Chapter 17 – “Literature Fight Club”

By Monday morning, the school buzzed with one word: “rumors.”
Yuuto didn’t know it yet, but before the day was over, his life would explode into meme status.
It all began innocently enough—in the empty literature room, where Yuuto was helping Rika prepare for their midterm essay on metaphor and emotion in modern poetry.
Rika leaned forward on her desk, tapping her pen with a scowl. “So… when a poet says, ‘Love is fire,’ that doesn’t mean actual combustion?”
Yuuto chuckled. “Not unless your relationships involve a fire extinguisher.”
“Hmph.” Rika folded her arms. “Then what’s the point? Science deals with facts, literature deals with nonsense.”
“That nonsense,” Yuuto said, leaning against the board, “is how people describe feelings they can’t measure. Think of it as… emotional physics.”
Rika’s eyes lit up slightly. “Emotional physics?”
He nodded. “Love, hate, passion—they have force. You just can’t calculate them.”
Rika smirked. “Challenge accepted.”
Yuuto groaned. “That’s not—ugh. Okay, let’s try something else. We’ll act it out.”
Her eyebrow twitched. “Act?”
“Yeah. Pretend you’re in a drama,” he said, pulling two chairs to the front like a makeshift stage. “You be the poet, I’ll be the subject. Say the line: ‘If love is fire…’ and mean it.”
Rika crossed her arms, blushing faintly. “This is ridiculous.”
“Exactly. That’s the point.”
After a long sigh, she stood up, straightened her posture, and dramatically pointed at him. “Fine. If love is fire…” she hesitated, looking embarrassed, “...then I’ll ignite you with chemistry!”
Yuuto blinked. “...That’s actually kind of poetic.”
Her face turned red. “D-don’t say that!”
But Yuuto, trying to stay in teacher mode, nodded seriously. “See? That’s metaphor! You’re comparing emotional energy to physical heat—”
Before he could finish, the door slid open.
Mizuki froze in the doorway. Her bag slipped from her shoulder, and a math book clattered to the floor.
“Yuuto-kun…?” she whispered, eyes wide.
Rika was still standing over him, hand outstretched, looking like she’d just confessed her undying affection in a live drama.
Yuuto blinked. “Wait—it’s not what it looks like!”
Mizuki’s face went pink, her voice trembling. “I—I’ll come back later!”
She bolted.
“Wait!” Yuuto shouted, chasing after her—but then a soft click echoed from behind.
He turned back just in time to see Akari peeking in through the window, her phone pointed squarely at them.
“Akari…?”
She grinned like the devil herself. “Don’t mind me~ Just capturing art in progress!”
“Delete that!” Yuuto barked.
“Too late!” she sang, dashing down the hall. “#ScienceGirlConfesses uploaded!”
Rika’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t just—”
“Oh, she did,” Yuuto muttered, pulling out his phone. His notifications were already exploding.
[@AkariAesthetic]: “BREAKING: Science genius Rika Maeda confesses to Commander Kanda in the Lit Room! 🔥❤️ #ScienceGirlConfesses #LoveIsFire #StudyCouple”
The attached video? A perfect shot of Rika shouting, “If love is fire, I’ll ignite you with chemistry!” followed by Yuuto blushing like a tomato.
Rika screamed into her sleeve. “I’m going to set her on fire!”

---
By lunchtime, the damage was irreversible.
Every corridor whispered.Every student giggled.Even teachers looked mildly amused.
Yuuto trudged through the halls with the weariness of a man condemned.
“Commander Kanda,” a sophomore called, saluting. “How’s your chemistry with Science Girl?”
He wanted to vanish.
Rika walked beside him, stiff as a board. Her face hadn’t recovered its natural color since the incident. “This is your fault.”
“My fault?! You’re the one who shouted it like a shonen protagonist!”
“You told me to act!”
“That wasn’t an audition for Love Live: Science Edition!”
Students stared as they argued, phones out, whispering. The rumor had become a wildfire.
When they finally reached their classroom, Akari greeted them with a mischievous grin and a printed meme on her notebook:
📸 Rika pointing dramatically at YuutoCaption: “When you love someone so much, you calculate combustion energy.”
Rika lunged. “AKARI!”
Akari squealed and ran, waving her phone like a victory flag. “I made you famous!”
“Delete it or die!”
“Too late! It’s trending campus-wide!”
Mizuki, sitting at her desk, quietly stared at her phone. Her usually calm expression was unreadable.
Yuuto noticed and sighed, sitting next to her. “Mizuki… it’s not what you think.”
She forced a small smile. “I know. I just… wish I’d walked in a minute later.”
Her voice was so soft it barely reached him.
Yuuto felt his stomach twist. For some reason, her sadness hurt worse than the memes.

---
By the end of the day, #ScienceGirlConfesses had reached the school’s official board. Someone even edited the video into a fake movie trailer with dramatic music.
“This summer… love burns brighter than sodium in water.”
Rika buried her face in her desk. “Kill me.”Yuuto sighed. “I’ll join you.”
Even Sensei Amamiya stopped by, smirking. “Ah, I see literature really sparked something between you two.”
“Sensei, please,” Yuuto begged.
“Oh, don’t be so shy, Kanda-kun. Romance is just another kind of experiment!”
Rika groaned. “I want to transfer schools.”
“Too late,” Akari said, sliding in beside her. “You’re officially a ship now. ‘KandRika’ is trending.”
Rika’s glare could melt tungsten. “Akari. Delete. Everything.”
Akari grinned. “Hmm… maybe if you admit it was cute.”
Rika twitched. “Fine. It was—wait—no! That’s manipulation!”
Yuuto just dropped his head onto his desk in defeat. “We’re never living this down.”

---
Later that evening, when the chaos had finally calmed, Yuuto sat alone on the rooftop.
He scrolled through the video again, shaking his head. “How did a simple metaphor turn into a scandal?”
Then he heard footsteps. Rika stood behind him, still holding her notebook.
“Here,” she said quietly, handing him a printed page. “My essay on metaphor.”
He read the first line:
> “If love is fire, it burns not to destroy—but to remind us we’re alive.”


Yuuto looked up. Rika’s cheeks were faintly pink.
“I rewrote it,” she muttered. “Because of… your explanation earlier.”
He smiled softly. “It’s really good.”
A pause. The wind brushed between them.
Rika glanced away. “Next time, though… maybe no acting lessons.”
“Deal,” he said, chuckling.
They stood side by side, watching the sunset paint the sky in firelight hues—fitting, somehow.
Because despite the embarrassment, something had indeed ignited between them.