Chapter 248: Hino Yui
Kouhei blinked slowly, as if the world had montarily gone out of focus.
“H-Huh…?”
Sothing wasn’t right.
Sothing was… off. Deeply, unnervingly off.
No—sothing was fundantally wrong.
There was a strange pressure building in his chest, a tension tightening the air around him like invisible wires.
Sothing unseen was lurking beneath the surface of all this.
“H-Hina-san…?”
He muttered the na before even realizing it had passed his lips.
A na.
That na.
The first girl who had ever truly mattered to him.
The girl who had entrusted him with her first ti.
The girl to whom he had given his own first ti in return.
The girl etched into his soul—
Saionji Hina.
He rembered her now.
Like a long-lost painting rediscovered beneath layers of dust and ti.
“Ugh…”
A sharp, scorching pulse tore through his skull.
His thoughts twisted, colliding violently inside his mind like waves slamming against rocks.
His brain felt like it was lting.
Burning.
Drowning in sothing thick and unnatural.
“Kouhei-senpai?”
Yui’s voice cut through the fog, concerned and puzzled.
He jerked backward suddenly, nearly stumbling off the L-shaped chair.
His arm flailed out, knocking the drinks off the table.
The glasses clattered to the ground, spilling liquid across the floor, soaking napkins and echoing against the walls.
And then—
It all clicked.
The haze lifted.
Everything—the unease, the contradictions in the world around him, the inconsistencies in how people acted and behaved—it all started to make perfect, terrifying sense.
This wasn’t the world he belonged in.
This was a fabricated reality. A warped mirror of what should have been.
An alternate version of reality. A place that felt like a bad dream masquerading as a romantic fantasy.
A “what if” scenario, like the ones he used to see in visual novels or manga.
But… why was he here?
What happened to his reality?
Wait—
It hit him like a bullet to the brain.
That’s right.
He had been killed.
Killed in battle.
By Masayoshi.
One of the core mbers of Souichiro’s Faction.
That bastard had taken his life.
They had misunderstood Masayoshi’s ability, and thought it was just regeneration.
No one expected ti manipulation.
And that misjudgnt… had cost him everything.
But even as death wrapped its cold fingers around him, he rembered sothing else.
Thankfully, Hina had managed to kill Masayoshi right before Kouhei’s death. That much, at least, gave him a shred of relief.
But still…
What the hell was happening right now?
Where was he now?
What the hell was this place?
And who had brought him here?
The Kouhei of the past might’ve chuckled nervously and chalked it all up to reincarnation. A whimsical new life after death. A poetic “heaven” of sorts.
But no—
This wasn’t heaven.
This place was too calculated.
Too deliberately shaped.
This world wasn’t just coincidence—it was a construct.
And soone had created it.
Soone had placed him inside it.
But who?
“Senpai… are you okay?” Yui asked again.
She had quietly slid her bra strap back onto her shoulder, trying to cover her exposed chest, her tone shy but still laced with worry.
Kouhei shook his head gently and exhaled, steadying himself.
“Uh… yeah. Sorry about that, Yui-chan,” he muttered, his voice laced with awkward guilt.
“You’re not ready yet,” Yui replied, offering him a small smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t an to push you into it…”
“No, it’s not your fault,” Kouhei said, shaking his head again. “Honestly, I should be the one apologizing. You were brave to even suggest sothing like this, and I couldn’t go through with it. It’s pathetic, really… I’m the one who’s sorry.”
A mutual, awkward silence followed.
They both apologized to each other—like strangers trying to clean up a mont that had spiraled too fast.
Yui glanced at her phone and let out a soft sigh.
“Looks like ti’s up already,” she said, noting the end of their karaoke room rental. “I should start getting dressed.”
She leaned forward, grabbing her scattered clothes from the floor and sofa cushions, gathering the pieces of her outfit with quiet resignation.
It was clear they weren’t going to have sex anymore.
Honestly, it was a relief.
Kouhei didn’t want to fuck soone he had no genuine feelings or emotional connection with.
Though… in this version of the world, Yui was apparently in a relationship with him.
Even Hiyori seed to cling to him too.
But the biggest problem with this place…
Was the absence of the original student council mbers.
Sothing was missing.
No…
Soone.
The world was wrong because of the absence of the real council mbers.
There was no Hina.
No Yuuna.
No Nagisa, Misuzu…
And he was almost certain Aria didn’t exist here either.
This was a world without the ones he had truly loved.
A sterile, structured version of reality.
It was too neat. Too manufactured.
And he had felt that offness since the mont he woke up here.
Because without them, none of this felt real.
But then again…
Maybe it wasn’t just random.
Maybe soone had put him here.
