Act 3: Scene 2

"Best to stay quiet for now, at least until I 'unlock' her route or the system itself does something," he told himself. "This does confirm my suspicion yesterday, though. If Karuizawa's considered a heroine, then Sato will definitely be one as well."

"I don't see where's the problem," spoke a girl with reddish-brown hair, whose name was Onodera Kayano. While the topic of the conversation was their frustration with the newly-implemented rule, she didn't look bothered by it. "So what if we're neighbors with the boys?"

"Onodera-san, don't tell me you're fine with this whole thing?!" shouted Kei, horrified at the fact that one of their female classmates could say such a thing.

"Yeah, I'm pretty fine with it!" the girl shrugged. "If it wasn't for this new dorm system, then I would have never known that we have a classmate who's also into sports like Hirata-kun!"

"Really? Who?" asked Maya.

"Sudo-kun!" Kayano exclaimed. "The dude's actually a basketball player in his old school and he never even said it."

"Sudo? She's neighbors with him?" Kiyotaka thought, a bit surprised that she wasn't referring to him. "This is a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. As a matter of fact, it makes me relieved that not all of my female classmates will become 'heroines'."

Oh, if only he knew that it would be worse than that...

"But isn't swimming more of your thing, Onodera-san?"

Kayano grinned. "Oh, it is. Doesn't mean I can't play some hoops, though!"

"Seriously? That guy? He was so rude yesterday," Satsuki huffed, glancing at Sudo who was sitting in the last row, leaning back against his chair with his arms behind his head. "We were only introducing ourselves to everyone, and he just blew it off like it didn't matter."

Kayano dismissed her claim with a wave. "Ah, that was just him being shy. When we were talking yesterday, he was really into it. Especially when we were talking about basketball! I mean, it's only natural to be shy about saying your name in front of many people, right?"

"Is she dense or is she an airhead...?" was the collective thought of her friends except for Kikyo.

"I think you're right, Onodera-san. Not everyone can talk to other people without any problems," the beige-haired girl agreed.

"You're joking," Kei deadpanned as she was thinking the opposite, which was an opinion shared by both Sato and Shinohara.

"Am not. Just look!" Onodera looked offended that the other girls didn't believe her, and suddenly felt the desire to prove them wrong. She looked towards the red-haired boy at the back and waved her arm to get his attention. "Oi, Sudo-kun! Wanna go to the club fair together?"

That's right, it was announced through the school intercom earlier that the club fair for freshmen was taking place in the afternoon. Though it wasn't mandatory for students to attend, a lot of them were interested in checking it out to see if there was a club that they could join. Two of them were Onodera and Sudo, who wanted to join the Swimming and Basketball Club, respectively.

"Oh, uh... sure. Let's do that," he replied in a calm tone, which was completely unlike how he was yesterday. It should also be noted that he didn't look at Onodera as he spoke and had his gaze elsewhere.

Regardless, the girl took it as a confirmation that she was right. "Heh. See?" she turned to her friends with a smug look.

"Okay, you made your point. It's just that he was being rude to everyone when we only wanted to know his name," said Shinohara.

"Hahaha, don't worry. He'll open up eventually and you'll see how much of a cool guy he is to be around with."

At that exact moment, the school bell rang and almost immediately, everyone raced back to their seats before they could get scolded. They were considerably faster than yesterday and rightfully so, because Chabashira-sensei arrived just after the last student reached his seat.

"Took you all about a few seconds faster than yesterday to fix yourselves," she spoke after a few seconds. "You still have to improve further on that, though."

Kiyotaka noticed that almost the whole class collectively let out sighs of relief after those words. It was clear that Chabashira had left a mark in them yesterday, and that she wasn't someone to be ignored, especially by students who have a knack for trouble.

The woman stared at her class and noticed the tense atmosphere between the students, though it wasn't really because of her. She knew what it was about, and she could understand why. "Alright, I can tell that some of you have questions regarding the chairman's sudden announcement yesterday, so just get it out of the way."

The students of Class-D were surprised at her sudden words, as they didn't expect Chabashira to bring that issue up. Their teacher seemed too serious to actually bother with it, but now was their chance to satisfy their curiosity regarding this matter.

Karuizawa decided to take advantage of this chance in order to speak her mind. "Sensei, why did the chairman make us live in the same building with the boys?! We were completely fine with how things originally were!"

Sae expected a question like that and simply sighed. "I wish I can give you an answer, Karuizawa, but not even the teachers knew what was going on yesterday. We were completely unaware of such a change and thus, reacted in the same way as you students when we heard the announcement."

