My first day over, I lay back in my bed, mulling over the day in the privacy of my unfamiliar home.

Finally, I had some odd amount of hours without stuff just...happening. Time to think, to reflect, and plan for the future.

I was in a different world. Given the goddess’s words and the events of the past day, it was clear I was in a derivative world. A world based on the pages of Harem, Harem, Oval Panic. A world that seemed in some vague way tied to the events of that base material.

This was concerning, considering Hero, the character whose life I seemed to have replaced, was gruesomely murdered at the end of 5 chapters of harem antics.

Yet, still, there was plenty of hope.

I stared at the ceiling of a room that had never once featured in the pages of Harem, Harem, Oval Panic.

This was a world filled in. Expanded out and brimming with new details and information. I had to hope that somewhere in all that, was a way to escape my fate.

And best of all, there was me.

The ultimate chaos factor. A dude pulled straight from another world.

Sure, I had no secret powers or abilities to speak of, and what foreknowledge I had was based on foggy memories of a series I only read once, but at the very least I sorta knew what was coming.

I, Hero, had a vague timer on my life. A death flag far in the distance. A call to action. And that knowledge meant something. It meant I could prepare.

If my character’s murder was a mystery, then it was a solvable mystery. If my fate was set, then it was a fate to be averted.

I had no intention of walking meekly into the good night.

I even had a tentative plan. The way I saw it, there was really only one major failstate I had to avoid.

The final confession.

Deck was confessed to in the final chapter, on the panel just before my death. To me, what this signalled was obvious. If the manga was some kind of outline of forecasted future events, then I simply had to prevent the story from ticking over to the next panel.

No final confession equaled no dead Hero.

From this came the basis of my strategy. One class of interaction that I had to prevent at all costs.

Extended one-on-one interaction.

Dating sims, romance anime, and, ostensibly, real life all agreed--there was nothing like couple time for advancing those relationship points.

Three people? Fine. Three people caught up in romantic and subtext ridden antics? Even better.

But there was something about two people in isolation that brought out blushing epiphanies, long lingering pauses, and worst of all, a growing sense of insight and empathy to push along the train of mutual attraction.

The solution then was simple. Prevent one-on-one time by all means possible.

That was the plan. My soon to be modus operandi. As far as I was concerned, the world was full of bikes in desperate need of a third wheel.

With that thought I fell asleep, dreaming of tricycles.

*

I woke in good spirits.

It felt good to know what I had to do. To have a goal to work towards. It made the air taste brisk. Filled my steps with vim and deliberation. As Deck, Sarah, and I walked to school, I considered my next moves.

The first thing I needed to do was scout the field. Catalog the who’s and when’s and where’s.

That was Social Engineering 101. I had to know what variables I was working with, before I could come up with a plan of action.

If I knew Sarah had cram school until 4:00 and she walked home right after, then I knew that put her on a collision course with a one-on-one with Deck as he left his place for his evening jog.

Knowing that, I could endeavor to catch Sarah on her way home for a bite to eat, or delay Deck by roping him into an impromptu gaming session.

Simple.

I just needed everyone’s schedules in front of me first.

My thoughts were interrupted soon after we walked onto campus.

“Hey, isn’t that the blue haired girl you were talking to after school yesterday?” Sarah asked.

Lene stood in front of the Gymnasium staring directly at the three of us.

I sighed.

“Oh?” said Deck. “You should introduce us.”

He began to walk forward before I could reply.

“I’m Deck,” he said, holding out his hand to Lene.

Lene grasped his hand. Then, rather than shaking his hand, Lene maintained her grip to hold him in place as she examined his arm curiously.

“You are...quite fit.” she said at last. Her eyes flicked over the rest of his body. “Very fit.”

Deck flexed good naturedly.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Your regimen?”

“I jog,” said Deck. “Twice a week.”

“You jog,” Lene repeated. She palmed his obviously toned biceps. “That would not account for this.”

“Sometimes I skip dinner,” said Deck. “Gotta watch those carbs.”

Lene’s eyes narrowed.

“It really doesn’t make much sense.” Sarah laughed nervously. “But he’s always been that way. Freakishly fit.”

Lene turned to Sarah, then frowned, eyeing her up and down.

“You...are also strange.”

Sarah laughed nervously.

“We uh, really should be going.” Sarah nudged Deck with her shoulder. “Classes and all.”

“Oh? Is it that time already?”

Deck pulled Lene’s hands off his arm.

“Well then. A friend of Hero’s is a friend of mine.” He smiled. “Pleasure meeting you Lene.”

Sarah and Deck left, leaving me alone with Lene.

