Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ My College Romantic Comedy Was Wrong, As I Expected ❯ My College SNAFU: 10 ( Chapter 10 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter 3

 

“Hold still, Hachiman,” Haruno insisted, waving a Geiger counter wand past my torso and head. “48 demi-pascules to 3.7 turnwise. As expected.” As if that wasn’t just creepy as heck. She put the gizmo away after clicking the switch to standby.

“The trick is getting it to not just read me, of course,” she said instead of explaining.  

“Hello, Haruno. It’s nice to see you?” I asked, uncertain.

“I’ve missed you, Hachiman. My LOINS have missed you. It’s been literally ages since I’ve had you and I’m feeling nostalgic. Can we retire to your room with some Vita-T and a box of condoms and see what happens?” she requested.

Nanako stuck her head out front door and looked seriously angry. I pointed behind Haruno and she eventually spotted the redfaced anger of my current dating partner. If that’s what we were.

“Oh, you haven’t taken her up yet. Honey, I was his first everything. I’ll hand him off to you when I’m done,” she taunted back to Nanako. I facepalmed. Haruno really has a way with words. Nanako stormed off back into the house, crying.

“So you know about what’s happening?” I said, because deduction, duh.

“Duh. Though it’s complicated. You recall I was a chemistry major once?” she asked me.

“Materials science, cutting edge meta materials you said. Never worked out why you were wasting time with me when you could have founded a company,” I added.

“Oh Hachiman,” she purred, “Time spent with you is NEVER wasted. But yes, I founded a company. I generally do first thing after I create the original research documents and experiments proving the science, then file the patents, then start the company as the founding CEO, all before I graduated from junior high school. The look on the board’s faces when they finally meet their reclusive chief scientist is delicious.”

“Did you actually invent anything or just steal it from the future?” I asked her. She smirked.

“See, I love that about you. So perceptive. I stole it of course. It was a sideline to my original Particle Physics work on the Higgs Boson. I keep delaying the CERN test but it doesn’t help. Once it existed it released a bunch of high dimension exotic particles that don’t ordinarily interact with conventional matter, and exposure is corrosive. It also affects time.”

“So I’m a time traveler because I knew you back in Chiba?” I asked.

“No. Its time travel. The particles move backward in time. You’re a time traveler because we spent years screwing in that adorably rustic dorm.”

“So now Time Travel is an STD?” I said, stunned. “Wait. I’ve been spending time with Nanako. Is she safe?”

“There’s no condom for time travel. And you don’t have to screw to infect people. The particles emanate from you and infect other particles giving them additional dimensional interaction. This is also why I suspect your other roommates are going to eventually awaken in the past, if they haven’t already. I spent a year sleeping in the same house with them. The entire building site has resonance. It’s the real reason there’s ghost stories about it.”

“I thought that was just a joke about how loud you and Saki get?” I said, remembering the shrine that wasn’t there yet.

“This nice building went cheap when the residents kept seeing two men and four women’s ghostly outlines appearing in rooms, walking down corridors, cooking in the kitchen or doing laundry. It was scaring the original renters off, and the building owner sold to the college because the Art School thought it was just a funny story.”

“So that’s us, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yep. And me, and Saki.”

“Oh crap. Is Saki a time traveler too?” I realized. Haruno nodded.

“She could use a rescue. She’ll go crazy otherwise,” Haruno said. I sighed.

“I’ll text Komachi and have her tell Taishi we’ll be in town.”

“You should probably finish what you’re doing with Nanako. I don’t want to wait but I can be a lady about it.”

I strode inside and found Nanako seething in her room reading. Nanako hates reading. I’ve noticed. She was searching the internet for mentions of me and had finally noticed I’d won the debut novel award. I hadn’t mentioned it to my roommates because I didn’t want to mess with their slowly building confidence as artists. She glared at me as I entered her room without being asked and settled down on the floor beside her.

“So, anything seem familiar?” I asked her. She stiffened. I looked up at her and smiled my lazy playboy smile.

“You… you!” she growled. “I’ve had this feeling since I moved here, like things were too familiar. At first I thought I was just going to take it as a sign I was in the right place, but now… now that woman I’ve never seen before looks utterly familiar from dreams at the dinner table, and for some reason a terrible sense of both shame and jealousy. Why is that?” she demanded. How to answer?

“The answer is too simple so you won’t believe it,” I told her. I heard Haruno skulking in the hallway, listening to us.

“Singing feels right. Is that wrong?” she said, trying a different tack.

“Nope. That’s something you’re good at,” I said. She frowned. “With training. It’s one of those things where working hard at something you like will eventually pay off.”

“So that woman. She said she was your first everything. What does that mean?” Nanako asked.

“First kiss. First grope. First screw. First night by a beautiful woman where nothing happened but sleep. First naked bath together, as lovers.”

“Did you come here to get away from her?” she asked, voice small.

“No. I came here to get away from her sister, who broke my heart. It feels like a lifetime ago. But I get the idea you’re feeling a bit broken hearted.”

“Well, she’s here. How can I compete with that?” she snuffled.

“You’re a nice girl, Nanako. And we’re dating. I haven’t thrown you over,” I reminded her.

“But you everythinged with her!” she complained.

“Did you want to everything with me?” I asked her gently. She turned beet red, then nodded.

“Well, okay then.” I heard the door gently shut behind me, Haruno helping, and did that world in your eyes song with Nanako for the next few hours. It was my first time, in this life, and Nanako’s first time, and it was really good even if she did keep crying, then shouting like that one Billy Idol song Rebel Yell. When we finally got hungry enough we snuck into the bathroom to clean up all our mess and I found Haruno standing behind the microphone stand and clicked the floor pedal to start the song.

