Chapter 4 - Being Serious isn't a B

Chapter 4 - Being Serious isn't a Bad Thing
Part 1
On the night of the event at the police station, Sorata ripped up the paper which had「My goal: Escape from Sakurasou!」 written on it, and declared in front of everyone that he would stay at Sakurasou.
“I am deeply sorry for disrupting the atmosphere. Thanks to your help, I came back to my senses. I will continue to live here at Sakurasou, so please look after me from now on.”
Jin smiled knowingly to Sorata, who had his head bowed, and Chihiro drank beer, while telling him not to say such embarrassing things. Misaki changed the subject like she didn’t have anything to do with it and when it came to Ryuunosuke, who was obviously in his room,
- Yes, good work. From Maid-chan
Ordering the electronic maid to do his job and wasn’t even participating in this meeting himself.
The reason why he decided to stay at Sakurasou was because of Mashiro, but she wasn’t participating either, working on her manga as soon as she came back home. So Sorata didn’t know what she was thinking.
It must’ve been because of the deadline drawing near, because Mashiro’s concentration rose higher than before, and if he tried to talk to her, he was ignored.
Even when telling her that the bathroom was empty,
“He~y, Shiina. Take a bath.”
“…”
“A bath.”
“…”
“It seems like I can say whatever I want to. If you don’t answer me, I’ll grope your breasts.”
“…”
“I’m sorry, that was just a joke.”
Just like that, Mashiro showed no reaction. Sorata didn’t actually have the guts to grope her breasts, so he gave up and returned to his room, reflecting back on his air-like presence. Did Sorata’s [1] ‘Sora’ [2] really mean air[3]…
Then it was something to complain about to his parents.
The next day, Sorata regretted his decision that he made yesterday. When he opened the door, Mashiro was still at her desk working on her tablet. The sunrise had shone upon Mashiro’s slender figure in a holy way.
Since she didn’t reply when he tried to talk to her, he dragged her out of her seat and somehow brought her to school. Of course, in the state that she was in, she wasn’t able to pay attention in class. When Sorata visited her in the art room during his breaks, he saw her sleeping boldly on her table. From what he heard from the art students, Mashiro apparently didn’t wake up, no matter what the teachers said to her.
He thought that he would have to wait after school, but on the contrary, it was Mashiro who came to him while Sorata was packing up. Her forehead still had a red mark from sleeping, and her hair was tangled up. Nevertheless, Mashiro tugged at Sorata’s belt telling him to take her to the dorm right away.
Thanks to that, they caused a lot of misunderstandings among their classmates, and Sorata had to leave before getting a chance to explain himself.
As soon as they came back to Sakurasou, Mashiro turned on her work mode and locked herself up in her room to work on her manga. She didn’t say "thank-you" or anything to Sorata as well.
It seemed like she was working on a page of Name[4] per day. She sent it to her editor via email and had small meetings on the phone.
As time passed, the rejected Name prints were scattered across the floor. To clean it up, Sorata had to peek into Mashiro’s room periodically. Mashiro’s names were almost good enough to be called manuscripts[5]. The characters were drawn in solid lines, and there were no visible rough patches.
The calendar on the wall had「Rookie Awards deadline」written on the 30th of June in red letters and at this stage, with only about half a month left till the end, she couldn’t afford to have any rejected names. She had to be getting OKs for her names and start on her manuscript as soon as she can. However, even in this type of situation, Mashiro was didn’t slack on her drawing practices.
Even though Sorata wasn’t expecting a reply, he asked Mashiro a question.
“Shouldn’t you cut back on your practice for now?”
“I need to practice now. It’ll be the same in the future as well.”
Mashiro answered quickly, still facing her drawings.
But no matter what he asked, he was still ignored by her.

Even though Mashiro’s head was only filled with her manga, she sometimes came up to Sorata and said a few things that didn’t make sense. She ignored him when Sorata tried to talk to her first, yet she only spoke when she wanted to say something.
The first time it happened was when she came up to Sorata and Misaki who were playing a fighting game together and said,
“Sorata, I’m going to my room.”
And she really went up to her room after she said that. He looked around during the fight round, but she was already gone. He didn’t know what she was trying to say.
“Kohai-kun, what was that about~?”
“Who knows.”
The next day, when he was about to sleep,
“Sorata, I’m going to take a shower.”
She came to his room and told him on purpose, and the day after that,
“Sorata, toilet.”
Hearing that made Sorata spit out the juice that he was drinking.
