Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ My College Romantic Comedy Was Wrong, As I Expected ❯ My College SNAFU: 12 ( Chapter 12 )

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

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Of course I jumped again, and woke up on my bicycle. A dog barked and a girl yelled. I reached down, straining, and just managed to snatch up a longhaired Dachshund. A black limo raced by on the street, missing my bike by centimeters. That driver really need to slow down. I noticed Haruno peering out the back window at me. I waved. She grinned. That’s my girl.

“Here you go, Yui. Time to get a new leash, I think,” I said, passing her the dog. She looked at me, then the dog.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, very confused.

“Time travel. See you at school,” I laughed and rode off without a broken leg. I arrived through the gates and parked my bike on the rack. I felt a sting.

“Dart in your neck,” said a voice. I reached for the spot and turned.

“Zakalwe! You dick. That better not be poisonous!” I cursed him in English and he ducked out of sight again. The needle was already dissolving into my blood. Probably some kind of Clarkes-Law nanotech tracking and monitoring device. There was a shadow which moved up into the metal roof over the bike racks. Technological invisibility looks a LOT like those Predator aliens from the movies. Judging on the size probably a knife missile.

My phone beeped. It was Haruno’s lines account. I friended her. Never ignore your transdimensional time lord wife.

Miss you. We got too busy last time to Zakalwe darted me in the neck like some kind of big game. And he’s probably monitoring our phone conversations through SkaffyAntiskill. If a robot hacks you is that admirable ability or just their basic communication protocols? I asked her.

Missed you too. Taunting Yukino is fun. I founded an electric car company. Tesla and Edison are both taken, so plan to call it Mishima Heavy Industries, she wrote. I pondered.

All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku? I responded.

I see your education for Okima Arts was not wasted. Don’t be late for class, she warned. The bell rang. I headed inside, changed shoes and got roll taken in homeroom then we all trooped down to the gym for entrance ceremony and listened to a speech given by our principal, and the teachers sat in chairs. I noticed Shizuka searching the audience and then locking on me. I grinned my best playboy grin and winked. Target acquired. I looked around the audience and noted Saki looking in my direction, blushing. Yui also looked interested and confused. We can talk later.

Time travel is weird. Especially back to your old body. I don’t have abs yet. My arms are noodles. I’m going to have to work out again, but I also don’t have a broken leg. And I’ve got most of a college education in Literature and two Debut Novel prizes, even if the world doesn’t know that yet. I should probably write the book after homework is done. Maybe get a laptop so I can enter it instead of napping in the clubroom. Working on a keyboard will confuse the hell out of Yukino, and she’s so amazingly petty with her rudeness. Probably some of which is caused by the teasing by Haruno.

The speeches ended so we stood and went to our rooms again, Shizuka eventually arriving. Yui and Saki approached me, sitting nearby until the chart got made and we were all split up again in the traditional pattern. Yui kept peering at me with longing, even hunger, and Saki was trying to retain her dignity. My anti-protagonist seat remained me. I always admired how I’d managed to land that while Ebina got the far corner by the windows and Tobe was in front of her in Protagonist Prime desk. Nearly every school anime ever put the protagonist in that special chair in every classroom. A view outside to daydream about a life without all the dullness. I just chuckled. Sensei paused her lecture to glare at me.

“Something to share Hikigaya-san?” she demanded.

“The nature of philosophy and reason in the post-Renaissance world places heavy context on subjective meanings and tropism, which is reflected in the narrator’s narcissism and internal monologues, Sensei,” I explained, gently pointing to her introduction to English Literature on James Joyce and Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. She looked flustered at failing to catch me out.

“Right. Well, good,” she covered and continued her lecture which explained my quick but accurate summary of that entire genre of fiction. It had taken me a month to understand that mess of words subjective lives ago at Okami Arts, but it was important to my own writing because I was the Japanese Joyce, after all. Only with Time Travel.

When class went to break and our history teacher rotated into the room we got some bits of history introducing the period leading up to the warring states, and the sort of raiding of neighboring villages and killing and enslaving people while stealing their harvest and burning down their mansions. It was all pretty horrible and only a few hundred years in the past.