She blinked after them, remaining still, almost statuesque, till they were out of sight. Then she turned towards me.

“Have you procured any blood, urine, or semen?” she demanded.

“It’s been a day,” I pointed out.

“It has.” she agreed. “I have only so much patience.”

I tried a different tack.

“You know, it’s generally considered polite to ask a person for their fluids directly,” I said. “Usually after dating.”

Lene considered this.

“I can try this,” she said. “I suppose that makes you unnecessary.”

“No, no, no. Wait.”

I grabbed her shoulder which she flicked off with a casual disdain.

“I can do it. I can help you get your, uh, sample,” I said.

She eyed me quietly, then nodded.

“You have the day,” she said, before disappearing into the GYMNASIUM.

Now, you might be wondering, why Hero? Why take this gross sidequest? Why defile the brocode and commit to stealing your bro’s fluids? Ew. And also, why?

The reason was simple. Lene.

Lene was a concern.

I kinda didn’t get Lene. Honestly I was never that much of a fan of the ‘atheletic’ archetype character to begin with.

Usually those characters felt like the ‘Hufflepuff’ of the cast. The ditzy muscly girl whose most defining trait could best be described as ‘hardworking’. Call me weird, but in a cast of attractive exceptionals—next to sensei’s, prodigies, and rich scions—diligence alone did not make for the most attractive look.

Plus, sports. I never was much of a sports guy.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Inevitably, sporty character arcs ended with some kind of ‘I gotta go to some distant far away school on scholarship to follow my dream’ sorta conflict. Or some tournament that they would do well or not so well in.

The stakes were always just so, so low. It was difficult to bring myself to care.

However, Lene....Lene was just weird. I didn’t really have a solid idea of what the author was going for with Lene actually.

She never actually even played sports in the story that I remembered. There was no club recruitment arc, or a sports training camp arc, or even a tournament arc where she trained too hard and got sick.

As far as I could tell, Lene was just sorta fit in the background. Occasionally she appeared in sports clothes with a towel around her neck, and there was the vague insinuation she worked out.

She was an oddball. I didn’t have a good read on her, which made her hard to predict and fit into my plans.

And worst of all, there was one thing I knew, one character trait I was sure of from the pages of Harem, Harem, Oval Panic.

Lene was something of a misanthrope.

There was a running gag that she ignored everyone she decided was useless. And if there was one thing that defined Lene’s relationship with my character Hero in the story, it was that.

Abject shunning. The absolute cold shoulder.

That would not do. I needed to be on good terms with Lene to nudge her when necessary. Which meant I had to stay in her good graces.

Ergo, urine sidequest.

*

Honestly I thought it’d be pretty easy.

I told Deck I needed a bunch of water bottles downed to collect them for a recycling project, and Deck being Deck, was immediately down. He downed water with gusto throughout the day, and whenever he went to use the bathroom, I followed him.

Finally on the third such time, there was no one else in the bathroom, so I lingered behind, pretending to take a dump.

When Deck left, I went to his urinal, cottonswabbed, vialed and there, presto.

One urine sample.

“The sample is contaminated,” said Lene, eyeing the vial closely. “I see no less than ten different urine samples intermixing in the vial.”

She was looking at the vial with her naked eyes.

“You do...do you?”

She passed me back the gross urine vial.

I looked around. We were in some empty sciencey room in the basement of the GYMNASIUM. There were rows of black countertop tables all filled up with lab equipment. I gestured towards the various centrifuges and tools.

“Can’t you just, I dunno, isolate the strain of urine?”

Lene gave me a look that communicated that I had dropped several competency points in her internal reckoning.

“I require a pure sample,” she said.

“Uh huh. Okay.” I said.

It is a tough problem. Getting someone to pee somewhere no one has peed before. I thought about it for most of the day, through lunch and the rest of classes. There was no real chance for a bottle road trip situation.

After a while I decided to consult Claire. I took the elevator up the clocktower, and again I was treated to the view of Claire’s vibrant red hair against the sunset.

“What do you require?” she asked.

“I need,” I began. “A newly constructed bathroom, for private use.”

Claire nodded and opened up a pocket ledger she drew out of her pocket. “By when?”

I glanced at the sun rapidly falling outside the window.

“...the end of today?”

Claire looked up, disbelievingly. “The end of today? How do you expect that to happen?”

“I figured, you know.” I gestured vaguely. “Money.”

“That is not,” said Claire. “How money works. Finances and resources cannot magically accelerate construction and logistics.”

I found myself nodding sheepishly.

“Yeah I know.” I said. “Realistically sure. I just figured, I dunno, it might be possible with...uber wealth.”

Claire sighed, putting her ledger away.

