Tuesday Night — The Shinomiya Residence
Hayasaka Ai was performing her usual duties: attending to her mistress, managing household affairs, and, at this particular moment, preparing for what she suspected would be an unusually exhausting conversation.
Kaguya Shinomiya sat at her desk, a textbook open before her, knowledge points murmuring from her lips.
Her eyes, however, kept drifting toward the door.
She's not studying, Hayasaka observed with the weary precision of long experience. She's waiting.
Tomorrow was Wednesday. Exams loomed. And yet here sat Kaguya Shinomiya, last-minute cramming opportunity be damned, preparing to engage in activities detrimental to both herself and others.
Specifically: disrupting Sakurai Saki's study plan by forcing Hayasaka to engage him in romantic conversation.
My grades won't suffer, Hayasaka acknowledged. Her academic performance was, by design, meticulously average—a consistent mid-range placement that sometimes made Sakurai Saki's eye twitch with suspicion.
(It's well-known that perfect scores announce competence, but perfectly controlled mediocrity announces either a genius in hiding or a future protagonist of a light novel. Hayasaka was simply maintaining her "gal" persona. Gals who worked part-time every day had no business scoring in the top percentile.)
"Hayasaka. You're here."
Kaguya's face lit up with the eager anticipation of a child about to commit minor mischief.
Or, more accurately, a strategist about to execute a targeted romantic disruption campaign.
She's more invested in this relationship than I am, Hayasaka realized for the thousandth time.
"Kaguya-sama." Her tone was carefully neutral. "He's my boyfriend."
Why are you this excited? Anyone observing would assume you were dating Sakura-chan.
"I'm not going to steal him." Kaguya waved a dismissive hand. "What are you so afraid of?"
Hayasaka's eye twitched.
"This is the person I like," she had once declared. "We're like sisters," Kaguya had responded. But the boundaries between sisterly interest and operational command had grown increasingly porous.
If they ever broke up—not that she planned to, but if—Hayasaka briefly imagined herself arriving at Sakurai Saki's door with a handgun and a demand for answers.
The mental image solidified.
The headline wrote itself:
[SCUMBAG BOYFRIEND SHOT DEAD BY GIRLFRIEND: SHOULD GUN CONTROL IN THIS ISLAND NATION BE LOOSENED? EXPERTS DEBATE WHETHER MUTUAL ARMAMENT COULD HAVE PREVENTED TRAGEDY]
"…"
"…Hayasaka, your expression just became concerning."
"I'm fine."
"Hurry! Hayasaka! Phone! Now!"
Kaguya extended her hand with the imperious command of a general demanding a battlefield report.
Hayasaka hesitated.
"Kaguya-sama. Do you know how to use a smartphone?"
"No!" The response was immediate, definitive, and entirely unashamed.
Her flip phone remained clutched in her other hand—a device she had used since childhood, laden with memories, packed with photographs from the past year.
It was, in many ways, quintessentially Kaguya: nostalgic,固执, and slightly behind the times.
"Speaking of which." Hayasaka seized the opportunity for diversion. "Have you considered upgrading? Communication would be much simpler."
"My phone still works."
"The Student Council has a Line group. Instant messaging. Photo sharing. Stickers."
"Line…?" Kaguya's interest flickered, then settled. "Show me."
Hayasaka unlocked her phone and handed it over.
Kaguya scrolled. Her finger paused.
She read aloud:
"My Most, Most, Most Favorite Sakura-chan ♥"
A beat of silence.
"…Hayasaka."
"Yes?"
"This is incredibly cheesy."
Hayasaka's face remained composed, but a faint warmth crept up her neck.
"I have no idea what you're—"
"And this photo." Kaguya's thumb hovered over an image. "Quite revealing. Though the size appears… inaccurate."
She tilted her head, examining with clinical detachment.
"I've heard there's software called Photoshop that can—"
"Give that back."
Hayasaka's hand moved with the speed of a striking viper.
The phone was retrieved.
Kaguya blinked at her empty fingers.
"Don't be like that! I was just getting to the interesting part!"
"I have a C." Hayasaka's voice was low, controlled, and slightly mortified. "It's much larger than Kaguya-sama's A."
The temperature in the room dropped approximately four degrees.
"…Hmm?"
Kaguya's expression shifted. The playful curiosity evaporated, replaced by something more dangerous.
That thing, her thoughts ran, is ultimately just two lumps of flesh. Less is more slender. More elegant. More refined.
Besides, you're not that much bigger than me.
"Fujiwara-san," Kaguya murmured, almost to herself, "is rumored to have an F."
"A."
"C."
Silence.
They regarded each other across the vast, unbridgeable chasm of comparative bust measurements.
Let's not do this, both thought simultaneously. This benefits no one.
"Call him." Kaguya pivoted back to her original objective with the grace of a seasoned general. "It's almost too late."
8:30 PM. Prime study hours. Sakurai Saki would undoubtedly be deep in review.
Let him be deep in romance instead, Kaguya willed. Let tomorrow's exam be filled with thoughts of Hayasaka's embarrassing photo and cringe-worthy contact name. Let him recall her instead of *formulas. *
"Call," she repeated. "Now."
