Author's note:

Okay, before you read let me mention something first. Chapters might come a bit slower now, since I recently started writing a new fic. It might be slow going at first, me trying to juggle two fics at once, but I'll still strive for at least a chapter a week... so basically same as always...well, hopefully.

With that, here you go.

Relax Already

“Nothing?”

Ami questioned. Her voice didn’t have the tone of disbelief which I had anticipated, rather it had an inquiring gesture, as if the concept of free time was foreign to the bespectacled beauty.

“Yeah, that’s right. I plan on not doing anything.” I answered with confident bravado. “It’s nice to just sit back once in a while and not do anything.”

I moved over to the electric powered pc which sat at the far end of the wall. I continued explaining this concept of “laziness” while I waited for the old piece of technology to boot up.

“Well, although I say once in a while, in my case, I’d rather prefer to do it everyday.”

The pc’s monitor blinked into life with illuminated vibrance.

“Unfortunately, doing nothing is pretty impossible in a school like this.” I grumbled.

While I explained, and as the pc hummed into life, Ami had somehow managed to sidestep all the random trash strewn across my bedroom floor and found a spot on my bed to sit at.

Normally, any guy would feel some sort of excitement from having a girl, especially one this cute, alone in a room with them. I wasn’t any different in that regard, although my arousal was quickly put out by the impending sense of weariness that was constantly weighing down on me.

I stared off absentmindedly at the screen as I continued talking, half conversing with myself.

“Everyone’s just so...busy.” I sighed. “Like, they’ve all got places to be, and...and ambition. It’s a bit too overwhelming for a guy like me.”

“....”

Ami quietly listened to what had quickly become “The Complaining Corner with Kelp Kusanagi”. While she listened, she looked around curiously with wide eyed fascination mixed in with a hint of aristocratic disdain.

Going by her constantly changing expression and shifty eyes, one could assume it was her first time alone with a guy in his room.

This put me somewhat at ease, knowing I wasn’t the only one who was a bit nervous.

Moving my attention to the computer in front of me, I waited anxiously as my cursor hovered over the internet icon. By this point, the routine of booting up this pc and attempting to connect to the internet had sort of become a habit. Although unfortunately, the outcome had thus far been very disappointing.

I gulped and steeled my determination.

Taking that leap of faith, my finger clicked down on the mouse, opening up what I hoped was the front page of youtube.

“....”

“....”

“....”

*sigh*

Like all my previous attempts, this time wasn’t any different. Instead of being greeted by the familiar icon of the world’s most popular online video sharing website, I was met with a sort of emoji of a yellow fellow with devilish horns. It was stuck in mid laugh, as if mocking my constant failure and naive optimism.

“Ah damn it…” I mumbled to myself quietly.

“Hmm, what’s wrong?”

A monotone voice rang out from the edge of my bed. I lazily turned around to face Ami, who had an expression of mild interest plastered on her face.

“Ah, uh, it’s nothing… just another blow to my happiness, ‘s all…” I answered sadly.

“...? ...Okay…”

I sighed, collapsing down onto my impromptu bed, lain in front of my computer. It was basically just a layer of sheets and comforters strewn across the floor. It was similar to the one in my old room, rather, even the same sheets were used. I recreated it since during my shut in lifestyle, I developed a habit of sleeping on the floor and I really can’t seem to shake it off even now.

I spent about a minute in absolute silence, staring off into the ceiling, hoping my mind would eventually blank out like it usually does. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help but focus in on an uncomfortable feeling that had stubbornly lodged itself deep within my psyche.

“....”

I sighed.

Yes, this feeling was created by the foreign presence that currently invaded my room.

I turned slowly towards Ami, half glaring. Although she hadn’t really said much ever since she followed me in here, she should at least know proper etiquette. I mean, you don’t just walk into a guy’s room like its nothing. That’s pretty unnatural.

Plus, to make it even worse (at least for me). Her presence had put me somewhat on edge, which was natural, considering she was a stranger (a girl no less) who barged into my room.

I sighed despondently before opening my mouth to talk.

“So… um, when are you leaving?” I casually inquired.

“I’m not leaving.” She promptly responded.

“...I’d like it if you left.” I pushed.

“No.” She held her ground.

I sighed again. “Why are you so adamant in staying here, damn it. I can’t relax with you here.”

