Premature Haremmaxing

I didn’t read many isekais. I was mostly into shoujo and BL, which ruled out the big hitters like Sword Art Online, and the classic stuff like Fushigi Yuugi didn’t involve getting taken into the setting of a game. Of course, I’d had to deal with the omnipresent villainess genre, and read two books in it…but it wasn’t really my thing. Plus, a villainess character didn’t exist in this story, and in both of the villainess novels I’d read the main character had reincarnated into the world as a baby, which hadn’t happened to me. Nothing I’d read or played could really help me understand this—well, there was one. A BL isekai manhwa I’d stumbled across one day, where along with finding love, the main character had to build his stats and live another person’s life. 

I took a deep breath, looked around to see if anyone was watching—the bathroom was empty—and said, “Status window.” 

Bam! A pink box popped up in front of my face. 

“Ah!” I stumbled back. I hadn’t really expected one to show up!

This didn’t look anything like the one in the BL isekai, which had been a blue box with white text. What it looked like was the Delinquent Love! status window. It was pink with an ornate gold border. Along the border were cartoon cherry blossoms, and on its lower left corner, there was a darker pink coffee mug with heart-shaped latte art. Written in cursive near the top of the window, where my username would normally be, was the name “Miyazato Ryoya”. In the center were three hearts linked together with gold chains. One was labelled “Love Points”, one was labelled “Drama Points”, and one was labelled “Misfortune Points”. They were all at zero. A box below that read “Items”; I decided to leave that alone for now (how would I click through and see? By saying “items”?) Below that was a box labelled “Money”; apparently, Miyazato Ryoya had 9,980 yen to his name right now. That was more pocket money than Matsuda Rin had, but I didn’t really feel like being happy about it, because of the one part of the status window that wasn’t like Delinquent Love.
There was plain text that read: Mission: Gain the heroine’s affections. Failure or stalling will be punished. 

Beneath that was a meter with a lot of lines through it—cutting it into 60 sections, maybe? In the middle, the 30 mark, was a little pink post, and next to it was a cartoon drawing of the heroine’s face. 

The heroine was the player character, Chihara Yuu. Otome games had been my only romantic outlet and escape, and I’d been transported to the world of one of them. There were seven boys to choose from, not including Ryoya, and I’d daydreamed about dating almost all of them. This was my dream come true—except that, despite everything, I still had to go after a girl. 

I read the text again. Gain her affection. Could it be platonic affection? But I only had Love, Drama, and Misfortune points. Love points led to romantic and sweet (or sexy) scenes, drama points led to romantic and dramatic scenes, and misfortune points led to romantic and tragic endings. Assuming this mission was like being on her route, it didn’t seem like I had a platonic option? 

Failure or stalling will be punished. What kind of punishment? 

I thought about testing it. Ignoring the heroine, trying to romance one of the boys.

To romance one of the boys… 

My hands were shaking. I hadn’t been brave enough to test any limits in my old life. Even though this sudden thing had happened… there was no way, no chance, that I could summon up the courage to test the limits in this one. I didn’t know what had put me here; I didn’t know what they wanted from me; I didn’t know why I had been given this mission, but I felt like I couldn’t deviate from it.

“Close status window,” I whispered. 

It went away.
➽──────❥ ❀⊱༺♡༻⊰❀ ➽──────❥
I used the bathroom and washed my hands and face. Yasutoki was waiting for me outside.

“You took a while. Been eating enough prunes lately?” 

I stared at him. 

“…Miya?” 

“…Sorry, I bluescreened.” I was still trying to comprehend everything that was happening. Fielding bad jokes from a gorgeous boy was not something within my capacity. I felt like my ancient laptop trying to boot up Steam. 

“Bluescreened?” 

“Zoned out. Had a hard time processing. Sorry.” 

“What’s up with you?” 

Right. I wasn’t acting like Ryoya. I wasn’t ever gonna out myself as a transmigrator—stealing a body? That was worse than being gay!—so I had to step up my acting. But how did Ryoya act when he was alone with his friends? I’d only seen him with the heroine. 

But in those circumstances he was confident, cool, flirty. Right. Rin, be confident, be cool, be… 

“Nothing’s up with me,” I said. “Just awestruck by how beautiful you look, sweetheart.” 

BZZZ!! the incorrect buzzer in my head screamed. 

Yasutoki looked at me blankly. He took a step away from me, then another. Then backed into a wall. 

“Sorry!” I said, face red. “I didn’t mean that at all!” What was a good excuse… “I’m just so tired, my apologies!” Drop the keigo, Ryoya doesn’t use it. “Starting school again’s got me screwed over, you know? And there are all these girls after me!” 

In Delinquent Love!, Ryoya was constantly pursued by the girls at his high school, and even had a fan club. Fan clubs usually felt like an unrealistic trope, but in Ryoya’s case, especially since I’d seen his real-world face, I understood. I wanted to be his fan club president. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that, because I was him… 

“Makes sense. You wanna go get lunch? It’ll end soonish.” 

“Sure.” I checked Ryoya’s watch, which was an attractive brown-and-gold expensive thing with dashes instead of numbers. Twelve fifty-five; if this was like my high school, we had fifteen minutes left before our next class. 

“Is there still going to be food in the cafeteria…?” 

“Wow, are you really okay? How hard did you hit your head?” 

I was distracted looking at my watch. It also showed the date and day, and, if I wasn’t misremembering, it was the day the game story started. That meant I’d meet Yuu today. “I didn’t hit my head.” 

