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About me (skip this if you don’t care)

(Insert paragraph explaining how much of a big deal Katawa Shoujo is to me)

Why Molly?

Short answer: I dunno.

Long answer:

Katawa Shoujo is well written even if I don’t like all the routes because all of the characters fulfill a niche and they don’t tread on anyone else’s shoes. Molly treads. She is half (or entirely, no explanation given) foreign, like Lilly, even if she is Indian instead of Scottish. She lost her legs, like Emi, even if hers were amputated above-knee compared to Emi’s below-knee. I thought this was interesting when I looked at the picture of Class 3-3 given at the start of the game and decided she would be the character I would write about if I ever were to write something for this game, because the theme of identity is practically slapping me in the face and, ironically, it doesn’t conflict with any of the other routes’ themes.

Aren’t there already fanfictions featuring Molly?

Yeah probably. I haven’t read many fanfictions in this fandom. I read Learning to Fly by Eurobeatjester (from whom I am ungraciously stealing a large portion of my BBCode formatting) and liked it and read a solid chunk of Sisterhood and liked it. The only one featuring Molly that I read was Gravity by Feurox, which appears to be the most popular one. Unfortunately, not only has that one been left on hiatus for a long time, I also personally didn’t like the turn it took with Molly’s character, especially since I felt like writing from the perspective of the girl instead of Hisao defeats the purpose of a pseudo-route. Not saying that no-one can ever write from a perspective other than Hisao, but I feel like doing so turns it into something different. If anything in this fanfiction conflicts with anything in any other fanfictions it is because I am not omniscient and am writing based off of the game and not the extended Katawa-fanonverse.

Yeah so I wrote this. I have a decent chunk pre-written in case dire straits prevent me from attending to my keyboard, but it is always under constant review and I am rewriting large chunks of it as I post.

Table of Contents

Act 1: Life Expectancy
Cut and Deal
Parallel Circuits
Ko Fight

Act 1: Life Expectancy

Scene 1: Cut and Deal

This takes place in Act 1 during the scene Event Horizon, where Shizune and Misha have Hisao building stalls on a Thursday afternoon.

I don’t think I’ve ever hammered so much in my life.

No, I certainly haven’t.

As I wipe a bead of sweat from my brow, I wonder to myself why I’ve gotten myself mixed up with people who seem so intent on treating me like an ancient Egyptian slave, hauling giant stones and building pyramids. It’s practically as hot as a desert, too, with the Student Council room seeming to have sucked the heat out of the entire school just to keep us roasting. Unfortunately, what I’m building won’t stand the test of… what? Five thousand years? If I’m lucky, this stall will stand until the end of this Sunday. If I’m unlucky, I’ll get chewed out by Shizune.

“Taking a break, hmm, Hicchan~?” Misha calls over the stall she’s working on with Shizune. We’ve made about the same number of stalls, but while I’ve assembled them all by myself, Shizune and Misha have split the work. In essence, I’ve done the same amount of work as both of them combined, and a frown appears on my face as I make that observation. I want to complain, but Shizune would probably chalk it up to me being a man, or Misha having delicate, easily broken nails. It would make me laugh if it didn’t also upset me, but I can’t really stay mad at them. I can mope, though. I’m very good at moping.

I turn back towards my stall with a sigh and continue hammering. Outside, the yellow-orange sky tells me that it’ll probably be sunset in less than an hour. Doing some quick mental calculations, I’ve been working on these stalls for more than four hours. I wonder what I could have spent that time doing instead? Taking a walk? Getting a proper dinner? Even if I had just spent these past hours reading, I could have gotten a sizable chunk through a book. I was actually really looking forward to starting this new one I got from the libra-

THUD.

“OW!” I shout. I jerk my hand back and grab my thumb, my hammer an afterthought, clattering to the floor with a loud crash that makes Misha yelp. That’s what I get for wondering while hammering.

“Are you okay, Hicchan?” Misha asks, the normal lilt in her voice absent. Shizune, on the other hand, hasn’t even raised her eyes from the stall she’s ‘working’ on.

I examine my thumb with a grimace on my face. It’s red all along the knuckle and the impact of the hammer head has burnt a curved white line into the nail.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hit my thumb. Not too bad, I think.”

Misha, still signing everything she says, seems to notice Shizune inattentiveness, and flicks her up the head irritably to get her attention. “Do you need a band-aid, Hicchan? We keep some in the cupboards… somewhere…”

“It’s not cut, I’m fine.”

“Ice, then? From the Nurse’s office?”

“No, I’m fine,” I repeat, my tone coming off as more annoyed than I am. I have no reason to be pissy with Misha, but pain does seem to do that to you.

Misha looks concernedly at me one last time, then turns back to her stall.

“If you say so, Hicchan.”

I stand up, shaking my thumb, and sit on a desk by the window. Yeah, this’ll definitely bruise, but at least I didn’t split my nail. I frown again, wrenching my attention away from my increasingly red thumb and looking outside. I think I should quit. Maybe if I wasn’t here then the girls would actually get some work done.

There’s a knock at the door, and, without waiting for an answer, a girl carrying a slim folder of papers opens the door and walks in.

She lets the door fall closed behind her as she sweeps her eyes across the room, first on Shizune, then Misha, then lingering on me. If she’s confused as to someone being in the Student Council room other than the dynamic duo, she doesn’t let it show.

I think I recognize her from my class: Molly Kapur, if I remember correctly. She sits directly in front of me. I have to make the rather embarrassing confession that I recognized her more from her metal legs than her face. I’d seen them before, but it still shocks me now: unlike Emi’s, the prosthetics continue well above her knee.

She has a regal face: a thin mouth with lips pulled into a light frown, accompanied with curious, flickering eyes that I can’t determine the color of, somewhere between black and brown. She’s wearing the standard school uniform, although on her it acquires a neater appearance. Her face is framed with two braids, the left one pinned to her temple with two small red clips.

“Molly~!” Misha translates for Shizune. Even for Misha, she has an exceptionally cheery tone to her voice. “Come to deliver your club budget report? Ahead of schedule, as usual!”

“Wait a second,” I interrupt, drawing an annoyed glance from Shizune. “Weren’t you guys fighting with Lilly just earlier today about how she was late? Isn’t it due tomorrow?”

“Hicchan, this is the report for this trimester, not for the festival. Molly submitted the festival’s budget report last week~!” Misha beams a smile at Molly, who stares straight at her with a bored expression, pretending I’m not in the room. “And the trimester’s budget report isn’t due until the end of this month~!”

“Whether I submit the report or not,” Molly begins, her voice quiet but traveling further than you would expect due to her clear enunciation, “depends on whether you will approve a few adjustments I have made. I have increased our budget for supplies. We have to buy some new costumes.”

“Costumes?” I ask, and Shizune glares at me again. “What club is this for?”

Misha turns to me and claps her hand onto Molly’s shoulder before leading her forward, presenting her like a very unwilling trophy. She allows herself to be led along for a few steps before planting her feet.

“Molly here runs the theater club, Hicchan~. She took over as student director this year, and it’s already got twenty members!”

“Thirty,” Molly corrects, handing the folder in question to Misha to distract her and then snaking out of her grasp. “There were twenty-four members as of the previous report. I’ve had to adjust most of the figures to compensate.”

“I’m sure we can approve it, since so many students love your club~. Right, Shicchan?”

Shizune nods slowly, a pleased smile on her face, before adjusting her glasses. Molly stands where she is, looking down at Shizune for a moment. She traces the shambling corpse (pre-corpse?) of the half-constructed stall with her eyes, which I have now determined are, in fact, a very dark brown, and at some point she meets my gaze. I look away, back towards the window.

Outside, the sky is still just as orange as ever. Did Molly stay after class to finish the report? For four hours? And who knows how much she had been working on it before then. I can’t help but admire her dedication.

Misha translates for Shizune, who signs emphatically beside her: “Well, then. Is that it, Molly?”

“It is,” she replies. Shizune nods again, and Molly spins around lazily, but instead of walking towards the door, she stops her turn at ninety degrees and comes straight towards me.

“Hurt your hand?”

After a moment of bewildering suspicion at how she could read minds, I realize I’ve been holding my hand out in front of me like a bird with a broken wing.

“W-what? Oh, yeah. I hit myself with a hammer just a minute ago.”

She looks at my hand, which I present to her. It, regretfully, does not look as bad as my pose would suggest.

“While, uh, nailing the stalls together.”

Of course, Hisao. Of course you had to specify. What? Does she think you were just randomly waving a hammer around? Of course it was while nailing the stalls together.

“You should go to the Nurse to get a cold compress,” she says, looking up from my hand towards Misha and Shizune. For the first time since Molly’s arrival, an expression that isn’t a beaming smile spreads across Misha’s face as she suddenly frowns. Shizune raises an eyebrow, too.

“Follow me,” Molly commands, ignoring them.

She turns around sharply, not bothering to check whether I plan to follow her. I shrug at Misha, who glances back towards Shizune, wide-eyed. They seem shocked that their slave is about to be stolen from them. Unfortunately for their schemes, I have a major medical emergency. I droop my grave injury at them and use my other hand to wipe away fake tears as I leave.

“It’s not really that bad, I don’t need to go to the Nurse,” I say, jogging towards Molly to catch up. She's not exactly a fast walker, but she’s faster than I expected, considering her…

I still don’t know what to call it. Disability? It’s definitely a disability, but the word still sounds too harsh. Handicap? No, that’s even worse. Anyway, she had a head start.

“Have you been working since the end of the school day?” she asks, her tone flat, as if uninterested in the answer to her own question.