“Wealth is not magic,” said Claire. “The resources at my disposal make it trivial to start endeavors. To set things in motion. I can call contractors. I can procure materials, discreetly and illegally if need be, but other than that? I endure the same reality as you do.”

Her voice took on a lecturing tone.

“Money can secure or forge zoning permits. It can call in expertise. It can grease the way. What it cannot do is make cement dry faster. It cannot give plumbers more hours in the day. Water will still flow downwards. The moon will still rise, the sun will still set. Reality will remain reality. Do you understand?”

“Reality will remain reality,” I repeated. “Yeah, sure. I get it.”

It was a thing I did. Active Listening in its most literal, unnuanced form. Repeat back what the other party says to show you’re listening. To signal they are being heard. It was a habit I picked up over the years after stepping over people’s words one too many times.

It bought some time, provided some room to escape the confines of my own head, and once in a while, it did spark some insight.

“Reality will remain reality,” I repeated again.

And just like that, there was a mental snap. The idea fully formed. A solution to my urine related problem.

I almost had a knee jerk recoiling reaction. Not because the solution was gross, which it was, but for more abstract, personal reasons.

I had done the thing. The idea-solution-sparked-from-something-a-different-character-said trope. It was one of my least favorite tropes. The narrative solution equivalent of a deus ex machina.

On some level it felt intellectually insulting. I took pride in being able to find solutions to my own problems without external, environmental inspiration.

I was no Newton in need of apples. I made my own apples!

It had taken me all of five minutes to figure out and execute on a way to get that first urine sample.

And yet...as far as I could tell, it would work.

“I have a different request then,” I found myself asking Claire. “Something doable.”

*

I told Deck to meet me at the Clocktower on some pretext for a meeting with Claire. A scholarship student informational meeting or something.

Right on cue, Deck arrived with five more waterbottles in tow, which I dutifully put into my backpack...and Sarah.

I had forgotten about Sarah.

This was something of a crucial oversight, considering what was about to transpire.

“Oh, hey Sarah.”

“Hey.” Sarah gave me a little wave. “Deck told me there was some info related to our scholarship?”

Sarah frowned, maybe seeing something in my expression.

“Is there some reason I shouldn’t be here?”

“I can think of no reason why not.” I said.

She nodded, but the small frown lingered.

Deck glanced around at the foliage and forest surrounding the Clocktower.

“Hey Hero, before we go, is there a bathroom nearby?”

“Only one nearby is in the Student Council Office.” I replied immediately.

“Ah, well. Right then. Let’s go.”

We stepped into the clocktower and entered the elevator. All according to plan. Plus one Sarah.

The elevator was comfortably large, almost more the size of a small room. Banisters lined the side, with an open window opposite the doors displaying a picturesque view of Hielgard’s campus.

After a few seconds, the elevator jolted, coming to a stop.

The doors did not open.

“Elevator seems stuck,” said Deck. He started the few buttons available on the interface. “Yep, not working.”

Without the slightest hesitation he popped open the side panel and pressed a red emergency button. It did nothing.

“Hmm.” Deck chuckled. “That’s weird.”

“It is weird,” I agreed. “You’d think a school as rich as this would have everything up to snuff.”

“You’re not surprised,” Sarah said. She was looking at me strangely.

“Well you know.’ I shrugged. “They probably cut corners like the rest of us. Plus, elevators. Notoriously repair prone.”

“No.” Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not surprised in general.”

Huh. That was strange. It seemed fooling Sarah was going to be more difficult than fooling Deck. Which was a problem when they were so often attached at the hip.

Luckily I was saved from further examination by Deck.

“Oof.” said Deck. He fidgeted. First placing his hand on one of the elevator banisters, before turning and palming the wall. “How long till the elevator starts running again you think?”

“It’ll probably take a while,” I said. “It froze for a bit when I was using it earlier and back then it took at least ten minutes.”

Claire’s voice chimed in over the intercom.

“Deck, Sarah, Hero. This is Claire Sutherland. I regret to inform you that the elevator will be out of service for the immediate future. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

Deck’s expression grew pained.

“That...that might become a problem,” said Deck. He winced. “It definitely is a problem.”

“Why?” asked Sarah. Then she noticed the telltale fidgeting. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very serious,” said Deck. “Extremely, unfortunately serious.”

Sarah approached Deck, putting his face in her hands.

“No. Deck, listen to me. Just hold it in for a few minutes. You can do this. I believe you can do this. Hold it in.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy.” I said.

Sarah turned to stare at me.

“What is going on in there? Is there a problem?”

“I drank so much water,” moaned Deck. His hands were fists now. “I...I’m not gonna make it.”