"You weren't informed of the sudden change, Chabashira-sensei?" asked Hirata. He in particular, didn't really have any problem with the new living arrangements for the students, but he was concerned for the girls and understood why the majority of them didn't like it.

"Nope. The chairman didn't even tell the teachers that we'd be living amongst the students as well," Sae shook her head, before letting out a sigh. "Well, whatever. It's not a big deal. It's just the living arrangements for everyone, it's not the end of the world."

Kiyotaka stared at the woman for a brief moment. "It affected the teachers as well? I thought this new dorm arrangement applied to the freshmen, but I suppose the skill included the teachers anyway. Since Chabashira-sensei is also going to be a 'heroine' sometime soon because she has the same screen as Horikita and the other two girls, the system made her live near my own room just like Karuizawa."

"But Chabashira-sensei, a lot of the boys are obviously happy about this because this is their chance to spy on us or something! Some of them might even try sneaking into our rooms!" Satsuki spoke up, supporting Karuizawa's claims.

"That won't happen as long as you are careful, Shinohara-san. And think about it deeply for a minute. Do you really think that your male classmates," she threw a glare at the boys, causing some of them to flinch visibly, "would risk their placement in this school and act like teenagers who are incapable of keeping themselves under control? One offense in the eyes of the student council, and a student already has a high chance of being expelled."

That threat was enough to send shivers down a lot of spines, especially the boys who were talking about the new dorm system and were happy about it. On the other hand, her words served to calm most of the girls who were uncomfortable with the new arrangement and reassure them that nothing bad was going to happen to them. Not only were they protected from potential harassment, but the dorms were also equipped with video cameras for added security.

In the end, there was truly nothing to worry about. It should honestly be the least of everyone's worries. It's not like the boys and girls were roommates, right?

"Sensei, you said that you live among the students now? W-Where exactly do you live?" asked Yamauchi in an attempt to ease the tension in the room.

"I don't believe that's an appropriate question to ask your teacher, Yamauchi," Chabashira shot him a cold glare, making him shrink in his seat. "But to satisfy your curiosity, I was assigned to the 4th floor of the 1st dorm building."

That immediately drew reactions from a lot of girls; particularly Karuizawa, Sato, Matsushita, Hasebe, and Kushida.

"Wait, that's where my room is!"

"Same here."

"My dorm room's there too."

"Ditto."

"Hehe, my room's also there..."

What followed was loud groans of despair from some of the boys in class, most notably Yamauchi and Ike, all because the hottest girls in the classroom were gathered on one floor along with their teacher while they were on a different one.

"So, aside from Kushida, those five girls are also living on the 4th floor with me..." Kiyotaka concluded in his thoughts, while letting out a massive sigh of relief that the system didn't dump every girl in his class on the same floor. It meant that not everyone was going to be a 'heroine', even though he was already dreading that possibility because of how it could be true.

Suzune remained quiet, but that was fine since he was aware of her already. On the other hand, even though she didn't speak as well, Kiyotaka could tell that the same went for Sakura Airi.

The long, red-haired girl who wore glasses was clearly residing on the same floor as him too. It was quite evident from how she froze in place for a few seconds, before looking away with a blush. Maybe she wanted to say something but was simply too shy to blurt out a single word.

"Including Horikita and Kushida, that's eight from our class but at least it's not all of them. Sakayanagi is another one, but she's not my classmate... and there's still the fact that our own teacher is a heroine as well," he then shook his head and sighed. "That's ten already, and I can tell that it won't be the final number."

"Chabashira-sensei, where's your room exactly?" asked Ike.

"The one next to the elevator," she deadpanned. "Now shut up, all of you. We're not here to chat about our lives outside of the classroom. We're here to learn. Now, is there anything else you want to ask that has nothing to do with your personal lives? If nothing, then I suppose we can end homeroom early and you can wait for your next class."

"I knew it. The system just wouldn't pass up on the chance to have me live on the same floor as them." He was willing to accept his fate and embrace the fact that he was now neighbors with his heroines thanks to the system's broken skill, but this was definitely taking it too far. Well, it's not like he could do anything about it. "Well, at least Kushida knows not to mention me living on the same floor as them. She was talking with Karuizawa and a few other girls earlier, but didn't say anything about me."

He couldn't really complain about this now, since he saw this coming. And hey, it was way better than 'unlocking' all of these girls' routes all at the same time. If that had happened, then he might have knocked himself out just so he could catch a break from everything that's happened until now.

"The club fair is happening later on... that should at least take my mind off the system for a while at least, assuming it doesn't do anything to create more problems for me, that is."