SWEET [Assassination Classroom]

My hero [Maehara Hiroto]

  As the sun exposed its sides, you were starting to wake up already. It was only the crack of dawn, but for a terrible reason, you couldn't continue sleeping properly. Removing the covers from your stature, you sat up and instantly felt a sting travelling through your body like an electric current. You winced loudly in pain as your hand shot up instinctively to the area where the sting was sensed, only to find the pain even more excruciating than before. Learning your lesson, you quickly put your hand down to prevent it from working up again. Staring into a blank and dim space of your room, your brain was starting to go into a frenzy. You have no idea why your back was hurting so severely. Memories of yesterday ran through your mind quickly as you struggled to find the reason towards your sudden injury.

You went to school, had lunch with a few of your friends, came home to play computer games, did your homework, and...

Wait, scratch that, you didn't actually did your work.

But, you did play computer games, for a really really long time.

As recollection of yesterday late night gaming ran through your brain, you face palmed yourself in hopelessness, finally understanding why your back was hurting like crap.

"I should really get a better place to use my laptop rather than the floor." You spoke out to no one in general before straightening your back, attempting to soothe the pain but to no avail. You stretched your arm before getting off your bed, still massaging your back. You headed towards the toilet before cleaning yourself up and coming back out again. Crawling back to the bed, you brought your laptop with you as a tingly sensation aroused inside you.

"Well, it's not like I'm going to stop using my laptop."

With that, you flipped open the laptop and waited for it to start up. Once the desktop flashes, you spent no time to move the cursor to the game that you've spent so much time on. It was a MMORPG that you've played so many years. Sure, there were times when you would get breaks from the game, but you've always made sure you would return. The logos of the game flashes on your screen and the trailer played, showing off the game's amazing assets and quality. You wait for the trailer to slowly reach its end before fading away to display the login screen. Swiftly, you typed in your ID and password without a single pause, after all, you've been doing this for so long. After the word 'log in successful' appeared, you were brought to the character selection menu. And there he was, the boy of your dream.

Beautiful wavy mid-short, light brown hair, accompanied by shimmering hazel eyes. Pirate hat decorated with white feathers that was coated with slight gold at the ends of it, dressed in white buccaneer coat and high knee boots that had silver metal clips decorating the sides. In his hand held a sharp silvery cutlass that is lined with golden jewels on the grip and cross-guard. On the bottom, his nickname is labelled as "MaeharaHiroto". Double clicking the character, you registered into the game as the town started to load. Once it was completed, you saw your character turned around to face the screen before he grinned.

"Hey gorgeous! Welcome back, it's been sometime since I've seen you~"

Your heart fluttered in bliss at his voice and replied to him.

"We saw each other yesterday, didn't we?"

"Well, I can't get enough of your beautiful face."

It was a secret of your own that no one knew about. That's right, you can interact with your own character. You weren't sure how this had happened, and neither did your character. You clearly remembered that one time when you got defeated, out of anger, you bellowed,

"GODDAMIT THIS IS SO HARD!"

To only hear a sudden reply from your speaker,

"I KNOW!"

You were nearly scared out of your skin, obviously following along with you finding out what had happened. You could only stare blankly at the screen in front of you that was depicting your character slouching, tired from the countless amount of defeats. Soon enough, he had noticed something was wrong that you weren't giving any commands despite being in a middle of a fight right now. Anxiously glancing back, he came eye to eye with you as the situation processed in your mind to only discover you can now hear each other. Since then, you were intrigued by this unscientific occurrence and spent even more time than you did before to communicate with this character of yours in order to solve this newfound mysteries. Yet things took a weird turn for you, and now you're falling more and more for this character that you made by yourself.

"Anyway, babe~ what are we doing today?"

"When did I ever become your 'babe'?"

"I know you want to."

"Egoistic." You mumbled under your breath, "I was thinking of attempting the event boss dungeon. They might be dropping some special sets today, I haven't check what it is though...Still, it would be nice to get some new armor."

His golden eyes shone like stars, just as you expected.

"I approve! I would love to have more things that makes me look good, even though I look good in everything." He blew a kiss towards the screen at you as you felt your heart skip a beat. However, you hurriedly play it off.

