Honestly, Oikawa wasn't all that hyped about the voice call.
If it had been that old scoundrel Togashi, sure, maybe he would've been a little more excited. At least he could roast Mr. Hiatus to his face.
But this Kento Yamazaki guy? Who the hell even are you, man.
Oikawa never watched dramas, and he knew next to nothing about Tokyo celebrities. Well, actually, he did know Shun Oguri, since Suzuran had absolutely dominated pop culture for an entire year back in the day.
Oguri had played that character Genji Takiya, and practically every middle schooler in the country had gone through a phase of copying him.
That signature messy "ghost cut" hairstyle had basically become the uniform look for every delinquent slacker in school.
That's just how people are, really. For things they're excited about, they'll prep endlessly, trying to make everything perfect. But for things they're not excited about, they won't prepare at all.
...
..
Wednesday rolled around fast.
Things had been surprisingly calm at the Service Club lately. Not only had requests for help dried up completely, but Iroha Isshiki had also mysteriously stopped showing her face.
Without her chirping and fluttering around constantly, Oikawa found himself, oddly enough, a little thrown off. Like something was missing from his day-to-day life.
People really were strange creatures.
After finishing up his day at school, Oikawa spent a solid two-plus hours working out at the gym before heading home. After dinner, he sat down to game.
After a while, Oikawa checked the time. Fifteen minutes until eight.
Instead of queueing up another match, he sat down at his computer, logged into the desktop version of LINE, and opened up the group chat Chris had added him to.
There were only a handful of messages in there. Everyone had just exchanged polite hellos the day they were added, and nothing since.
Before long, eight o'clock hit right on schedule, and a lovely young woman appeared in Full-Drive Bunko's official livestream for everyone to see. "Hi everyone, I'm so happy to be here with you all today."
The book fans, who'd been waiting eagerly, immediately went wild in the chat the moment they saw the pretty host.
——Girl, you could literally coast on looks alone, why are you insisting on talent too?
——While you all were busy typing, I already finished. Beauty means nothing to me, at least for the next ten minutes
——You single, girl? I'm a total beast in bed!
Reading through the flood of comments from fans, the host's face went a little red, but she stayed professional and pushed forward with the segment.
She knew exactly how big a day today was. At the very least, she couldn't be the one who screwed it up.
"As you all probably already know, today Copycat-sensei will be joining a voice call with the incredibly talented actor Kento Yamazaki. I won't waste any more of your time, let's get right into it."
With that, the Twitter profile pictures of Oikawa and Yamazaki popped up on the official livestream.
"Hello, Copycat-sensei. Wow, I'm honestly such a huge, huge fan of Your Lie in April, and Clannad has me really excited too. I finally get to meet my idol today, I'm just so, so happy!" Listening to Yamazaki's excited voice, Oikawa, sitting at his computer, narrowed his eyes slightly.
Actors really were something else.
If Chris hadn't already added him to that group chat beforehand, and Oikawa had just heard that excited voice, he would've genuinely believed Yamazaki was one of his actual fans.
"Hello, Yamazaki-san, it's a real pleasure to meet you. Actually, I'm a fan of yours too. That live-action Death Note series you were in? I'd honestly call it the best TV drama I've ever seen in my life. I think you nailed the essence of L completely, it was just phenomenal."
In reality, Oikawa hadn't even made it three minutes into that live-action Death Note series. He'd clicked it open, watched a few seconds, and closed it right back out.
Compared to the anime, it just wasn't even close.
Aside from the opening round of mutual professional flattery, the rest of the conversation was basically scripted, questions and answers already locked in ahead of time, both of them just performing their assigned lines like actors reading off a script.
But thinking the live-action Death Note was garbage didn't mean he couldn't still play along with the promotional back-patting when it counted.
When Oikawa had first found out about this whole arrangement, he'd honestly been a little reluctant, feeling like it might let his readers down. Sure, he'd always marketed himself under the "healing fiction" banner while actually selling nothing but soul-crushing tragedy, and his readers were constantly threatening to hunt him down with knives every other day anyway.
But Oikawa still felt like this kind of scripted voice call was a different varmint entirely from that.
Still, this was the fruit of Chris's hard work, so Oikawa didn't push back. He just asked him to hand out some extra giveaway perks during the stream, as a small consolation for the fans who'd shown up to support them.
The call wrapped up quickly.
The comment section immediately split into two camps. Yamazaki Kento's female fans were showering him with compliments left and right, while Oikawa's readers were roasting the two of them for phoning it in.
