Even if my mood was utterly crushed, the food itself still looked delicious. So, in order to fix this problem, I grab a bite of my omurice in hopes of improving my mood.

  Munch. Munch. Munch.

  As, it was a failure.

  This inspires me to write a masterpiece. As I brought not a single piece of paper, aside from my money, I settle with a tissue paper. With my spare pen tucked by my pocket, I begin expressing my creative juices in its raw form.

  新しい,

  メイドの恵み,

  鈍い顔。

  Brand new,

  Maid’s blessing,

  Dull face.

  “I’ve… written a masterpiece! I might have a knack for writing haikus, even better than Matsuo Bashō ever could!”

  I lift the tissue paper near the window pane. Bless the heavens! The light shines through it and onto my literary masterpiece!

  Unfortunately, I had no space to keep it, so I pce it on the table for the commoners to witness my literary genius.

  “May the next person to y eyes on my creation be blessed with the same literary genius as I have.”

  I turn off my phone and finish off the rest of my omurice. There was simply no hope to recreate that mood.

  This was an unexpected result. How did the girls bypass Masaru’s character development? I thought this pn was fwless.

  “Maybe it has something to do with the lesson, something like being satisfied with whatever, maybe? But that’s just counterintuitive with what we’re trying to achieve, isn’t it? Surely, Masaru wouldn’t be that foolish.”

  …

  ..

  .

  Out of nowhere, my nose becomes itchy during css, and I sneezed. That attracted attention from Yano-sensei and some others near me.

  “Excuse me…”

  …

  ..

  .

  “Regardless of what he ended up with, the result we got is a loss. That’s already 3 losses for us boys.”

  Furiously, I scratch my head.

  “Is there anything we can do? I’m out of the ideas. Man, I think the plot really wants the girls to win.”

  Masaru… we all depend on you. Please tell me you’re on the way to capturing her heart.

  My legs go up and down.

  “Yeah, I’m done here.”

  I stand up and leave the pce.

  I’ll take note of this maid café.

  Once I leave, a maid stumbles upon my table and sees the tissue paper I wrote on. She takes a gnce and reads it silently.

  “Weirdo,” she comments while crumpling it and throwing it to the trash bin.

  …

  ..

  .

  I continue my journey.

  “Yeah, I need to wrap this walk up. I still haven’t accomplished anything from the checklist at all.”

  I swear… where can I find the nearest convenience store?

  Getting desperate, I temporarily halt my track and find the pce I seek. Thankfully, enough there was one by the corner.

  “Sweet!”

  Gleefully skipping over, as I get near, the convenience store gets crushed.

  “Wha-”

  Yeah, you heard that right. A whopping lizard-like monster has trampled upon that very innocent convenience store. Oh yeah, the ground shakes violently along with it, which causes me to trip and fall over.

  No way…

  “A kaiju?!”

  In the distance, I hear a familiar line chanted in unison.

  “Henshin!”

  They said it! They said the thing!

  Amidst the cracking roads and panicking people around the area, I try to find a batch of colorful people. Then I see... five people dressed with spandex, a helmet on top, and each and every one of them containing the colors of blue, green, yellow, pink, and white as their theme.

  “Sentai!”

  The lizard kaiju approaches the Sentai Rangers.

  The ground shakes and crumbles with each step.

  “There’s no way they’re fighting that without a robot, right?”

  To answer my statement, from behind them, rge mechanical parts fly from the sky and drop to the ground. It automatically assembles itself.

  “I’d like to keep watching, but…”

  I dash away.

  “I seriously have to buy everything I need! This is enough as it is!”

  Please, I need to buy food! Just let me get this over with.

  To my surprise, after I run for a good while, a boba tea store appears before me. I get in line, wait for 5 minutes for my order, and finish immediately.

  Huff. Puff.

  “Give me a fucking convenience store! I need to stock!”

  It seems the Author was pretty satisfied by how much he pyed me because it didn’t take long for me to see another convenience store. We don’t really need to get into detail about what I bought; it’s almost the same as the ones I took from the other one.

  When I leave, I’m pretty much stuffed with pstic bags. With the boba tea also wrapped in a pstic to ease handling, it touches my skin and I feel how cold it is.

  I should hurry up home. Even I’d be pissed if a boba tea was served warm.

  Huff. Puff.

  Along the way, I continuously look at stores.

  “Visual novels sometimes happen in a normal store, no? Those stories are honestly comforting, as per my experience.”

  A book store, a patisserie, a café… those are only a handful of examples.

  “I think I’d like to try my hand at those too in the near future.”

  First, let’s go home though!

  …

  ..

  .

  Mieko waits by the door, looking grumpy.

  “You’re te! Really te! What took you so long?!” she compins with a pout.

  Quite cute, honestly.

  “What are you, my wife? Anyways, I ran into detours. I made sure that your drink was cold.”

  “Yay!”

  She gleefully accepts my offer.

  “What fvor did you get me?”

  “I picked a safe option like Milky Vanil, since I didn’t get your input on what specific fvor you wanted.”

  “I love that fvor! Thanks, senpai!”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I casually go inside my home and she takes her reward out of the pstic and sips. Straight to the cabinets, I unload the pstics and stock them onto their deserved pces. My face lightens up upon the sight of a filled cabinet.

