sign pen from the pen holder.
But whose name should he write?
Hiiragi Shuichi thought it over.
Since he couldn’t completely rule out the possibility of Aoba Tomoyo playing a prank, and imagining her holding this thing and laughing at him mercilessly, he decided not to write Aoba Tomoyo’s name first.
Just as Hiiragi Shuichi was hesitating over who to write, the sound of Mrs. Naoko arguing with her husband came through the wall.
“Don’t eat it! What if you eat the wrong thing? Last time your blood pressure hit 180!”
“Last time, last time! Last time you got up in the middle of the night to eat pickled plum and gave yourself a salt overload!”
“Then you got up again looking for water, and I couldn’t get a decent sleep!”
“How is that the same! Pickled plum can’t kill you!”
“Do whatever you want! We’re old and gray anyway. If I die, I die!”
“I really wasted my life marrying you! Spending the rest of my days angry!”
“…”
Listening to the endless bickering, an answer suddenly surfaced in Hiiragi Shuichi’s mind.
‘He could write the names of those two elderly people…’
Luckily, he occasionally visited the neighbors, so he happened to know the old man next door’s name.
With that decided, Hiiragi Shuichi grabbed the sign pen amidst the arguing, pictured the two of them in his mind, and wrote the following:
“Fujita Kento⇆Fujita Naoko”
He set down the pen, watched the clock’s hands tick by moment after moment, and the volume of the arguing gradually faded.
Until the only thing Hiiragi Shuichi could hear from his room was the chirping of birds outside the window.
“Did… did it work?”
Hiiragi Shuichi was somewhat astonished.
He needed definitive confirmation.
He went to the door next door, confirmed no one was around, pressed his ear against the door, and listened.
Nothing.
Hiiragi Shuichi swallowed hard and tentatively knocked on the door.
“Knock, knock, knock—”
After three knocks, Hiiragi Shuichi waited about half a minute.
There was no response at all.
“Knock, knock, knock—”
This time he knocked a bit harder, but still, no answer came.
‘Were the two old folks just hard of hearing…?’
‘This couldn’t be bad…’
At that thought, Hiiragi Shuichi’s heart started racing.
He urgently knocked on the door, but…
The door suddenly opened.
Hiiragi Shuichi’s finger, mid-knock, hung in the air.
The moment he saw Mrs. Naoko, he quickly pulled his hand back, and with it, a wave of relief washed over him.
“Oh, what’s the matter, Shuichi-kun?”
Mrs. Naoko’s voice suddenly sounded softer and more pleasant, carrying a warmth that made it seem as though she were in high spirits.
It was nothing like other old folks who would snap, “What are you banging on my door for?!”
Standing before Hiiragi Shuichi now, Mrs. Naoko was beaming from ear to ear, her very demeanor seeming to shed years off her age.
“Nothing much. I just heard you two arguing again from next door.”
“I was worried that at your age, if you got too worked up, something might happen…”
“Oh, that? Aiya, husband and wife fight, quarrel in bed, make up at the foot of the bed—even at seventy or eighty, it’s the same!”
“As long as the feelings are there, you don’t have to fear getting old!”
“Mm, you’re right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Aiyaya, you really are such a good boy! Always learning at every moment!”
“Are you feeling better from your illness?”
“Thanks to your concern, I’m much better.”
Hearing Mrs. Naoko’s praise, a small flutter of joy stirred in Hiiragi Shuichi’s heart.
“Naoko, have we got a guest?”
Fujita Kento came over upon hearing the voice, and upon seeing that it was Hiiragi Shuichi, warmly invited him to join them for lunch, saving him the trouble of cooking for himself.
Hiiragi Shuichi spent a rather pleasant afternoon at the Fujita couple’s home.
In the afternoon.
The old couple needed their rest, and Hiiragi Shuichi needed his too.
But after returning to his room, his spirits were remarkably high, with no trace of sleepiness at all.
He lay on the tatami, clutching the , his thoughts surging.
“The notebook is real… It’s real… Things couldn’t have happened that suddenly.”
“This notebook must be real…”
Perhaps, sometimes, God favored those lost and dejected children, guiding them through the fog and even bestowing blessings upon them.
Hiiragi Shuichi never imagined that something like manna from heaven could become reality in the world he lived in.
The quiet hours of the afternoon always made one drowsy, and even the hard tatami felt soft at this moment.
As his heart rate settled and he let out a sigh of relief, a wave of fatigue finally washed over Hiiragi Shuichi.
‘Desperately needing money? Tomorrow I’d be kicked out of this apartment?’
‘Impossible…’
“I won’t let that happen.”
Hiiragi Shuichi sat up, shook off the drowsiness, pulled out the sign pen, and as that incredibly beautiful yet somewhat irritating face surfaced in his mind, he wrote the following:
“Aoba Tomoyo→Hiiragi Shuichi”
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