Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ My Adult University Romcom Is Wrong, As I Expected ❯ University Life ( Chapter 2 )

TWO

The following week I visited the coffee shop a couple times for that excellent fresh roasted black coffee, and did some people watching… I mean lab observations. I eventually came in one afternoon and found Sakurai there giving professional service rather than glowering with annoyance. As Ami said, the various housewives and some coeds were showing off for him, expressing interest in their eyes and body language, and his sharp eyes, not so different from mine, were merely polite and professional, which just made the women titter more and swing their hips harder leaving the café.

Classes with Ami went fine. She didn’t flirt or cause me distress. She did her job as a TA and I did my job as a student. I worked on my next paper, regarding female human polyamory vs primate serial monogamy pair bonding. My colleague says it will be “a corker”. I’m mostly working through the existing research and narrowing down my topic so what I’ve witnessed will fit.

The psychology lab at our university works with the statistics grad students, so the combined lab has some interesting results for sociology, which also shares the lab space and research. My being appointed is actually a bigger deal than I’d realized because the sensei running the lab looks like a weight lifter, and there’s only eight positions in the lab. That’s it. Ami and I would be the psych students. The statistics students were a man and woman attempting research into love, from a physical standpoint including chemical sampling for hormones and neurotransmitters. The biology students were studying the biochemistry and DNA-activation, and apparently are the most active established couple, having gone so far as to use an MRI during intercourse to study brain activity to assist the final two medical school students. The combination of different disciplines overlaps well, and might eventually learn some useful information which could result in a solution to the depopulation problem in Japan, at least on the socio-biological side. Nobody can fix the economic side.

Descending the lab tower staircase I encountered Uzaki of the giant boobs and Sakurai hanging out together, him largely oblivious to her clingy and embarrassing public displays of affection. She made a number of comments in earshot of other students which implied all sorts of embarrassing admissions about their sex life, which tends to irritate the students who are single. This tendency is remarkably effective at removing competition for his attention, and I noted this with a question as to whether Uzaki is doing this consciously or unconsciously. It could be either. Primates have similar displays, though they tend to be really obvious. Uzaki’s declarations are both embarrassing to her chosen mate, and warns away other females by suggesting the relationship is physical and they are too late to claim his attention. It’s potentially clever. Her use of her body development, her boobs, and skinship with Sakurai in public displays of affection are keeping the coeds from approaching him. She seeks him out and follows him around, and according to Ami, drags him on dates or plays video games with him at his apartment near the university, including staying overnight. Despite this, Ami-san insists they are actually not physically intimate like she and I are.

My trips to Chiba every night continued, with visits to the coffee shop in the afternoon to watch Sakurai and now Uzaki, their new hire, working together. Ami and her father seemed to have hired them for comedy value. Uzaki is loud, clumsy, shouts often, and has so much enthusiasm she reminds me of Tobe, if Tobe were a short girl with really enormous… yeah. Also, Uzaki doesn’t wear a stupid headband. Sorry Tobe. I’m sure that wherever you’ve gone, you’re still setting the mood.

“Hikigaya-san. I have news for you,” the dean said, offering me an envelope. My academic papers have passed peer review. I am being published, officially. He presented me the graduate contract, including financial numbers and forms. I will be paid enough for a small apartment if I save a couple months for first and last month’s rent. I would soon be able to quit working at Lawsons. I would have a shorter commute. I would have a paying job. I would start teaching, as an assistant, like Ami. I smiled.

The commute home was distracted. I suppose I can be forgiven for this, considering all the possible changes this will make to my life. Living on my own. Buying my own groceries and cooking my own food. Washing my own clothes. Paying bills. I will be a proper grownup.

“Ding-dong,” voiced a woman outside my apartment door. I was still unboxing and trying to work out the instructions for setting the clock on my microwave. I opened the door.

“Hi! I’m coming in,” announced Ami, carrying a brown paper bag. “I brought a housewarming gift and a bottle of good sake.”

“Uh… come in, then,” I said, stepping back as she removed her shoes. She presented me with the bottle and pushed past me to the low table I’d found second hand and thoroughly cleaned. It was chipped formica with some mug ring burn marks and other issues, but it was sturdy and level and would serve to eat food on or do writing research. The apartment had good internet, and was relatively quiet.

We ate the restaurant takeout before it got cold, drank a few cups of sake, and talked. She flirted, and I was pent up, so there was exercise, and lots of her screaming into my pillow. This is not a steady relationship, but I’m not completely stranded high and dry like I’d thought. I am glad this was a Friday night, because I was exhausted and still unpacking most of the weekend. The leftovers were good, though.

Another week of classes, observations of the students and surrounding areas. Turns out there’s a lot of interactions to view in the supermarkets. Housewives glaring at each other in dominance displays, subordinate wives getting casually insulted by dominant ones. It’s straight out of Goodall, minus the rape and cannibalism and infant murder. Hey, if you think Chimpanzees are nice you haven’t read her papers or watched her documentary videos. I respect the hell out of Goodall.

The following weekend I visited the family home in Chiba. I again took notes on the train, wearing my salaryman suit and sunglasses. I traversed the main plaza downtown and hopped a bus to our stop. I didn’t recognize many of my classmates. Most are probably away at college themselves, or married, or working serious jobs to pay their rent. Don’t give me a hard time. I was third in my year. People only remember Yukino because she was first.

I rang the bell. Komachi opened the door and her expression soured. I tried to smile at my favorite little sister. She wasn’t so little. She was a woman now, and didn’t flail around so much anymore. There was more inertia involved. She looked like a less-evil Haruno, really.

