In a perfect world, love would be honest. Direct. Maybe even beautiful. But this was high school, and instead of sincerity, we got drama so overcooked it made reality TV blush.
It started with paper.
Love letters began appearing in shoe lockers, desk drawers, and even taped to the back of vending machines. Not too weird for a rom-com anime high school. Except there was a pattern. Too many. Too fast. And oddly poetic. As if Edgar Allan Poe had joined the Cheerleading Club.
"Is this normal?" I asked, holding one such letter between two fingers like it might bite.
Mitsuki Shiranui adjusted her glasses without looking up from the strange diagram she'd drawn on the whiteboard. "Depends on your definition of normal. If 'normal' includes an anonymous saboteur scripting interpersonal chaos through flowery trash poetry... then yes."
I blinked. "That's very specific."
"That's because I have a working hypothesis. Look."
She gestured to a cluster of notes, names, dates, and... dotted red yarn?
I narrowed my eyes. "Is that... conspiracy-board chic?"
"It's necessary for optimal deduction." Mitsuki's tone was clinical, but her smug smile told me she enjoyed this more than she should. "Whoever is behind these fake love letters isn't doing it for laughs. There's intention. Provocation. Possibly revenge."
"Revenge is such a strong word for teenage hormonal misfires."
She pointed to three names. All students who'd gotten into very public love triangles after receiving suspiciously-timed confessions. "These weren't coincidences. This was orchestration. Like a dating sim's worst route."
I sighed. "Why does everything in this school feel like a weird otome game lately?"
"Because you're in it," said a voice behind me.
I turned to see Ami Tachibana. The ever-glowing second-year with perfect hair, eternal fan club status, and way too much free time for a girl on three committees. She leaned over the library desk like it was a fashion runway.
"You've been making waves, senpai," she said sweetly. "First, your play performance. Now you're solving love mysteries? I knew you were hiding something under that NPC aura."
I grunted. "It's not hiding if no one's looking."
Ami giggled and sat beside me. Too close. "Well, I'm looking now."
Somewhere in the corner, I imagined Koharu muttering something about me collecting 'romance side quests.' She'd done that before—when Ami first approached me about the anonymous confessions. But Koharu had been... different lately. A little distant. And a little too cheerful about it.
"Anyway," Ami continued, oblivious, "I think whoever's doing this has a vendetta. All the fake letters? They always target people with fragile reputations or unstable relationships. Almost like someone wants chaos."
"Or maybe they just really hate Valentine's Day."
Mitsuki rolled her eyes. "I've traced the writing style in the letters. Same hand. Same cadence. It's the same person behind all of them. The rhyming patterns are... disturbingly consistent."
I picked up one of the crumpled notes:
*"Beneath the sakura's pink disguise, your gaze ignites the morning skies..."
"I watch you pass in muted hue, and burn for just one glance from you."
Gross.
"I would rather eat glue than believe this was written unironically."
Mitsuki smirked. "It wasn't. The metaphors shift depending on the target. Whoever's writing these is deliberately crafting emotional bait."
"And they're good at it," Ami added. "Too good. Honestly... it's kind of romantic in a twisted way."
Mitsuki and I shared a glance.
"Or sociopathic."
"Same thing, really."
We spent the next two days decoding clues. Someone had started leaving riddles attached to the love letters. Not for the recipients, but for... me.
That's when things got weird.
One note read:
"The solver hides behind a mask, unchosen for the hero's task. But lines once faint now twist and bind, for one who seeks and dares to find..."
"Are you being stalked by a Shakespeare-obsessed hacker?" Koharu had said when she saw it.
She tried to sound playful, but her eyes didn't match the tone. They lingered on Ami more than me. And when Mitsuki passed by with another coded chart, Koharu actually hissed. Like a feral cat who'd been demoted from main character to love triangle filler.
"You're popular lately," she said, chewing her lunch like it personally offended her.
"Blame the drama club."
"I blame your stupid face."
I shrugged. "Understandable."
Koharu paused. "I was joking."
"I wasn't."
She blinked, then stared at her juice box like it had betrayed her. "You're seriously okay with this, huh? Just... being a puzzle guy now? Being noticed?"
I shrugged again. "It's not so bad. At least I'm not invisible anymore."
Koharu didn't reply. She finished her lunch and left early.
By the end of the week, we had a full profile: female handwriting, access to private class information, and literary flair. The suspect list was narrowing.
That's when it happened.
A final letter appeared. No envelope. Just a folded note stuck to the inside of my locker door.
It wasn't addressed to anyone else.
It was for me.
*"You act like you're background noise, but I've been reading you from day one."
*"You solve problems like you don't want thanks, but I want to thank you anyway."
"You're the only one who looks away from the spotlight... and still shines."
I stared at the paper for a long time. Then reread it. Then again.
Mitsuki found me after school and raised an eyebrow when she saw the note.
"Let me guess. New clue?"
I shook my head slowly. "This one's different."
She leaned over my shoulder to read it. Her breath tickled the back of my neck.
Then she paused. Blinked. "...It's actually addressed to you?"
I nodded.
"Do you recognize the writing?"
"Not yet. But I will."
I folded it carefully and placed it in my bag.
Outside the window, the sky was soft with twilight. Somewhere beyond the classroom, I heard laughter. Koharu's, probably. Riku's too, if I wasn't hallucinating.
Great. Romantic melodrama was in full swing, and I'd just walked into the thick of it.
Again.
I muttered under my breath:
"NPCs don't get arcs like this."
But maybe I wasn't an NPC anymore.
To be Continued