“...Like I said before, it’s so I can convince you to investigate the forest, and to do so, I must first gain your favor.”

“... You’re not garnering any of my favor by just sitting there… rather, you’re kind of turning me away…”

A dissatisfied frown flashed across Ami’s face before it once again turned neutral. She tilted her head, and after a minute of what I assumed was her quietly thinking, she chirped up.

“Then, we should go somewhere… to “bond”.” She spat out the word as if the very idea got underneath her skin.

I laughed dryly at this suggestion.

“Listen here miss Secretary.” I spoke. “Rule number one of a shut in, is that we never leave the room. That’s why we’re called shut-ins’ in the first place, we keep ourselves “shut in” our rooms.”

“...”

“So, as such, I don’t plan on leaving this room anytime soon...although you’re happy to go whenever you feel like it, and by whenever, I mean now.”

Ami paused for a moment, and a look of contemplation befell her face, as if she was seriously thinking about my words just now.

Eventually, she sighed and said, “Well, even though I’d like to leave this deplorable room, sadly, I can’t.”

I sighed along with her. Honestly, with Ami here, it made my whole plan of “relaxation” kind of impossible. It was really, really, really hard to relax with such… such an invader in my secret domain.

Oh, and did I mention she was a girl. A guy in the prime of his puberty like me can’t keep calm when there’s a girl involved.

It was like trying to calmly talk to someone while they had a gun pointed to your head. Except that gun was hormones. Truly an impossible task.

I thought for a moment, before I came up with what I deemed was a “semi-decent” idea.

“...Then, if you’re going to spend time here, then I suggest you do what I do.”

“D… do what you do?”

“Yeah, have a taste of my life style, the one I value more than my life.”

“....” She paused. Going by her uncomfortable expression, it seems that the very idea of living the same way I do was… well, she didn’t like it.

“Just give it a try.” I casually suggested. “Maybe then you’ll see the merit in laziness, and maybe then you’ll understand why I’m so stuck on not doing what the vice prez wants me to do.”

“But…”

A tinge of doubt crawled along her voice, which for me, was a good thing. Truth be told, I had ulterior motives to my rather innocent suggestion. One, I figured that asking a girl raised in the lap of luxury to try living like a shut in was bound to cause some protest. I hoped if I pushed her hard enough, she’d eventually leave.

Also, I held a weird, naive assumption that if I got her to do NEET like things, it would make spending time with her a lot less uncomfortable. You know, that logic of “If you can’t beat them, join them.” In my case, I was making them, join me.

“So? What will you do?” I asked, trying to keep my voice passive while holding back a devious smile.

Ami went quiet for a moment. Once again, she was in serious thought as she took in my suggestion with utmost earnesty.

After about ten minutes, the Shut-in-to-be finally responded.

“... Will doing this make you like me?”

Suddenly, something unbelievable came out of her mouth.

“....

….

…… Hah???” I couldn’t help but utter a weird noise.

“In order to garner your favor, don’t you have to like me first? Isn’t that how it works?” She hesitantly began to explain, although by her tone of voice, it seemed like she was just as lost as me.

“If I ended up looking more appealing to you, won’t you become more susceptible to my requests?”

An unbelievably innocent expression replaced her usual stoicness.

I scratched my head awkwardly, both out of half embarrassment and utter confusion.

“A-um, y-yeah, sure whatever. If you copy me, I’ll probably, maybe, sort of start to like you.”

Frowning at my poor word choice, she hesitated for a moment before nodding, she flashed a smile as if to imply she was somewhat satisfied.

“Then, where do we begin?”

“Huh?” Still somewhat in a daze from earlier, I couldn’t come up with a good reply.

“I mean, what are we supposed to do now?”

“Oh, yeah, right… let’s see…”

I crossed my arms while I looked up at the ceiling. She brought up a valid point, while my free time might seem to be something lacking preparedness, truth be told, I usually had quite a rigid schedule centered around the concept of “lazing around” that I followed really close to.

“Well… I guess we can kill time with some video games, then take a quick nap before ending the day with some dinner.” I replied after serious self insight.

“Hmm… It looks like you had the whole day planned out after all…”

Oho~ It seems like she noticed.

I flashed a somewhat goofy grin, happy that someone noticed my dedication to slacking off.