"Get moving already, idiot." With that, you quickly sent him away with the press of a button.

--

The both of you made your way to the event arena and watched as many other players and their characters flood into the place. Maehara's voice became a little static-like due to the heavy flow of server as you watched your screen lagging bit by bit. You groaned in frustration but decided to wait patiently. The arena was blasting with fireworks in the sky, there were banners hung everywhere and NPCs* dressed up accordingly to the event. You commanded Maehara to walk forth to the main event NPC, which was a cute girl in low double pony tail. She wore a flower crown around her head, festooned with roses and pink camellia. Similarly, she held a bouquet of the same flowers in her arms. Dressed in white from head to toe, her skirt was flowing with the breeze that was programmed into the game. With a bright big smile, she welcomed the players. Before you even had the chance to say something, you've realised Maehara had went off to flirt with her.

"Mae-"You attempted to call out to him when suddenly, a message popped onto your screen, cutting your words off abruptly.

'KeitanArice (Lv 80) has invited you into their party.'

You blinked a few times and your eyes glanced over to your own character screen on instinct, to see that Maehara was level 90. You pondered a bit, unsure whether to team up with this unknown player. However, you didn't have the opportunity to let out another word before your character (like always) cut you off again.

"Oh! She's really pretty, and she's wearing a bunch of cash item. Accept it!" He voiced out his opinion without a single doubt. You huffed at his somewhat shady words but decided to listen to him and accepted the request. Once it was registered, you heard a soft 'peep', signalling that someone had spoken in the party chat.

'Hello J' The chat was oddly accompanied by a smiley face which made you cringe slightly. After all, you're not very use to having proper conversation that is spelled out with full words and appropriate emoji.

'hi' You replied just like how you normally will.

"Where is that person?" Maehara called out to you while he tiptoed through the crowd, trying to look around, but you just shook your head. In spite so, you weren't sure if he really saw it. Just then, a tall lady came into the sight of your computer screen as she held a double fan in both her hands. Brunette hair with side bang and a fishtail braid that was so long that it contacted her thighs, that was how she looked like. Her clothing was very exposing, all she had on was this purple top which was decorated with lace patterns. The cloth that barely covered her top chest and it didn't have any strap either. It stretched all the way to her thighs, where she wore a tight blue short. Down her knees was high brown boots. To top everything off, she was equipped with these pair of transparent angel wings. Her IGN was displayed a different colour from the rest, meaning she was the person who invited you. At the moment, you swore you heard Maehara drooling and panting loudly.

'Nice to meet you. :D What's your character job?'

Your brows furrowed in doubt. You thought she would have at least took note of that before inviting you into a party.

'err pirate, hbu?'

'Awesome! I'm a dancer. J' Once more, you felt your hair stand at the use of the strangely formal emoticon. You brushed it off and offered a reply.

'nice, btw do u kno what event is this?'

'Yeah! There are giving out new cash outfits, isn't that great? It means we don't have to spend money, that would certainly save me a lot!'

Your eyes twitched at her response. It was quite an ironic thing to hear her say.

'lol that's good, wat items are they giving?'

'Well...you see, that's the problem. They're giving out...

couple outfits. A bride dress and a groom suit. So....'

You ceased all your actions at her words. No matter what, there's only one vibe you're getting off from her and her character and that is to have you MARRY Maehara off to this. Girl. For this event. She's basically proposing that you become a couple with her, or at least not you but Maehara himself. Which actually, makes the whole matter a thousand time worst. First of all, you're already in love with this 2D character that you cannot physically approach, second of all, you're going to have to let him marry some random girl who probably doesn't understand your situation right now and thinks it's no big deal considering she's not the one communicating with her own character. Lastly, just how on earth are you going to explain to her that you're now unwilling to couple her because you are 'in love' with your own character? That would make you either very insane or narcissistic (that you likely want to marry your own made up character in some online game) in her eyes. In conclusion, there's no way out of this situation.

'Errmm...lol, wat r we supposed to do then?' You acted dense, trying to play the situation off.

'I mean...do you really want the event outfit..? I kind of...do.'

Talk about passive aggressive.

'Im ok wif anything...lol.'

'Then can we like...partner up? If that's okay with you.'

You grunted out of annoyance. However, it was clear that Maehara had something different in mind when he rudely interrupted the moment by replying to her for you.