She holds her hands behind herself as she walks, her steps deliberate and placed in front of her with measured ease, such that the whole of her body bears the intention of motion. Anyway it causes her braids to swing beside her head like pendulums, which I find a little funny.

I chuckle. “Yeah, right since the bell rang, but now the Nurse is going to think I’m a big baby.”

We round the corner of the hallway into the main lobby, and I take a few quick steps ahead and get the door, holding it open for her. She walks through as if she expected it all along, but she does dip her head almost imperceptibly to say thanks.

She doesn’t have to dip her head much. I’ve just realized that she’s quite short, now that I’m standing beside her. I understand someone with prosthetic legs would be shorter than average, but it’s not like her prosthetics look out of proportion. She might be even shorter than Emi.

“Then think of it as a necessary sacrifice in order to escape the Student Council for the rest of the evening,” she says, and I can’t tell whether she actually caught onto my comment being a joke. “They would have kept you there until dark.”

“Probably not that long, we were almost done,” I reply instinctively.

“Oh, were you?” she asks, almost mockingly, daring me to correct myself.

“...No, not really,” I admit, chuckling awkwardly again. I scratch the back of my head and sigh as I look at Molly.

Her posture is perfect, and the easy and obviously practiced nature of her gait makes me feel that, were she to wear a longer skirt, it would be practically impossible to tell that she… well… doesn’t have legs. Given how long it must have taken to relearn walking after losing them (or maybe she was born without them? I don’t know, I’m new here), I can’t help but wonder whether choosing to wear the knee-length skirt was a deliberate decision. After all, the school definitely offers longer skirts as an option. Lilly practically wears a floor-sweeper.

“What?”

Molly is looking at me, and I’m looking at her legs (lack of legs?) again. I wrench my head forward in embarrassment.

“Nothing.”

Molly frowns. Or perhaps returns to frowning, I can’t really tell. She alternates between looking ahead and at the sky, her eyes occasionally flicking my way, as if to check that I’m still here.

“So, what do you think of Yamaku academy, Hicchan?”

“Oh god. Don’t you start calling me that too.”

Molly hums, apparently pleased with herself. “Too late. Misha used to call me Moka.”

“Mocha?”

“Molly Kapur, first syllables of my first and last names. Back when I was in the Student Council, I told her it was hardly professional for her to compare a person with dark skin to chocolate in a professional environment. As a joke, of course. She couldn’t tell I was joking, so she took me seriously and stopped. Ever since then I don’t think she considers me much fun.”

“I can’t imagine how something like that could possibly happen,” I say, my sarcasm unfortunately less subtle than I had hoped.

“Yes, my sarcasm is sometimes so powerful it is undetectable. Har har.”

Maybe if she added “har har” to the end of her sentences more people could tell when she was joking. I don’t see how anyone could otherwise.

“You were in the Student Council?” I ask, absentmindedly.

“I was, until it broke up.”

I put my hand to my chin, thinking. We round a bend, and the medical building attached to the school comes into sight. I think back to Lilly and Shizune’s argument this morning. God, it was loud. I don’t know how that can even happen, considering one of the involved parties is deaf-mute.

“I’m still a little unclear on that. The Student Council broke up fairly recently, right? And Lilly was in it? Was that the reason it broke up? Because they hate each other so much?”

Molly raises an eyebrow and stays silent for a moment. It’s becoming very clear to me that she likes to structure her entire sentence in her head before she speaks. I don’t know if that’s something to be admired or not. That, or she’s considering whether she should answer me at all.

“They hate each other because it broke up, not the other way around. They are related, first cousins, and they have drastically different approaches towards leadership,” Molly opens her mouth wide as if to laugh, but closes it without comment. She continues: “The Student Council broke up into factions and then the factions dissolved. Shizune and Misha are perfectly fine people, if you can stand them.”

It sounds strange hearing her call people by their first names in a conversation. Given her formality earlier, I had assumed she would have gone with ‘Miss Satou’ and ‘Miss Hakamichi,’ or something similar. Anyway, that’s not as important as the fact that they’re cousins?! What?!?

Processing that information, I drag myself back to the present and the last couple things Molly said.

“Ah,” I say, “and… why did you leave?”

“I can’t stand them.”

“Ah.”

I think for a moment, then continue: “I agree they can be a little in-your-face, sometimes, but I do like hanging out with them, even if I don't sound like it. Once you get past all the… recruitment, they’re really nice, don’t you think?”

Molly doesn’t respond, instead contenting herself with giving me side-eye. That seems to be what she does. That’s her thing. She doesn’t look at me while we’re talking, and instead only looks straight ahead. Maybe it has something to do with her legs, and she has to focus on walking more than me? I guess I’m just giving her the benefit of the doubt, she could totally be doing that to mess with me.

Goddammit, she's caught me looking at her legs again. She’s gonna yell at me.

Here it comes.

“You had to check in with the Nurse when you arrived, no?” Molly asks, suddenly changing the topic.

“Well, yes,” I reply, a little confused.

“So you know where his office is, then?”

“I do.”

“Then why do you think I’m walking with you?”

Ow.

It's a good question, even if it was only meant as a gut-punch. Could be any number of reasons, right? Maybe she has to see the Nurse as well? Maybe her room is- no, wait, the girls' dorms are the other way. Finding something funny to say in response would be a lot easier if she wasn't looking at me like that; like I'm stupid.

Molly stops abruptly, and I turn around to find her standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at me with an eyebrow raised.

“Here. I’ll cut you a deal. I’m the de facto president and student director of the theater club. We meet after school and I’m still looking for new members. We’ve finished our first play and even though you’re joining more than halfway through the year we’re only just starting our second one, so you’ll have an opportunity to join something from the beginning, for a change. I would hate to see another new student wasted on the Student ‘Council,’ and you’ll be able to say you’ve joined a club, since that’s so encouraged at this school.”

I stand still for a moment, frozen, with my hand paused in the middle of awkwardly scratching the back of my head. Is this the answer to her question? That she wanted to recruit me? While I struggle to think of an answer to everything that has just transpired, Molly slightly relaxes her posture and dusts off her skirt. I figure I shouldn’t keep her waiting much longer.

“Um, thanks. I will definitely think about it.”

She raises her head, nodding at me with a grin. “Thank you, Nakai. Now, are we going to the Nurse or not?”

“Now that I’m out here I should probably get some ice, yeah.”

“Wonderful. So when you said you didn’t need it earlier, what was that?”

“A lie?”

Molly shrugs. “You tell me.”

“Well, it’s not very fun to be consistent, is it?”

And Molly hums. No answer.

I wonder.

After... whatever just happened, we find our way to the Nurse’s office, and my unscheduled appointment goes largely without incident. The Nurse gives me more than one furrowing of his eyebrows for showing up, not just with such a minor injury, but also with a girl. I can tell he gets a lot of fun out of teasing me. Thankfully, Molly isn’t present for the brunt of it; she excuses herself just about the instant we arrive. On the one hand, it prevents Molly from seeing this. On the other hand, it allows the Nurse to really rev up his teasing engine.

“Well, do you want anything more than some ice, Hisao? A kiss for your booboo, maybe?”

The Nurse holds out a bag of ice for me, a lopsided grin on his face. His office smells like a combination of coffee and hand sanitizer.

“No thanks,” I say, accepting the ice from him gratefully. “Although a lollipop would be nice.”

He contemplates this. “If I just started handing out my secret stash of lollipops to everyone who got the tiniest injury, people would start hurting themselves just to get them.”

“You have a secret stash of lollipops?”

“Emphasis on ‘secret,’” he says, and his smile returns.

He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. His face returns to a neutral expression, and I see him turn around to look for his cup of coffee, which he then realizes is empty, before turning back towards me. He shuffles a folder, one that I have reason to believe is my folder, and then speaks up again.

“I heard from my anonymous informant that you showed up to the track this morning. Glad to see you’re taking my advice seriously.”

“Anonymous informant? Now who could that be?”

“Who knows? I’m a very mysterious man,” he says, then pauses. “...So it was Miss Kapur who noticed your injury and dropped you off?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say, coloring a bit. Saying that she ‘dropped me off’ makes it sound like she’s my mom.

“Well, I feel the need to ask you a favor, then. She’s supposed to be exercising more often, too,” he pauses. He grabs a pencil off of his desk and scribbles something onto a piece of paper, likely a note for himself. “If you could get her to the pool, or the gym, or even to go for walks every so often, I would be grateful.”

I nod, thinking. The Nurse’s frown immediately tells me that I won’t be getting any extra information out of him. Something something client confidentiality and all that.

“Can’t you tell Emi? Or a teacher? Or tell her yourself?” I say. I’m just curious, but my tone accidentally comes off as if I’m complaining.

“Oh believe me, I would if I could, but that girl has made an art out of avoiding me,” he groans. “Emi seems to have given up on her, and it makes sense; running in Molly’s situation would be exceptionally difficult, even if Emi insists that she should ‘just try it.’ I have another anonymous informant at the pool, but she’s not as pushy as Emi, so I’m out of luck over there.”

I try to imagine Emi pressuring Molly to go running, but something about their personalities tells me they’d mesh like oil and water. It would definitely be fun to watch, though.

“I will let her know, then."

“Thanks. Don’t hit yourself with a hammer again,” he jokes, but the frown doesn’t leave his face.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I say, and I turn to leave.

Table of Contents

Next Chapter >>>

Definitely an interesting start. Molly seems like a very composed and calculating person with strong convictions of her own. Will be interesting to see how she interacts with this Hisao, who seems to be harboring a fair amount of self-doubt. He seems to be moving through the motions without much of a sense of drive. And Hisao joining a bustling theater club? Sounds intriguing and like a great setting I've not yet seen explored. Definitely interested in seeing how this story develops.