  After that I sit on the opposite side of the coach against Mieko and watch what she watches.

  “Found a good channel yet?” I ask her.

  “Nope.”

  “Yeah, I’m going up. Have fun.”

  Standing up on my two legs, I head to the stairs.

  “Not gonna eat?” she queries.

  “I already ate lunch, so I’m actually full.”

  “Not gonna ask a favor? I’m not always here, you know?”

  “Aren’t you always though? Plus, the matters I’ll attend to can’t be resolved via technical means. I’ll ask for your help another time.”

  “If you say so~”

  Finally letting me go, I go up the stairs and enter my room. Sitting on my desk, notebook in front, and pen in my right hand, I begin brainstorming.

  “This really makes me uneasy.”

  My head falls to the desk and I end up pstering my face over the notebook.

  “What should I do?...”

  I lift my face off and take out my phone.

  Before I make any moves, let’s see about Masaru’s progress. We’re all relying on that, so I’d like to know if it’s time to bail on the pn or not.

  …

  ..

  .

  Css was being conducted normally, but I still a bit defeated by the result of the battle just a while ago.

  “Urgh… I’ve done it now.”

  Right when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my phone rings in the middle of the lecture. Thankfully, my reaction time was fast enough to answer the call.

  Wait, a call? Is he gonna reprimand me?! I hope there are no bckmails.

  Recognizing that calling while in css wasn’t particurly a good idea, I hang up immediately and raise my hand. Once I was called, I speak my reason.

  “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  Given permission, I rush to the hallways, into the bathroom, and into the stalls. There, I call Kibe again. I switch the call to speaker, so I don’t need to put it close to my face to hear what he’s saying.

  “Did I interrupt something?” he asks once he picks up the call.

  “There was css. But now I’m the bathroom, so we can speak normally.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was a slight pause.

  Wait… he isn’t angry?

  “You aren’t… angry?”

  “Angry? Why? How can I be angry when all of you are doing all the work? There’s nothing I can do with the results I get. You guys aren’t my ckeys.”

  That’s… hm…

  “I’m sorry I failed Kibe!”

  “It’s fine, I was surprised too. I thought we had that one in the bag… It’s 0 to 3 now, huh?”

  “Yeah… we don’t know what to do… we’re unsure if the sleeping contest would go as smooth as we pnned.”

  “Masaru. As you can see, we can’t win against the girls using normal means. We even cheated, yet we still lost. Do you understand the situation now?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Good. Having a good grasp of the terrible state we’re in, do you think your retionship with Mari can progress beyond the initial stages right at this moment?”

  “About that… Kibe…”

  “Go ahead. You can tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Actually, Kibe… I…”

  I need to tell him now.

  “I… don’t want to pursue Mari,” I bravely decre.

  My heart beats nervously.

  He’ll definitely be angry at me. I’m ready for it!

  “I see,” he answers calmly, “Why?”

  “Huh? Why aren’t you angry?”

  “What do you mean? Do you want me to be angry?”

  “The normal reaction for Kibe is for him to shout at me. Is that really you Kibe? Did I contact the wrong person by mistake?!”

  “Calm down nitwit. I don’t have a little brother…”

  He sighs over the phone and continues.

  “This isn’t the first time that things haven’t gone my way nor is this the worst time that it has happened either. Besides… this was a really big task I put on you.”

  “You’re being awfully reasonable today, Kibe.”

  “People need to read the mood… Masaru, I’m sorry that I put something that was probably too much for your pte.”

  “No, it should be me apologize-”

  “No. This one’s on me.”

  “O-Okay then. I-It’s just that… you saw me do online dating before, yes? See… I want to change. I don’t want to py around with my retionships anymore. Not when I have you guys.”

  “…Don’t worry, Masaru. You can be reassured, I’m sure you did all you could for us. Thank you, for that. For pushing the extra mile despite how unreasonable all of this is.”

  “It’s for us. It’s for my friends. I simply have to do the things I need to for my friends. But even with all that… Kibe, what are we going to do?”

  He stays silent for a while then he replies.

  “I’ve got it covered, Masaru.”

  “Y-You have a pn?!”

  “Not yet. But I believe I can come up with one given enough time.”

  “How long exactly?”

  “It depends. If ever I take too long, then we merely proceed as pnned. We just stall.”

  “How can you be so sure that we’d win?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then-”

  “There’s no other choice. I’m gonna have to bet on my knowledge.”

  “I see. Best of luck.”

  “Thanks, back at you.”

  “Ah, Kibe.”

  “What? The teacher might get suspicious if you take too long so make it quick.”

  “Kibe… no matter what happens to us, I believe… we can still do the silly things we always have.”

  “…Yeah, of course.”

  He hangs up.

  …

  ..

  .

  That’s the lesson he learned, eh? No wonder why this is what happened.

  “But there’s no use in compining… there are more important matters I have to take care of.”

  Pen in hand, I begin listing series belonging to the Slice-of-Life genre. After listing around 20-30 series, I search for them in the internet and leave it on standby in my computer.

  “Time for a literary analysis of the Slice-of-Life genre.”

  To understand the genre’s problems would be to delve into its roots.

  “Let’s begin.”

  Click.

  END OF EPISODE 40