"Of course, beautiful one. You're so cute and pretty, I'd marry you any day now."

Your heart paused for a quick second that seemed to travel as slow as a turtle. Somehow, those words he so easily confessed to a stranger was making you irked. You could feel the liquid in your veins gradually starting to boil, irritated at how easily he flattered to the looks of another girl. It started to make you wonder if you will ever mean something to him, the thoughts clouded your judgement and senses for a bit.

'Oh my. I did not expect that reply at all, thank you so much! You're really helping me out. If you want, we can always get to know each other better as a favour.'

"Hell yeah! I'll tell you anything you want to know about me."

You nearly rammed your head into your wall in anger. Clenching your fist, you tried as hard as you possibly can to maintain yourself. Saying you were not jealous right now would be saying that humans did not need oxygen to survive.

"Let's go and get married right now, (F/N)!"

"Don't talk to me."

--

After the extremely agonising session of marriage, you were finally prepared to set off for the event. Except, this girl was really getting under your skin. She was acting like she literally married in her life, she stuck onto you, or should you say, Maehara, like a super glue. PDA was probably the first word in her vocabulary list, seeing how she never fail to stop displaying it. To top off your grumpiness and jealousy, Maehara was following after her pace like a lost puppy chasing after a bone. You felt like that unnecessary third wheel that had been with her best friend for years to only watch him get stolen away by some girl.

'Aw~ Maehara, you're such a sweet guy.'

"What can I say? Anything for my girl." He casually slipped his arm over her shoulder as you fumed in agitation. These two are honestly getting ahead of themselves...

'Hehe. Anyway, shall we attend the event now? Which level do you want to enter? I'd like to try the hard one.'

Before Maehara could even get a single word out of his mouth, you shushed him and typed in something else.

'I only play Abyss mode.' You grinned evilly at your respond while Maehara yelled at you for 'cockblocking' him. Since her level and yours was 10 level apart, you decided to toy with her for a bit and make her suffer by playing the hardest mode in the game, hopefully warning her to back off.

'Ah...I don't know if I can survive that. I'll try my best though!'

"I'll protect you if anything happens." Maehara retorted quickly.

'Ah, thank you! You're so awesome <3'

"Ugh. Can we just go enter already?" You grumbled angrily to Maehara.

With a few clicks of a button, the two of you had successfully enter the dungeon. The first place appeared in a dark area that was surrounded with tall trees and muddy swamp. The binaural sound effect of footsteps resounded in your headphones as you found yourself getting a little nervous. You could hear the swaying of the tree and the low creepy frog croaks clearly within your ears. The breeze was quite fade, but it still added to the atmosphere in a very eerie way. Despite not being there like Maehara, you were shaking a little bit.

'Maehara, this is scary.'

"Maehara, this is scary."

You blinked in surprise to see that the both of you have simultaneously said the same exact words. You stared as all Maehara did was laughed it off as he gave you a quick glance before turning back to the girl.

"No worries, I told you I would protect you, right?"

The ache was quick but you felt it as you would with any other pain. You didn't understand what the glance was supposed to convey, or at least you chose not to. Still, it certainly didn't feel good at all. Without saying any more words, you resumed your playing session silently. The two of you fought through the waves and waves of enemies, a few times she nearly lost her life, but she got back on her feet quickly with full recovery potions. The whole time, the only thing you could do was command him to fight as you listened to him drowning himself in his own happiness.

Who knew playing a game could be this heart breaking?

You came to final stage and you summoned your ultimate skill, successfully defeating the big boss with a fast hit. As you watched the reward literally rained from the sky, you noticed the two sets of thing that blasted off this whole shenanigans.

It was the married couple outfit, lying in the centre while fireworks of celebrations sounded off into the air. The message 'congratulations!' was flashing through your screen dramatically as you took a deep breath, realising how long you had held your breath during the intense battle previously. The girl rushed over to the sets as she called out,

"Maehara! Hurry and come pick it up. I'm so excited to wear this ^-^! We'll look like a real couple when we wear this, eheh."