As someone who writes a lot of Molly, I'm very intrigued by a new interpretation.

Her forthrightness is different to a lot of characters because it doesn't come across as mean or dismissive. It doesn't feel like her being guarded considering how open she is with her opinions but maybe it's just how she was taught to speak Japanese; clear enunciation to compensate for any natural accent she has?

In any case, I'm interested to see where you go with this. Good luck, Piroska!

Act 1: Life Expectancy

Scene 2: Parallel Circuits

“Hisao? Hiiiiisaaaaaaaaooooo? You there? Alive? Dead?”

Emi leans over me. I’m lying on the grass beside the track where I collapsed. My brain is bouncing around inside my skull and my blood is not having a great time trying to find it.

“Alive, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately? For whom?” Emi replies, then giggles, probably happy to have fit ‘whom’ into a sentence. She continues: “You need to think more positively, Hisao! And when you get tired, try to at least walk around the track instead of crumpling into a ball beside it.”

“I am currently working on that.”

Emi waves to me. Or, at least, I assume she waves. I can’t really see her. Then she goes and continues running around the track, no longer hindered by me and my lackluster running speed, if you could even call it that. I’m not exactly running so much as I am lurching forward intermittently, and whatever it is I’m doing certainly doesn’t approach speed.

I press my hands to my eye sockets and sit up. Bad idea. Way too fast. I end up crumpling forwards instead of backwards as my consciousness (and all the oxygen in my brain) decides to take a coffee break. This probably looks hilarious.

This isn't for me. Not for the long term. I need to find something else to do for exercise, even if Emi grills me alive and Nurse gives me a lifetime ban from his secret lollipop stash.

Once my heart settles down, I stand up and return to the dorms to get changed, waving to Emi on my way. She pouts, upset I’ve cut my workout short. I can’t really be bothered to care; after all, it’s Friday.

That… definitely could have gone better. After my run with Emi, I was already exhausted on my way back to my room. Then I found Shizune and Misha there, invading it, proceeding to question me on my stack of bottles on the bedside table. They tried to pry an explanation of what exactly happened with Molly, as if they had expected something extraordinary.

Let’s just say that my exhaustion didn’t make the situation any better.

Now, in first period, both of them seem to be ignoring me, Shizune especially. Misha is mostly just glancing between the two of us occasionally, with an expression somewhere between pity and concern, but Shizune is channeling every ounce of disgust in her body. She’s leaning far, far back in her chair, her legs and arms crossed, her head tilted back so she can look down on me while Mutou drones on and on about something related to the Doppler effect. I’m trying to ignore them right back. Is that how that works?

I find myself wondering more than I should about Molly. I’ve never talked with Molly in class, even though by proximity she is just as close as Shizune and Misha. She sits right in front of me, usually perfectly still, and observes every class with diligence. Perhaps too much diligence. Over the course of a class, I alternate between staring out the window, looking down at my notebook, or resting my head on my desk, and yet Molly never seems to move. Even Shizune sometimes yawns, stretches her arms, or crosses and uncrosses her legs, and she's the one that pretends to be the pinnacle of professionalism. I’m probably thinking way too far into this, but it’s almost like Molly enters a trance when she sits down at that desk.

Half machine, half man?

I shake my thoughts out of my head and pry my eyes away from Molly, who I've been staring at the back of for the past few minutes. I see Shizune raise an eyebrow at me out of the corner of my vision.

Oh, yeah, Molly’s club is meeting after school. Should I check it out? She made such a lengthy appeal to me yesterday, I feel like it would be disrespectful to her efforts to ignore her. Nevermind the fact that I definitely don't have a safe place in the Student Council anymore. Despite this, I still hesitate. A theater club.

Firstly, I am far from a dramatic person, but Molly doesn’t seem like one either, so evidently it's not required. I don't have any theater kids for comparison, though. I don't know if my previous school even had a theater club. If they did, it must've been a pretty low-key operation.

Secondly, I don’t know what I would even be doing, and if I’m going to be doing what I think I’m going to be doing (that is, backstage work and moving a bunch of furniture around), then I couldn’t think of a more boring way to spend my afternoons.

As soon as Mutou returns to his desk, having finished explaining the group work we’ll be doing for the next... 48 minutes, I grimace. Every previous group assignment, Shizune and Misha have hijacked my control over the situation by immediately surrounding me, in a similar way to their Student Council recruitment approach, but with slightly less violence. Now, not only is Shizune shunning me like a leper (which inevitably means Misha is forced to follow), but Mutou demands the groups have at least four people, not three.

I address the situation with my excellent problem-solving skills: that is, I stay completely silent and sit still at my desk, hoping a solution falls into my lap.

Shizune sends Misha to find the other two members for their group, and she quickly grabs another established duo: Miura and Suzuki, the girl missing a hand and the girl with blue hair, respectively, completing their quartet. This, combined with the girl diagonally behind me leaving to join her friends across the class, leaves me even more geographically isolated. It's Lezard, the bespectacled guy in front of me, somehow snazzily dressed despite wearing a school uniform, that turns around, and, pointing to each of us, wordlessly assembles our group. Me, him, Molly, and Taro behind me.

For some reason, I have a bad feeling about this.

Taro scoots his desk over and forms a square with the other three of us. We all drop open our textbooks and notebooks and get started.

“Bro, you have any idea what’s happening?” Taro asks the group, although he primarily directs it towards me. Understandable decision, since Lezard clearly doesn’t feel intent on helping and Molly doesn't look very conversational.

It’s not a very comforting start, though.

“We’re, uh, doing textbook work. The questions are at the bottom of page 156.”

“Yeah, I know that. I mean, like, what are we even talking about? It’s all Greek to me.”

“Parallel and series circuits?” I answer, worried. My words are pitched more like a question than an answer.

“Yeah. This is math, bro. I thought this was science class.”

“It’s physics. Last unit also had a bunch of math, you know? Sound and waves? It’s all formulas.”

“Really?”

Lezard facepalms. Molly seems intent on analyzing the tree outdoors, and I don't know if she’s even listening.

“Yeah... kinda,” I say, wrenching my eyes away from her, offering Taro a concerned expression.

“Wow. I slept through more of that unit than I thought.”

I cough.

“...Can you do the questions?”

“I dunno, lemme take a look at them.”

Lezard has started working on the first question. I slide my textbook, already open to page 156, over to Taro, and point at the bottom of the page. He stares at them while I look back over at Molly with a grim expression.

My heart leaps in my chest. I was not expecting her to be looking back at me. She hasn't even moved, she's just swiveled her head around, still resting on her hand.

She blinks, flips through the pages of her notebook, briefly flashes me the eleven completed questions, and grins sadistically.

“What the hell? When did you have time?” I ask.

“Over the weekend. I read the chapter when we started the unit and did most of the questions,” Molly says, nonchalantly, as if she hasn't just admitted to being half alien. She closes her notebook and spins around in her chair to watch me and Taro.

He passes my textbook back, having finished examining it.

“So,” he says, “what exactly is a parallel circuit?”

I groan.

Over the next thirty or so minutes, I spend the bulk of my time attempting to tutor Taro while Lezard ignores us and Molly observes quietly. The way she spends almost the entire time watching us in silence, only occasionally interjecting to correct numbers and rounding errors, is very, very high-key freaking me out. Taro seems entirely unconcerned, but I can’t help but get the feeling that Molly is scrutinizing everything I say.

After a blissful five minutes of Taro doing questions by himself and leaving me alone (alone, I say, as if Molly isn’t reading over my shoulder like a harpy), he just has to interrupt.

“Wait, Hisao, wait a minute,” he says, “this one doesn’t give me the voltage.”

I look up from my own work, leaning over to look at Taro’s paper for the millionth time, “That’s because-” both Molly and I say, in sync, before stopping.

We look at each other, and she tilts her head to give me the right of way.

“That’s because you’re supposed to solve for the voltage in this one, using the current and resistance.”

“Oh…” Taro says. “So what formula do I use?”

“There’s one formula. It’s the same one, you just plug the numbers into different spots and rearrange.”

“Got it,” he says, and gives me a thumbs up before going back to scribbling on his page.

Considering the question he just asked me, Taro is only about a quarter of the way through the questions, and we’re nearing the end of the class. Either he’s going to have homework or he’s going to keep falling behind, and I think if Taro was the kind of guy to do his homework, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. Truthfully, if I didn’t spend the class helping Taro, I probably would have finished my questions ten minutes ago. I'm about to finish anyway, so I don't feel too bad, since I won't have homework. None of them are hard, really, but some of them can take a bit of time.

A few minutes later I close my notebook and lean back in my chair to relax. Eventually, Mutou decides to let us go before the bell, likely feeling the same end-of-week exhaustion as his students, so I grab my stuff, stand up, and walk the two steps over to Molly. She's in the process of packing her book bag, sorting her writing utensils and notebook into a neat stack before sliding them in.

“Hello, uh, Kapur,” I say, trying for a genuine smile. Off to the side, Misha waves at me as she leaves the classroom, much to Shizune’s chagrin. I wave back and then turn to face Molly.

She finishes packing her bag and moves it gently over to the side of her desk. She pushes her chair back, swings her legs around to the side mechanically, and props her hands up on the side of her desk and the back of her chair in preparation to stand. I offer a hand before she can do so, and after a moment of hesitation she takes it. I pull her up. She nods and gives me her thanks, almost inaudibly.

Then she stands still for a moment and stares me in the face, and I wonder if she’s trying to remember who I am. Was my pronunciation that bad?

“Just call me Molly.”