“What are you trying to get across here!”
“Sorata was the one who told me to say everything.”
“I didn’t mean it that way!”
He did say it on the day of the love hotel event. He did say it, but he didn’t mean it in a way where she reports everything from her daily life.
“What about brushing my teeth?”
“You don’t need to tell me!”
“What about getting changed?”
“Change into whatever you want!”
“… Sorata is difficult.”
“It got even worse today! This is even more bothersome than trying to explain offside[6] to my mum!”
“Offside?”
“Don’t ask!”
Mashiro twisted her lips and complained.
“Shouldn’t I tell you that I passed my names?”
“Tell me things like that!”
“I passed my names.”
“Ye, yeah. Congratulation.”
“Thank you.”
It would be worrisome if she didn’t tell him these types of important news, so he told Mashiro to tell him everything that has happened. Of course, when she said that her period started, he wanted to die, but other than that it was bearable.
“What about the offside?”
“I told you, you don’t need to know!”
Nine days remained until the deadline. During that time, Mashiro had to draw 32 pages, so he decided to put off Mashiro’s training until then. He didn’t explain about offside either.
A week has passed since then, and it was the 29th of June. When he came out of the shower and went to his room, he saw Misaki, who was trespassing as usual in shorts and a t-shirt playing a game with her eyes glued to the TV. A single player RPG. The play hours were over 30, and she was in the final dungeon. It was Misaki’s playing style to avoid all the weak minions, the NPCs and sub-quests, so her levels in RPGs were always extremely low. As he expected, she was walking into the final dungeon with an extremely weak team that couldn’t even beat the minions inside.
She kept pressing the reset button to repeat the process over and over.
“It would be faster for you to level up first.”
“I would rather give up than get stronger by harassing the weak!”
“Oh, really?”
But her level was lower than the ‘weak’…
“Anyways, there’s a game that I want to play, so move over a bit please.”
Misaki didn’t even look at Sorata and brilliantly avoided attacks from the minions and exited the dungeon.
“I see, just ignoring completely…”
It was an excellent technique for fleeing,
“I’m sure this wasn’t a game like that.”
“No, no, Kohai-kun! You just need to play the way that you want to play! It’s no fun playing by the way set by others! I will make my own style of play!”
“Even so, don’t start betting your life on this game.”
While shouting nonsensical things, Misaki arrived in front of the final boss’s room. If she avoided one last mob of minions, she would arrive to the last boss. With Misaki’s max HP, she wouldn’t be able to survive a hit from the last boss anyway. It dealt close to 3000 damage per hit, but Misaki didn’t even have 2000 HP. There was a 20 level gap between them. The last boss also had a second form, where its attacks had poison or petrification mixed in which dealt devastating damage.
Misaki, who didn’t know anything about this, broke through the mob and reached the save-point in front of the last boss. She sighed in relief and opened the save menu. At that moment the screen died and they became silent. Then, the machine’s logo showed up.
“Huh? What happened!”
Sorata and Misaki checked the game console, and saw Kodama, the calico cat, giving a cat punch at the power button.
An unexpected, cat reset in this situation. And in this game, being infamous with its software design, it didn’t have any saving option unless at a save-point. So Misaki had to go back to the entrance of the dungeon and start from the last save-point.
Misaki was shocked and laid flat on her back staring blankly.
“My two hours of effort just flew away. I can’t do it no more~. I feel like my soul has broken into a thousand pieces. It’s not a heart break, but a soul break. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“I know how you feel.”
Sorata often got the same cat reset. He picked up Kodama and smiled at it.
“Sigh~.”
Misaki suddenly sighed.
“You know~, Kohai-kun.”
“Are you going to say some weird things again?”
“Cursing a queen to become a dog is somewhat erotic.”
“What are you saying now!”
“「Ha ha ha! I shall turn you into a dog!」「I shall not back down no matter what!」「How much longer will that continue? Now, turn into a dog~!」「Kyaaa…」 and just like that, the queen became a dog!”
“That curse sounds too Japanese.”
“「How does it feel to be a dog.」「Whine~.」「If you’re a dog, then act like one, answer with a woof!」「… woof, woof… woof…」「Paw!」「Woof.」「Sit.」「Woof.」「How cute, I shall take care of you forever. Mha ha ha ha…」「Whine~…」 like that! How is it, isn’t it really erotic? It’s beyond being able to see panties or going commando![7] This is it, the true ero! The name itself is the brilliant Eden!”
“You sho