Across the room, Ritsu lowered her book just enough for her wide, bewildered eyes to peer over the top edge of the pages.
Her gaze darted between the third-year senior resting comfortably on the edge of the desk and Yuki, who was trying very hard to disappear behind his half-closed laptop.
She had been trying her best to remain invisible, but the sheer level of casual familiarity unfolding right in front of her was impossible to ignore.
“Um…” Ritsu cleared her throat softly, her voice hesitant but filled with a sudden, burning curiosity.
She pointed a trembling finger toward them.
“Sato-kun… Oreki-senpai… I couldn’t help but notice that you two call each other on a first-name basis. Are you… Are you two going out?”
“Yes! We’re madly in love,” Tomoe answered instantly without a single shred of hesitation.
She gave a dramatic, cheerful wink, leaning back with a bright, triumphant laugh at the immediate explosion of color on Ritsu’s face.
“We are absolutely not going out,” Yuki countered instantly, his voice completely deadpan as he debunked the claim before it could spiral into a school-wide rumor.
He didn’t even look up from his screen.
“We are just club members and friends. Senpai, please stop spreading misinformation to the underclassmen. Kawai-san is exceptionally gullible when it comes to romance.”
“Hey! Who are you calling gullible?” Ritsu puffed out her cheeks, a furious blush taking over her face as she hid behind Steins;Gate once more.
But as she gripped the paperback, her mind picked up on another detail from their interstate banter.
She peeked out again, her brow furrowing slightly.
“Wait… earlier, Oreki-senpai mentioned something about a ‘writer’ and a ‘manuscript.’ Are you… an author, Sato-kun?”
Yuki froze, his fingers pausing over the keyboard.
Before he could formulate a vague, non-committal excuse about a standard school creative writing assignment, Tomoe spoke up for him.
“Oh, he’s much more than just a little author, Kawai-chan!” Tomoe boasted loudly, slanting a proud, proprietary arm over Yuki’s shoulder as if she were the one who had written the books herself.
“Our quiet little Yuki-kun here is actually a massive hit light novel author! He’s got real, officially published works out in bookstores all over the country right now! You’re actually looking at a bona fide literary prodigy!”
Yuki closed his eyes, bringing his right hand up to facepalm himself with a heavy, deeply exhausted sigh.
His pristine, carefully guarded secret identity at Kamiyama High School had just been thoroughly compromised in the span of thirty seconds, all because a certain hyperactive senior refused to understand the concept of a low profile.
Ritsu’s book hit the table with a soft thud as she leaned forward, her usual quiet shyness completely evaporating.
Her large eyes were twinkling with pure, unadulterated amazement, shining with a sudden burst of energy that caught Yuki completely off guard.
“Officially published?!” Ritsu gasped, her voice rising a few octaves as she locked her gaze onto him.
“Sato-kun, that’s… that’s incredible! What kind of stories do you write? What’s your pen name? Have I read any of your works? How do you balance editing deadlines with our school curriculum?”
Yuki held up his hands defensively, feeling completely overwhelmed by her rapid-fire interrogation.
“Whoa, calm down, Kawai-san. Please, take a breath.” He gently gestured for her to sit back down, guiding her back to reality before her excitement drew the attention of students passing by in the hallway.
Once she settled back into her chair, her face still slightly flushed with excitement, Yuki rubbed his temples.
He lowered his head and muttered under his breath in a thoroughly defeated tone, “Great… my peaceful school life is officially shattered. Now there’s another person who knows.”
Tomoe caught his muttered complaint.
She let out a small, guilty cough and awkwardly looked away toward the window, whistling a completely tuneless melody to pretend she hadn’t just single-handedly blown his deep cover.
Yuki let out one more long sigh before turning back to face Ritsu’s expectant, sparkling gaze.
If she was going to know, he might as well control the narrative.
“To answer your questions… I write science fiction, and my pen name… It’s Hatsu Yuki.”
Ritsu froze.
Her eyes went completely wide, and her gaze slowly drifted down to the copy of Steins;Gate resting on the table right in front of her.
She stared at the author’s name printed on the glossy spine, Hatsu Yuki, then looked back up at Yuki.
Her mouth opened slightly in sheer, utter disbelief.
“You… you’re Hatsu Yuki-sensie?” Ritsu stammered, her fingers trembling as she pointed from the book cover to his face.
“The actual author of this book?”
“That would be me,” Yuki said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
“And I’d really appreciate it if we kept that inside this room.”
Ritsu didn’t seem to hear his plea for secrecy.
She leaned across the table again, her shyness entirely overwritten by her sudden passion for the narrative.
“If you’re really the author, then you have to tell me! I haven’t finished the volume yet, and it’s making me so anxious. What is going to happen to Mayuri? She just… she keeps on dying no matter what Okabe tries! Please tell me he saves her!”
“Whoa, hold on,” Yuki laughed, putting his hands up defensively.
“I am absolutely not answering that, Kawai-san. No spoilers. You’ll just have to finish reading the book. The answer is right there in the pages.”
“But it’s so heartbreaking to read through,” Ritsu protested, her cheeks flushing as she gave him a rare, stubborn look.
“Just a tiny hint? Does he find a way to break the loop?”
“My lips are sealed,” Yuki smiled.
“The answers you’re looking for are right there in the chapters you have left. You’ll just have to finish reading the book to find out.”
Tomoe leaned forward from her spot on the desk, a playful smirk crossing her face as she looked down at Ritsu.
