"Ah, finally done!"
In the middle of focusing hard on her studies, Eriri suddenly heard Mio's voice, full of relief.
She turned her head to look, and saw Mio slumped limply across the desk, smiling up at her.
Maybe it was her imagination, but Eriri thought there was something almost tender in the way Mio was looking at her.
Just as she was about to look more carefully, though, Mio had already reverted to her usual bitchy expression. What Eriri thought she'd just seen felt like some kind of optical illusion.
Her eyesight was terrible, sure, but she was wearing her glasses right now. There was no way she could have misread it, surely.
Then again… maybe she was overthinking it.
There was no way Mio would look at her with that kind of tender gaze.
Pushing the thought aside, Eriri asked curiously, "Done with what?"
"The target of making Eriri's heart flutter three times!" Mio said, completely straight-faced and completely honest.
Eriri silently rolled her eyes at Mio's answer. Just as she was about to turn her attention back to the textbook, she realized the time had somehow slipped to six in the evening.
"It's that late already?"
Normally, the mere thought of studying gave her a headache, and even when she forced herself to sit down, every minute felt like an hour. But today—whether it was because Mio was beside her tutoring or some other reason—she'd actually lost track of time while studying.
Unbelievable.
"Oh, it's gotten so late. I should head back."
"It's already that time—why don't you stay for dinner? If you want to stay the night, it's not like you can't." Eriri's eyes slid sideways. Honestly, she was kind of hoping Mio would stay.
After all, they hadn't really had time to chat about hobbies today. Eriri had been looking forward to a long evening conversation with Mio, and now here she was about to leave.
"I'd love to stay, really, but I can't today—there's still stuff I need to take care of at home. We have school tomorrow anyway, so you'll see me again soon. No need to miss me too much."
"Who's going to miss you?!"
Eriri glared at Mio with a sweet, benevolent smile. Clearly she shouldn't have opened her mouth in the first place. If Mio had stayed the night, her blood pressure tonight would probably have gone through the roof.
"You did those terrible things to me just this afternoon, and now you're being this cold. I never imagined Eriri was that kind of person." Mio covered her face with her hands, struggling not to burst out laughing.
Eriri had long since developed immunity to Mio's nonsense. Plus, this was her own room, so she just watched the performance with a flat, cold expression.
Seeing her act was having no effect, Mio gave up without much of a fight. She rubbed her cheeks and said, "Okay, I'll head out then. See you at school tomorrow~"
"I'll walk you to the door. Don't misunderstand—I was heading downstairs to grab something anyway, so I'll just see you out along the way."
"Ah, right, right."
Mio suddenly thought that a tsundere Eriri was kind of cute.
And in that moment, the System's voice rang quietly in her ear: Eriri's conquest rating toward the host has increased by 1 point.
"Hey, I just thought Eriri was cute. That shouldn't be enough to bump the conquest rating, should it?"
Host finding Eriri cute was the last straw. Given what you did this afternoon, I shouldn't have to spell it out, should I?
At that, Mio had to admit the System had a point. To complete the "heart-flutter three times" task, she'd spent the afternoon actively working to feel something resembling attraction for Eriri. That kind of thing wasn't going to come without side effects.
Still, it was only a one-point bump. Any Eriri-related task difficulty upgrade required twenty conquest points, so she was in no danger yet.
Mio had intended to say goodbye to Sawamura Sayuri before leaving, but after coming downstairs she couldn't find her anywhere, so she had no choice but to ask Eriri to pass the message along.
After seeing Mio off, Eriri returned to her bedroom.
Looking around her spacious room, she suddenly wasn't sure what to do with herself.
After a moment's hesitation, Eriri walked over to her workstation and pulled out her inspiration sketch from the drawer.
Even though something about the concept still felt a little off, she still wanted to draw it out and see how it would actually feel.
...
The next day, noon.
Today Mio didn't eat lunch in her own classroom as usual. Instead, she carried her bento to the door of Eriri's class.
She hadn't forgotten her promise to help Eriri study.
To her surprise, Eriri appeared to still be asleep.
Mio walked slowly over to her desk, leaned down close to Eriri's ear, and in a syrupy-sweet tone said, "Eriri, wakey-wakey~"
The sleeping Eriri visibly shivered, then groggily lifted her head, sleep marks still pressed into her pale cheek.
It took a while before she was fully awake. After a lazy yawn, she said, "Sorry, I stayed up a bit late last night."
"Looking at Sawamura-san right now, it doesn't seem like just 'a bit.' You weren't secretly drawing doujinshi last night, were you?"
"N—no, I was… studying seriously!" Eriri said, guilty as sin.
Last night, refusing to accept defeat, she'd sketched out a few rough line drafts. Even though they were just rough drafts, something about them still felt wrong. She'd tweaked them back and forth multiple times, and that nagging feeling wouldn't go away.
She'd originally planned to go to bed by midnight. She actually was lying in bed at midnight—but not ten minutes in, the more she thought about it the more it bothered her, and she'd climbed right back out of bed.
By five in the morning, half-delirious Eriri had suddenly recalled what Mio had said earlier—and swapped the male protagonist for a female one modeled after herself. Just like that, the off-kilter feeling evaporated.
Except now, looking at the doujinshi she was drawing, the more she studied it the more it looked like a love story between her and Mio.
With her thoughts a tangled mess, she couldn't fall asleep in bed—and then her alarm had gone off.
At school she'd started the day trying to focus on class. Finals were coming, after all. But ultimately, the exhaustion of an all-nighter had beaten her.
Even after sleeping through the entire morning, she still felt hollowed out.
If she'd known it would go like this, she never would have drawn the damn thing!
Wasn't this just her making trouble for herself?