A Love Guide to the Technical College

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As the strongest in the world of jujutsu, Gojo and Geto have a fellow student who is just as strong.

Only in the field of absurdity.

Her behavior is as mysterious and unpredictable as the protagonist in an English listening test. Every day, she randomly appears beside a trash can somewhere on campus to rummage through the garbage. Her greatest hobby is collecting junk, and she once managed to clear out her entire dorm.

She stares into space every day, sometimes laughing hysterically and sometimes frowning. Anyone who sees her can't help thinking that security at mental hospitals must be terrible to let a patient escape.

Even when she's beaten to the point of coughing up blood and barely hanging on, she still manages to pull out an apple and keep munching away. The moment she finishes, she's back to full health, with a vitality that rivals a cockroach.

Less than three days after enrolling, she had proudly become the problem child unanimously recognized by the entire school.

Asagiri Haruka, problem child herself, frequent neurology patient: But I'm a player. Isn't this how you play an RPG?

*

The two strongest should have hated their troublesome classmate.

But the white-haired cat carefully cradled the Kikufuku in his hands. "She can't even afford food, but she was willing to wait in line for hours to buy me a limited-edition Kikufuku."

"She must truly love me!"

Asagiri Haruka: Thanks for asking. It was actually a free bonus from the System Shop's buy-one-get-one deal. I just didn't have room in my inventory.

The black-haired fox smiled, his eyes crinkling. "She said she'd give me her life and told me to take good care of it."

"She must truly love me!"

Asagiri Haruka: Thanks for asking. It was just an apple that restores ten health points.

*

The gaming-addicted Asagiri Haruka recently got hooked on an exciting RPG and spent huge amounts of time playing it.

Every day, besides diligently grinding monsters, leveling up, and filling out her collection, she'd give the NPCs little gifts to raise their affection in hopes of getting SSR items.

But even the most fun game gets tiresome eventually.

So she simply quit, deleted her account, and moved on to a new game.

The NPCs, however, came looking for her one after another, accusing her of being fickle and abandoning them after leading them on. They demanded that she take responsibility.

Asagiri Haruka: ? I thought I was playing something other than an otome game.

Mainly Jujutsu Kaisen, with a little Bungo Stray Dogs, Prince of Tennis, and Detective Conan.

And while I'm at it, here's my upcoming Jujutsu Kaisen otome novel, "After the Strongest Kills Me, He Begs for My Forgiveness"

*

Yukishiro Mie had three friends.

They exorcised curses together, faced life and death together, and saw the snow in Hokkaido and the view from the top of Mount Fuji together.

Yukishiro Mie thought they would be friends forever.

Until one of them slaughtered a village and defected, abandoning the vows they'd once made; one kept striving to become the strongest, leaving everyone behind; and one was trapped at the school, unable to leave and reduced to a tool in the hands of the higher-ups.

Only she was left behind at that night's fireworks festival.

Yukishiro Mie finally realized that no one had ever really cared about her.

They weren't friends. Everything had been one-sided on her part, so it was only natural that she'd been left behind.

So Yukishiro Mie chose to defect too, fleeing that utterly awful world of jujutsu.

And then she died at the hands of her former "friend."

One strike, one fatal blow.

At that moment, she had only one thought: As expected, someone like her didn't deserve to be loved and never would be. Dying at the hands of someone she'd thought of as a "friend" wasn't so bad, after all.

*

When she woke up again, Yukishiro Mie discovered that everything she'd experienced was only a full-dive simulation game she'd played. Those unforgettable memories were nothing but a string of insubstantial code.

She stared at the game pod in front of her for a long time, then chose to pack it up and throw it on the trash heap.

Her life returned to normal, and she even had the good luck to make a new friend named Okkotsu Yuta.

Every day was a beautiful day.

If only she hadn't seen the "friend" who killed her in the game when the new school term began.

A dark, angsty story. Otome-game romance. The heroine is sensitive, insecure, and full of inner conflict.

The title is clickbait. The story itself tells the truth.

Theme: Love can overcome all odds.