I clapped my hands rather loudly, as if to signal that my day had officially began.

“Well, let’s start, shall we?” I asked innocently as I moved to grab an old videogame console from underneath my PC.

*****

“HAHAHAHA, hell yeah!”

Clarence screamed triumphantly as he watched and orchestrated the marvel before him.

It had already been, a few hours since he had woken up that morning and he couldn’t be happier. It really wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say this might be the greatest day of his life.

What happened was that right now, Clarence was currently enlarging his already swelling army of undead.

Using his initial finds at the decrepit old tree, he came to the conclusion that simply just going home was a waste, especially since he had already gathered such a fine stock of servants.

“Besides, it’s not like I’m any busy this Saturday.” Was how his train of thought went.

Leading his army, he pushed through the thickets of the forest, going deeper and deeper, wanting to test both his army’s strength, and Clarence’s own potential.

He faced countless monsters, all who, Clarence oddly noted, were way stronger than they were supposed to be. Luckily for him, this influx in monster strength was quite pointless, considering he had with him two rank A beasts’ capable of fending of almost all challengers. Using their might, combined with the flock of undead Blood Crows, he was able to pretty much dominate every Monster/Magical being he came across, which was quite a feat, considering in a one on one fight, the necromancer himself had trouble dealing with something like a Rank G creature.

Just now, Clarence, was currently cleaning up a pack of Rank B+ Brotherhood Wolves (originally rank C).

Brotherhood Wolves were creatures, just as its name implies, with strict ties to family/teamwork. Usually, their coordination would put even the most experienced of Mages in trouble. Although at the hands of Clarence’s army, well, it simply turned into a war of attrition, and suffice to say, Clarence was superior.

“God Damn… I...am….such a…. FUCKING BADASS!” Clarence celebrated once more as he admired the current status of his army.

While the undead had the severe restriction of permanent injury, which made them a rather throw away type army, he readily replaced them with his “spoils” from his recent conquests.

Along side the Brotherhood Wolves which Clarence just resurrected, he had 250 Blood Crows, 2 War Bears, A gathering of about 50 whip monkeys, for some reason, 8 horned rabbits, 26 Wolves, and 12 White Walkers (Rank C+ humanoid monsters who lacked a face and had tentacle arms).

By gathering all these monsters under his command, it consumed a total of half of Clarence’s total mana capacity just in order to keep them under his control. Though Clarence ignored this fact, too high of the euphoria of his current achievements to care.

Of course, the idea that his success all originated from his initial luck at finding such a high specs war zone, completely went over the over-confident mage’s head. Rather, even if he did realize it, he would never admit such a thing.

“Well, then, onwards and upwards!”

Clarence finished up resurrecting the last of the Wolves before he headed off deeper into the forest. Unlike before, he wasn’t just aimlessly wandering around anymore. No, throughout his current adventures, he discovered something. Well, rather, he noticed a pattern.

While it was already readily obvious to him that something unusual was happening in Setohanda forest, he discovered something… less obvious.

A pattern. The monster’s he fought were continually getting stronger towards one specific location. It was as if the origin of their strength came from one specific location, and by following this “trail”, Clarence’s own determination to discover what that something was, only continued to rise.

With such motive, Clarence ventured further, with the hope and ambition of increasing the strength and size of his throw-away army.

*****

“Well, that was a disaster.”

I sighed as I threw a controller hopelessly to the side.

I discovered that Ami, was hopelessly bad at videogames, and even worse at watching someone play video games.

At first, in order to give this girl a taste of what it was like to be a Shut-in, I gave her one serving of my staple past time, video games.

Everything was okay at the start. She quietly watched me play as I showed and explained what was what. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to do this, but considering it was for my own benefit, I bared with it. Eventually, I decided it was time for her to try it out herself, which was my fatal mistake.

“Here, you try it.” I idiotically handed her the controller.

“Hmmm, Are you sure? I’ve never played before.” She innocently said under a veil of indifference.

“Well, just have a go at it. I mean, even kids these days can work their way around a controller. How bad can it be?”

Oh how naively optimistic I was back then.

Ami was awful. She didn’t listen to any of the on screen instructions, she had a bad habit of frequently confusing which buttons were what, and she always insisted on choosing hard mode, with the stupid reason of “Of course I would choose this level of difficulty, nothing is too hard for Miss Scleri’s own personal assistant!”

