Love Live! Everlasting Shine (Mari Ohara x Male Reader)

Chapter 10 - Looking At Time

As I left the school's library for the last time, I took a deep breath and stretched out. After the library closed to students this last week so me and the others who did library duties could do an inventory, and with tomorrow being graduation day I'm finally done to enjoy myself some, leaving this stuff for the kouhai to deal with from now on. Well, besides spending the evenings working on my novel, but right now I'm more focused on enjoying some time with Mari.

"Where is she anyway..." I muttered to myself, turning down the hall and heading in the direction to the chairwoman's office, figuring she might be finishing up something there.

As I arrived at her office, I walked in since Mari has reminded me in the past that she's fine with me doing that, and as I looked around I found the place empty, there wasn't any paperwork or anything out, Mari wasn't in there, and in general there were none of the typical signs of this being somebody's workspace.

Figuring that since I didn't have any ideas as to where she could be, I pulled out my phone to call her, but as it rang, I started to hear a phone's ringtone behind me. I turned around and saw that Mari had been walking this way.

"Hey, what were you up to?" I asked

"I was looking for you actually. After I finished up here I went to talk to Dia for a minute before going to the library to meet up with you but you were already gone." Mari said

I let out a sigh and said "Yeah that sounds about right with how things have been going."

"Oh? Something up Y/n?" Mari asked, heading over to me

I let out a sigh and said. "Along with graduation coming up, finishing up my duties, and not neglecting working on my novel, I've been dealing with a ton of mistakes and bad luck, leaving me frustrated lately. Although knowing me, part of this could just be a painful cycle of messing things up because I'm frustrated and becoming frustrated because I'm messing things up."

Mari gave me a hug and said "I wish you weren't so negative sometimes, once graduation has happened we'll just have to take a break. I've been looking forward to our next date anyways, especially since you said you'd put together our next date."

I took a deep breath, calming myself down some as I said "Mari... that is a really obvious solution that I wish I had thought of at some point. I'll be able to take it easier during spring break at the very least." I don't want to waste time on my novel so maybe I'll spend some time manually proofreading in the evenings, but I'll just keep that plan to myself. "As for our date, I'll be sure to come up with something that you'll enjoy."

Mari giggled and said "I'll be looking forward to that, just like I'm looking forward to heading to our university for the first time together."

"I'm just surprised you're going to attend the same university as me. I mean you'd be able to get into much better ones than it, right?" I said

"I could but then I wouldn't be able to spend as much time with you. And besides, I'm going to be studying abroad for my second and third years after I get used to college life, so I want to be able to enjoy my time with you and my friends while I still can." Mari said, hugging me again

"Right, sorry about that" I said before trying to change the topic "So anyways, what's up with your office? I've never seen it this empty."

"Oh right, I haven't told you yet. Well I was going to announce it tomorrow but I'm resigning from being the chairwoman of Uranohoshi. With us starting college I thought I'd free up a bit of time in my schedule for studying and spending time with people I love." Mari said

"I mean with how you procrastinate sometimes I wonder how much time you're actually freeing up." I said, being the one on the teasing side for once. There've been plenty of times in the past where I've gotten calls as I'm headed to bed because she's got to finish some part of her work, or asks to see if I'll come by her office to help her with something.

"Oh hush." Mari said as she playfully pushed me, giggling a little "It's not often that you're the ones making the jokes."

"I mean I try if I can come up with something clever." I said "Problem is that I just can never come up with stuff in the moment."

The two of us talked for a while longer, and as we did I started to loosen up some. I've been stressing myself out and getting so worked up that I've ended up in a pretty crap cycle. But being with Mari and even just talking to her is enough to help me cheer up and loosen up so I can just try to enjoy things again.

After a while I stretched out and said "Hey, how about instead of sitting in an empty office all afternoon we go and do something before we gotta split up. That way we enjoy this last bittersweet day before graduation."

Mari took hold of my hand and started to pull me along as she said "Of course, let's go!"

I let out a soft chuckle as I went with her once again caught in her rhythm, my passion slowly growing by just being with her, and as I looked at the beauty in front of me, I once again wondered what kind of deeds did I do in a past life to end up with somebody so perfect and inspiring as her.