Can an NPC in a Dating Sim Fall for a Police Academy Student?

[The Strings of Fate] is a wildly popular dating sim. Its strengths include so many side routes, endings, and achievements that a few screens can't contain them all; beautifully detailed character portraits; an incredibly flexible game mode and character creator; a story and system on par with proper adventure games; and enough romanceable characters to fill a mahjong table. I mean mahjong tiles. But among all the romanceable characters, one unromanceable NPC stands out from the crowd. He seems so mild-mannered that nothing can ruffle him. No matter how you treat him, he always acts the same. Even shooting him only lowers his affection a little. During an outing with his class, Rei Furuya was introduced to the game by a student from the class next door. He opened it to kill time, and after the beginner tutorial, met the NPC known as "the man without a heart." The guy swept his red bangs aside, set down the microphone amid the hubbub, raised an eyebrow, smiled at him, and made a shushing gesture. The earring in his ear caught a little glint beneath the spotlight. His fingers were long and beautiful, and his bright, carefree smile was full of swagger. Every movement brimmed with the radiant, reckless confidence of youth. "Shh... Don't tell the instructor. I'm sick of cleaning that stupid records room." Almost as if possessed, Rei Furuya opened the character profile, hoping to add him to the romance list through the beginner tutorial. Instead, he received two system notifications. [Sorry, this character is not romanceable. If you have any suggestions, you can send them through this game's feedback box. Thanks for understanding. :) ] [NPC [Koshimizu Arashi]'s affection toward you: -1] Rei Furuya: ... Unwilling to give up, he opened the character interaction screen. After talking to Koshimizu Arashi persistently for five or six days, he finally managed to regain that one affection point. Rei Furuya let out a long breath, then accidentally tapped a system dialogue prompt. He hesitated over the four choices and finally picked the third one. [Rei Furuya: That injury on your collarbone is...?] [Koshimizu Arashi: …] [Koshimizu Arashi: ...It's nothing, just a little injury. Ah, one certain guy nagged me about it for ages back then.] [NPC [Koshimizu Arashi]'s affection toward you: -30] Rei Furuya: ??!! - Thanks to his impressive way with words, Hagiwara Kenji reached LV10 before Rei Furuya. He casually picked a mind-reading skill, then went to meet the NPC his classmate had said was incredibly hard to win over. Hagiwara Kenji confidently went up and greeted him. The NPC smiled at the face Hagiwara had created to look exactly like himself, but with the skill active, what the NPC said and what he was thinking were two completely different things. [Koshimizu Arashi: Good afternoon. Nice to meet you.] [Koshimizu Arashi [inner thoughts]: That face... Tch. If I punch him right now, he probably won't die, will he?] Hagiwara Kenji: ??!! At the recommendation of his childhood friend, Matsuda Jinpei reluctantly downloaded the dating sim. Drawing on his limited experience with romance games, he spent some time raising Koshimizu Arashi's affection, then promptly chose to confess to him outright. [Koshimizu Arashi: ...Sorry, I can't say yes to that kind of request.] [Congratulations, player [Mazda], on unlocking the achievement [What's This Guy's Problem?] from NPC [Koshimizu Arashi].] Rei Furuya: ...Pfft. Hagiwara Kenji: Pfft, hahahaha! Jinpei-chan, that was so lame! Matsuda Jinpei: ??!! Hiroshi Morofushi looked puzzled. "...I think this game is pretty good?" The others crowded around Hiroshi Morofushi to look at his phone screen. The young man whose face looked just like his was making small talk with the NPC. [Hiroshi Morofushi: Be careful, okay?] [Koshimizu Arashi: ...Yeah.] [NPC [Koshimizu Arashi]'s affection toward you: +5] [NPC [Koshimizu Arashi]'s affection toward you: +3] [NPC [Koshimizu Arashi]'s affection toward you: +10] [NPC [Koshimizu Arashi]'s affection toward you: +7] Rei Furuya: ? Hagiwara Kenji: ? Matsuda Jinpei: ? What's with this NPC??? In private, Koshimizu Arashi swore under his breath. He'd just managed to drag those damn juniors back from their death endings, only to be inexplicably transported by the system into some trash game as a beginner guide NPC. They called it a reward, damn, it was like the system had something seriously wrong with it. He dealt with wave after wave of normal and abnormal players with a fixed expression. The young man treated it as the tedious monster-grinding section left over after a dungeon run. He just had to put up with it until it was over. That was until he met several players who tried to romance him. Koshimizu Arashi: ? Why did these people look so much like those damn juniors he'd just saved...? # A derivative work of [The Police Academy Senior Wants His Heroic Juniors to Get a Happy Ending]. For the pairing and other details, see the previous story. The plots aren't particularly connected, so you can read this without having read the previous story, though I still hope you'll give it a look. (...) It's a single-player mobile game, but achievement announcements like the one for Mazda-chan are visible to all players. Zero and the others use different names in the game; the names in the synopsis are just for convenience. # ABO Koshimizu Arashi in the good-guy faction IF line: [What's Up with You Police Academy Alphas?] Theme: Even NPCs have tempers.