It was like watching a two year old trying to write a circle. Or draw their name.

Hopelessly aggravating.

When I finally had enough, and snatched away the controller from her, I kindly suggested she just sit back and watch me play.

Of course that didn’t go any better either.

Unlike before, where she silently observed, this second round was much less… tranquil.

Suffice to say, she was not quiet at all. I don’t know whether it was because I stirred something up within her by giving her a slight taste of video games or whether her prior experience convinced Ami that she was now a bona fide expert in the matter, but she talked non stop, giving out various “advice” and “suggestion” which, when I ignored, caused her to get even louder, which surprised me, since it was quite uncharacteristic of her.

Now, I wouldn’t have mind had she actually given good advice, but they were things that usually got me killed, or put me in an even worse situation than before.

Really, she was the worst type of back seat gamer, one who understood nothing yet believed they understood everything.

Now we were at our current debacle.

Me angrily huffing and puffing at the frustration that just happened, and Ami, faintly smiling.

For some reason, Ami was actually satisfied with the fiasco that just happened.

I sighed and stretched my back. I looked out the window to see the clear blue skies and dazzling sun.

“...”

“...looks like its time for a nap..” I said, while I calmly put away the video game console.

The impromptu list I had hastily created consisted of video games, nap time, and dinner. Now that the videogame portion was over and done with, it was time for a brief nap. And right now, a nap sounded absolutely heavenly after the mental and physical trauma of that last gaming session.

“Um, did you say nap?” She asked. “I-Isn’t that something for children...or cats?”

I scoffed at her immature train of thought. “Nonsense, that’s a stupid fallacy you need to quickly throw away! Naps are the emptimum of living. Being able to freely choose when and where you can fall asleep is something any proper Shut-in, no, any proper human being should strive for.

“....But how are we supposed to “bond” if we're both asleep?”

I fluffed a pillow in preparation for slumber. As I began to get under the various sheets of bedding and comforters strewn on the floor, I answered her question.

“We aren’t supposed to “bond”. Naps are a solo activity after all.”

“Eh? ...But….” This probably put an obvious stint to her plans.

“Well, enough questions, good night, er, day or whatever.”

“....”

“....zzz”

*cough* A light cough escaped from Ami, interrupting my descent into REM sleep.

“....”

“.....”

“... If you want to go to sleep too, you can use the mattress over there.”

I suggested while I jerked my thumb at the unused bed.

Although it would be considered… odd to sleep with a girl in the same room, it was weirder to have a girl watch you while you sleep.

“...Okay.”

She was hesitant, but still agreed, probably since there really wasn’t much to do in my room and I doubt she was leaving any time soon.

With that, I eventually fell asleep, finally, since the first time this morning, I was truly able to relax.

****

After following a trail of ever stronger monsters, Clarence finally arrived in what looked like a clearing.

From afar, the open spot looked to be nothing in particular, just another blank space on the forest floor, the type that popped up every now and then. But from up close, one could tell the obvious signs of a strong creature. The ground was battered, and had numerous gouges drawn all over them. Going by how deep the fading footprints were, it was obvious that something large and filled with muscle once roamed and made camp here.

Another thing that was odd was that the surrounding trees were cleared out or destroyed.

Now, Clarence knew about how tough and sturdy the Setohanda timber was, so he could only imagine as to what type of creature held the strength to do such damage.

Another thing he noted, was that at the center was a rather peculiar hole on the ground. A burning sensation overwhelmed Clarence as he instinctively knew that this place, this hole, was precisely what he was looking for.

He took a step closer and investigated the opening. It was then that he was hit by a strong smell. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what that stench reminded him of, but it was undoubtedly familiar.

It was something he had experienced numerous times, but he just couldn’t recall what it exactly was. But one thing was for sure though….

It reminded him of death.

Eager to put a close on his merry adventure through the forest, he commanded the entirety of his army to march down the hole, single file, as he followed closely behind, optimism and greed plainly plastered on his pale skinned face.

****

*grumble*

I groggily got up, overwhelmed by the constant ache in my stomach that quickly reminded me I hadn’t had food since this morning.