“Hey little sister what have you done…

“Hey little sister who’s your only one?

“Hey little sister who’s your superman

“Hey little sister who’s the one you want

“Hey little sister shotgun!

“It’s a nice day… for a… white wedding.”

“Haruno. Never change,” I gasped. Dehydrated. Got some barley tea in me, and some for Nanako and we sagged into the couch while Haruno belted more nasty 80’s tunes about sex at us.

“You wear guilt… like shackles on your feet, like a halo in reverse….” And it was a passable impression of Dave Gehane.

“If I wasn’t completely relaxed I think I might feel annoyed at that.”

“She wants her turn. It’s been three years since we were last together.”

“Three years? Wouldn’t that put you in high school?” Nanako asked, slightly outraged at the cradle robber who finished up Halo by Depeche Mode.

“Complicated. You won’t like the answer,” Haruno said into the microphone.

“Hachiman. Make me spaghetti,” she ordered. I rose, slowly, feeling all sorts of muscles I haven’t used in this life protesting and dug out the ingredients from storage. I’d have to use canned tomatoes because I didn’t have many fresh ones. Sauce making can be quick and nasty or it can simmer with the correct ingredients and produce delicious food in about two hours. I went with the slow method.

“I need more ingredients. Coming?” I asked Haruno. Nanako looked alarmed at this.

“I’m coming too,” she insisted.

“Okay. More people to carry grocery bags home.”

The three of us slowly descended the stairs to the street below where some artist type was waving a rod with paper prayers hooked on it and incense burned. I see the shrine is getting started. Nana was bright red and Haruno wouldn’t stop laughing.

The market was a mix of college students (a few) and housewives (most) hunting deals on various things. There was a special on toilet paper, so I grabbed that and Haruno went for that same South American red wine she liked from last time, four bottles this time, I picked up mushrooms, ground pork, ground beef, fresh Roma tomatoes, fresh basil, and lots of powdered parmesan cheese. I also got a loaf of premade garlic bread and a jar of garlic paste because it is so useful when cooking for a household of college students. I also got some canned tuna.

“Why are you getting canned tuna?” asked Nanako.

“It is on sale.”

“Oh.”

We paid and returned to Share House Kitayama, where a small crowd dispersed as we approached.

“The white lady! She was in the window!” they murmured.

“Saki? Are you here?” I yelled when I got in the door. She came out of my room and slapped me across the face.

“You bastard! That’s not Haruno.”

“Here I am!” Haruno cried from behind Nanako, who was taken aback at the Yankee girl who just attacked her new paramour.

“Another one? I had to share you with Haruno, who admittedly is exhausting, but now you’ve got the Yui duet knockoff?” she insulted Nanako.

“What did you call me? Wait, who the hell is Yui? And what’s it to you?” Nanako snarled, coming claws first, the groceries spilling across the floor. I picked up Saki and hauled her back into my room and put her down at her customary place by my writing table.

“Stay! For dinner. I’ll be back when you understand what you did wrong!”

“It smells like sex in here and it wasn’t me!” she yelled back when I left the room. Haruno as chuckling, moving groceries back to the kitchen. She wasn’t a cook. Haruno had many fine talents but cooking wasn’t one of them.

“So, wound up pretty tight, apparently,” Haruno taunted. “Gosh, I wonder how that feels. Tick-tock!”

This was a love comedy. Totally a love comedy. With slapstick action!

I washed my hands and created the meatballs on a separate pan with breadcrumbs and diced onion inside. Slow brown and turn. I added the basil and fresh tomato to the sauce, bulking it up, then simmered for another half hour before I put in some tomato paste to thicken it properly. It was imported from California, apparently.

“We have guests?” asked Kyouya, clearly recognizing Haruno. She extracted her detector and waved it over him, citing some number out loud.

“Another traveler,” she decided. “Fourth time through, looks like.”

“Huh?” Kyouya asked, confused.

“Wibbly wobbly timey-wimey,” Haruno explained, moving her eyebrows. Kyouya’s face eventually shifted to surprise and then fear.

“Are the men in black coming for me?” he asked.

“Black?” I asked him. I knew the movie, and more important the X-Files the stupid comic movie was parodying.

“No. Though if I say Higgs Boson does it give you chills?” asked Haruno. Saki appeared, disobeying my order to stay put in my room. She slumped into one of the dining table chairs and glared at me.

“If I say Platinum Generation can I go fish?” he asked, hesitantly.

“We already know,” I said. “ShinoAki! Dinnertime!” I yelled up the stairs. Some thumbs from upstairs and the ripe girl appeared, looking sleepy. She perked up at all the people. Such a nice girl.

The pasta was ready. I put the heated garlic bread on the table, nice and hot with extra garlic, and the sauce I’d made ladled over pasta. I made lots. Haruno opened wine and passed around a bottle with everyone having some, just a taste for me. I need to keep my wits about me. Haruno was going to get drunk and attack me later. Saki probably too. I don’t think I can perform to their expectations, but I had a blue pill for emergencies. This probably qualified. We ate. We drank. We told stories. We laughed. Everybody sank some karaoke. ShinoAki was studying the room with her artist’s eye turned on, a look I knew well. The crowd around my end of the table, with a flickering restaurant candle for light, was one of those moments that probably deserved to be captured for posterity. What will time travel do to the mind of a supremely gifted artist like ShinoAki? Her mind will fill with pictures from layers of lifetimes, techniques building. She’d become a goddess of fine arts. Is this how gods begin? Higgs Boson particle corruption and recursive time travel? Is this one of the secrets of the universe?

I did need the pill later. Three women competing in my room. The shrine the following morning and video on the paranormal websites was kind of embarrassing. I’d left my windows open.