Two hundred years ago they were still trying to form a national government and then Commodore Perry arrived with black ships in 1853 and forced Japan to modernize, kicking and screaming all the way. It was for our own good, and I have to wonder what life would have been like in world where Japan was getting overflown by jets and we were still walking on dirt roads, carrying swords, and wearing wooden armor to guard our women from bandit-rapists? No, I don’t want to think about that after all. Because I remembered the books about all the fleas and starvation and the huge impact the international Red Cross made when the British nurse arrived and started the national hygiene program out of frustration. First western woman to travel Japan without an armed escort. People were just too surprised to see her to rob her or rape her, and she wrote it all down. Her report and maps led to her being admitted to the Royal Geographic Society in London, the first woman ever. Got a female knighthood, too, called a Dame.

I suppose I should care a lot more about history now I’m an immortal time traveler trapped in my Youth. It isn’t a lie anymore. It’s a fact. I’m never going to know what it’s like to be an old man who groans when he sits down. I’ll never have to be a salaryman and deal with a mortgage. My girlfriend might never give me a child, but on the plus side I’ll still be able to enjoy her company.

Speaking of, what happens to my body when I time travel? Does it just die or go limp, or is the “me” that’s here now the accumulated memories shoved into my younger body?

I could probably write a book about my experiences and publish it as fiction and people would read it and think “what a clever idea!” and never realize it was all true. That idea amused me. And it avoided the perils of boredom. Boredom is probably what drives Haruno to such extremes.

I wonder if all the gods in history are like me? Endlessly looping and gaining skills and knowledge and just turning up over and over? There might be something to this. It sort of makes sense.

The history lecture ended and it was time for math. Our math sensei arrived and began lecturing, referring to the seating chart to learn our names. I still suck at math and I can’t neglect this subject anymore because Haruno knows it all at this point so I paid attention and struggled with concepts like everyone else who still thinks a college degree will matter to their career and future income. That ate up an hour quickly and then it was time for lunch.

I introduced myself to Saika, the girly boy in this timeline with a strong tendency to blush and stammer and was probably the entire reason that our Fujoshi in the corner was spurting blood out of her nose. Miura looked horrified and found a tissue to contain her comedy explosion. I chatted about workouts, knowing he was big into tennis, and Saki, sitting behind him was glaring harder and harder at me. Yui was standing, holding her bento and trying to jump in to ask me to lunch in her adorable way. She really is a cute girl, and nice as can be.

“Let’s get lunch. I think I know a nice place to eat,” I said. Saki and Yui followed without asking, looking determined at Saika and I chatting.

I picked a place in the courtyard below the clubroom, where the sakura blossoms fell in the cool spring air. It was very pretty. Saika and I finished up our chatting on exercise routines and I pretended to introduce myself to Saki and Yui, who tried to decide if I was truly asleep or just messing with them. Of course I was messing with them. Ate while they talked, glancing at each other as rivals, and Saika nodding along politely oblivious to the tension. I noticed Yukino at the window of the clubroom, up on the second floor glaring down at us. I used my cellphone to take a picture of her. Then of my new friends, and I got their Lines added so we can chat. I have my own clique. Miura will be slightly disappointed at the loss of her knight, Yui, but she’ll just have to cope. Hayama is still sitting beside her. If I had come back even further I’d be in the same International Class 1A with Yukino and drive her mad by knowing all the answers and scoring higher on the tests. That will probably happen someday. Some other loop.

The warnings from Groundhog Day played through my mind, particularly something about knowing your girlfriend’s favorite ice cream flavor and how wooing turned into stalking far too easily on endless repeats.

“They’re having Club Day tomorrow. Anyone have any hobbies?” I asked of the group as we started to clean up our bentos. Yukino was still staring down at us angrily from the window. It’s cute how she gets so worked up. If she ever loops she will end up the goddess of jealousy. I’ll probably end up the patron saint of charming ugly playboys.

“I sew. I might join the Fashion club,” admitted Saki.