“Then how come you don’t remember, we don’t eat the cafeteria food…ohh. Sorry, I’m the dumb one. You’re worried that your fan club’s left, right? Don’t worry, they’re probably still around.” 

…Sure. I followed Yasutoki as he set off down the hall, assuming that once I got to wherever we were going, I’d understand. 

Students were lined up in front of the cafeteria’s serving area, most on their phones, one anxiously staring at the last piece of melon bread, a few friends chatting. The line was moving fast, and students were also heading off in all directions, going back to eat their lunches in their classrooms or outside. 

Nearby, a group of girls had pushed some small tables together and were chatting animatedly. When I walked in, all their eyes turned towards me, and their whispering picked up. One of them squeed. Another called, “Miyazato-kun!” 

A girl put her head in her hands, and her friend patted her on the back, whispering, “You can do it!” 

Face red, she stood and walked up to me with a bento box in hand. I stared at her. I’d never seen this girl in my life; how was I supposed to react? 

She was actually pretty memorable. Her outfit was cute; she wore a soft white sweater with a pink heart on the left pocket over her uniform blouse, which itself had a lacey collar that went well with it, and had a ribbon clipped in her curly hair. Besides that, in addition to her hair her skin was also pretty tan—she must’ve been mixed-race. Everyone at my old high school had been Japanese except for two Indian kids, so I couldn’t help looking at her in interest. 

After a long moment, she yelped and ripped her eyes away from mine. “Sorry…aah, stop looking at me like that! The eye contact’s too much…ah, sorry!” 

She glanced back at her friend, who had a matching ribboned ponytail and a flashy pink jacket. That friend gave two thumbs up. The curly-haired girl nervously looked back at me, face beet red. “Um…Miyazato-senpai…I made you a bento.” 

“And the club made another one, like you asked, of course,” the friend chimed in, holding forward another box. I glanced at Yasutoki, who was practically drooling. So this was what he meant. 

I took the first bento, smiling at the curly-haired girl. “Thank you.” Something flirty… Maybe because of my new height, it felt natural to reach out and pat her head. Was that okay, though? I saw it with other couples all the time, but we weren’t even dating! Well, Ryoya would do it… 

My hand was awkwardly raised in the air. I’d been hesitating for too long, and she was about to leave. I had to do something. Otherwise, I’d seem OOC. 

I put that hand firmly on her shoulder. “Good work today.” 

“T-t-thank you??” 

“Let’s go,” Yasutoki suggested, holding the second bento. 

“Right, sure.” 

After we’d gotten some meters down the hallway, out of the sight of the girls in the cafeteria, I heard the curly-haired girl screech and the thud of someone falling to the floor. 

Was she okay? Had I freaked her out with my weird behavior? 

“AAAAAAAA he’s so HOT!” 

Oh. Seemed like she was fine. 

Yasutoki looked out the hall window. The wind blew his hair across his face, carrying pink blossoms with it. It was like a scene out of the game, or out of a manga. The delicate blossoms highlighted the delicate line of his nose, his pale eyelashes. 

He was looking down at the green. “Want to sit down there?” 

We ended up sitting on the sidewalk next to the grass, enjoying the fresh spring breeze. 

The bento was nice. The rice balls had little faces on them made with seaweed, and vegetables near them were cut in heart shapes. There were even heart-shaped cookies, and below the top half there was curry and rice. I definitely wouldn’t go hungry as long as my fan club was around. 

Was it fair of Ryoya to keep stringing them along like this? Based on his “tragic backstory” in the game, he hadn’t loved anyone for years until the protagonist came along. As for me, I really couldn’t love girls, and even if I did go out with a girl I had to prioritize the heroine, so I would definitely be stringing them along if I kept this up. But this was a game, so were they really real people, or were they NPCs? Hopefully the latter. Besides the fact that it morally absolved me, I wasn’t any good with people. 

I bit into a rice ball and had to stop myself from gagging. The inside was pickled plum, which I didn’t like. 

“It’s bad? Don’t you like pickled plum? Is it rotten or something?” 

I shook my head. “It’s good.” I tried to keep a look of enjoyment on my face as I finished eating it. Ugh, there were like four more… “I’ll save the rest for later, though.” 

“Let me try one. You know, I like pickled plum too. Anyway, I don’t believe you, you look like it’s rotten.” 

I handed a rice ball to him. “You think it’s rotten, and you still want to eat it?” 

“I like adventure.” He took a big bite. “Hey, this is good!” 

Ugh, this guy! “I told you it was good!” 

“Wow, you’re real tsukkomi today, Miya.” Yasutoki’s smile was like summer sunshine as he looked at me, eyes full of soft affection. “It’s kinda cute.” 

I was cute…? I guess I’d somewhat shouted that, and I’d been blushing too, since Yasutoki was hot. Those things combined were like a girl in an anime…but I was a guy, talking to a straight guy. Was there anything cute about that? 

“Speaking of your girlfriends, you have a date with one of them after school, right? The fan club president?” 

“Right,” I said, then trying to sound offhanded, “Which one is she again?” 

“Think she’s pink jacket. She said she might bring along a couple of her friends too, so make sure you get their names right.” 

“Right. What are their names?” 

“Bro, I have no idea. They’re not my fan club.” He flopped over onto his back, getting dirt on his uniform waistcoat. “I wish I had a girlfriend.” 

“Surprised you don’t have one already…” 

“I want to find a special girl. Not just anyone, but one who really gets my heart going.” 

Right, and that was the heroine for him. So he was my competition, huh. 

Maybe… “I might be able to introduce you to one of my fan club members.” 

“Nah, they only like you.” 

“Well, I can’t date all of them.”