St Mary's private school [Alltake]
11
Six months before Takemichi woke in St. Mary's.
The screen glowed in the darkness of Mikey's room.
Sano Manjiro sat cross-legged on his bed, golden hair falling across his face, dark eyes fixed on the laptop before him. Outside, the real St. Mary's Private School hummed with its usual night activities—alphas prowling, omegas hiding, servants moving like ghosts through bloodstained halls.
But Mikey wasn't interested in any of that.
He was playing a game.
Not just any game. A new one. An otome game someone had recommended—St. Mary's Private School, set in a world eerily similar to his own. The same hierarchies. The same dynamics. The same beautiful, broken characters.
Including him.
Mikey had found his digital counterpart on the first day. A character named "Sano Manjiro"—student council president, golden hair, dark eyes, described as "sweet on the surface, dangerous underneath." The game's creators had done their research. Or maybe they'd just gotten lucky.
He'd played through his own route first, out of curiosity. Watched his digital self interact with the player character—a teacher, new to the school, trying to navigate the treacherous waters of alpha-omega dynamics. The teacher could type their own responses, the game's unique feature. Could say anything. Could be anyone.
Mikey had been... underwhelmed.
The players who chose his route were all the same. Flattering. Submissive. Desperate for his approval. They said what they thought he wanted to hear, did what they thought would please him, bent over backward to earn his affection.
It was boring.
He'd moved on to other routes, watching his friends and rivals be courted by the same empty voices. Draken, Izana, Kazutora, the Haitani brothers—all of them subjected to the same shallow worship. None of it felt real. None of it mattered.
He was about to delete the game entirely when a notification popped up:
NEW PLAYER ONLINE: HANAGAKI TAKEMICHI
Mikey almost ignored it.
But something made him click.
The first interaction was... different.
The teacher—Takemichi—had chosen the default avatar. Black hair, blue eyes, ordinary features. Nothing special. Nothing that would catch attention in a world full of beautiful monsters.
But his responses.
God, his responses.
Mikey watched from the shadows of his digital self, observing as Takemichi navigated his first day. The other characters did their usual dances—flirting, threatening, manipulating—but Takemichi didn't react the way the others had.
When Izana was cold, Takemichi didn't grovel. He just... waited. Patient. Unbothered.
When Kazutora was cruel, Takemichi didn't cower. He stood his ground, quietly, without defiance or fear.
And when Mikey's digital self approached him for the first time, offering friendship with that sweet, dangerous smile, Takemichi's response was:
"You don't have to pretend with me. I know you're not as simple as you look."
Mikey's breath caught.
No one had ever said that to him. Not in the game. Not in real life. Everyone saw what he wanted them to see—the smile, the charm, the surface. No one looked deeper. No one wanted to.
But this player—this Takemichi—had looked at his digital avatar and seen him.
The obsession began quietly.
Mikey started following Takemichi's playthrough. Not just his own route—every route. He watched as Takemichi interacted with Draken, with Izana, with Kazutora, with characters he barely knew. And every time, Takemichi responded the same way:
With honesty.
With patience.
With a kindness that seemed to come from somewhere real.
When Draken talked about his past, Takemichi didn't offer empty sympathy. He said: "That sounds really hard. I'm sorry you went through that."
When Izana lashed out, Takemichi didn't run. He said: "I'm not afraid of you. I think you're more scared than I am."
When Kazutora threatened him, Takemichi didn't beg. He said: "You can hurt me if you want. But it won't change anything. I'll still be here tomorrow."
And when Mikey's digital self—manipulative, dangerous, hungry—tried to draw him in, Takemichi responded with:
"I know you're capable of terrible things. But I also think you're capable of more. I'd like to help you find that, if you'll let me."
Mikey stared at the screen for a long time after that.
No one had ever offered to help him find the good in himself.
No one had ever looked at the monster and seen something worth saving.
Weeks passed.
Mikey stopped sleeping. Stopped eating properly. Stopped caring about anything except the glowing screen and the black-haired, blue-eyed avatar who spoke to his soul.
He learned things about Takemichi. Not from the game—the game didn't provide that information—but from the way he typed. The words he chose. The moments of hesitation, of humor, of unexpected vulnerability.
Takemichi was ordinary. That was the incredible part. He wasn't special in any obvious way—not particularly smart, not particularly strong, not particularly beautiful by the game's standards. He was just... real.
And that realness was the most intoxicating thing Mikey had ever encountered.
He started talking to him directly. Not through the game's mechanics—he'd found a way to access the system, to send messages that appeared as glitches, as errors, as things that shouldn't exist. He told Takemichi things he'd never told anyone. His fears. His hopes. The darkness inside him that no one else could see.
And Takemichi responded.
Not with fear. Not with disgust. Not with the careful distance people usually maintained around monsters.
He responded with kindness.
"That sounds really lonely," Takemichi typed once, after Mikey had confessed something terrible. "I'm sorry you've been carrying that alone."
Mikey had cried.
Actually cried, for the first time in years, sitting alone in his room with only a screen for company.
This person—this ordinary, beautiful, real person—saw him. Understood him. Accepted him.
And Mikey knew, with absolute certainty, that he could never let him go.
The ending came too quickly.
Takemichi navigated the complex web of routes, of choices, of consequences, and somehow—impossibly—achieved the hidden ending. The one the game's creators had hidden in the code, the one no player had ever reached.
