Stepping Beyond the Pixels: Loves Intricate Game

Chapter Fifteen: Gym Class Blues

"Wow, L/n-chan, you're even cuter than when I last saw you," Fuyuhiko joked with that boyish grin he's famous for. "And here I thought that wasn't possible."

You couldn't deny the small butterflies that fluttered in your tummy at his words, but you push that aside as you already know how he is. Though a certain female lead seems to currently be a flaming ball of fire, standing off to the side of you. "Hey, Kaneko-kun, charming as always I see," you say half sarcastically, unintentionally pouting.

"Ouch, you could sound a little happier to see me. After all, we don't get these joint gym classes often, isn't that right Kobayashi-chan?" The flirt asked the fireball named Yuki with a tilt of his head, obviously he was teasing her.

"Hmph! I see you're inviting yourself into other people's conversations, as per usual," Yuki said as she stared at the boy in contempt. "No one called you over, so why don't you beat it! We have other important matters to deal with besides listening to your nonsense." She turned her nose up to him.

While the attention was off of you, you took a moment to observe the interaction between the two as they continued to bicker, seemingly ignoring the other four parties present. This whole plan that you developed to get Emi and Suzuki together was created so that you could keep him away from Yuki so that you could hopefully save his life. More than likely all of your future plans will have the same concept; keep everybody away from Yuki so that Akui won't want to kill them. Which is proving to be much easier said than done

Theoretically speaking, the first step to any plan that involved keeping Yuki away from the capture targets would be to not have them meet at all. Can't fall in love if they never actually meet. Suffice to say you failed on that front. All three love interests have already met her, with you being the technical reason for one meeting, and it was only a matter of time before they showed interest in her. Technically you will have the longest time to get them to not be interested in Yuki as their relationship development is a slow process over the full school year, but the longer you leave them alone the harder it will be to make them lose interest in her down the line.

'I think I'm starting to see why all three of the love interests have some sort of enemies to lovers aspect to them. At the start of each route, there is something about the love interest that Yuki doesn't agree with, but as their relationship progresses she slowly starts to understand them better and feelings start to form. Maybe that's why Akui didn't do anything to the love interests in their original routes; he thought that there was no way Yuki could fall for someone she is constantly arguing with. And it's not like they ever tried to hurt her like most of the other people he killed, but in the secret ending it seemed like romantic interest was building much faster between all of the love interests. This is probably due to the fact that the player has to purposely keep Yuki from investigating crime scenes. That might be why Akui was actually driven to kill the love interests, and if I'm safe to assume that this world follows the plot of the secret ending then change needs to start now...'

"Hey, Yuki-chan," you interrupted before she could hurl another insult at Fuyuhiko. Everyone present perked up at the sound of your voice. "I think maybe you should be a little nicer to Kaneko-kun. He's not as bad as you think once you get to know him..." you nervously trail off as you stare down at your gym shoes. 'Fuyuhiko's interest in Yuki started with her constant, and a lot of the times harsh, rejections towards him. It was amusing for him to watch at first. If I can get her to be more passive and nice towards him then that might just be step one in my plan to keep him alive.'

When Yuki didn't immediately reply, and when the silence became too embarrassing to bear, you lifted your head to see why, only to be thoroughly surprised by the almost horrified look on Yuki's face.