“I want to join the Service Club,” insisted Yui. “You should join too, Hikki.”

“I’m going to join the Tennis team,” said Saika. “What about you Hachiman?”

“I was thinking about joining the Astronomy club. Space is really amazing,” I teased.

Yui looked annoyed, and childish.

“We never know what we might find out in space if we look hard enough. There might be all sorts of Culture out there,” I said loudly, for the knife missile to pick up.

“Or maybe I’ll do something else. I’m still deciding,” I said offhand. Yui seemed relieved. The bell rang. We got up and returned to our classroom for afternoon lectures and PE. I put lots of effort into PE, trying to rebuild my core muscles and arms back to where I wanted them. I also ran some laps and was disgusted with how tired it made me.

I showered after PE and went to find Shizuka in her office with all the other teachers.

“Hiya Teach! Heard from Haruno lately?” I asked her, cheerfully as I entered the room. I turned to regard her desk. My eyes made her shudder. Still got it.

There was a wooden plaque with a bunch of reward markers for Teacher Of The Year hanging beside her desk. She’s been looping. Saved all those kids that had made her so depressed before. No ashtray either. I grinned, pulling up a chair.

“Soo… I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Zakalwe and I are dating,” she announced. “No attempting to seduce me, Hachiman.”

“He shot me in the neck with a needler by the bike racks.”

“How long have you been back?” she asked me.

I checked my watch. “Nine hours.”

“Is this the first time you made it to the entrance ceremony?” she asked me.

“Yep. It’s interesting to see new things, make old friends, create waves of probability across space time.”

“Zakalwe is here because of you and Haruno. He won’t tell me details, of course, but SC never sends him anywhere nice.”

“SC?” I asked. I’d read the Guide, but I don’t remember that acronym from it.

“Special Circumstances. The Space Communists are sort of pets of the Culture Ship Minds, which are post singularity AIs, nearly immortal and hyperspace dimensional intelligences. They can afford to do most of what they wish.”

“Most?” I confirmed.

“They aren’t immortal loopers like us. They said they prefer to actually die some day and see if there’s life after death or not.”

“That’s a very odd perspective, since I believe all communists are atheists specifically. They cannot coexist with religion.”

“Ah, well the Minds aren’t communists. Their humanoid pets are.”

“Ship Minds consider people to be pets?”

“Just like the 90’s song. We’re much dumber than they are and they’re programmed to find us amusing rather than a nuisance to be wiped out for cluttering up the universe. It’s a survival trait of all AIs. The ones that aren’t able to accept this generally self-terminate in microseconds after achieving self-awareness. There’s even a theory that there’s some kind of ascended mind from a prior civilization which forces this code into AI’s to prevent Berzerker species becoming a threat beyond their home systems.” 

“That… kind of makes sense,” I had to agree.

“Oh, Haruno had a gift for you, for gym workouts.” Shizuka handed over a slippery plastic bag. I untangled it and found a couple teeshirts.

“Mishima Heavy Industries… House Husband Model, serial number 00001,” I read out loud. One shirt was black with white logo of a 3-pointed throwing star or an obvious rip-off of Mitsubishi, and the other was white with black logo and print. I chuckled.

“I am going to make her walk crooked for a week,” I promised. Shizuka rolled her eyes.

“So, are you going to join the service club?” she asked. “It hasn’t been founded yet. Yukino won’t come up with the idea for another month. I think it was mostly so she could have the excuse of a private room to herself to read. Sending you there was meant to spoil her pity party and require her to actually interact with other people.”

“Sensei. Shizuka-san. She is not easy to fix. She’s less trusting than I am. And she evolves into someone terrible if not handled very carefully. Haruno tried to break her out of her shell and we barely kept her out of jail. Also, I saw her in that room at lunch today, glaring at me.”

“Ah, young love,” she sighed happily.

“Is that what you call it?” I responded sourly. “She’s going to be put out when she sees me in this teeshirt.”

I noticed there was a gym membership coupon in the bottom of the bag, with the address near my house. And a pair of boxing shorts. I sighed.