I think it was.

“Alright. Then you can call me Hisao.”

“Sure.”

She picks up her bookbag and swings it onto her shoulder.

“You, uh, told me that the theater club meets after school, but you never told me where it meets.”

Molly’s eyes widen slightly, and she pauses. She purses her lips and looks at me with a slightly embarrassed, amused expression.

I continue with a quick tone, as if reassuring her. “It’s not a big deal, if you just tell me where it is I’ll see you there after afternoon classes.”

“No, no, I’ll show you. We’re having an extra meeting now to prepare for the festival.”

Molly tucks in her chair, nods at me, and we walk out of the classroom together. Mutou gives me a strange look as we do so.

In the hallway, I follow behind Molly quietly. I probably shouldn't be looking so carefully at the way girls walk if I don't want to get called some names, but the absolute lack of a limp in Molly's gait keeps catching my attention. Even Emi, who sprints around on her prosthetics, for heaven’s sake, has a sort of bouncing gait that would only be possible if you were literally walking on springs. Molly, however, walks around with normal, leg-shaped prosthetics, complete with shoes, and I can barely tell.

What's the purpose of wearing shoes if you have prosthetic legs? Do the ends need to be kept clean like normal feet? Does wearing shoes make walking easier somehow? I genuinely don't know, and I don’t think I want to be the guy that asks.

She turns down the hallway, past the stairs, and I almost ask where she's going before I see the elevators at the other end of the hall. Huh.

She presses the button and the doors open pretty much immediately. We step in, the doors close behind us, and she stops and waits, completely still, for the twenty-ish seconds it takes for the doors to open again.

I continue following behind her as we leave the elevator. The room she leads me to is located in another building separate from the school, similar to the medical building. The plaque above the door reads the Performing Arts Center. Walking through the doors leads to a long hallway dotted with a handful of doors, one of which, I know, leads to the auditorium. To my surprise, we walk right past it to a set of double doors labeled the Kei Matsumoto Theater Hall.

Must be the name of someone important to the school. Some… wealthy donor, I guess?

It’s a room about twice as large as the art room. Big, nearly as wide as the gymnasium, but not nearly as deep, with a shiny, recently-waxed black floor. The eastern wall is covered in two rows of black curtains, one only a few feet from the wall and the other much further out, outlining the depth of the stage. Unlike what I’ve seen in movies, the stage is only raised about one step off the ground. Elaborate light fixtures and spotlights hang from the ceiling above the stage and surrounding it. The booth, opposite the stage, appears embedded into the wall, but is actually just another room, with a large window into the main auditorium for whoever mans the lights and sound. Near the entrance, a half-dozen posters are pasted onto the walls, most of them fairly generic, reminding the audience to keep quiet, the performers to be kind to each other, and so on.

The whole presentation is more modest than I would’ve expected from Yamaku, but, thinking about it, this would surely beat performing on the stage in the gym. The smaller room would allow better control of the lights, provide better acoustics, and… I don’t know, make the performance more… personal? A handful of girls, none of whom I recognize, are arranging costumes (pieces of costumes?) on top of some desks they’ve placed in a circle, beside an assembly line of sewing machines. I wonder where the rest of the members could be when I remember that the bell hasn't rung yet, and, as if spurred on by my thoughts, it suddenly does.

“This is the room,” Molly speaks up, startling me. “The theater club helps most of the other clubs with their costumes in exchange for help with our banners and set design during our performances, so we’re working on that until the festival. We’ll be back to usual rehearsals on Monday.”

“Oh, I-”

“Come with me,” Molly commands, and she walks over to the door to the booth. She finds a key in the pocket of her dress, unlocks it, and flips the lights on.

It’s a small room. Every wall except the one with the window is lined with boxes of props. Hats, fake guns, pirate swords, and the like. Below the window, a massive device that seems to be composed entirely of buttons and levers sits on a table, hooked up to about five dozen cables. It seems to be humming ominously, but that might just be me.

“You ever piloted one of these things, kid?” Molly asks, with a really bad Kansai accent.

“No?”

“Well, learn.”

“I’m doing lights and sound? Can’t you start me off with like, moving furniture around?” I beg.

“No, we already have people for that, and that job only needs about two guys anyway. Doing tech isn't hard. The previous guy didn’t quit, he had to leave school because of his health.”

“Did you work him to death?”

“No, just until he wished he was dead,” Molly deadpans.

“And you’re different from Shizune… how?”

Her eye twitches. Uh oh. I think that struck a nerve.

“Come on. I’ll walk you through it. You have three entire months to learn. I would do it myself but I have other things to pay attention to during rehearsals.”

I rub my eyes. Molly really seems intent on me doing this. It doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea, really. Why do I dislike it?

…Because, like all theater, it’s one of those things where if you fail, it’s broadcasted to an audience. That’s always been the reason. Nobody ever sees the face of the guy in the booth, but they can still curse his soul.

More students are starting to trickle in from the hallway. I take a moment to pick through some of them, but quickly realize I don’t recognize a single one.

“I still don't understand why you’re picking me over literally anybody else.”

“Well, obviously so I can be alone with you in the dark while you fiddle with a bunch of buttons.”

…

How does she do that? How does she do that? Tone as flat and dry as a desert and staring me straight in the face.

Don’t blush, Hisao. Don’t blush. Channel whatever suavity still exists in your soul. Don't break eye contact and don't blush.

Damn.

Molly pauses. Her eyes snap off to the side, examining the far wall, and it has all the dignity of a roll of the eyes.

“Take your time to get familiar with the room.”

And with that, she leaves abruptly and joins the girls by the sewing machines, and I’m left to decipher the mechanical monstrosity in front of me.

I have no idea what I’m doing.

I spend the entirety of my lunch fiddling with the machine. A handful of the buttons are labeled, the majority are not, mainly because they're meant to be programmed. The ones that operate the sound are all fairly straightforward: a dial and a button for the volume, marked with a speaker symbol, as well as a few levers that control bass and tenor and a bunch of acronyms I don’t know. On the other hand, the other three quarters of the system controls the stagelights (...I think), and there isn’t a single one labeled except for the master power button. Thankfully, the regular lights for the room (which turn on with some regular light switches by the entrance) and the stagelights are separate, which means that no matter what I turn on or off it won’t disturb the people working, but it also means that I can barely tell what’s on and when.

Speaking of people, a solid crowd of about fifteen of the promised thirty students fills the room over the course of the first third of lunch. Pretty much all of them are girls, but I think that goes without saying considering the main attraction-de-jour is sewing.

Sewing.

People come here and… sew? Intentionally?

The window to the booth is so large and polished and the lights in the booth so inadequate and subtle that the other side of the glass, facing the stage, practically reflects everything back, acting like a really shitty mirror. I know this because a bunch of girls keep standing up and using the far edge of it to look at themselves in their fancy dresses, and I, being so hunched down over the machine, am never seen. It’s really quite convenient: I don’t have to say hello to anyone, and no-one has to notice the newbie sitting off on the sidelines alone and feel guilty.

Didn’t I join a club to get to know people?

Nah.

Well, I guess I haven’t really joined the club yet. I’d assume I’d have to speak to whichever teacher oversees the club activities in order to do that, and then they’d have to go and conduct some sort of ceremonial introduction like the one I was subjected to in my classroom.

Issue number one: I don’t know which teacher oversees the club activities.

Issue number two: I don’t want an introduction. I’m not going to be acting anyways, so it’s not like the other people are going to have to get to know me.

I’m just delaying the inevitable, though, aren’t I?

Molly, bless her heart, doesn’t seem to care what I do, and she doesn’t bother me once until the lunch bell rings again. She spends the entirety of the lunch period jumping between a few tables, helping with this and that, chatting easily. I wonder if she looks like an entirely different person, but that's not entirely true. She holds half-completed dresses up to other girls and then makes adjustments and then holds the dress up again and then nods. I see her point somewhere and then a few minutes later the girls emerge from some door on the far side of the room that I hadn’t noticed. It must lead to a changing room. Then they come and look at themselves in the mirror-window to the booth and I shrink as low as I can, disappearing behind buttons and levers. Don't they know that there's someone in here? I can't assume they do. They wear frilly pinks and purples and reds and greens and blues, with flower designs and feathers and pins in their hair. They have mirrors with them, on the tables, I can see them glinting under the fluorescent lights, but Molly insists, insists they go and stand in front of the booth. ‘It has better lighting,’ I read from her lips.

Molly’s grinning.

(continued...)

When the lunch bell finally rings again, I shut off the lights to the booth and wait until I figure the room is clear before I leave; I can’t see the near corners of the room from the booth, so I have to guess. I give it about five minutes and then stand up.

I exit and find my guess incorrect. Molly’s leaning against the wall in the corner, near the door, in the booth’s blindspot. She watches me approach.

“I was wondering how long you would stay in there,” she says.

“Not long enough, it seems.”

“You want to miss your afternoon classes? I would have waited.”

“I’ll… I’ll introduce myself to the rest of the club some other time,” I sigh.

“You will, will you? Maybe I should do it for you. I seem to remember that being more your style.”

I think back to the lackluster introduction Mr. Mutou gave me when I refused to do it myself. I shudder. He even mispronounced my name. Knowing Molly, she’d probably reproduce it word-for-word just to mess with me.

She continues. “That was a genuine question, earlier, by the way. Do you want to skip afternoon classes?”

“Oh,” I say, then shake my head in confusion, “um... why?”

Molly shrugs. She clicks a titanium heel against the wall absentmindedly.

“Why not?”

I rub my brow, suddenly nervous for some reason.

“Alright,” I say.