“Don’t bother, Kawai-chan. When it comes to his plots, Yuki-kun is tighter than a bank vault. I’ve tried torturing him for early drafts before, and he didn’t crack once!”
Before Ritsu could press him any further, a loud, rhythmic electronic tune shattered the air.
BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
“Ah, that’s my cue!” Yuki said, quickly closing his laptop and sliding it into his school bag.
He began tossing his notebooks and pens inside with practiced speed.
“I have to go. Sorry to cut this short, but I promised Shiro I’d be through the front door at exactly 4:30 PM. If I’m even a minute late, she gets incredibly anxious.”
“Wait, Sato-kun—!” Ritsu called out, but Yuki was already slinging his bag over his shoulder.
“Goodbye, Tomoe-senpai! Goodbye, Kawai-san! Keep my secret!” Yuki shouted over his shoulder as he practically sprinted toward the door, sliding it open and vanishing into the hallway in a blur of motion.
The clubroom fell into a sudden, echoing silence.
The sliding door clicked softly as it settled into place.
Ritsu remained frozen in her leaning posture, staring at the empty space where Yuki had been sitting just seconds prior.
Slowly, she turned her head toward the third-year senior who was still lounging casually on the edge of the desk.
“Oreki-senpai,” Ritsu asked softly, her voice returning to its usual quiet cadence.
“How long… how long have you known that Sato-kun was a writer?”
Tomoe let out a warm, uncharacteristically gentle smile, replacing her previous mischievous grin.
She looked at the empty doorway, swinging her legs slightly.
“Since the very first day he walked into this room as a fresh-faced first-year, actually.”
“From the start?” Ritsu blinked in surprise.
“Yep,” Tomoe nodded, resting her chin in her hand.
“He didn’t join the Classics Club because he had a burning passion for old literature, Kawai-chan. He came to me and asked for a place where he could write quietly and peacefully without being disturbed by the louder crowds. I looked at his raw drafts, realized he was a genius, and gave him his corner. I’ve been watching him build that foundation ever since.”
***
Yuki walked briskly down a quiet side street lined with traditional wooden fences, his brows furrowed in deep thought.
He checked his phone’s clock, making sure his pacing was just right to meet his promise to Shiro.
“Volume three is turning out to be a real nightmare,” he mumbled to himself, adjusting his uniform bag.
“I’m trying to write Steins;Gate based on the anime I watched in my past life, not the actual visual novel. Trying to translate that visual pacing, the dramatic scene transitions, and the internal monologues into proper light novel prose is just brutal. It doesn’t help that my memories are so foggy after seventeen years.”
He let out a quiet sigh, watching his uniform shoes hit the asphalt as he tried to mentally map out the next chapter’s time-travel loops.
The mental strains of his midnight writing sessions were starting to catch up to him.
His right foot swung forward in stride, blindly kicking a small, hard object resting near the edge of the pavement.
CLINK.
The sharp, metallic sound instantly broke his train of thought.
Yuki’s eyes followed the trajectory of the object as it skittered across the ground, tumbling a few feet ahead before finally coming to a dead stop in the center of the walkway.
Yuki stepped closer and knelt on one knee, his gaze locking onto the item.
It wasn’t a standard, flat house key or a modern car key.
It was an antique, ornate key fashioned from a heavy, dull brass that gleamed faintly under the late afternoon sun.
The bow of the key featured a smooth, rounded design reminiscent of a clover, tapering down into a long, polished shaft and a classic, notched bit.
“Who drops something like this out here?” Yuki muttered, reaching out his right hand to pinch the brass shaft and lift it from the pavement.
He turned it over in his palm, feeling its surprising weight.
“Did it fall off someone’s bag? Maybe it belongs to one of the traditional estates nearby…”
Before he could finish his thought, a sharp, cold sound pierced the quiet air from inside his uniform pocket.
Ping!
Yuki froze.
It was a single, clinical, high-frequency chime.
He pulled his smartphone out with his left hand, his brow furrowing in deep confusion.
Even though he had turned off vibrate-only mode the moment his regular classes finished for the day, he absolutely did not use such a ringtone on his phone.
He stared intently at the screen of his smartphone, expecting a line message or a publisher email, but the interface was completely unresponsive.
The standard home screen had frozen entirely, overtaken by a blank, pitch-black loading screen.
Directly in the center, a digital progress bar was crawling forward, ticking up bit by bit.
Just above the bar, a single line of stark, white text blinked rhythmically against the darkness.
___
Installing…
[ PROGRESS ]: ██████░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 37%
___
Yuki tapped the touchscreen repeatedly and held down the physical power button, but the smartphone’s software was completely locked out.
He stood frozen on the empty street, the heavy ornate key gripped tightly in his right hand and the mysterious loading interface glowing ominously in his left.
“Is this a system update or something?” Yuki muttered to himself, his brow furrowing as he stared at the unresponsive screen.
He let out a defeated sigh, realizing the device wasn’t going to fix itself anytime soon.
Deciding to deal with the technical glitch later, he unzipped his uniform bag and dropped the antique brass key inside, making a mental note to turn it in the local police box as a lost-and-found item tomorrow morning.
He pocketed the locked smartphone and quickly resumed his brisk walk home, keeping his focus entirely on the road ahead.
***
Author’s note:
This will be it for the mass update…
as for chapter updates…
hmmm…
Maybe 1 a day or something…
Depends on how fast I can write, I guess…
hehe…
^^ and please do leave a comment or review…
I like the feedback…
umu umu…