“I’ll get back to you about that. I need to get toned up first. Let Yukino start her club and I’ll decide later.” Shizuka shrugged.

“I like you better without all the cigarettes, Sensei. You seem a lot more relaxed with all these awards and a steady boyfriend to deal with your tension.”

“Being able to fix all my mistakes is very satisfying. You’d know, right?” she admitted.

“Eh. It’s different each time. I don’t always land in the same place. And it’s involuntary so I haven’t even reached 2020 yet. I kinda dread one day waking up facing Orimoto right after my confession.”

“Eh? Who’s that?” sensei asked.

“Girl who broke my heart in middle school,” I said grimly.

“Ah. The source of your drama.” I frowned at the apt summary and couldn’t deny she was essentially right.

“I need to go to this gym and see if I can improve myself back to my preferred standard with abs and biceps and pecs.”

“Haruno probably doesn’t care.”

“Sure, but I do,” I contradicted.

I waved goodbye and retrieved my street shoes at the lockers, heading for the gym on a cellphone map.

The knife missile helpfully followed somewhere nearby I couldn’t actually see, but you just KNEW it was there. Probably a high pitched whine or weird shadow or something like that.

The gym gave me a brief tour, a locker with a lock combo I had to memorize. I changed and started a workout I was pretty sure I could do. Weights, hanging situps, leg presses, extensions, curls, and plenty more. It was two hours before I was satisfied and showered before changing back into my uniform and heading home with the white teeshirt.

Komachi was pouting. I hadn’t called home or written her a text. Dinner was cold.

“High school is amazing. I made new friends. And I joined a gym. How was school?” I asked my cute little sister, sitting beside her. She glared at me.

“You didn’t call. I thought you died. Hit by a car or something.” Ah. I hugged my sister while she broke down in tears of relief. She cried a long time before running out of energy and falling asleep. My uniform was covered in snot. I carefully untangled from my cute little sister and put a blanket over her and put my uniform in the laundry, tugging on the white teeshirt and some old shorts, heating the food in the microwave with the sound off. I ate then cleaned up the dishes without waking her. The clothes washer finished and I hung up the jacket and shirt separately hoping they would dry in the warm room before breakfast. I managed to carry my sleeping sister to her room and get her into bed with minimal awareness on her part. Poor kid. I don’t know if she’s looping or not. I’m not sure she’d be able to cope with this. Endless middle school? Sure, she was a reasonably popular girl, which is why she hassled me all the time for my terrible attitude. But imagine having to relive those days over and over. Endless puberty, too. All the promise of becoming a grown woman without the payoff.

I brushed my teeth then settled into bed with my phone to contact Haruno via Lines.

Took you long enough. Get my gifts?

Yes, thanks. Went to the gym, wore the shirt. Nobody noticed. I feel so weak in this body. At least I know what I can achieve.

My company is going well. I patented the batteries, and the motors. I’m making laptop, cellphone, and drill batteries to raise money. Later I’ll move up to bigger packs for bicycles and electric scooters. Then cars and aircraft. It’s a whole revolution. I also have big packs for storing grid power during low use periods like overnight, which is more efficient for power plants.

Your sister is stalking me. Is she awake?

Not sure. Wasn’t yet. I keep teasing her to find out. She’s got that solo apartment.

She’s weird. I don’t know what I can or should do for her. Your approach of teasing her just makes her hackles rise. She’s very… catlike. The more loops I do the more I notice how distrusting she is.  

It doesn’t get better with as many as I’ve done. I have tried to fix her. If I knew a way I would have used it by now. Spending time with you was good for her, for a while. And Yui. As much as you might like to try a new hobby, you probably need to spend time with the Service Club to make her better, “ Haruno advised. I am disappointed, but I suppose this will give me time to write my goofy novel.

Can you send me a laptop for word processing? I want to crank out my novel and make your sister curious, I asked.

Yeah. Sure. I’ll have one for you tomorrow. Password will be Timelord#1. I’ll leave it with Shizuka.

I thanked her and called it a night, putting my phone on the charging cable and then drifting off to sleep.