,

Tiny rays of orange and yellow leaked through the closed curtains, signaling that the day was almost over. The specks of light vibrantly illuminated my musty room, giving it a sort of comfortable vibe.

I slowly got up and motioned to push open the curtains, fully submerging the room in an orange glow. From the looks of things, I’d guess that I slept for around 5 hours, an average time for me.

I looked around my room, using the new light to guide my sight, when my eyes landed on Ami. Surprisingly, she had done what I suggested and had fallen asleep successfully.

Right now, she had quite a peaceful, content look on her face. Her glasses were removed, and her petite mouth was curved ever so slightly in a faint, but nevertheless, present, smile.

It seems like she was able to relax as well.

Although, there is one problem.

She was right next to me, or rather, she was blissfully clinging onto my uninjured arm without a care in the world.

By the looks of things, with the disheveled sheets on the mattress and Ami’s awkward pose, it looked like she fell of the bed sometime midway during her nap.

After I calmly took this information in, I silently moved her away, careful not to wake her up. I stood up and stretched, looking out to the setting sun once more as I admired the pristine view.

Growing bored of that, I yawned, and turned my head towards Ami, and looked at her again with half closed eyes.

Her hair was messy, almost as messy as mine, but somehow, it looked...cute on her, which I found odd, considering I’d get nothing but remarks when it came to my hair.

Anyway, if you listened closely, you could hear the faint pitter patter, as her chest moved up and down as a cute “zuuu….” noise escaped her slightly opened mouth.

Really, if she wasn’t such a stick in the mud….

My thoughts died out as I saw the defenseless girl before me squirm a bit. I stopped and thought for a bit before I decided it was time to wake her up from her beauty sleep.

“Oi, wake up!”

I yelled while simultaneously tapping her shoulder with the sole of my foot.

Groggily, Ami began to wake up.

“Whuu...Scleri-Sama…?” She mumbled incoherently while moving restlessly within a pile of bed sheets.

Obviously still half asleep, I decided to let her get a grasp on her bearings a bit before anything else.

While she struggled to get up, I decided it was time to do the third thing on my schedule.

I shuffled out the room lazily, and made my way to the kitchen. A little while later, I returned with 2 cups filled with flavor and steaming hot water.

From the label, and the obvious noodle smell, anyone could tell it was ramen.

I moved the various pieces of cloth and trash strewn around the coffee table in my room, before I gently placed the cups down. I turned and saw Ami, was steadily waking up now.

She yawned contagiously, before looking around the room in an stupor. She blinked twice when her gaze landed on the cups I just placed.

“Whuzzat?”

She slurred, still not fully awake.

“It’s cup ramen.” I yawned. “My very life essence.”

“Ramen?” She asked inquiringly.

“What? You’ve never had any before?”

“No…” She denied. “It’s just that… I never knew they came in such small cups…”

“Then, you’ve never had cup ramen before?”

Ami shook her head, swaying her messy bedhead left to right.

I laughed dryly, tasting the congested saliva typical after long periods of sleep.

“I’d expect nothing less from an ojou sama…” I muttered under my breath while I carefully watched over the food, waiting for every nuance and indication to tell me when my cup of flavor would be ready.

I don’t typically use a timer, that’s arbitrary. And besides, you can’t rely on one specific time to determine when ramen will be cooked. Every brand, no, every individual package, has its own specific cook time that can only be determined with a watchful eye and years of experience.

“What was that?” Ami asks, still fighting the fog of afternap.

“No, nothing.” I sighed out. “Here, try some.”

Being the kind soul that I naturally was, I took the cup which finished sooner and placed it in front of Ami, who had conveniently moved to sit near the table after she woke up.

“Taste it.” I urged.

“....” She remained stoic.

“If you do this, I’ll count it as us bonding.” I decided to use bribery next.

“Hearing such an offer is quite tempting….” She stated through half closed eyes.

Stifling a yawn, she eventually nodded in agreement, and motioned to grasp a spoon I had brought from the kitchen. Fun fact, Ami was the type of person who didn’t know how to use chopsticks.

She took two reluctant slurps and made one weird face, as if she’s fighting through the flavor.

“....It tastes a bit...bad” She complains in between mouthfuls.

“Really?, that’s weird…”

I look at her, then shift my gaze back to the cup in front of me. Lifting the package, I turned it around to read the bottom of the fineprint.