Hayasaka looked at her phone.
Looked at Kaguya.
Looked at the contact name she absolutely refused to change, no matter how much teasing it invited.
"…Fine."
Tuesday Night — The Shinomiya Residence, Continued
Hayasaka Ai rarely called Sakurai Saki.
Their relationship had been built in the crucible of virtual combat—hours spent eliminating digital enemies, their communication a seamless rhythm of callouts and cover fire. Phone calls, by contrast, felt strangely formal. Intimate in a way that required actual emotional exposure rather than shared annihilation.
But under Kaguya's burning gaze—a stare of such intensity it could have melted steel—Hayasaka pressed dial.
One ring.
Two.
"Ai-chan~"
His voice emerged from the speaker, warm with pleasant surprise.
"Calling at this hour? Miss me already?"
…Because my insufferable mistress is holding me hostage and demanding entertainment.
Hayasaka's internal sigh could have powered a small turbine.
Beside her, Kaguya gestured frantically—elaborate hand signals indicating SPEAKERPHONE, VOLUME UP, and DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME.
Hayasaka complied.
"Why aren't you talking?" The rustle of paper filtered through the speaker—a pen scratching, pages turning. "Shy?"
Kaguya's eyes widened.
He's STUDYING.
While I'm NOT studying.
Every problem he solves is one more advantage he gains over me! This is the relativity of examination preparation!
She jabbed Hayasaka's waist with surgical precision.
TALK. ABOUT. ROMANCE.
"I… miss you~"
The words emerged, and Hayasaka felt her face ignite.
Double torment. Double. Torment.
Flirting with her boyfriend was embarrassing enough in private. Doing so under the clinical observation of her master—who was taking mental notes—crossed into some unexplored territory of humiliation she had never anticipated experiencing.
"Ai-chan." Saki's voice shifted, taking on a familiar pedagogical tone. "Have you been studying properly? Tomorrow's exams—"
NO.
Kaguya's hands clamped onto Hayasaka's shoulders and shook.
NO NO NO NO NO.
This is supposed to be ROMANTIC DISTRACTION, not ACADEMIC ACCOUNTABILITY.
"I've reviewed," Hayasaka interjected quickly, before her mistress could vibrate her into unconsciousness. "Now I need to relax. With you."
A pause.
Then the unmistakable sound of a pen being set down. A book closing.
"Alright. I'll relax too."
Kaguya Shinomiya's soul briefly left her body, performed a small dance of triumph, and returned.
YES.
"For Saturday's movie—" Saki's voice was thoughtful now, unhurried. "Is there anything Ai-chan wants to see?"
"Hmm." Hayasaka considered. "Not particularly. But… as long as I'm watching it with you, I'll be happy."
The words emerged naturally—instinctively, even. Just the reflexive affection of someone who meant what she said.
Then she glanced at Kaguya.
Kaguya's expression suggested she had just ingested a live insect.
…
You wanted this, Hayasaka reminded her silently. You asked for this. You are witnessing exactly what you demanded to witness.
Why do you look like you've bitten a lemon?
She muted the microphone—just in case—and addressed her mistress directly.
"Kaguya-sama. Don't you want first place this time?"
The words landed like a bucket of cold water.
Kaguya blinked.
First place.
Shirogane.
The exam.
I am currently—
She whirled and flung herself toward her desk, textbook snapping open with desperate urgency.
Behind her, the phone call continued.
"—and then after the movie, maybe we could grab dinner? There's that new place near the station—"
"That sounds perfect, Sakura-chan~"
"—and if we have time, we could walk through the park. The cherry blossoms are still—"
"Mm-hmm~"
Kaguya stared at her textbook.
The words refused to stick.
"As long as I'm watching it with you, I'll be happy."
"That sounds perfect, Sakura-chan~"
"The cherry blossoms are still—"
She pressed her palms over her ears.
It did not help.
Ten Minutes Later
Kaguya's textbook remained open to the same page.
Behind her, the sweet, nauseating, adorable conversation continued without pause.
This was a mistake, she realized. I have made a strategic error of catastrophic proportions.
I wanted to sabotage his studying.
I forgot that sabotage requires proximity to the target.
I am in the blast radius.
She glanced back.
Hayasaka was curled on the edge of the bed, phone pressed to her ear, smiling in a way Kaguya had never seen before—unguarded, soft, entirely genuine.
…At least one of us is happy.
Kaguya returned to her textbook.
The words still wouldn't stick.
Wednesday Morning — Shinomiya Residence
Kaguya Shinomiya reviewed her night with the analytical detachment of a defeated general surveying a battlefield.
Objective: Prevent Sakurai Saki from studying effectively.
Result: Achieved.
Secondary objective: Maintain personal study efficacy.
Result: Catastrophic failure.
Net outcome:
She stared at the ceiling.
[TODAY'S VICTOR: KAGUYA SHINOMIYA?]
[DEFINITELY?]
[...MAYBE?]
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