Café Vinyl, a place that has become quite common for DJ units to come and visit, either to just take a cup of coffee to celebrating repeated birthdays, it's truly the meeting spot to chill at.

Recently, a male second year by the name of Tamaki Murata has begun working part time there, just so he can get some extra money in order to be able to always buy the latest manga.

Right now, he has just wrapped up his shift for the day, and has sat down to re-read a tankōbon of one of his favorite manga series, when he suddenly hears someone step inside.

He ignores it, before someone familiar calls to him.

"Tamaki! I knew you would be here~!"

Tamaki looks up from the tankōbon and sees that girl.

The very cute, but very mischievous, girl from Arisugawa Academy, Kurumi Shiratori.

"I just got off work, so if you want to have coffee, just go ask Ryujin or Airi-"

"Wow, are you already so close to them that you call them by their first names? Or are you just being so casual like usual~?"

"Just forget it, I just want to read my stuff here in peace before you begin pulling another prank on me!"

"That's no way of talking to a girl from a rich school~"

"You don't act rich."

"Exactly! I want to do what I like, but either Haruna discovers what I am about to do or the others in the student council comes to stop me!"

Kurumi shivers a little from fear.

"Huuh, scary girls..!"

"Surprised someone intimidates you out there." Tamaki says as he smirks at Kurumi, who pouts in return.

"That won't stop me though! Not even Hiiro will stop me!"

"Oh yeeeah, she is a bit immune to your pranks last time you and Miiko tried, huh~?"

"Unfair, unfair! One day, Murata Tamaki, I will show you that I can prank anyone and everyone, just so I can make their lives maybe just a bit more fun!"

"Yet you use your worse pranks against me, I am not gonna fall for that Rube Goldberg machine you somehow managed to do while I was at break."

"Mmmm, bummer!" Kurumi pouts before getting a smug look on her face.

"However, perhaps I can compensate for the recent wet pants prank~?" She asks Tamaki, who rolls his eyes before hearing her out.

"So I decided to look by the book store before getting here, and I found a volume 1 tankōbon of Soul Eater that you have said you have wanted to start reading for so long!"

"N-No way!"

"Yes way!" Kurumi replies as she brings it out from under her skirt and reaches it out Tamaki, who looks at her in disbelief.

"Why would you-"

"Come on now, you shouldn't question were a woman stores her belongings~"

Being smug as usual, Tamaki just ignores it and finally takes the tankōbon of her hands, before he discovers something...

"YOU GLUED THE PAGES TOGETHER?!"

"And here you trusted me for a moment that it wouldn't be a prank~!" Kurumi playfully tells Tamaki as he stands up from his chair while not taking his sight off her.

"Oh now you are getting it..!"

"E-Eh, wait, you wouldn't actually punch someone over a manga, would you now?!"

"Who said I can't?"

"Eep!"

Kurumi begins running out from the café with Tamaki soon following, ready to throw the glued up book in his hand.

"COME BACK HERE, SHIRATORI KURUMI!" He yells out after the girl as they continue running down the street and into the nearby park.

But as it turns out, this was part of Kurumi's prank as well, and as they run between some trees, she skips a little, before Tamaki runs into the thin and basically invisible tripwire, before falling onto the soft grass.

"Hehe, I knew you would get mad~"

"Screw you..." Tamaki says as he weakily throws the book at Kurumi, with it barely hitting her.

He soon sits up and Kurumi sits next to him, picking up the glued book.

"If it makes you happier..." Kurumi begins as she begins peeling away what turns out to be a fake front and back cover, "...It's actually a tankōbon of Rent-A-Girlfriend~!"

"No way you spent money on this crap..."

"Hmm, I thought guys liked these kinda manga~? You know, getting to have a harem of cute girls-"

"Well I don't care about having a relationship while in high school, thank you." Tamaki replies as he falls onto his back on the grass looking up at the afternoon sky.

"And that's why you are a fun guy to be around!" Kurumi replies as she also falls back on the grass.

"What, because I am not someone that is desperate to be touched 24/7?"

"You could say it like that."

"Well, I mean it's not like I am opposed to being in a relationship, but for now high school and later on college will kinda eat up on our time as teenagers and young adults."

"School is a bore though..."

"Can't disagree with that."