Molly tilts her head, something like a bird. She clicks her heel against the wall again and pushes herself off of it, dusting her skirt.

“You really shouldn’t skip classes in your first week here. Besides, people will get ideas if they see a girl and the new boy miss class together.”

She slips through the door into the hallway, and I shake my head, even more confused. I take a few quick steps to catch the door before it falls closed.

“W-what? Why’d you ask, then?”

She shrugs.

“Wondering if you’d say yes.”

I don't know why I come back to the same room in the afternoon, considering how miserable a time I had during lunch. I forgot that most people who went to the club either made time to go to the cafeteria before or after, or brought their own boxed lunch. I did neither, somehow enraptured in doing something I hated, and now I'm starving.

A few minutes after the bell rang, I found myself back in the club room without even making the conscious decision to come back. I pick myself out of my haze as soon as I enter through the door, suddenly aware that I’m not alone in the room. Hell, it’s practically half full.

I slink over to the door to the booth, hoping I’ll get in before anyone notices, and grab the handle.

It’s locked.

I scan the room frantically. Molly is leaning against the wall in the corner, the same spot she was earlier. She isn’t twiddling the key in her hand, laughing maniacally. She isn’t grinning. She’s looking at me curiously, arms crossed, eyes wide and alert. She holds my gaze for a few moments, then turns away and watches the other students funnel in.

Sighing, I accept my fate as I walk over to her. I don’t even manage to walk the full distance before a guy enters, spots me, opens his eyes as wide as dinnerplates, and runs over and grabs me by the shoulders.

“OH MY GOD!” he shouts. “New guy! You’re new, right?”

Instead of waiting for my answer, he scans the room for Molly and, finding her, shoots her a puzzled glance. She gives a thumbs up.

Releasing my shoulders, he steps back and holds out a hand for me to shake, and I accept it with only minimal hesitation. He proceeds to crush my fingers into pulp.

“Hi, I’m Hiroshi Sone. You can call me Hiroshi or you can call me Hiroshi.”

…Hiroshi is about my height, maybe a centimeter or two shorter, with light brown hair, dark eyes, and a slim build. The reason for him being in this school is fairly obvious; the entire left side of his face is covered in a large, branching red scar that stretches almost halfway to his ear, suggesting a rather large and unfortunate accident. I notice that the skin on the left end of his mouth is pulled nearly taut against his teeth, leaving a small corner, maybe the size of a pea, permanently open. It's an unpleasant, if morbidly fascinating, appearance, but his bright smile and uplifting aura make up for it tenfold. Overall, he looks a bit like me, if I had a sharper face and got mauled by a grizzly bear.

Sorry, that’s impolite.

“Hisao Nakai.”

“Well, Nakai,” he says, practically bouncing out of his shoes, “I regret to inform you that you’ve come at a rather awkward time, because the majority of the crowd we have today actually aren’t part of the theater club, but rather the dance club and art club and cultural studies club and I think we might even have an anime club but I can’t remember. Anyway they’re doing costumes for dances and stuff for the festival and this is the place that we store them so they all come here but the theater club crowd is thin so I could run an introduction for you and I’m definitely going to do that sometime but there would kinda be no point in making a big deal out of it since you’re not going to see most of these people again since they’re all first years anyway and first years stink (don’t tell them I said that) so instead I’ll run a proper intro for you on Monday, but you can come hang during the festival and meet most of the people then, sound good?”

I try to unravel the pretzel my brain has just been tied into.

“Sure.”

“Then, Nakai. Wait, can I call you Hisao?”

“Sure.”

“Then, Hicchan,” he begins, and I try to interrupt him in the hopes of preserving my dignity, but Molly is staring at me, and I let him go, “I have but one question for you…”

Releasing my hand, he puts two fingers to his chin and strokes an imaginary beard.

“Yes?” I ask, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.

“Can you sew?”

I sigh. I was expecting this.

“...Yeah.”

“Holy shit, a man that can sew. You’re made of gold. Are you made of gold? Wait, no, that’s not how that saying goes. What was it? No, don't tell me, don’t tell me... got it! You’re worth your weight in gold. Yeah, that’s it. Okay, listen. This is how this is going to go…”

Hiroshi gives me about a minute-long rundown on how he plans to set me up with every girl in the school, some of whom happen to be present in the room at the moment, and while I struggle to keep up with how fast he speaks and how he seems to have the lung capacity of a blue whale, I find myself drawn into his upbeat rhythm. He somehow manages to be just as uplifting as Misha with ten times the amount of volume control, although I think I might be a little biased when I make that judgment, considering what happened this morning. He’s definitely everything I imagined a theater kid to be like and more, but I mean that in a good way.

I join him and the rest of the crowd and get to sewing frills onto dresses. The girls, operating in some sort of collective hive mind for which I am greatly thankful, only really let me do some of the more cosmetic adjustments, which stops me both from messing anything up too bad and from having to think. Hiroshi keeps me company for a decent half-hour, and we chat about anything that seems to come to mind. We don’t really share too many interests, as Hiroshi is way too into a bunch of fighting games I have never played and way too busy living fast and dying young to risk reading a book, but I can’t blame him. My reading habit wouldn’t exactly have developed to the same degree if I were still outside playing soccer with my old friends and none of this had happened.

And yet I still talked to Iwanako.

Hiroshi’s plan to set me up with every girl in the school doesn’t amount to much, mainly because he can’t stop talking long enough for me to get a word in edgewise. Whenever he introduces someone to me, mainly he just points them out, waves at them to momentarily get their attention, and says “Hisao Nakai, meet Aya Matsuda. Aya Matsuda, meet Hisao Nakai,” followed by the two of us saying hello and turning back to our work.

Meanwhile a set of girls on the opposite side of the ring of desks begin to whisper: “That’s the Hisao Nakai, huh?” and “He’s a third year, right?” and probably a bunch of other things I would rather not hear that they politely conceal from my virginal ears.

Aya Matsuda, apparently, is the only other third-year present, and is one of the lead actresses in the school play. What exactly the school play is about I have yet to determine, but I figure I’ll learn soon enough, if not by someone telling me, then first-hand as I flashbang them with stagelights. She appears to be the one in charge of all the makeup, which keeps her busy as she seems to slather on whole inches of concealer and other strange substances. Well, my knowledge of makeup ends there. Concealer. Uh. Mascara? That’s about it.

“Hey, Hiroshi?” I half-whisper.

He jolts, turning back to me. “Yeah?”

“Why’s she using so much makeup? Actually, why are they doing makeup at all?”

“Well, okay, couple reasons,” he begins. “You have to use a lot of makeup on stage or else the audience won’t be able to see it, so it looks very dramatic compared to just regular makeup. Then there’s also the fact that for acting, with, like, lights blasting in your face and everything, it makes you look really pale, from a distance, so you have to up the blush even more so that you don’t look like a ghost, or a skeleton.”

Hiroshi furrows his brows, trying to remember something. “Then the reason they’re doing makeup is because after we all leave, once all the costumes are done, they’re going to do a full dress rehearsal for the performance they’re doing during the festival. So in a dress rehearsal you want to basically treat it as if you’re performing in front of the real audience.”

“Isn’t the festival on Sunday? Why are they doing a full dress rehearsal today? Why not tomorrow?”

“Well, you always do a dress rehearsal two days before the performance, not the day before. Duh.”

News to me.

Matsuda is fairly tall, with amber-orange eyes and stark black hair done up into an elaborate ornamental bun that makes me wonder if she’s a member of the dance club as well. Despite the brazenness evident in her choice of hairstyle, she appears relatively shy, maintaining a polite, cheerful demeanor and only speaking when directing a girl getting her makeup done in which direction to tilt her head. Even then, she speaks like a doctor, afraid of touching them too harshly. She wears plastic gloves and slathers a never-ending train of sacrifices with flesh-colored pigment, then giggles and tickles them in the nose with a brush.

The club meet ends up lasting about two hours, and when things are all said and done I think our work (however minimally I contributed to the tail end of it) looks pretty decent. I watch sets of girls disappear into the changing room and reappear and spin around in front of the mirror-window to the booth. I imagine myself behind that mirror-window, sinking progressively lower into my chair.

Scanning the room, Molly is nowhere to be found.

And then the meeting’s over and I go back to the dorms.

Well, first I go to the cafeteria and get some food with Hiroshi, but he vanishes into thin air about halfway there. That takes the wind out of my sails, because it just adds emphasis onto something I've been thinking about for a long time: Hiroshi doesn't find me interesting, he finds the idea of a new kid interesting. I've been noticing that a lot, recently. He's nice, sure, but his 'uplifting’ nature just makes me feel deflated afterwards.

Against my better judgment, I keep my eyes open for Molly. She never turns up. I don’t know what I was expecting.

Cafeteria rice is bland.

I forgot that Emi invited me to lunch. I totally flaked on her.

And that’s Yamaku, huh. My first full five days of school. Wonderful. I’ve met a dozen people and shredded any possible chance of a friendship with all but… what, two of them? Shizune hates me now, Emi and Rin have no reason to find me a responsible human being, Lilly probably thinks I hate her, considering I completely hung her out to dry in that ‘debate’ she and Shizune were having. Molly clearly just wanted to get me to join the club, and while I suppose I appreciate his efforts, Hiroshi has made it pretty evident he has more interesting people to hang out with.

I drop my head against the cafeteria table.

Cafeteria salad has nothing in it but lettuce. What, do they think I’m a goat? Just hand me a head of cabbage, here. I need to go shopping and buy myself some fruit. What does a man have to do to prevent himself from getting scurvy in this country?

Goddammit.