Fair enough, honestly.
The whole call really hadn't had much substance to it. Most of it had revolved around Your Lie in April, with Clannad barely getting a mention.
No wonder the fans were disappointed.
_ _ _
"Iroha! Didn't you say you wanted to come down and have oden with Mom? If you don't hurry up, Mom's going to eat it all without you!"
Inside a rather grand house, an elegant-looking woman called softly up the stairs. No response came.
Because right now, upstairs, Iroha Isshiki was listening to a very familiar voice coming out of her phone, her whole face frozen in a blank stare.
"This... this is... Oikawa-senpai?! There's no way I'm hearing this wrong. This is Oikawa-senpai's voice. Oikawa-senpai is actually... Copycat-sensei?!"
"No way. There's absolutely no way!"
Iroha shook her head, refusing to believe what she'd just uncovered.
That guy? Him? Copycat-sensei?
He was supposed to be sleeping all day, every day, and spending every ounce of his free time with Kawasaki-senpai and the others. There's just no way.
Iroha bit her lip. She felt weird, honestly. She could clearly tell it was Oikawa's voice, and yet some part of her still refused to accept it.
How could this even be possible?!
After sitting frozen for a long moment, Iroha grabbed her phone and fired off a message to Oikawa.
"Senpai, what are you up to right now?"
Several minutes passed with no reply. Fuming, she sent over a photo she'd secretly taken earlier of Yui wearing a swimsuit.
A reply came almost instantly: "Didn't you say you didn't manage to get a shot? Then what the hell is this?! You evil woman, do you have zero sense of honor? I need MORE!!!"
A satisfied little smirk crept onto Iroha's lips.
She'd been planning to play it cool and make him wait a while before replying, but she couldn't hold back her excitement, and typed out a message almost immediately: "Senpai, lying is something I learned from you. You know what they say, hang around ink long enough and you'll end up black yourself!"
"By the way, what are you doing right now? I just heard a really familiar voice online, it sounded shockingly like you, senpai. You wouldn't happen to be... Copycat-sensei, would you?"
If this had been Yui Yuigahama, she probably would've tiptoed around the question, asking Oikawa indirectly, maybe even secretly watching him for clues over the following days.
But Iroha wasn't like that.
She just had this weird, unshakable gut feeling that Oikawa wouldn't lie to her about something like this.
[So what? You want a signed copy of Clannad? If this were before, sure, I'd have signed one for you. But now? Not a chance.]
Reading Oikawa's reply, Iroha froze for a moment, then clapped a hand over her mouth, stunned. "It's really true. Oikawa-senpai is actually Copycat-sensei I hate so much."
Even though she'd already half-suspected it deep down, actually having it confirmed still left her genuinely shocked. It was honestly a little too much to process all at once.
She finally understood now, why Oikawa, with grades good enough for STEM, had chosen to go into Liberal Arts instead.
Turns out, the signs had been there all along.
These past few days, student council work had genuinely been driving her up the wall. With the national athletic tournament coming up soon, she had way too much on her plate as both student council president and the soccer club's manager.
And on top of that, there was a good chance she'd have to travel to Tokyo with Sobu High's soccer club before too long, which meant her time with Oikawa was about to get a lot more limited.
Lately, Iroha kept zoning out at random moments, an unconscious look of sadness settling over her face.
Secretly liking someone was exhausting, honestly. If she ever got the chance, she wanted to be the one who got liked back for once, and if the person doing the liking happened to be Oikawa-senpai, well, that would be even better.
But god, this was hard.
Staring at the profile photo on her phone, a wave of sorrow welled up inside her, and before she knew it, fat teardrops were falling onto the screen.
Just then, the door creaked open, and her mother's voice drifted in. "Iroha, why haven't you come down—"
"Iroha, you're—"
Iroha didn't seem to notice she'd been crying. At the sound of her mother's voice, she looked up at the woman stepping into the room and said, with a smile so sad it didn't match her words at all, "Mom, I'm hungry."
...
..
February came walking in with slow but steady steps.
Chiba's weather was still bitterly cold, and the wide swing between morning and evening temperatures hadn't let up at all.
Somewhat depressingly, February's wind seemed to have an even nastier temper than January's, rattling against the classroom windows with a constant clattering noise.
Oikawa found himself missing his high school back home.
At least back there, the heating actually worked well enough that you could fall asleep with a smile on your face.
