Kaito looked at the notification blinking in his vision. [OBJECTIVE UPDATED: Make verbal contact with Mai Sakurajima!].
He looked at Fia. The goddess was squirming beside him, looking like a chihuahua in an earthquake, whisper-shouting: "Go! Go talk to her! Kaito! The mission! The quantum bunnies!"
Kaito ignored her.
Walk over there. Introduce himself. Start a dialogue. Explain the situation. Listen to her emotional problems. This was a cascade of unwanted effort. An avalanche of problematic social interactions.
His gaze, instead, swept the library. A few meters away, there was an empty oak study table, conveniently positioned along the path Mai Sakurajima was using for her invisible patrol.
Efficiency.
"What... what are you doing?" Fia hissed, following Kaito as he moved, not toward Mai, but toward the chair.
"Seat tactic," he murmured, pulling the heavy wooden chair.
The sound of the wood dragging on the polished floor echoed lightly in the library's silence. Several students looked up from their books, frowning at Kaito, before returning to what was, undoubtedly, more interesting.
Mai Sakurajima, however, did not react. She was used to the world making noise around her without recognizing her.
"Seat tactic?" Fia repeated, her voice rising an octave. "That's not a tactic! The mission..."
"Shhh," Kaito hissed, finally sitting down.
He positioned himself perfectly. The chair was perhaps a meter and a half from Mai's patrol route. She was walking in a loop, from the information desk to the history section and back. She would pass by him in... three... two...
"Kaito, this is ridiculous! You have to get up and..."
Kaito didn't even bother to look at Fia. He stared into nothingness, with an expression of deep boredom, and casually stuck out his right foot, clad in its worn-out gray sneaker, directly in her path.
"If she trips," he explained softly, as if speaking to a slow student, "she'll make noise. She'll probably fall. And she'll definitely get angry. She'll yell at me. 'Verbal contact.' Mission complete."
The logic was so lazy it was almost brilliant.
Fia opened her mouth to protest the cruelty and sheer stupidity of that plan, but it was too late.
Mai was approaching.
She walked with a fluid grace, even in the latex outfit. Her eyes were fixed ahead, a mask of cold defiance and loneliness. She saw the apathetic student sitting in the chair. She saw the pink goddess vibrating next to him (although Fia was, to her, just a blur of strange energy she couldn't focus on).
And she saw his foot, stuck out pathetically in her path.
A flash of surprise flickered in her eyes, quickly replaced by a deep, icy irritation. This boy. He wasn't just looking at her—which was already strange enough—he was trying to interact in the most childish and pathetic way possible.
Kaito waited for the impact, the trip, the cry of surprise.
None of it happened.
What happened was a sudden and precise shift of weight. Mai didn't trip. She didn't even break her stride. She simply adjusted her trajectory by a single centimeter, lifted her foot clad in a pointed, black high heel, and brought it down.
Hard.
CRUNCH.
Kaito's world, once defined by a dull gray, exploded into a white supernova of agonizing pain.
He didn't scream. He didn't curse. His entire nervous system short-circuited. He choked, a sharp, pathetic sound that died in his throat. The pain was unbelievable. The stiletto heel seemed to have pierced the leather of his sneaker and was now grinding the delicate metatarsal bones of his foot.
He could feel every pound of pressure she was applying.
"Ow," he managed to whisper, his eyes widening for the first time in years.
The entire library disappeared. There was only the pain.
[System Warning: Physical Damage detected!] [-15 HP!]
"Useless," Kaito growled at the system.
Mai Sakurajima stopped, her foot still firmly planted on Kaito's, applying a subtle but torturous pressure. She leaned in, her long dark hair falling over her shoulder. She was close enough that he could smell the faint scent of expensive perfume.
Her voice was low, cold, and crystal clear.
"You can see me, can't you?"
[OBJECTIVE UPDATED: Verbal Contact Established!] [Reward: +100 Bond Points, +10 Affinity (Mai Sakurajima)]
"This... doesn't feel... like affinity..." Kaito choked out, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Kaito! You did it!" Fia celebrated beside him, completely oblivious to his agony. "The mission was a success! She's talking to you! And you gained affinity! The System says she likes you!"
"She's... breaking... my foot," he replied, his voice strained.
Mai raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. She looked at Kaito, then at the empty space where Fia was vibrating. "Talking to yourself? Is that part of your fetish?"
She applied more pressure. Kaito bit his lip to keep from screaming.
"Trying to trip a bunny girl in a library," Mai continued, her voice still dangerously calm, "What kind of low-level pervert are you?"
The pain was excruciating. The "minimum effort" plan had resulted in "maximum damage." This was what he got for trying to interact with the universe. The universe, as always, responded with pain and inconvenience.
He needed her to get her foot off of him. Now. But she was in control, and they both knew it.
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