Table of Contents

Next Chapter >>>

YESSS I can’t wait to see how you continue this route, It’s amazing so far! I’m a big Molly fan and it’s unfortunate that there isn’t many routes for her so I’m hoping for great things from this route. It’s great so far!

Looking good. What you've got so far is both well written and very engaging, getting at Hisao's stream of consciousness well.

I've seen many different takes on Molly (a few new ones have been floating around recently), but your one has really got me hooked. You've captured a certain sense of mystery and... I guess strangeness to her character. Definitely looking forward to see where you take this.

Best of luck.

SurviVR wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2024 11:36 am

YESSS I can’t wait to see how you continue this route, It’s amazing so far! I’m a big Molly fan and it’s unfortunate that there isn’t many routes for her so I’m hoping for great things from this route. It’s great so far!

Thank you! The lack of Molly fics was exactly the reason I started this one, although Sharp-O seems to have stolen my idea (he totally didn't post before me) and started one of his own. Definitely check his out, too, for a very different take on Molly than my own.

seannie4 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2024 12:12 pm

Looking good. What you've got so far is both well written and very engaging, getting at Hisao's stream of consciousness well.

I've seen many different takes on Molly (a few new ones have been floating around recently), but your one has really got me hooked. You've captured a certain sense of mystery and... I guess strangeness to her character. Definitely looking forward to see where you take this.

Best of luck.

Thank you for the compliments! I'm glad I have you hooked with strangeness and mystery... the plot will continue to thicken...

Molly continues to be a cool, enigmatic customer and Hisao continues to be a schmuck. Perfect set up for a route, no notes!

Been a while since I commented on a story on the forums properly, but I feel I should for this one since you mention Gravity at the beginning in your introduction. (Also, glad to see you read it, even it wasn't for you! Kudos). Oh, and welcome to the forums too!

So I'm going to just post my general reactions to the posts as I'm a bit behind. This is all over the place by the way, because that's how I edit, and because I'm trying to multitask.

Scene 1

That, and I don’t want to channel my inner Kenji

So this is something that also happens here:

“I don’t dislike them that much, but I agree they can be a little ingratiating.”

Hisao is talking like he's been at the school for a few months, not a few days here. It comes across as a little weird from him, because he's actually quite the kissass diplomat. The Kenji one is egregious because you're appealing to the audience's knowledge of him more than Hisao's, but it's not ironic so it doesn't work as a joke either yet. And the comment on S + M is weird because Hisao doesn't know Molly, and he's sort of throwing the two people who showed him kindness under the bus. This can work, but I'd hold off on it until Hisao is more ingratiated within the Yamaku world space before doing that.

She’s short. Wow. I just realized. Is she shorter than Emi? Surely not. I didn’t think that was possible.

So this is maybe a stylistic choice, but I don't find this kind of description of the thought process very...good? It's quite quick when it's mean to depict a realisation (British). There's no build up or subversion to this to warrant the 'Wow' so I think it would work better as a more descriptive sentence. It's also a little odd in the tense department, (not wrong per se, but not great.) Maybe something like this works better:

As we walk I can't help but realise how short she is. I suppose it should be obvious that someone without legs would be smaller, but just how small she is catches me off guard a little. She might even be shorter than Emi.

The example I give is paced more appropriately and with less tense ambiguity. It also conveniently avoids the judgy joke Hisao makes in his head at the end there about someone he's not really friends with, again.

“Oh, were you?” she asks, almost mockingly, daring me to correct myself. Molly continues looking straight ahead, but her eyes make a sharp flicker towards me.

Like an...owl? Isn't she slightly ahead of him? This would be aided by some clearer lines of description. (Though, as I know I can sound a bit harsh, I should say that your dialogue is far more hits than misses so far!)

Molly is looking at me, and I’m looking at her legs (lack of legs?) again. I wrench my head forward, embarrassed.

Again, I think that this would benefit from some slowdown. Try something like:

Molly catches me staring at her legs, or lack thereof, and I can't help but wrench my head forward in embarrassment.

Also, try to avoid brackets where possible. That might just be me, but it always reads a bit peculiarly.

her eyes occasionally flickering my way to check that I’m still here.

I now can't shake the mental image of Hisao just bolting mid conversation. Seriously, why would she be checking he's still there? She's not had any indication that he's going to keel over or bolt here. Can you give a better reason? This would work better if you made Hisao the one unsure as to why she's doing this:

Her eyes occasionally flicker over to me, as if to check that I haven't scarpered.

“So you know where his office is, then?”

“I do.”

“Then why do you think I’m walking with you?”

Ow.

I like this! Funny stuff. And Molly is sassy in a great way!

Also, now is probably a good time to mention I also did the Molly was in the Student Council till it all got blown up by drama thing! Not at all an accusation of theft, just a funny great minds thing! She does just strike you as the type to be in the Student Council right?

Abruptly, Molly stops,

Molly stops abruptly.

Order of articles here. The first one is really clunky.

It’s a good question, honestly. Okay, first let’s pretend that she didn’t say that entirely to gut-punch me. Done. Could be any number of reasons, right? Maybe she has to see the Nurse as well? Maybe her room is- no, wait, the girls dorms are the other way. Uh. Stop looking at me like that. I know it’s a rhetorical question, okay? I’m searching for something comedic to say.

I think you can maybe see what I mean now. The thought process here would be really good if it was spaced out a bit to actually follow the mental arithmetics (wait, can we make a pun here? Mental arrythmetics?) to their logical conclusion.

It's a good question, even if it was only meant as a gut-punch. She might have multiple reasons, right? [...]

Also, way too literal with the: "Stop looking at me like that" bit and beyond. We don't actually think like that.

“Here. I’ll cut you a deal. I’m the de facto president and student director of the Theater club. We meet after school and I’m still looking for new members (ETC)

Really cool premise! Nice. Though Molly's sarcasm at the end there is laid on a bit thick with the "so called" dig.

I acquiesce.

Who the fuck acquiesces? This isn't your most egregious example but don't swallow a thesaurus. Sometimes repeating things is better than using randomly articulate words.

Scene 2

This takes place at the end of Exercise, the following day. Keep in mind that in a standard game this would be a dark place for Hisao, and he would be on track towards the Kenji ending

I wouldn't bother with this. Assume some common knowledge but otherwise always explain things within the body of the text. So don't say "directors notes, Hisao should be bummed here" before you start the scene. Show me he's in a dark place and explain why, because we're following a story here.

“Unfortunately? For whom?” Emi replies, then giggles, probably happy to have fit ‘whom’ into a sentence.

This is good!

So the problems above persist. Here's an example:

Now, in first period, both of them seem to be ignoring me, Shizune especially. Misha is mostly just glancing between the two of us occasionally, with an expression somewhere between pity and concern, but Shizune is channeling every ounce of disgust in her body.

Try this and see if its more organic:

It's first period and both Shizune and Misha seem to be ignoring me. Misha shoots me the occasional glance, with a look I can't distinguish between pity and concern, but Shizune gives me a cold disgusted state. It makes me feel uneasy, to say the least.

(I feel that captures the essence of your Hisao too, but you can decide).

Unfortunately for her, I can’t be bothered to care; after all, it’s Friday.

So this repetition doesn't really work for the joke in my opinion, because it actually just looks like a repetition. There's no material change in circumstance or in the wording to make it an obvious call back.

Friday. What was it about Fridays? Oh, yeah, Molly’s club is meeting after school. Should I check it out?

What's the point of a rhetorical question that you immediately answer? There isn't one. (See I did it there.)

Firstly, I am far from a dramatic person, but Molly doesn’t seem like one either, so evidently it's not required. Wait, hold that thought.

This takes the cake. "Wait, hold that thought." Is something you SAY. Not something you THINK. Stop with the filler words like 'Wait and Hold on" - I keep picturing Hisao as Phoenix Wright screaming "Hold it" to his own fucking brain.

HOLY fuck. Okay. Hi.

This isn't very Hisao. Not at all actually.

I continue, reassuring her: “It’s not a big deal, if you just tell me where it is I’ll see you there after afternoon classes.”

Firstly, how does Hisao know he's reassuring her? There's no visceral reaction to his words. And secondly, why the : ? I'm genuinely confused by this one.

Shut up, brain.

This is where I'm starting to get fed up. Hisao is thinking like a 14 year old on Tumbler, and it's really jarring, because it's not at all how the VN Hisao operates. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the above examples. It compounds to be really infuriating.

“And you’re different from Shizune… how?”

Uh oh. I think that struck a nerve.

My guy! Elaborate! WHY does Hisao think he struck a nerve here? Show me! Does Molly roll her eyes? Does she punch him in the nuts? What indicated this? Show don't tell.

Oh,” I vocalize,

No he does't. Nobody vocalises. See my above about just repeating when necessary.

“OH MY GOD,” he shouts, “new guy! You’re new, right?”

If he shouts then the ! is in the wrong place.

I barely even notice that Hiroshi and I are the only guys in the room.

Just kidding.

This one is weird.

I point this out to Hiroshi and ask both why she’s using so much and why they’re doing makeup at all. He answers that stage makeup is very different from regular makeup: it has to be way thicker so that people can actually see it from a distance and so that you don’t look violently malnourished under the stagelights.

This could have been an interesting bit of dialogue, why is it relegated to a 'And then this happened and then this happened' section?

And that’s Yamaku, huh. My first full five days of school. Wonderful. I’ve met a dozen people and shredded any possible chance of a friendship with all but… what, two of them? Shizune hates me now, Emi and Rin have no reason to find me a responsible human being, Lilly probably thinks I hate her, considering I completely hung her out to dry in that ‘debate’ she and Shizune were having. Molly clearly just wanted to get me to join the club, and while I suppose I appreciate his efforts, Hiroshi has made it pretty evident he has more interesting people to hang out with.