“Oi, niisan. You look like a worn-out salaryman, and your lazy grin is disgusting. You saw that woman again, didn’t you?” Komachi accused when I rang the doorbell, Saturday morning.

“Always straight to the point with you, Komachi. Give your big brother a hug,” I countered offering my arms out. She sniffed, hugged me briefly, and retreated into the house.

“So how’s school treating you?” I asked her.

“I’m graduating high school,” she answered. “Top of my class. I’ve been accepted to Chiba Institute of Technology for mechanical engineering,” she said.

Of all things. I really thought she’d be getting married to the Bug, but my moving out and her serial relationship experiments seems to have convinced her to apply her brain to problems. And our school was all about college preparation, after all. Time does fly. I’ve been in university for a couple years, and already fast-tracked to the graduate lab.

“How is living alone?” she asked me. She poured us cups of tea and offered up some cookies, probably home baked by her. Komachi has always been girly. Probably part of what made the boys crazy for her. That and her fake-idiot flailing and boobs. She was the balance between Haruno and Yuigahama, but with tendencies to both their extremes.

“I’d say it was lonely and quiet, but Ami-san visited the day after I moved in. She hasn’t come back, but I haven’t forbidden her either. We’re colleagues for the next four years.”

“Sometimes women go with a guy because they like him more than they care to admit. Sometimes that’s just habit,” offered Komachi, nibbling a cookie. I sipped my tea.

“I’m aware of the female mind,” I reminded her. She sniffed.

“I swear that Orimoto bitch really broke you, niisan,” cursed my sister.

“She couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t smart, and when I met her again in the Service Club she was a mockery of herself. I honestly couldn’t predict if she’s alive or not, by this point. Yuigahama understood her own weakness and worked to change herself, become stronger. Orimoto never did.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t marry Yuigahama. She was a nice girl, and she actually liked you. Did you understand why she sang that song Be My Hero at the culture festival? That was about You, dummy. That was her confession to the whole school. And you were busy telling off that twat who tried to ruin the festival instead of paying attention to people who matter.”

She was right. It wasn’t my best move, even if it was momentarily satisfying to insult the idiot girl. And I’d done it because of petty revenge, mostly for myself, but also because she’d hurt my Yukino. The others didn’t have the nerve to admit that. And I wouldn’t say it out loud, but that’s what it was really about. And all along, there was Yuigahama watching this, desperate for validation of my maiden’s heart. Damn me for a fool. Too late now.

“Yuigahama is a good girl. I may be too complicated for her genuine feelings,” I admitted. Komachi stared at me in disbelief. She sipped her tea and just glared in silence.

“Saki keeps asking after you,” Komachi said quietly after a long while.

“Really? What is she up to these days?” I asked.

“She’s in fashion design school. Learning the contracting and labor side of manufacturing clothes. Says she’s in the process of forming her own label. We talk every week,” my sister explained.

“Really? Does she seem okay?” I asked. Saki was a nice girl, despite the rough yankee look she cultivated, she was more girly than expected.

“I think she’s lonely. Keeps pining for someone she likes,” Komachi said, and glared at me again.

“You have my permission to give her my contact information, and address,” I offered. I’m not opposed to Saki. She was lovely, and not as frantic as Yui. You could Netflix and Chill with Saki, as long as you weren’t watching Horror movies.

Komachi finished her tea, left for her room and returned a few minutes later with her phone, a wedge of Robot OS functionality.

“So why are you going into Mechanical Engineering, sis?” I asked her, curious.

“Really? You ask me this now?” she huffed. She pushed a bunch of buttons on the screen and typed for several minutes before pushing one finally and setting the device down again. I waited. She would answer when she was ready. She was calmer than her early teen years, but still just as sharp. My sister is smarter than me, in her way.

“You know how you have aptitude for psychology, to the point you were disturbingly effective at problem solving and predicting people at Soubu and had a terrible reputation as a mind-reading creep?” she accused me.

“I’m not aware of ever receiving such a reputation,” I denied. “I do think I was resented for several reasons, starting with grades and for keeping company with the two prettiest women in our grade.”

“That Miura would argue with you on that,” Komachi countered, remembering my drill-haired blonde bitch of a classmate. She turned out to be decent to a few people sometimes, like caring for Ebina Hina the Fujioshi psycho, but her tendency to push dominance over nice girls like Yui really irritated me and is not something I’ll ever forget. But we’re getting off topic here.

“Anyway, you have an insight into psychology which others do not, to the point you are being paid to learn more about it, and they’re covering your rent and living expenses, right?” she confirmed. I nodded assent.

“So I have discovered mechanical sympathy, which is supposed to be a Y-chromosome-only skill. This makes me relatively unique in Japan, and a curiosity. For this I’m getting a scholarship to CIT where I will gain skills in mechanical engineering and mechanisms in general, and potentially in their robotics lab.” The Chiba Institute of Technology is the lab that developed the original Mars Rover and the space shuttle robot arm, based on descriptions for the major patent by an American Science Fiction author named Heinlein. That one guy got rich from his patents, similar to Clarke for his patent on communications satellites. I knew the history. It comes up in novels I’d read.

“So you can operate a torque wrench like every male in Japan?” I teased. She stuck her lip out at me.

“Yes.”

“Wow. That’s certainly a unique trait. I hope you learn a lot so if they lose interest in your unique trait you’ll still have a place there. And what if you meet a hot guy and get married and have a bunch of kids?” I asked her.

“Then I’d better get a good deal out of it or finish my degree,” she insisted. I hoped it works out. With her flippant approach to relationships, it could be a disaster.