After a while, I confirmed what I was looking for, and made an understanding nod.

I placed the food back down on the table, and with a pair of chopsticks, began to eat my own cup ramen as if nothing had happened.

Ami, who saw the whole course of actions, looks at me weirdly, her irritated, sleepy expression urging me to explain. Under constant bombardment from such a ferocious glare, I complied.

“Well, it makes sense that it would taste bad…” I casually stated, “After all, they’re about a month or so expired.”

Ami stops her hand with a jerk as she halts to a stop. I exchanged a wry smile through a slurp full of expired noodles.

“Relax miss secretary, it’s not like it’ll kill you. Plus, I have a secret weapon.” I comforted her worried expression.

“Secret weapon?” She asks, half curious.

“Yeah, wait here.” I said while groaning to get up. I went back to the kitchen and came back shortly after. In both my hands, I held two eggs.

Upon seeing this, Ami tilts her head. “An egg?”

I nod, while I motioned for Ami to hand me her cup. “Yeah, an egg, it’ll make the taste somewhat better.”

I nonchalantly assured her while I cracked the egg with one hand and stirred in the raw contents into her cup. I do the same with my cup, cracking the remaining egg and thoroughly mixing its contents into the cup.

Feeling satisfied, I took a chopstick and stuck it into Ami’s cup. I tasted the soup, smiling at my ingenuity, before I handed her the cup.

“Here, it should be good now. You try it.”

Ami who had been staring fixedly at my chopstick with narrow eyes, arched her back straight up at my words, before she rigidly went and took another bite.

Her tentative bite slowly transforms her stern face, making her jagged expression somewhat softer.

“Its… decent.” She spoke, obviously surprised by the shift in flavor.

Hearing her amazed expression and seeing her faint smile, I can’t help but crack a grin myself.

I continued to eat my own serving of ramen, taking the time to peer at Ami’s stoic expression soften as she continued to eat.

After a while, we finished, leaving a pair of empty ramen cups on my coffee table. Ami’s face was now looser and more relaxed. She still wore a sleepy expression, but now there was a faint smile and an air of satisfaction around her.

The original stiffness I had seen earlier still persists, but its somewhat less now.

“How was it?” I asked, not even attempting to hide my sly grin.

“It was okay…” She said, avoiding eye contact for some odd reason.

“...Although it still tasted packaged.” She added in with a cute smile (which I admit, kinda had my heart racing for a minute).

I laugh wryly at this.

From an objective perspective, I would say this girl would make a great shut in. She knows how to enjoy video games (even when she sucks at it), knows how to take a good nap, and can eat expired ramen without even a bat of an eyelash (albeit she did have some help through my special method, but, that’s besides the point).

Really, it almost makes me proud.

Well, now that my schedule is all done for… I guess I could go for some manga…

I thought, while I motioned over to the inconspicuous book shelf with a hidden compartment for various things...Today though, I only needed what was on display.

As I deliberated over which book to read, through the corner of my eye, I saw Ami absentmindedly look out the window.

Her eyes widened in surprise. Going by how she immediately looked down at her watch, I’d say she was caught off guard at how late it had already gotten, which was understandable, considering she took a pretty long nap.

Unfortunately for me, this started up quite a fuss within the room, as Ami moved like a frantic ferret across my bedroom.

Irritatingly, I got distracted by all the commotion, and interrupted my book search to ask her to stop, or at least be less noisy.

“Ah...Sorry.” She stated absentmindedly, while she still continued to move as if nothing happened.

Now looking directly at her, I could see that she was frantically gathering her stuff together.

“. ...what’s up with you?” I asked, half out of irritation, and half out of curiosity.

After some fierce packing, she finally looked up to answer. Somehow, along her haste, she managed to stick her glasses onto her face rather sloppily. Now they hanged loosely, while one end was raised above the other. The frames swayed as she spoke to answer.

“I have to go, while it is my duty to convince you, that only lasts until the end of my shift as a student council secretary.”

I contemplate for a moment, before I quietly spoke up, attempting to hide as much of the subdued joy I was developing to the best of my abilities.

“. ...does that mean you’ll be leaving?”

She looked up at my direction with her usual facade of seriousness.