“Sarah,” I said. “Listen. This elevator is called reality and we are trapped in it. None of us like where this is going, but it’s happening. We gotta deal with it.”

Deck moaned again. Sarah pulled her hands away.

“I have visuals, but no sound. It looks like Deck is in pain and Sarah is in some distress. Is everything fine?”

I gave the camera an A-Ok sign.

“This cannot be happening,” mumbled Sarah. She put her head in her hands. “This cannot be happening.”

“Hey,” I said. “Deck. Hey Deck listen.”

His glazed eyes locked onto me.

“You’re in luck, friend.”

“Urine luck?” he mumbled back.

“Exactly. Remember all those bottles you helped me with? I have them. They’re in my backpack, right now.”

I pulled one out and handed it off to him. He looked down at it, comprehension blooming in his eyes.

“Yes, exactly Deck. Road trip rules. This elevator ride is just a tiny little road trip, and nature is calling. We’ve been through this whole song and dance before. This is not losing. This is not weakness. This is simply minimizing collateral damage.”

Deck nodded slowly, then faster with more vigor.

“What we’re going to do, what Sarah and I are going to do, is each go to a separate corner of the elevator. We’re going to hum loudly and give you privacy, and you are going to do what comes naturally.”

“Oh my god. This can’t be happening. Oh my god.”

I glared at Sarah, but she complied. We each retreated to a corner and began humming. The humming did not do much to disguise the sounds emanating behind me.

“It looks like you are...no. No. Please refrain from urinating in my elevator. Stop. Stop right now. Stop.”

The elevator began to move. In fact, I feel like they moved faster than elevators are technically allowed to move. Vertigo inducing fast.

In the space of a few seconds, the elevator doors opened to the sight of a scandalized, furious Claire. I pulled my fingers out of my ears just in time to hear the telltale sound of a zip.

“Hi,” said Deck, sounding very much relieved. “You wanted to see us?”

*

Deck palmed through some of the pamphlets Claire had thrown at us.

“Some of these actually have pretty good info,” he said cheerily. “Did you know we’re entitled to a dorm on campus?”

“I did not,” I replied honestly.

Sarah looked shellshocked.

“I am going to go home,” she announced as the doors opened. “And I am going to take a shower. Goodbye.”

Sarah shuffled off.

“Think I’ll take a shower myself,” said Deck. “Feeling funky. See you tomorrow Hero!”

Deck jogged off in Sarah’s general direction, who began sprinting in response.

I waited till they were gone, till I shifted direction to the GYMNASIUM. I was painfully aware of the Deck juice sloshing around in the backpack on my shoulder. After a few feet, I opted to carry the backpack by the top loopy.

Sometime during the general commotion, I had managed to snag and cap the bottle.

When I entered the basement science room, Lene regarded me with her textbook unemotional demeanor.

I pulled the bottle out of the bag and handed it her.

“There you go,” I said. “One bottle of Brojuice, as promised.”

Lene held the bottle up to the light and examined it with a critical eye.

“This sample is satisfactory,” she pronounced. “Good work.”

She placed the bottle down on the black countertop and turned to me with a smile.

It was a little bit dazzling. I shook off the effect.

“What did you need it for anyways?” I asked.

“Testing,” replied Lene, moving a lock of blue hair behind her ear as she pipetted some yellow into a vial. “His body. It is perfect. I desire to know how this came to be. Whether it be through steroids, hormones, or some other performance enhancing supplement or regimen.”

“Oh,” I said.

I watched her move five differently marked vials into a variety of whirring machines.

“Couldn’t you have just asked him?”

What warmth there had been in her voice vanished.

“People lie,” she said simply. “Science is deterministic.”

“Righteo,” I said. I decided to leave before I could damage what goodwill I had gained further. “I’ll be off then. Good luck Lene.”

“I may require more samples in the future,” said Lene as I left. “Goodbye Hero.”

*

There was a spunky short maid waiting for me at my front door when I returned home.

Before I could say anything she handed me a note.

I recognized the cream colored parchment before I read the message.

We will have words. - Claire Sutherland.

“Ms. Sutherland has appointed me as your liaison to the Sutherland family,” said the maid. “Any request you would make of her, you may now make through me.”

“Doesn’t want to deal with me directly anymore, huh? Understood.”

I waited, but the maid made no motion to leave.

“You are to produce a report detailing exactly how the events of the day progressed your assigned objective.”

I sighed. Of course the day wasn’t over.

“Okay,” I said.

Still, the maid did not leave.

“I am to chaperone you till it is complete,” she said.

The maid smiled, showing much too many teeth.

“Get to work.”