And if so, then that begged the real question…
Why?
What was the purpose?
Why trap him here?
What was the point?
No.
If Kouhei really thought about it, the answer should’ve been obvious.
It had to be soone close to him in this world.
It had to be soone close.
That’s how these scenarios always went in manga or gas, right?
Soone close enough to monitor his every movent.
Soone with eyes on him at all tis.
Soone pretending to be normal… while watching.
And suddenly—
He had an answer.
His gaze slowly turned to Yui.
She should’ve been getting dressed by now.
But she wasn’t.
She was still sitting there, half-naked.
Her legs crossed, her posture relaxed—too relaxed and casual, in fact.
Her chin rested on her fist, supported by an elbow balanced on her knee.
Her expression hadn’t changed.
She was still staring at him with that sa, unreadable smile.
Mischievous.
Knowing.
Like a cat that had cornered a mouse and was waiting to see how it would squirm.
“Yui-chan… No… Hino-san…” Kouhei said, his voice cracking, trembling slightly. “Who… are you?”
***
Hina stirred awake, her lashes fluttering open with slow resistance.
The sharp rhythm of rain pattered outside, crashing relentlessly against the windowpane like an army of tiny fists. Each drop sounded like a ticking reminder of the emptiness swallowing her whole.
The world outside was drenched in gray, but it was the reflection on the glass that caught her eye.
She saw herself.
A fragile silhouette painted against the window’s surface—a woman who no longer resembled who she used to be.
A woman consud by despair.
Her skin, once glowing with vitality, now looked pale and dull under the muted light.
Her lips had withered, cracked from the lack of care and hydration, flakes peeling with every breath she took.
Beneath her eyes hung swollen bags of black and violet, the aftermath of countless sleepless nights and uncontrollable tears.
The whites of her eyes were inflad, veined with angry red, as if the sorrow inside her had tried to claw its way out.
It had been a week.
Seven agonizing days since Kouhei had died.
She hadn’t showered once during that ti.
Her hair clung to her scalp, greasy and matted. The room reeked faintly of sweat, mourning, and stale air.
She probably slled like death itself.
Her cheeks had sunken in ever so slightly, her once-soft features now marked with gaunt hollowness. She hadn’t touched food in days. Her body, though resilient, had begun to fray under the weight of grief and neglect.
“I should probably take care of myself, right? Kouhei… I’m sure if you saw like this, you’d be mad at …” Hina murmured, her voice rasping through a dry throat.
She was still holding Kouhei’s hand.
The warmth had long left it, and yet, she clung to it as though her love alone could coax the life back into his fingers.
Sowhere along the way, she must’ve fallen asleep.
Despite being a succubus—a creature of the night—her body wasn’t invincible.
It craved sleep, craved the stillness of unconsciousness.
That constant self-denial had slowly chipped away at her stamina. Eventually, while she sat there, staring at his face, fingers interlaced with his, her body had surrendered to exhaustion.
“Kouhei…” she whispered again.
His na slipped from her lips like a prayer.
It wasn’t just a na. It was a piece of her soul. A thread that had stitched her heart together.
The man she had loved with everything she had. The first… and the last person she would ever offer her entire self to.
And now, that person…
Was gone.
Forever.
Ripped away from her.
Stolen by fate, or perhaps, by sothing crueler.
He was beyond her reach now.
No longer soone she could touch, laugh with, or whisper to in the quiet monts between dawn and dusk.
“I miss you…” she choked out, tears streaming freely once again as her shoulders trembled.
Only seven days had passed. Just a week.
But already, it felt like a lifeti without him.
No—even just the first day had been enough to send her spiraling.
One day without his smile, his voice, his warmth… it was more tornt than she could bear.
“Please… co back to … I want you back… Please…” she sobbed, her voice cracking as her entire body quivered.
She pressed her forehead against the back of his hand, tears staining his cold skin.
And then—
A sudden jolt.
She felt it.
His hand.
It squeezed hers.
Firmly. Deliberately.
It was subtle—so faint it could’ve been imagined—but it was there.
That couldn’t be real. It shouldn’t have been real.
Her heart pounded, adrenaline spiking so sharply it stole the air from her lungs.
Maybe it was a hallucination.
A trick her mind was playing on her after days without sleep.
Maybe it was the madness of grief creeping in.
But it didn’t feel like a lie.
It felt real.
And with that tiny spark of sensation—hope surged violently through her veins, tearing through her despair like wildfire.
Her body bolted upright, eyes wide with shock, disbelief, and sothing else she hadn’t felt in days.
Hope.
“Kouhei!!”
I really feel like shit now, tbh
Reviews
All reviews (0)