Yūto Shō was scrolling on his phone in class.
A picture popped up in the group chat. He tapped it without thinking and got hit with a screenshot from one of those Reddit confession threads—the kind where some self-styled "main character" girl bragged, in graphic detail, about cheating on her boyfriend behind his back. The replies underneath were a chorus of queen energy and slay.
Yūto Shō read for about thirty seconds before he felt his blood pressure climbing. He swiped the picture away, ghosted the group, and stared at the back of the head in front of him with murder in his eyes. So many of these pick-me types running around, he thought. A guy can't afford to be the nice guy anymore. That's the fastest way to get speedrun into NPC status.
Beep.
Loading successful.
Welcome to the Life Achievement System. Your wishes have been registered. This system will guide you toward becoming an exemplary scumbag.
The text floated in the air a foot from his face. Yūto Shō froze. He cut his eyes left, then right—every classmate around him was either taking notes or pretending to take notes. Nobody flinched. Nobody reacted. The words were his and his alone.
His heart slammed against his ribs like a dropped bass. An impossible thought bloomed.
Is this… my cheat code? My main-character power-up?
A life achievement system. That coached you into being a scumbag. The irony was so thick you could spread it on toast.
Yūto Shō's face did something complicated. He understood, dimly, that his throwaway thought a minute ago must have triggered the thing—but that was venting, not a five-year plan. He hadn't actually meant it.
The system, however, didn't seem interested in negotiating. It plowed on, indifferent.
Each scumbag act earns scumbag points. Note: scumbagging is a high-risk profession. Points may be redeemed to upgrade your survival skills.
High-risk as in life-threatening?
Yūto Shō's expression curdled further—but a small, treacherous part of him perked up at the words survival skills. Useful. Maybe.
The text thinned out and faded. The system went quiet.
He tried calling it back in his head— hello? hello? —like rebooting a router with sheer willpower. Nothing. Dead air. The teacher up at the podium had clocked him by now and was giving him a look, so he sat up straighter and faked attentiveness for the rest of the period.
The bell rang for PE. Everyone bolted; gym was the one class no one wanted to be late to. Yūto Shō stayed put, half-hoping the system would respond if he kept poking at it. Nothing came. He sighed, stood, slung his bag over one shoulder, and headed for the door.
He almost walked face-first into someone coming the other way.
"Sorry, didn't see you—"
He looked up. And up wasn't far, because she was small, but the face stopped him mid-apology. Doll-sharp features, the kind of porcelain skin that looked airbrushed in person, a flush blooming pink across her cheeks from the near-collision. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, soft and rose-petal pale.
It was Sato Ruri. The class study committee rep. Top of the year, untouchable GPA, and famously allergic to talking to boys unless absolutely necessary. Right now her clear black eyes were fixed on him with frank irritation. She didn't say a word—just slid past him into the empty classroom like he was a coat rack she'd had to navigate around.
Yūto Shō stood there feeling distinctly like a guy who'd leaned in for a high-five and gotten left hanging. He'd been the one in the wrong, technically, but still. He glanced back over his shoulder—just a flick of the eyes, professional, casual—let his gaze trail down the soft slope of her uniform skirt for a fraction of a second, then turned and kept walking like nothing had happened.
Behind him, Sato Ruri paused. Turned. Looked at the now-empty doorway with a flicker of something cold passing across her face—then swept her gaze across the deserted classroom with sudden, sharpened interest.
Yūto Shō reached the stairwell. He had one hand on the banister when the system flickered to life again.
Become a scumbag, do scumbag things. You realize Sato Ruri has no reason to be back in the classroom right now. You decide to return and use your phone to record the secret she's about to reveal.
He stopped dead on the top step. Sato Ruri, with a secret she couldn't tell? In the empty classroom? What was she doing in there—
The system didn't drop hints for fun. If it was sending him back, there was something to see.
Curiosity raked at him. Reason yanked the other way—nothing good ever came from sticking your nose into other people's business, especially not the resident ice queen's business.
While he hesitated, the screen helpfully updated.