So this is why I mentioned your little 'intro' to this scene being bad. Because like, this is majorly dramatic (so he's in the right club) but it's also pretty unsubstantiated and quite out of character. Not the moping. That's vintage Hisao. But the stuff that got us here? The shit talking (thinking) he was doing that we know he doesn't actually do in the VN.

Goddammit.

A bit tamer, but still I think a bit unnecessary and out of character. Cool the swearing and the vulgar language.

General

Ok so I think that catches me up to date. I know that might seem a bit negative, but there's more good than bad. The ideas are really good, but the execution is leaving something to be desired. I can solve all your problems in two moves here though.

Get an editor. It's a mutual relationship. Find someone who wants to get the work edited and have them edit yours as well.

Read the tips for Fanfic Writers thread. (You said you skimmed it? Read it properly).

An editor can reign in the bits that go overboard, and can help those weirdly tensed bits. The Fanfic Writers thread will catch all the other bits, and will help to keep you a bit more grounded. Right now, Molly is likeable, but Hisao is a bit edgy.

This can be really good. I want to see more Molly love and this has potential, so great work on starting, that's the hard part.

It should go without saying that all my comments are opinions by the way, do whatever, I just think this could be better, and you seem like a chill person so hopefully some of that has been constructive.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

Also, now is probably a good time to mention I also did the Molly was in the Student Council till it all got blown up by drama thing! Not at all an accusation of theft, just a funny great minds thing! She does just strike you as the type to be in the Student Council right?

Huh. I'm gonna be honest I'm with you on this one. I'm not sure if I completely forgot this detail, unconsciously copied it, or genuinely came up with it on my own. Sorry about that! I should probably give your fic a read over again.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

I wouldn't bother with this. Assume some common knowledge but otherwise always explain things within the body of the text. So don't say "directors notes, Hisao should be bummed here" before you start the scene. Show me he's in a dark place and explain why, because we're following a story here.

I already planned to refrain from doing this in future, but now that you've pointed it out I hate it just as much as you do, and am just gonna remove it because I think it damages the story. I hope that doesn't seem scummy, changing things after you've pointed them out, and instead just emphasizes that I value your criticism.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

Also, try to avoid brackets where possible. That might just be me, but it always reads a bit peculiarly.

I've always been a brackets enjoyer, which is definitely a personal flaw as it is more suited for writing in emails and things than in prose. I suppose it is just a way to lazily add comments to prose. If it makes things awkward I will try to avoid doing it.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

Who the fuck acquiesces? This isn't your most egregious example but don't swallow a thesaurus. Sometimes repeating things is better than using randomly articulate words.

This is your first point I'm gonna push back a little on. I have heard acquiesce in speech and I feel like I read the word semi-frequently. I don't think using it is swallowing a thesaurus, and I think it is accurate for the situation. I agree I might have been able to use a more common word in that situation, but I don't want to feel like I'm dumbing down my writing. (not saying my writing is high literature, but you get the point)

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

Firstly, how does Hisao know he's reassuring her? There's no visceral reaction to his words. And secondly, why the : ? I'm genuinely confused by this one.

I guess what I was going for is that he feels like he's reassuring her, because he's never seen her embarrassed before. I could've been more clear. I don't know exactly why I added the colon, and now that I'm searching through my future writing I am finding it more than I thought. Will change.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

This could have been an interesting bit of dialogue, why is it relegated to a 'And then this happened and then this happened' section?

I felt at the time like adding it would just be an overlong back-and-forth dialogue of Hisao asking questions and Hiroshi answering. I will describe things like this in the future.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

So this is why I mentioned your little 'intro' to this scene being bad. Because like, this is majorly dramatic (so he's in the right club) but it's also pretty unsubstantiated and quite out of character. Not the moping. That's vintage Hisao. But the stuff that got us here? The shit talking (thinking) he was doing that we know he doesn't actually do in the VN.

I think I may have just added a lot of shit talking unintentionally, the error being that my tone was off. I got the impression in most routes other than Shizune's that Hisao does, actually, complain quite a lot about how pushy they are, but my tone made it more shit-talky than necessary.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

A bit tamer, but still I think a bit unnecessary and out of character. Cool the swearing and the vulgar language.

I plan to add some more goddammits (not unnecessarily, I hope), but I will try to remove the other instances of swearing and replace with better descriptions unless absolutely necessary.

Feurox wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2024 7:29 pm

Get an editor. It's a mutual relationship. Find someone who wants to get the work edited and have them edit yours as well.

But then someone has to do what you're doing, and that's scary!

Seriously though, I will try to find someone, and have now decided to put off the rest of my posting until I do so.

I am refraining from replying to literally everything you said because most of it would just be "yeah, I coulda done that better." As a whole, thanks a lot! I'm glad you like the ideas, and I will try to improve my execution.

This August is definitely a Molly month.

Keep it up, it's good and has some serious potential!

I had no idea who the hell Molly was before opening this thread but you have me intrigued by her. Also somewhat curious about this Hisao who seems to be narrowly avoiding a Manly Picnic and how this is going to play into the narrative.

Act 1: Life Expectancy

Scene 3: Ko Fight

Saturday morning classes are a slog, but when are they not? Neither the students nor the teachers have the energy for any actual learning, much less a lecture, so the teachers just slap a stack of textbook questions on the board and call it education. On the one hand, it forces you to study instead of wasting your Saturday. On the other hand, sometimes you want to waste your Saturday.

Molly is already in class when I arrive, but that’s probably a given, considering I’m a little late. Well, not late; I’m on time, but usually I get here early. Molly’s exactly the same as usual, staring ahead at the board, her empty notebook out on the desk in front of her, her pencil beside it.

Shizune and Misha never show up, probably deciding to skip. I can’t blame them. I would skip as well if I had something better to do, but I don’t have any hobbies besides reading and I’ve been reading so much lately I can hardly consider it a productive use of my time. They probably have to finish putting all the stalls together without me, because I don’t think Shizune can stand the sight of me right now. This can’t go on forever, I need to find some way to make up… later. Just morning classes and I’m free for almost 48 hours. I can find some time to apologize then. Assuming I don’t put it off again, which I probably will.

No matter how much I bash my brain against them I can’t bring myself to care about a bunch of textbook physics questions. As Taro said yesterday, it’s just math, and even though I usually got good grades in that subject, I never found it very interesting.

Molly seems to be working just fine, though. This might be the first time I’ve actually seen her write in that notebook she keeps open on her desk, although for some reason I get the impression it’s not physics questions. What she’s scribbling is much too dense, and involves no mathematical symbols whatsoever. Let’s not get caught peering over her shoulder, though, Hisao.

We’re about ten minutes away from the end of the ‘class’ when Mutou walks over and asks me to talk with him outside the classroom. I happily drop my notebook and follow, then realize I probably shouldn’t be so happy.

Once we’re outside, he shuts the door and looks at me gravely, the bags under his eyes seeming to sag more than they usually do. I’d already guessed the subject of this conversation, but that look is making me worry.

“So… how are things?”

I know what he’s talking about. I don’t really want to know, because I don’t want to elaborate. I have to admit I’ve been more than a little mopey lately.

“Things?” I ask.

“You know… things. How are you adjusting to the new school? Your studies?”

“Oh. It’s going well, I think.”

“I see, and your… condition?”

Ouch.

“No problems.”

“That’s good,” Mutou replies, sighing. The tension in the air deflates now that the main subject of the conversation is over, and he assumes a more natural expression. There’s a pause as he collects his thoughts.

“I heard you joined the theater club. I admit, that’s not what I expected. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d be interested in.”

“Oh, um, well I don’t know if I’ve ‘joined,’ or if it’s something I’m interested in. I’m still trying to figure that out myself. So far it’s… alright.”

Mutou furrows his eyebrows, concerned.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

I scratch the back of my head and chuckle nervously. “I attended two meetings… maybe a meeting and a half, but all they were doing was sewing. I don’t think I’ve done that much sewing in my life. The only person I’ve really talked to in the club is Hiroshi.”

Mutou smiles widely. “He is a little… eccentric, isn’t he?”

I chuckle, despite myself. That’s one way to describe him.

“I’m starting to think art clubs attract eccentrics.”

Mutou laughs. “Believe me, if you go into science, you’ll never stop thinking that.”

I grin awkwardly. Mutou seems to have said everything he wants to say, so he asks if I have any other questions for him, I shake my head, and then we return to the class, where a sudden scramble of pencils indicates a large portion of the class wasn’t working. Taro in particular appears to have just started from a nap, his forehead marked with a small red print the size of a coin, where it’d been resting on the desk. He shoots me a guilty smile as I sit back down.

The bell rings soon after, and people start to leave without bothering to wait for Mutou’s dismissal. I figure I should go get something to eat before I head back to the dorms. In the hallways, however, masses of students cram themselves through in a mad dash to get out of the school as quickly as possible. This doesn’t look like an ideal time to join them, if I want to avoid getting jostled around, so I wait by the doorway for the crowd to subside, letting the other students pass by.

Molly seems to have the same idea. She stops beside me, reading and re-reading something in her notebook. She closes it before I can get a good look, and slides it into her bookbag.

“Hello,” I say, trying to strike up a conversation.

“Hello, Hisao.”

“Are you going to the cafeteria?” I ask, my voice a little nervous for some reason.

“I am.”

Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. Why was she so verbose the first time we met, and now she spares me nothing but one or two word answers? She’s certainly not making this easy.

“Would you mind if I ate with you?”

“I wouldn’t.”

…

…are those crickets chirping?