“ Don’t get your hopes up, while I may be leaving now, I’ll surely be back tomorrow to convince you.”

Hearing this I couldn’t help but involuntarily grumble while I muttered under my breath about how she was planning on ruining my Sunday too.

Ami, still half focused on whatever it was she was doing, hadn’t heard my mutterings and continued to respond.

“...but for now, I have more important business to attend to. Miss Scleri is is coming back from her family business tonight!” Ami’s voice rose to an uncharacteristic octave as her face visibly brightened up.

Ami humphed in satisfaction as she made her way to the door.

Before she left, she turned back to adress me.

“Well then, until next time.”

As she motions to leave, I couldn’t help but get up and stop her.

“Wait!” I yelled with a disapproving shake of my head.

“Huh?” Ami tilts her head questioningly while looking up at me.

I stared intently at her. Looking at Miss Secretary, I couldn’t help but feel something was off…

I approached her to get a better view.

As I reach her, the difference in height between us becomes apparent as Ami looks up to meet my eyes.

Ami squirmed a bit under my intense glare but that didn’t stop me from looking at her intently.

Eventually, my eyes went down and focused on the thing which had given me an uncomfortable feeling.

Wordlessly I placed my hand on top of Ami’s head.

This action elicited a rather weird reaction.

“wa-whu-w-what are you--” She stuttered out as she tried to find the words to express her emotions.

“Relax, princess,” I attempted to calm her down. “ You’re pretty disheveled right now, you know?”

As if finally noticing, her eyes looked upwards, as if trying to view her own hair from that angle. Ami finally noticed that she still had bed hair from her earlier nap.

“You wouldn’t want to go around looking like that, especially when your going off to meet with the president now.”

While I spoke my thoughts, I continued to fix her bed hair for her. I don’t exactly know what prompted this, but I had a feeling that I was doing her a favor.

I mean, while it was unwilling, and I really didn't want to do it in the first place, Ami still decided to hang out with me for a whole day, so that’s got to merit some retribution right?

Originally, I predicted some measure of resistance form Ami, but surprisingly she relented, and quietly allowed him to fix her hair.

As I was doing so, I noticed she was doing something I observed Nanami do on several occasions. Ami’s shoulders scrunched towards her as she began curling herself inwardly. While she had her head tilted unconsciously closer to me, I could vaguely make out quiet squeaks of compliments that floated out from er.

“...you are very good at this.”

“At this? you mean fixing people’s hair?” I laughed dryly, which surprised Ami who probably assumed I couldn’t hear her.

“No...I mean at...making people feel…..” Her words mumble into obscurity as her face visibly reddened. This rather “fluffy” (cute) appearance, was quite a stark contrast from her usual stoic and rigid facade.

While her words had gotten my attention, I didn’t quite pursue as to what they exactly meant. Instead I opted to just quietly fixing her hair with the stubborn mindset of “I’m doing her this one favor.”

After a what seemed like a lifetime, but in actuality, was merely a minute or so, I step back and admire my work. While her hair isn’t as impeccable as it was when she first entered the room, I do note however, that it was noticeably better than from a minute ago.

Ami also looked a bit satisfied, looking at herself from the reflection that bounced back from my window. She shyly bowed her head (another rather unusual thing I really didn’t expect her to do), and mumbled a small thank you, which I could barely make out.

As she left, I didn’t stop her this time. Although, I did catch a faint smile flash across her face as my ears caught a “ See you tomorrow” from Ami.

After she left, I sighed.

While I did put up that bravado about relaxing, truth was, the whole time, I was always a bit tense. Since I wasn’t used to being with a female for such an extended period of time, I was extra nervous--er, tense. Rather, since it was with a girl I wasn’t familiar with, that made things worse. Although the tense atmosphere did get noticeably better as I forced my Shut in lifestyle onto her….

“....”

In retrospect though, maybe fixing Ami’s hair like that was a bit weird? Or was I imagining things? I didn’t really know, the only reference point I have is with Nanami, and if it was her who attempted to leave with such bedridden hair, I would have definitely moved to fix it.

Is it weird to do that with other girls?

I sighed. My lack of experience was showing, and seed of doubt began to sprout within my mind.

I slumped down onto my impromptu cot while I went around and ardently blamed the stupid thing called puberty.

Chapter 18

Chapter 20