“Excuse me?”

What’d he mean I was lying. There really wasn’t any part of my life that I was dissatisfied with. I had friends I hung out with pretty often and my grades were good enough to get by. Everything else that he said about me not having any hobbies and stuff was true. But that’s because I’m lazy and didn’t want to spend my energy on stuff like that. Even with school work I put in exactly the amount of energy I needed to pass.

“You’re a liar.” The cat repeated itself. “You lie as easily as you breathe. That’s just the type of person that you are.”

“How can you say that so confidently? You don’t even know a single thing about me.”

“But I do. Kinda has to do with the whole mystical being thing I’ve got going on.” He responded playfully. “And let me add this now. You can call me Tomori, so stop putting me down as, it, or cat, it’s annoying.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. What my job here is to change your life for the better. Force you to get over yourself and fall in love.” Tomori explained as he climbed up my body to rest on my shoulders.

“You’re insane. You can’t just force someone to fall in love.”

“Can’t I?” He purred. “Think of it like a romance game. Sometimes there’s a character that already has pre-existing feelings for the player. Like right now is a great example. If you turn this one down I can keep putting you in player scenarios to bump into heroines to fall in love with.”

“You’re turning this into a joke.” I sighed as I pinched my brows together. “But so what? Even if I accept her confession I don’t have feelings for her. I’d just be playing along on a route with no happy ending.” I continued using the parameters of a dating game. Which surprisingly made this easier for me to understand even if it was weird.

“That would be the case. However, are you confident to say that even after enough dates and events that you wouldn’t ever develop feelings for a girl?”

Logically speaking he had a point. Put two people in enough scenarios and things between them would develop one way or another. Even if you put someone as stubborn as I am. There’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t be swept up by the moment of a given event. Each moment, each date, would just be filling up my love meeter until it hit an undeniable max.

That is unless if I played this love game in the reverse. I can just play this whole thing out as a hate game. Whatever potential route I get thrown at me I’ll just have that potential heroine hate me. Giving Tomori zero options forcing him to give up. It would definitely be a long process that I’d also find annoying. But I’m confident I can play that role perfectly. I’ll be the most hate-able character in this game. Ruining whatever love game this is for Tomori while also saving the heroine’s love lives. A perfect win-win.

“Your point is valid to a degree. But there’s no guarantee for you that they’ll maintain their interest in me.”

“You’re perfectly right.” Tomori chimed as he rubbed his head against mine. “But keep in mind. That there are an almost endless amount of women that we can throw at you. I’m not just talking in your high school. There’s also college and the rest of the outside world to consider.”

I was right about one thing. They will just keep forcing encounters at me until I make a decision to give in. But to think they’d go to the extent of playing things out for that long is insane. They’ve made it so my entire life won’t be safe from an encounter.

“Fine. But what do I do now? I’ve already rejected Azurie.”

“Technically you haven’t.” Tomori said in a very smug tone.

With that the purple colors began to swirl and everything seemed to move in reverse again. Putting two and two together, Tomori was rewinding time down to before my rejection.

“I called you out here… Well because, I want you to go out with me.” Azurie blushed when the colors all returned to normal.

“Hell no.” I responded off of instinct.

“What?” Tomori shouted before rewinding time again.

Azurie made the same request the exact same way again. “I’d rather jump off.” I said pointing at the railing on the roof.

Time was spun again back to the confession. Over and over again until Tomori froze time completely as he laid back on the floor. Paws sprawled out and panting, most likely from over exertion of his powers.

“You’re insufferable.” Tomori panted as he looked up at the purple sky.

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment!” He shot up standing on all fours again.

“Seems like your energy came back pretty quickly. Why don’t you just give up on this one? Call it a loss? Plus I don’t think that she has genuine feelings for me. We don’t even know each other well enough for that.”

I was starting to feel exhausted by this situation. Feeling like the best case scenario would be for him to give up today. So I can either go out with my friends or just go home. Just the idea of going to bed right now filled me with a sense of bliss.

“You really think that? Even after seeing her blush this hard?”

“I mean it’s an awkward situation where you’re putting yourself on the line. It’s natural for her to be blushing during this.”

“Yeah? You want to bet?” Tomori asked with an arrogant smile.

This, this right here, is where I knew I was being put into a losing situation. Was it the smile on Tomori’s face, no. Was it everything leading up to this, no. I knew I lost because he made it a bet. And if all my years of playing waifu gatcha games have taught me anything. Is I can’t say no when it comes to gambling.

“You’ve got a deal. If I’m right I want you to back off for a couple of days. Meaning no new encounters to meddle with my life.” I said matching his smile.

“You’re on. But if I’m right I need you to do as I say to make my job easier. No questions asked.”

I squatted down in front of Tomori and shook his paw. He climbed up my arm and sat on my shoulder before letting time play out again. Azurie said her confession again but this time I didn’t respond right away. I let the words hang in the air for a moment.

“Azurie, is it alright if I ask you something before I answer?” I asked her as I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Oh, um, sure.”

“Why do you want me to be your boyfriend?” I put my question out there bluntly and got straight to the point. “I might be thinking about this too rationally. But most confessions start off with you saying the words ‘I have a crush on you’ or ‘I like you’. But you made a point to go straight to saying you want me to be your boyfriend. Not only that, but we don’t really talk. How could you know enough about me to have developed feelings for me.”

For some strange reason being overly rational and explaining my thoughts felt more awkward than rejecting her. Though I was also at the point where I was thinking clearly enough. To feel that Azurie deserved my honesty when it came to sharing my thoughts about the idea.

“Wow, you really are emotionless huh?” She responded with a raised brow.

“The hell is that disappointed look for?”

“Pfft, sorry, sorry.” She laughed at me. “I heard the rumors that you were ruthless when it came to confessions. But I didn’t expect you to act like you had no emotions at all. My cute little act had no effect on you.” Azurie explained as she turned away from me and leaned against the railing.

“Guess I won.” I grinned as I whispered in Tomori’s ear.

“But I do really need you to be my boyfriend, Sosuke.”