That day, the time had already passed six in the evening.
Hiiragi Shuichi didn’t choose to bother the Fujita couple for another meal.
He simply boiled himself a cup of instant noodles and made do with that.
After finishing the noodles, he should have been putting in extra effort during his usual evening study time, absorbing more knowledge.
But Hiiragi Shuichi’s mind was unusually unable to focus on his workbook.
“Love, huh…”
Hiiragi Shuichi suddenly found himself pondering that word.
It wasn’t because a teenage boy’s heart was stirring with spring fever.
It was just that when he thought about matters concerning love, he always felt that everyone reacted differently once love took root.
Even though he’d already written Aoba Tomoyo’s name in the notebook, he still had no idea how she would respond.
What if, heaven forbid, she rejected meeting him precisely because she liked Hiiragi Shuichi?
That didn’t seem impossible either…
After all, his impression of Aoba Tomoyo was limited to being nasty, calculating, pretty… things like that.
At the end of the day, he had zero understanding of who she was inside.
As for what she would actually do after falling in love with him, Hiiragi Shuichi honestly couldn’t gauge it.
Earlier, when he’d confirmed the notebook’s effectiveness, Hiiragi Shuichi had gotten excited for the first time in ages, a little less than calm.
Now that he’d settled down and looked back, all sorts of considerations came flooding in.
“Love alone isn’t enough… Hmm, can the notebook’s rules manipulate her behavior?…”
Thinking that, Hiiragi Shuichi closed his workbook, pulled the notebook off the bookshelf, and decided to review the rules again.
Because there were so many rules and they were so detailed, Hiiragi Shuichi’s eyes started to ache as he read the dense lines of tiny English text under the somewhat dim electric light.
“After writing a name, there’s also 6 minutes and 40 seconds… found it!”
[After writing the target’s name, you have 40 seconds to write the reason for falling in love after the name. After 40 seconds, the reason will be automatically instilled into the target]
[After writing the reason, you receive 6 minutes and 40 seconds to write additional actions the target will take due to their feelings, or before those feelings arise. The maximum control duration is 7 days. In other words, after the 8th day, regardless of the target’s subsequent actual behavior, they will inevitably develop feelings]
“So it does exist… but the time’s already passed.”
Hiiragi Shuichi closed the notebook, planning to get in contact with Aoba Tomoyo.
No matter what method he used, even if it meant deception, he had to get her to come out.
As long as he could see her face and talk to her, there would be a way to exploit the affection she’d developed—the affection for the boy named “Hiiragi Shuichi”—to help him get through this crisis.
He opened his phone, scrolled through his contacts, and found the number saved under “Aoba Tomoyo.”
But just as his finger was about to press the dial button, his front door suddenly rang out.
“Knock knock knock——”
He quickly turned off the phone screen, sat up from the tatami, and took a few steps before suddenly remembering the still lying on the table.
“Please wait a moment!”
He called out toward the door, immediately turned back, and stuffed the notebook under his pillow.
Once he felt it was safely hidden, he finally went back to open the door.
“Creak——”
The door opened outward slightly, letting out a faint squeak.
Outside, the indoor light cast a trapezoidal patch of illumination onto the hallway, falling across a beautiful girl with a somewhat melancholic expression.
It lit up half of her face while the other half remained in darkness.
School hours had long since ended, but students involved in student council work could still reasonably stay at school until after 6:30 PM.
So even though the Aoba Tomoyo before him was still wearing her Metropolitan High School uniform, it wasn’t strange at all.
In other words, she hadn’t gone home.
She’d come straight here.
She hadn’t even needed Hiiragi Shuichi to call her.
“Ah, Aoba-senpai?”
Hiiragi Shuichi hadn’t expected her to show up on her own doorstep, so he hesitated as he tested the waters with the furrow-browed Aoba Tomoyo.
But nearly half a minute had passed since the greeting, and Aoba Tomoyo just hung her head low.
She was like a carousel horse in an old amusement park with its head broken off, utterly listless and far from capable of sparking a child’s interest in play.
“Aoba-senpai? If I may ask, it’s this late. Is there something you need?”
Hiiragi Shuichi tried again, but she remained completely silent, like a vending machine that refused to dispense its drink no matter how many coins you fed it.
The second attempt still drew no reaction.
Such abnormal behavior finally let Hiiragi Shuichi breathe a sigh of relief.
‘So the notebook really did take effect.’
‘There was no reason she’d become like this within half a day otherwise.’
Hiiragi Shuichi tried closing the front door, using rejection as a way to “power on” this particular vending machine.
“Thud.”
Sure enough, Aoba Tomoyo grabbed hold of the door, murmuring in a somewhat pitiful voice.
“Don’t…”
Hiiragi Shuichi let go, and the force of her grip on the door swung it fully open, bathing her entirely in the room’s light.
Aoba Tomoyo lifted her head, her gaze somewhat terrifying.
“What’s going on here…”
“Aoba-senpai, are you feeling unwell? Would you like to come in…”
“What’s going on here?!!!”
Before Hiiragi Shuichi could finish, Aoba Tomoyo shouted in near collapse.
Then she clutched her head, her face gradually twisting from crying.
Her well-proportioned legs trembled slightly as she backed up a few steps to the corridor railing.
With a “plop,” she sat down on the ground, wrapping her arms around herself like an injured little bird.
“Why you, why you, why you!” she screamed in anguish.
Aoba Tomoyo blinked her blurry eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She lifted her head and looked at Hiiragi Shuichi, whose expression was strained, her thoughts a tangled mess.
‘Why… do I… like him?’
‘No! That’s wrong! How could this be!’
‘But then why… does my heart hurt so much…’
‘It hurts!’
‘Why did I do those awful things to him this morning? He’s so pitiful…’
‘But! But he’s a coward, a coward who stands by and does nothing… He didn’t help my dear little sister…’
‘I, am I…’
The moment Aoba Tomoyo reached that thought, her previously frantic gaze suddenly went hollow.
‘Could I have… fallen in love… out of hatred?’
In her mind, the answer to her chaotic thoughts settled into place.
Her hands, which had been clutching her shoulders, slid down and struck the concrete floor.
Hiiragi Shuichi witnessed all of this firsthand.
Beyond marveling at the notebook’s divine power, he felt strangely restless.
She was like a wounded beast before him.
For reasons he couldn’t name, Hiiragi Shuichi was reminded of who he used to be.
Back then, when his parents scolded him for being useless, he’d cried like that too.
Locking himself in his room, letting the pounding on the door continue like tinnitus he simply ignored.
Sealing the curtains tight, not because he thought a dark environment helped set the mood for his misery, but simply because he didn’t want to see anything outside the window.
Only a still, unmoving scene suited a person lost in a daze.
Hiiragi Shuichi let out a sigh, stepped over the threshold, and tried to help the collapsed Aoba Tomoyo to her feet.
Perhaps sensing the arm reaching toward her, Aoba Tomoyo slowly raised her head.
Her face was flushed red like the dying rays of sunset, and she looked at Hiiragi Shuichi with a tipsy, hazy gaze.
Soft words escaped her lips.
“Hiiragi-kun…”
The warm breath brushed against Hiiragi Shuichi’s arm, making his heart tighten.
His arm hung in midair for a few seconds before he gently grasped her arm and slowly helped her back into the room, closing the door firmly behind them.