They both laugh together before Kurumi takes something out of her school bag and lays it on Tamaki's belly.

"I did actually buy the first volume of Soul Eater for you, hehe~"

"Oh you..."

Tamaki picks it up and begins reading it immediately, until a photo falls out from it as he flips to next page.

"Huh?" He says in confusion before he picks it up and looks at it, before getting red in the face. "HUH?!"

Because on the photo, it's Kurumi, but she is in a swimsuit at a beach.

"Oops, so that's were it was~"

"K-Kurumi, why would you go through the effort of having a physical photo??"

"I think you are able to save memories better having physical photos rather than having them being digital and possibly disappear if something happens to your phone!"

"Cloud services though..?"

"Hmph, even so!"

"Okay boomer."

Tamaki looks at the photo again, before he suddenly has some certain thoughts seeing Kurumi in a swimsuit.

"Do you like my swimsuit there~?"

"Wha? I mean... Yeah, you do look nice in it-"

"Oh my, do you have other thoughts as well seeing it~?"

"None of your business-"

"So you do-!"

"Hush!"

Kurumi just giggles as she lays back down on the grass while Tamaki, still red, just puts the photo back into the book.

"...You know, I am surprised we have already known each other pretty well for quite some time now, right at the beginning of this year when we experienced the last of being freshmen before becoming juniors back in March."

"It still feels weird to be called a senpai, but it's fun nonetheless!"

"Is it weird because you still look like an adorable freshman student?"

"Hey!"

"Kidding, kidding."

"You called me adorable though, I like that~"

"Noa does so as well, does she not?"

"But she does it in such an obsessive way, it's better when you call me cute or adorable!"

"Then I won't do that anymore."

"If not I will do the 'peed yourself' prank on you again!"

"You won't."

"I will!"

"Nuh uh."

"Yuh uh!"

It soon just turned into them nodding/shaking their heads at each other before giving up and deeming it a tie.

The sky begins getting darker, so they decide it's better to start moving home, until...

"Crap, I still have my school bag at Café Vinyl!"

"E-Eh, I thought you at least would leave it at home before going to work!"

"No, I always go at once after school to Vinyl, I just have never walked out it without my school bag like this!"

"Oh shoot, this is my fault..!"

"N-No, I am sure I can solve it, I can just call Airi or Ryujin... Actually I will just go for calling the latter.

"Why not Airi?"

"Because she has a thing for me-"

"HUUUUH?!" Kurumi suddenly yells out in disbelief.

"What do you mean she has a thing for you?! Do you feel the same back for her after all this time?!"

"Kurumi, chill! It's not that deep, it's just that she has teased me at times, but she doesn't do any advantages or such."

"Good because that would be very, very illegal! I would call the police at her at once-"

"There you go again, I appreciate you don't want Airi to be creepy with me, but nothing else happens between her and me, so it's whatever."

"Gee, you had me so worried..!" Kurumi says while pouting and teary eyes.

"That's unusual of you-"

"Everyone is worried for their friends, right?!"

"Ah true, I do get worried about you that Haruna might be too harsh with you at times."

"R-Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Hehe, I see-"

"By the way, you don't have a crush on me, do you?"

"WHAT?!"

"I am just asking, it's better to be straight forward about it."

Kurumi is extremely red now in her face, completely at a loss of words of what to say next.

"I'm just kidding, Kurumi. I know you are just messing around with me." Tamaki tells her as she is still red before finally taking a breath and exhaling.

"You shouldn't ask girls those sort of questions!"

"Well, I am just treating my friends equally, I talk to you like I talk to my male friends, though of course there are topics we can't discuss too much about with each other."

"Like the birds and bees~"

"Oi!"

Kurumi just giggles in response before getting her composure back.

"Anyway, I will be calling Ryujin to see if he can come by and just quickly unlock the café for me to fetch my bag."

"Okeeey, then I'll see tomorrow~!"

"Why tomorrow again?"

"Come on now, we see each other every day at this point!"

"Not when you have practice with Lyrical Lily."

"...Well, either way, I still see you basically every day, so see ya tomorrow!"

Kurumi soon walks away while Tamaki brings out his phone, but Ryujin calls him first.

"Hello?"

"Hey there, Tamaki! You forgot your school bag, so I fetched it for you so you can come by my home and pick it up!"

"You call me now about it..?"