You are still hesitating about becoming a scumbag. Therefore you have decided to become a pervert instead: strip naked and sprint back into the classroom, traumatizing the female student inside.
Yūto Shō's face went the color of old gym mats. This system is unhinged.
He didn't even have to think about it. Scumbag. Definitely scumbag. Scumbag was reversible. Streaking through the classroom was a one-way ticket to social suicide and a permanent place in the school's group chat lore.
The text dissolved. He exhaled, turned on his heel, and started walking back the way he came.
The class bell had finished ringing minutes ago. The hallway was empty—just the buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant thud of sneakers on the gym floor outside. The back door of his classroom sat right beside the stairwell, propped open a crack.
He paused before reaching it. Pulled out his phone. Thumbed the camera open and made sure it was already recording before he eased forward and tilted his head around the doorframe.
Inside, Sato Ruri was standing at someone else's desk. Not her own. Yūto Shō recognized it immediately—front row, second from the window. Egawa Mitsuki's desk.
Egawa Mitsuki?
His brain conjured her instantly: tall, willow-thin, face sculpted like a statue someone had forgotten in a museum, with those flat dark eyes that never seemed to land on anything for long. The other class celebrity. The one even teachers handled gently. She and Sato Ruri were the two faces every boy in the year had committed to memory by sheer osmosis.
Sato Ruri was hesitating. Her ears had gone pink. After a long beat, she reached into the desk and pulled out a backpack—Egawa Mitsuki's.
Yūto Shō tightened his grip on the phone. Theft? She's stealing? That didn't track. Sato Ruri didn't need to steal anything from anyone.
He kept watching. Sato Ruri unzipped the bag with her teeth half-caught in her lip, an unmistakable flush climbing her neck. From his angle he couldn't see what was inside—only her face, and her face was doing something fascinating. Surprise first. Then a curl of disdain. Then, slowly, a kind of feverish focus, like she'd found something she hadn't expected and couldn't stop looking at it. Her hand plunged in. She started rummaging.
She pulled something out.
Yūto Shō's eyes blew wide.
It was small. Pink. Egg-shaped. Unmistakably not a school supply. Unmistakably the kind of thing that lived in the back of a drawer behind socks.
Egawa Mitsuki brought THAT to school? His brain stuttered like a buffering video. The aloof, ice-sculpture honor student? The one who'd looked through him in the cafeteria like he was made of cellophane?
Sato Ruri turned the thing over in her fingers, examining it with the kind of intensity people reserved for jewelry appraisal. Her cheeks were full-on burning now. Then she reached back into the bag and produced something else—longer, with more of a shape to it.
Yūto Shō's jaw nearly came unhinged. What is wrong with the girls in this class.
He couldn't reconcile it. Couldn't fit Egawa Mitsuki's glacier-cold face onto the inventory of the bag in front of him. The two images refused to merge.
Sato Ruri held the second toy up, color riding high in her face, expression caught somewhere between thrill and embarrassment. There was a look in her eyes that wasn't disgust. Wasn't even close.
She's not just snooping, Yūto Shō realized slowly. She's into this.
He kept the camera level. Steady hands. Steady breathing. Through the lens, the empty classroom framed her perfectly: late-afternoon sun cutting in through the blinds, dust motes drifting, a beautiful girl with her hair tucked behind one ear holding contraband she had no business holding. The contrast was almost obscene.
His pulse thudded in his ears.
Sato Ruri, lost in whatever private thrill she was riding, didn't notice the phone. Didn't notice him. Didn't notice anything outside her own pink-flushed bubble.
The screen rippled.
Route One: You realize Sato Ruri has a particular fixation on the secrets of others—especially those who present a composed exterior. The more pristine the surface, the harder she wants to crack it open. What she has not realized is that this very moment, captured on your camera, is now her secret. You decide to use the footage to blackmail her into a date.
Route Two: Though you've uncovered her secret, you have no intention of threatening her. Instead, the thrill of discovery overcomes you; you decide to step into the room, drop to your knees before her, and ask her to let you kiss her toes.
Yūto Shō: ????