Final Nail in the Coffin

"It looks like you'll have mathematics first. That might be quite the challenge so early in the morning."

"I don't like maths…"

Mira slouches back on the couch as Stella reads off a once folded sheet of paper. The young rabbit is back to flipping through flashcards, but who knows how much attention she's paying to them.

"Language Arts is after lunch. That might also cause some issues."

"Is there a nap time?"

"Of course not."

Reddened points scan up and down the document stamped with the Cedar Lake Middle School insignia.

I'm distracted both by their conversation and the smell of soap emanating behind me as I type away at the desk. I only managed to look at the contents for a few minutes before the girls finished and Stella confiscated the envelope.

"You have work to do. I'll take care of her."

That was the adamant declaration she gave to me before her snow white hair had even finished drying. While I wasn't exactly planning to kick her out immediately, Stella also stuck around for dinner and monopolised Mira's attention. I feel like the husband of this household where the mother's word is law. What's hers is hers and what's mine is hers, I have no say in the matter. She may be right about my homework, but I still wanted to be the one explaining how school works.

That being said, I do happen to have my hands full at the moment.

"Why isn't this working!?"

I slam my head into the hard wood of the desk as the console prints out incorrect numbers.

Now that Mira is occupied, I've been able to revisit the ongoing problem from before her arrival. This large programming project is still on a trajectory to crash and burn long before the deadline comes close.

"I shouldn't have skipped tutoring…"

While a necessary evil, the decision has come back to bite me hard. Worst of all, I don't have a cute girl to comfort me. On the contrary, I'm forced to have another cute girl berating me.

Stella doesn't even look back to my sad form as she spits her poison.

"Feel free to attend tutoring and leave Mira to me. You can be incompetent here while I take her home with me."

"Stop trying to find excuses to kidnap!"

"I think she would be more than willing to stay with me."

The daggers of my glare seem to be nothing more than leaves in a breeze against her back. No matter what I day, she always has an immediate retort.

"Right, Mira? Would you want to stay with me?"

"Stay with Stella?"

Mira's eyes light up and she leans forward to bring her face closer to the girl in white. Stella glances back at me with an obvious look of triumph. As infuriating as it is, I don't think anybody would complain with Mira getting along better with a girl near her age.

"Exactly. We can have fun like this without this guy in the way."

"Without Noa…"

The light seems to die down in her eyes as she starts considering the proposal. The errors on my computer get ignored as I await her answer in anticipation. I'm not sure why I feel restless, but I'd rather that she didn't decide to sweep aside the time we spent together.

"I don't know about that…"

""Huh?""

Both Stella and I let out a startled sound. The answer should have been pretty obvious, so much so that the two of us trade a concerned glance at her words. As per usual, Mira doesn't appear to believe that the question was all that important.

"I like Stella, but I want to stay with Noa."

"Is there a particular reason why?"

Mira tilts her head to the side at Stella's inquiry. The rabbit places her hand on her chin, likely imitating the motion from one of the several people that did the same thing. In the end she only shrugs.

"I don't know."

"That takes me back…"

The amount of time that has passed is actually pretty short, but it feels like a while since I last heard her unapologetic lack of useful information. Stella still has a long way to go with that annoyed look of hers, Mira rarely gives you what you want to know.

"Hahaha! Looks like she's staying here!"

"It would appear so."

Stella leans back against the cushion and returns to reviewing my flashcards.

"You gave it up a little too easily…"

"Who do you think I am? I'm not going to throw a fit because she chose you over me one time."

"I see. That is quite graceful for someone who just got rejected."

"One more word and I'll tear your eyes out."

Her bloodlust alone is enough to force me back to work. For someone that is always so collected, she sure has a tendency to threaten a terrible time. She says it all without a single curve in her lips.

"At least pretend like you'd kill me with emotion…"

My attention is back to debugging the hundreds of lines of code on the screen. Most of it is copy and pasted from our previous assignments, but I still have no idea what half of it is doing.

Out of habit, I reach towards my bag for my notebook. Needless to say, I only found the one purchased just recently with mostly empty pages.

"Dang it, where did I put it…"

I look under and around the desk, but to no avail.

"Mira, have you seen my old notebook?"

"Hm? Wasn't it on the kitchen table?"

One glance is enough to confirm that the precious treasure is not in the place where we had just eaten. Unable to sit by and watch the two of us wander around looking, Stella looks up from her reading and addresses us.

"What are you looking for? You said something about a notebook?"

"Yeah, but it looks more like a pile of scrap by this point…"

"Oh, that. I already threw that out for you."

I feel my heart sink at her nonchalant revelation.

"N-Noa!?"

Mira appears by my side and attempts to support my body as my legs suddenly give out. She frantically moves around my near lifeless body that has dropped to its knees. I can't even feel her soft hands as she feels all over my body in search of some way to help.

"It was just a bunch of gar—"

Stella freezes when her red vision catches sight of my pale form.

"W-What was in that trash?"

"My life…"

Even she is lost for words at the rapid deterioration of my spirit.

"It's over this time…there's no coming back now…"

"Snap out of it, Noa!"

Mira grabs onto my shoulder and shakes me back and forth as hard as she can. She appears to have tears in her eyes, but her pleas fall on deaf ears. As far as I'm concerned, I'm probably not even breathing anymore.

"Mira, what was in that notebook!?"

"Uhm, he said something about it being the only thing keeping him from failing…"

"Seriously! How bad are your grades!?"

Stella looks around frantically, but there is nobody here aside from a tearful Mira and a sitting corpse. Out of options, she stands and runs around the couch to replace Mira in front of me. If my eyes were seeing, I would probably be able to register the two red lights aimed directly at me.

"L-Look, I'll make it up to you somehow! Just don't look so dead!"

Between her shaky voice and rough grip on my shoulders, I feel my vision slowly returning. The lights of the room become brighter and brighter until the face of the girl in front of me becomes clear. Even with the peculiar lenses resting on her nose, I feel myself grow embarrassed at our proximity. Eventually, it becomes too much and my body forces me backwards into the wall.

"Uh, no, it's fine…"

I avert my gaze to the side as her eyes narrow with frustration.

"You can't pull a stunt like that and tell me everything is fine."

"No seriously…it was basically already garbage at this point. I just kept it around in the hopes of one day repairing it."

"If it was that important, why was it even torn up to begin with?"

"Ahaha…"

My eyes betray the culprit as they dart to the girl crouched in the back before returning to the wall. Stella looks behind herself at the young rabbit, who also turns to look in another direction.

"I guess it can't be helped…"

"Yeah…I'll figure something out, so don't worry about it."

The three of us sit awkwardly on the floor for a while as the sun continues to set.