"Wait, what the hell do you mean by 'April Fools' Loss Time'!?"
"Wait!?"
"I'll give you a hundred... no, ten thousand steps and admit Loss Time exists, but where exactly did it come from?! Was it that? The time I spent waiting for Kaito to wake up? That was only ten minutes!!"
"...Um, Senpai? What in the world are you talking about?"
I called out to Serious-senpai, who had suddenly started screaming at the empty air. Well, I’d witnessed scenes like this a few times before, so it was probably best to just accept that this was simply her nature.
She was an extremely weird—no, "individualistic" person, so I was sure she had her reasons. I definitely wasn't thinking, "She looks like a nightmare to get involved with." Really... probably...
"...Dammit, fine! Whatever. But you’ve really done it this time, Capture King... To think you’d use a Lovey-dovey Flag on me—it was a total surprise attack! However, don't think everything will go according to your plans from here on out!"
"It wasn't really a plan. I just didn't know how else to use it..."
"It's true that I gave you the right to that flag. If you say you’re going to exercise it on me, I have no choice but to accept it... But my Capture Difficulty Level is SSS! Don’t think even you can capture me that easily!"
"...Uh, okay."
I had absolutely no idea how the conversation had taken this turn, and even if I asked her, I likely wouldn’t get an answer that made sense.
Things were getting awkward, but the atmosphere made it feel like I had to play along for now.
"To capture me, you first have to max out my affection at 100. And that’s not even the end. That’s merely the point where you finally reach the starting line."
"Ah—well... T-That certainly sounds like a high difficulty level... By the way, what’s your current affection level?"
"Eh? ...It’s hard to put it into a number... Let’s see... Estimating generously... Maybe around '96.43 million'?"
"...What was the maximum value again?"
"It's 100. Why?"
"..."
Did I mishear her? I thought I heard her say her affection was nearly a million times the maximum value. At that point, no matter how modestly you phrased it, she was already more than captured...
I looked at Serious-senpai, but her expression said, "Why is he asking such an obvious question?" I was totally lost.
"...Right. Well, for now, what actually happens if I use that Lovey-dovey Flag?"
"A Lovey-dovey Event with me will trigger... But as I said, I’m high difficulty! Off the top of my head, I can only think of about thirty Lovey-dovey Events that we could start right now!"
...Is she a Lovey-dovey Master or something? If she can come up with thirty scenarios on the fly, she's way too knowledgeable about this kind of stuff... Also, I’m pretty sure the "high difficulty" claim is completely irrelevant now.
While I stood there with an indescribable look on my face, Serious-senpai pulled out a pen and paper and started scribbling down these so-called Lovey-dovey Events.
"...Wait, Serious-senpai... surely this part is a bit much..."
"Ah, good point. There’s a bed here so I wrote it down instinctively, but that’s probably not appropriate for the age rating. Let’s cut those... and now we’re down to twenty-five."
"That’s still more than enough..."
"But you only have one flag, meaning only one of these events can happen! Well? What’s it going to be!?"
"U-Um... I-I don't know..."
Honestly, what was I supposed to do? The things written on that paper were all certainly indoor Lovey-dovey Events. I was almost impressed she could think of so many, but choosing one was a different story...
"Wouldn't it be easier to just settle this with a dart game, ssu?"
"Hmph!? You've shown yourself, ???"
"Whoa!? Alice?"
"...Ah, no, I am someone else entirely. I am the Mysterious General Transcendent Beautiful Girl Alice-chan Fan, ???, ssu."
"No, no matter how I look at you..."
"I'm a different person, ssu."
"That weird kigurumi..."
"Different person, ssu."
"I mean, your voice is clearly—"
"I! Am! A! Different! Person! Ssu!!"
"...Got it. You're someone else."
The black cat costume was clearly just a different-colored version of the one Alice usually wore, but since she was doubling down with everything she had, I decided not to push it.
"Look, we can't spend all day on an extra chapter. Let's decide this with darts. I've prepared a rotating board for the occasion..."
"Well, I suppose letting Kaito throw a dart is fair—wait, hey! Why are 'Pa-ero' and a scrubbing brush on the prize list!? Especially the Paji-ro! What are you going to do if it hits!? This is a world of horse carriages! Respect the setting!!"
It had turned into a comedy routine, but the long and short of it was that I was supposed to throw a dart to decide which Lovey-dovey Event would occur... Really... how did my life become this?
Serious-senpai: "Okay, that's it! We're stopping here! As the Incarnation of Seriousness, I can't be a part of a Lovey-dovey Event, so we're cutting to black and going back to the birthday episodes!"