"Sorry about that, I sort of forgot to call you, you seemed to be busy with Miss Shiratori."

"I guess I kinda were... But anyway, I will come by as soon as possible."

"See you!"

Getting his school bag back, it was time for him to head home, just in time for dinner.

"Hey Tamaki, you came late home today. They didn't overwork you did they now?" His mom asks, but he shakes his head before replying.

"Not at all, just were hanging out with a friend of mine after work."

"That's good! I just don't want you to overwork yourself this early on..."

"Listen to your mom, my boy." Tamaki's dad says as he comes out from the living room to help set the table.

"I know, I know, don't worry, I will say in case they overwork me too much."

"Always do that, people overwork themselves too much in this damn country." His dad says as they all begin to eat.

The rest of the night goes well, until Tamaki hears something against his window, and once he opens it, a pebble flies into his forehead.

"Oww, what the hell?!"

"Oops, sorry!" A familiar voice says as Tamaki looks down at the street.

"Kurumi? What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was actually meant to give you another volume of Soul Eater, but I forgot!"

"So you gonna pull that out from under your skirt again or what?"

"You're so dirty..."

"But you did do that with that copy of Rent-A-Girlfriend earlier today!"

"Oh yeah, did you keep it?"

"Maybe, I don't know-"

"Well, keep it, would probably be the closest you touch another girl's body~"

"And here you say I'm dirty..." Tamaki replies, before coming down and outside.

Kurumi hands over the tankōbon to Takami, happy over that he can keep on reading even after finishing the first volume.

"Well, guess we say our goodbyes once again, and see you tomorrow, Kurumi."

"Yeah we will!"

Though during the night, something peculiar enters the atmosphere, having emerged from something bright up in the sky.

It crashes in a park in the dead silence of the night.

"I never want us to slingshot like that ever again!"

"We had to in order to jump to a whole new reality, you bird brained idiot!"

"But we are both bird brained..."

"Shut up. Now, to find those two you said would be a suitable pair to test our newest invention on before we try to get back at the doctor!"

"Right! Ahem, their names are Kurumi Shiratori and Tamaki Murata."

"Are we in Japan out of all countries?? Eh, never mind that, for now we have to lay low until the morning, and we will find our subjects..!"

The following day, Tamaki is in school like usual, before he heads to Café Vinyl for his part time job.

"Seems like we came at the same time!"

"Hello Kurumi-"

"Mmm, why not a different kind of greeting, just between us two!"

"Why?"

"Because it would be fun!"

"Mmm, nah."

"Bummer..." Kurumi says in a sad tone as she pouts.

But just as they are about to enter, they both jump from a loud sound coming from behind them, before...

*SNAP*

"Huh, what the?!"

"Is this a handcuff?!"

Around Tamaki's right wrist and Kurumi's left, something that looks like a handcuff is around it and is firmly in place, while a barely visible line of energy connects the cuffs together.

"Is this some sort of sick joke..?"

"You could say that!" A voice suddenly shouts and the two turns around, and see two twin anthromorphic birds that are rather short and sitting in hovering chairs.

"As if Lumina being an actual robot wasn't enough, now we have ugly birds." Tamaki says as the bird that spoke to them slams his fist down on his seat.

"Pesky human, we are much more powerful than you can imagine! We were able to slingshot to this reality after our humiliating defeat back in our own reality!"

"It was just a miracle we got out of that wretched bandicoot..."

"Alright, can you two just shut up and tells us why you have stuck me and my friend together like this??"

"Friiiend??" The first twin says as he looks at his brother.

"But I swear I saw them fighting in the rift screen!"

"Dang it! Nonetheless, you two shall be the subjects of our little 'game'..!"

"I like playing games!"

"Kurumi, the games they want to do is probably not what you are used to-"

Before Tamaki could finish, the first twin shoots with a laser into the ground.

"Enjoy the new world, kiddos! HAHAHAHAHA!!"

"What the! HOLD ON, KURUMI!"

"It's so bright, too bright! TAMAKI!"

The bright light soon fades, and the twins are gone, but Kurumi is the first one to realize something...

"E-Eh, we're out of Tokyo, and where even are we?!"

"Shit, I think we have gotten pranked harder than you have ever done yet to anyone, Kurumi..."

-To Be Continued-