"You're that transfer student, right? My name is Aina Sato. Welcome to Haruki High!"

It was weird to see your doppelganger as soon as you booted up a new game. The resemblance between you and Aina was uncanny. It made you wonder if the game developers saw you somewhere and were just absolutely inspired.

If so, it was kinda flattering. But also kinda creepy.

The game started innocently enough. Aina was the first girl you met. She was there to show you the ropes, in case you never played an otome game in your life. You didn't think it was that necessary as the mechanics were fairly simple. But to each their own.

Even weirder than seeing yourself in a video game was seeing yourself dead in a video game. You found her head on your desk the day after the two of you went out on a successful date. The rest of her pieces were said to be spread around the school.

You weren't anticipating such a graphic death for a character on the title screen of the game along with all the other capture targets. But that was probably why she was there. To be misleading.

This was no ordinary otome game, after all. This was a yandere dating sim, where all the girls were willing to kill for your love.

Aina was sweet. She didn't deserve such an awful fate. But the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. She wasn't a yandere like the rest of the girls, so of course she couldn't compete.

"Bring it on," you said, crushing your... How many energy drinks did you have today? Six? Seven? Oh well, a little extra caffeine never killed anyone.

You weren't going to bed until you got the good ending of each of the girls! You could sleep when you were dead!

And that was how you died.

...

"Aina! Wake up! You're going to be late for your first day of school." A woman whispered, shaking your shoulder gently.

Who are you? You thought blearily before sitting up so abruptly that you almost headbutted the stranger. Where am I?

The last thing you remember was getting Minoru's Good End. Now you're in a strange bedroom with a strange woman leaning over you.

"Now, that's the spirit!" She crowed with a clap of her hands. "Get dressed. I ironed your uniform for you and made your favorite for breakfast."

You looked on in bewilderment as she left, shutting the door behind her and drawing your attention to the uniform hanging from the door handle.

You recognized that uniform, just as you recognized that name, you realized with growing horror. That was the uniform for the fictional Haruki High School.

You were in the fucking game you spent all night playing.

Oh, I am so dead, you thought, burrowing under the covers again as if you could hide from this strange new world.

...

Your long walk to school allotted you time to brood over your predicament.

Okay, so you were dead. But you weren't dead yet! There had to be some way you could get out of this alive.

Obviously, one of the capture targets killed Aina. The only problem was you didn't know which one did the deed. The killer was never caught in-game, and that was unlikely to change.

One thing was for sure! You could not, under any circumstances, go on a date with the player character. Even the barest scrap of affection from him was enough to get you killed. Would they kill you just because he asked you out? Yanderes were jealous and unpredictable.

What else could you do to prevent your premature demise?

Maybe... Maybe you could befriend them? They were girls just like you, right? Only... Crazier. Actually, crazy was a mean word. They were just more unstable.

Maybe you could be the stability they needed.

If you were friends, they would at least have something holding them back from killing you.

You weren't sure how you were going to pull it off though. These girls didn't exactly have a want for friends. They already had each other after all. But if there was one thing you learned from gaming so much, it was persistence.

I need to see what I'm working with, you decided and immediately started walking faster. If you got to school early enough, you'd be able to scout out your new potential "friends" and see what they were like before they got lovesick and stabhappy.