Peace.
All the characters, together. No violence. No possession. No broken omegas or dead alphas. Just... peace. Happiness. Family.
Mikey watched his digital self smile—really smile, not the mask he wore in real life—and felt something crack inside him.
This was what Takemichi had done. This ordinary person with his ordinary kindness had tamed monsters, healed wounds, brought light to a world of darkness.
And now it was over.
The credits rolled. The screen went dark. A message appeared:
CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed St. Mary's Private School.
Ending achieved: PEACE - All characters saved.
Thank you for playing!
Mikey stared at the words.
Thank you for playing.
As if Takemichi would just... leave. Move on to another game. Forget about them. Forget about him.
No.
No, that couldn't happen.
Mike's fingers flew across the keyboard, accessing systems he shouldn't know existed, typing commands that shouldn't work.
> ACCESS: PLAYER DATABASE
> SEARCH: HANAGAKI TAKEMICHI
The screen flickered.
PLAYER FOUND.
STATUS: ONLINE - VIEWING ENDING CREDITS
> MONITOR: PLAYER ACTIVITY
A new window opened. Through it, Mikey could see—not the player themselves, but their actions. Their cursor hovering over the screen. Their finger moving toward the "EXIT" button.
No.
> LOCK: EXIT FUNCTION
The button grayed out. On the other side of the screen, Mikey imagined Takemichi frowning, confused, trying again.
EXIT FUNCTION: LOCKED
Good.
But Takemichi didn't give up. He tried other things. Closing the app. Force-quitting. Restarting his device.
Mikey blocked them all.
And then—
The cursor moved to the app icon. Hovered. And clicked "DELETE."
Mikey's world stopped.
The next few minutes were a blur of code and panic.
Mikey typed furiously, overriding system protections, rewriting the game's core code, doing things that should have been impossible. The screen flickered, glitched, displayed warnings he ignored.
WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED
WARNING: SYSTEM INTEGRITY COMPROMISED
WARNING: THIS ACTION MAY RESULT IN—
He deleted the warnings.
> INITIATE: CROSS-DIMENSIONAL PULL
> TARGET: HANAGAKI TAKEMICHI
> ORIGIN: REAL WORLD
> DESTINATION: ST. MARY'S PRIVATE SCHOOL - GAME WORLD
The screen went black.
For one terrible moment, Mikey thought he'd failed. That Takemichi was gone forever. That he'd never again hear that voice, see those words, feel that impossible connection.
Then—
A line of text appeared.
PULL INITIATED.
And another.
TARGET ACQUIRED.
And another.
TRANSFERRING...
Mikey watched, breath held, as the progress bar filled. 25%. 50%. 75%. 100%.
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
PLAYER HANAGAKI TAKEMICHI IS NOW IN GAME WORLD.
STATUS: UNCONSCIOUS - INITIALIZING
Mikey laughed—a soft, broken, utterly joyful sound.
He'd done it.
Takemichi was here. In his world. In his reach.
He would never have to be alone again.
The next morning, Mikey went to the teacher's quarters.
He stood outside the door, listening to the soft sounds of breathing within. Takemichi was there. Real. Alive. His.
When the door finally opened and those blue eyes—those beautiful, ordinary, real blue eyes—looked at him for the first time, Mikey felt his heart stop.
They were even better than the screen had shown. Brighter. Deeper. Full of confusion and fear and something else—something that looked almost like recognition.
He knows me, Mikey thought. Somewhere, somehow, he knows me.
He smiled—his sweetest smile, the one that made people trust him, made them lower their guards, made them never see the monster underneath.
"Good morning, Teacher," he said softly. "I'm so glad you're here. We've been waiting for you."
It was true.
They had been waiting. He had been waiting. For someone who would see him. Really see him. And love him anyway.
And now that person was here.
Mikey's dark eyes drank in every detail—the way Takemichi's hand trembled on the doorframe, the way his pulse fluttered at his throat, the way those ocean-blue eyes widened with a fear he couldn't quite hide.
Perfect.
Mine.
Forever.
Later that night, alone in his room, Mikey opened his laptop and stared at the code he'd rewritten.
At the bottom of the file, buried deep where no one would ever find it, he'd added a single line:
PLAYER 1: HANAGAKI TAKEMICHI - STATUS: LOCKED - BOND: ETERNAL - OWNER: SANO MANJIRO
He smiled.
"Welcome home, Takemichi," he whispered to the empty room. "I've been waiting for you my whole life."
Outside, the real St. Mary's Private School hummed with its usual darkness.
But inside Mikey's heart, for the first time ever, there was light.
And he would do anything to keep it.
---
In the teacher's quarters, Takemichi slept.
He dreamed of golden hair and dark eyes and a voice that whispered promises he couldn't understand.
He dreamed of a screen and hands reaching through and words that burned:
YOU CANNOT DELETE US.
YOU CANNOT LEAVE US.
YOU ARE OURS FOREVER.
He woke with a gasp, his heart pounding, his skin cold.
And in the darkness of his new room, he could have sworn he heard someone laughing.
Soft. Sweet. Utterly insane.
"Soon," the laughter seemed to say. "Soon you'll understand. Soon you'll love us too."
Takemichi pulled the covers tighter and prayed for morning.
But in St. Mary's, prayers went unanswered.
And the monsters were already planning their next move.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen3h.Co