First period was, as always, math class. Oikawa settled in for his usual nap, but he'd barely gotten his head down when a note from Kawasaki landed on his desk.
'Taishi wanted me to thank you. You've been helping tutor him a lot lately.'
Reading her words, Oikawa gave a faint smile, scribbled a reply, and tossed it back.
'Well, what else can I do, the kid's stuck with the last name Kawasaki. But if you really want to thank me, I've got this pair of white thigh-highs sitting around. I think they'd look pretty perfect on a certain someone's legs tonight.'
Reading what Oikawa had written, Kawasaki's face turned bright red instantly.
When it came to being shameless, Saki Kawasaki honestly stood zero chance against Oikawa.
Seeing that Kawasaki wasn't writing back, Oikawa laid his head down on the desk and turned to look out the window, getting himself ready for his nap.
Come to think of it, tomorrow was supposed to be Risshun, the first day of spring on the traditional calendar.
Neon took the twenty-four solar terms pretty seriously, and Risshun in particular came with quite a few customs. Oikawa's personal favorite was "Risshun Asashibori." An ultra-fresh, celebratory Japanese sake that is pressed, bottled, and shipped on the exact morning of Risshun, the traditional first day of spring
Most of it got slow-pressed from the mash over the course of Setsubun night, then enjoyed the next morning on Risshun as a kind of good-luck drink.
Too bad, though. He could only make it and drink it in secret, all on his own.
Kawasaki had a seriously intense reaction whenever alcohol was involved. That bottle he'd bought before had gotten confiscated the moment she found it while cleaning.
"Risshun's here, huh. Guess spring's coming soon." Oikawa murmured to himself, then closed his eyes, drifting slowly off to sleep under the math teacher's long-suffering gaze.
After Risshun came Valentine's Day.
Oikawa woke up right before homeroom started and immediately heard the girls in class buzzing about Valentine's Day plans.
The boys, for their part, all looked pretty hopeful too.
Though honestly, Oikawa figured they were mostly just fantasizing. Getting a couple pity chocolates would already be a win for most of them.
Actual "true feelings" chocolate? Keep dreaming.
Miura and Ebina were also in on the discussion. Miura, in particular, looked genuinely troubled, resting her chin on her hand with a worried expression. "What do I even do? I mean, handmade chocolate obviously shows more sincerity, but making chocolate is seriously hard, and if the person doesn't accept it, I'll feel so pathetic."
"Handmade? I... don't really think that's necessary, is it?" Yui's expression turned a little strange. The word "handmade" had apparently triggered some not-so-great memories for her.
She instinctively glanced over at Oikawa and found him watching her with an amused, teasing look on his face. She quickly snapped her eyes away, cheeks puffed out in irritation.
Yui was pretty sure Oikawa was going to mock her mercilessly for this later.
Just... so infuriating.
But Oikawa really was looking forward to her making handmade chocolate, purely so he could roast her for it afterward.
As for actually eating it? Oikawa figured he'd like to stay alive a bit longer, thanks. Last time he'd eaten Yui's homemade cookies, he'd suffered for days afterward.
Ebina, watching the two of them closely, pushed up her glasses and chimed in teasingly. "Yui, if you're not confident about making your own, buying some ready-made chocolate is a perfectly good option too. What matters most is the thought behind it, right? Oh, and speaking of, who are you planning on giving chocolate to?"
Yui had been nodding along in agreement a second ago, but the words that came out of her mouth were: "I'm giving mine to Oi... obviously Yukinon and everyone, ha ha!"
"Oh really?" Ebina said lightly, "Here I thought you were going to give some to Oikawa. That little slip just now sounded a lot like his name!"
"N-No way... haha, no way, that's not it at all."
Yui tried to paper over her inner panic with a laugh, but Miura suddenly turned to Kawasaki with a look of pure gossip-hunger and asked, "Saki, are you giving Oikawa chocolate?"
In that instant, everyone around them seemed to hold their breath, all eyes turning toward Saki Kawasaki.
Ebina, meanwhile, kept flicking her gaze between Kawasaki and Yui, wearing the expression of someone thoroughly enjoying the show. This kind of drama battlefield was exactly her favorite thing in the world.
"Yeah. I will."
Hearing Kawasaki's answer, Yui pressed her lips together, a flicker of hurt welling up inside her.
.
.
.
༺ If you're interested, you can read the chapters ahead on pat👉 patreon.com/_Coreal ༻