You bit your lips and directed Maehara to the rewards without saying much. You watched in anguish as they both put the clothes on. This has to be the first time you feel so stupid and so grief-stricken, this whole situation was so loose and annoying. As you get trapped in your own bubble of acrimony, you barely noticed your blonde boy is calling out for your own attention.

"(F/N), do I look hot?" He grinned at the screen, where you stared right at him. God had not been on your side as your heart skipped the beat that you hated with passion. Still, you couldn't bear to be dishonest with this boy.

"Yeah." You expressed with as much honesty as you could. At this point, this is the only words you can convey to him.

'Ahh, thank you so so much for today! I have to go off now, I'm so glad we got to meet each other.' The message popped in without a single notice, as if it was on purpose. Maehara whined slightly as he watched the girl waved at him before he expressed his own goodbyes. With one last smile, she vanished from the screen, sign that she had left the game. The awkward silence flooded in quickly as you sat on your office chair, all of the sudden forgetting how to start a proper conversation. Your cursor slowly glided over to the menu button, ready to click the 'close button' before his voice rose and cut through the silence like a sharp knife.

"Hey." It was very out of character for him to sound so serious. You flinched and quickly closed the menu, hiding that you've attempted to escape. "Are you okay?"

"...Why wouldn't I be?" You tried to keep your composure.

"You didn't sound very excited." He turned back and glanced at you. "Are you unhappy?"

"No." You said flatly.

"Say. Why don't you ever call my first name?"

You were stunned by his random question that popped out of nowhere. Your eyes widened as you stared at the screen that was radiating its light, he had looked away from you. You took a deep breath, hoping that he wouldn't turn around just yet.

"...I like the way your last name sounds. The way it rolls off my tongue, there's a really nice feeling to it." You explained, barely noticing that the heat had rushed to your cheeks and how fast your heart was beating. You couldn't understand why he inquired such a thing, and the tense atmosphere certainly didn't assist you in the situation at all.

"Well, aren't you in luck?"

"Huh?" You were absolutely lost. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's going to be your own name soon."

Those words ran through your mind at first like a blank paper in a scanner, you were unable to process anything. Like a delayed engine, your mind worked out each and every word, till it finally clicked and connected. You swore everything stopped suddenly before your face burned up like an erupting volcano. Your palm shot up quickly as it covered your mouth, shaking in euphoria. Everything happened so hastily and so unexpectedly. Why...?

"I don't know what you were feeling down about, but I'll assume it's that girl...?"

"..." You didn't want to admit it.

"If you ask me, you're probably the person that's the furthest from me.

Physically.

But mentally, you're the closest to me.

We basically live in a different dimension, but being your character was probably the biggest thing that could ever happened to me. Like literally. Because you created me."

A 'pft' escaped your mouth as you listened.

"But. That's not the problem. You can marry me off to 1, 10, 100 people, I wouldn't mind it. Girls are cute and all, but in the end, I think my eyes refused to land on anyone but yours. Hopefully this is what you've desired to hear." He spun on his heel to meet you in the eyes, a goofy grin decorated his face with a soft tint of blush on his cheeks. "I don't like seeing you quiet, baby. You're a lot cuter when you're cheering me on as we fight together."

The smile broke out on your face, you couldn't conceal it no matter how much effort you put in. You wiped the bits of stray tears that had escaped through the corner of your eyes. Listening to his simple sentences, you finally realised how insecure and restless you had become towards the whole situation. You felt slightly shameful that you've doubted him, after all, it was very hard to convey your feelings to someone who lives in a different dimension from you.

"Thank you...Hiroto. I'll be sure to talk more for you."

"Heh that would be nice." He grinned. However, it quickly morphed into a smirk in seconds. "I do like it when you make noises for me. Like those 'ah ah' sounds-"

The heat rushed back again as you shushed him in an embarrassing way, preventing him from saying anymore words. He retorted with a big laughter which you responded with a defeated sigh. Still, you still couldn't shake off the thought.

He was the only 'Hiro' you'll ever need.


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WOW i'M SO not dead I swear. This was done over such a long time, there's a feeling of inconsistency to it T^T But still, I'm happy I finally got it out. Maehara is such a sweetheart sometimes, I do hope he becomes more popular after the airing of Season 2~ Since I'll be sUPER busy over this entire year, updates will be take as long as this does, please forgive me!

Thank you for reading!