“Shizune and Misha weren’t here today,” I point out. Third time’s the charm. It works, Molly perking up a little as she answers. She does like to talk about others, I’ve noticed. Well, if she wants to talk about other people, I can talk about other people.

“They skipped class and went to the Shanghai.”

“You saw them?”

“No,” Molly replies, “that’s what they always do before festivals or exams. It’s unprofessional.”

That’s one way to put it, but Molly comes off as if she’s been personally insulted. The bulk of the student body has now made their way out, and Molly steps past me, exits, and turns down the hallway briskly. She made no indication of leaving, and so I’m left catching up to her again.

“I guess it is a little childish,” I say, “but can’t you cut them some slack? They’re the entire Student Council, after all.”

I wouldn’t normally find myself defending people I’m not currently on speaking-terms with. I guess I’m trying to make up for what I did when I pushed away all my old friends, by showing some loyalty. Shizune and Misha introduced me to the school, not to mention they babysat me the entirety of the first week.

Molly doesn’t answer as we make our way to the elevators. I press the button and wait. Huh, deja vu. Maybe one day our conversations will start in some way other than me trailing Molly after classes, but that day isn’t today. The elevator doors open, and the two of us step in.

Molly looks at me for a long time.

“Hisao, do you remember the last thing you said during our walk to the Nurse’s office, the first time we talked?”

“Oh. I asked if it was any fun to be consistent,” I answer, surprised at my own memory.

“Exactly. It appears the answer is that it isn’t.”

I raise an eyebrow, confused, trying to get her to elaborate.

Molly sighs, then drops her eyes to the ground, as if apologizing. “I’m a boring person; I can’t stand to be a hypocrite. I don’t care what they do. I don’t care how many classes they skip. But don’t you think it’s unfair of them to skip class, when they constantly hound after the rest of us to be more organized and professional? I only have issues with it when they preach one thing one minute and then do the exact opposite the next. Misha, especially, is flunking out of half her classes.”

She rolls her eyes and waves a hand. “Not that she could do anything about that with any amount of studying, but that’s beside the point.”

The elevator doors open, a ding of a bell briefly drowning out the sound of a hundred students chatting in the halls. I wait for Molly to exit ahead of me while I hold the doors open, and she thanks me as she steps out. Again, I slow and match my pace with Molly as we make our way to the cafeteria. Inside, half the tables are already occupied, and a sizable lineup has already formed at the bar.

This is probably the most I’ve heard her talk since the speech she gave me on the first day we met, and it encapsulates my feelings towards the issue a little too well, perhaps with the addition of ribbing on Misha. While I know Molly doesn’t mean it in a malicious way, it still sounds undeserved. It’s nice to see Molly display passion for something, though, even if it is the tiniest amount. I think what she’s explaining was always the problem I had with Shizune: she says one thing, stressing it as of absolute importance, then doesn’t give her all when putting together stalls, or barges into my room and starts examining the pills on my-

“Ooh. Miso. My favorite. I can’t miss miso Saturday,” Molly speaks up, dragging me back into the present.

The contrast between her words and the previous topic is so large it gives me whiplash, and I find myself giggling a little, provoking a glare from Molly that quickly melts into an embarrassed grin. She’s the same, I think. For all her cynicism and gossip and sarcasm and supposed drama, she can’t really stay mad at someone for long.

After a few minutes in line, we receive our helping of food. Molly gets, just as promised, a single bowl of Miso soup, while I help myself to a salad, some rice, and a boiled egg. We find an empty table relatively far away from the crowd and sit across from each other.

Does Molly normally have no-one to sit with? Doesn’t she run an entire club? Are we just sitting alone for my sake? Of course, I never expected Molly to be bolting around between cliques, a friend to all, like Hiroshi, but I’m still confused.

“So,” I ask, breaking the silence, “what part of all that makes you boring?”

Molly tilts her head, and for the first time that she’s done it I think it’s because she’s genuinely confused.

“You said that you’re a boring person. I disagree.”

Those last two words come out almost without mental processing. I manage to frown instead of blush.

“Oh, in this school? The part where I have no legs. Having no legs always puts you firmly within the shadow of she-who-shall-not-be-named.”

I laugh. Fair enough. In a school for people with disabilities, it stands to reason that having the same general disability as someone else would get you placed in a box with them, even if it isn’t intentional. I can imagine very few people outshining Emi. Not in a practical context. There are probably even some other kids in this school with heart conditions, all of which I’d be compared to if it ever becomes common knowledge that I have one.

She continues, holding her finger up and waggling it as if presenting an academic dissertation. I’ve seen Shizune make that gesture multiple times, and I think Molly is imitating her, but she doesn’t have quite the same proud expression on her face.

“But! If you were to order us based on our lack of legs, I heavily outrank her. No knees.”

…

Did she intend for that to be a joke? She should really take my advice and add ‘har har’ to the end of her sentences when she’s joking. Nevertheless, Molly’s deadpan delivery has caught me in a giggling mood. I lean over my bowl of rice and shake my head, a wide smile spreading across my face. While she initially just raises an eyebrow at me, the corners of her lips do eventually curl up a bit.

“Oh,” she says, dropping the imitation. “I never asked how you liked your first club meeting.”

“It was… something,” I say, thinking back.

“I wasn’t able to spend much time with you in the booth. You’ll learn.”

“Learn what? How to watch girls without them noticing? I know what you were doing, okay? I’d rather you not try something like that again.”

Molly doesn’t answer. She stares past me, raising her head in a strange kind of handless flagging-down. She appears to be rising out of her seat, or maybe trying to get someone’s attention without making it too obvious.

“...What?” I ask, in between a mouthful of rice.

“Speak of the devil,” Molly hums, and promptly returns to opening the bag her plastic spoon came in. I turn around, and see Emi standing a few tables away.

She’s clearly on her way to exit the cafeteria, frozen with a juicebox and sandwich in her hands, looking at us, framed by two vending machines at the edges of the doorway. She seems extremely confused, one leg hovering in the air halfway through a step as she looks at the two of us with her mouth wide open. I don’t know whether she looks like a kid caught with her hand in a cookie jar or a deer in the headlights.

“I hope she doesn’t drool,” Molly whispers. I have to strain and tense all the muscles in my core to avoid cracking up.

In a moment, Emi shakes it off and comes stomping towards our table, her prosthetic blades making not-very-intimidating squeaks as she does so.

“You two-timing scumbag,” Emi hisses, a playful anger in her voice directed at me. “I can’t believe you!”

“What, for eating lunch?”

“With her! The drama queen herself!” Emi growls, pointing at Molly for emphasis.

Molly sips her soup.

Emi turns back towards me. She puts her sandwich and juicebox down on the table to free up her hands, which she plants firmly on her hips.

“So what, huh? You collect legless girls now?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell you apart, with both of you being so…”

I measure about a meter off the ground with my hand, drawing a “Hey!” from Emi and a clicking of the tongue from Molly.

“I’m taller,” Molly points out.

“Yeah, by TWO centimeters!” Emi shouts, exasperated. “You- you’ve got boosters in your legs! You’re cheating!”

“You’re admitting that you’re shorter?” I ask, interjecting.

“I’m not-” she begins, then cuts herself off, groaning. “Ugh. I don’t have time for this right now. I’m supposed to have lunch with Rin, Hisao.”

I wince. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Oh. My. God,” Emi says, with exaggerated shock. “Did you flake on us because you went to one of her club meetings?”

I don’t know how much of my lifespan I would have to forfeit if I outright declared that I did, so I let my silence speak for me.

”Hisao. I’m hurt,” she says, and her signature puppy-dog eyes activate. I don’t know what’s more impressive, between Emi’s puppy-dog eyes and Molly’s poker face.

“I’ll make it up to you sometime.”

“Sometime? Sometime? Hisao, you’re being bewitched! Drained of your vital essence! I don’t want to see you become a theater kid! Do you know what they do for fun? They sacrifice virgins!” She waves her arms around for emphasis. “There’s goat blood and everything! Then, after that, you’ll end up being one of those kids that does all their homework every night. And then you’ll spend all your time studying and being lame! This isn’t a ‘sometime’ situation, this is a critical emergency! I need to turn you into a gym rat fast. Actually, both of you need to get out more.”

Molly busies herself stirring her soup, feigning innocence by ignorance. That reminds me; Nurse did ask me to get her to do some exercise.

I can’t help but notice something strange in the way Molly’s acting. She’s obviously playing up the drama Emi’s chosen to make of the situation, but there’s something in the way that she can’t seem to meet Emi’s eyes. She looks… guilty?

Emi puts a hand to her chin, thinking. “Okay, I get it, Molly, you can’t run, but you gotta do something. Have you tried swimming?”

“I’ve tried sinking, if that’s what you’re asking,” Molly replies, then her eyes light up as she seems to get an idea.

“Hicchan, how about we go for walks?” she asks, suddenly using my nickname. Why now? Just because she’s in front of Emi?

Emi’s mouth drops open in panic. “Wait, wait, waitwaitwait, nonononono.”

“Sure, sounds like a great idea,” I reply, buying into the bit by ignoring Emi. “I was actually thinking of picking up some stuff from the convenience store today. Are you busy this afternoon?”

“Hisao, this isn’t funny,” Emi says. She tries to activate her puppy-dog eyes again, but I remain vigilant and avoid looking at her. Those eyes are powerful. Wasn’t she the one saying that the theater club has bewitching powers? She should speak for herself.

“I have some things to pick up, too. I’d love to come with you, if you’d have me,” Molly says.

“Why not right now, then?”

That day, a great cry could be heard across the cafeteria.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

(continued...)