Roberta Rose/ Empress Social Link/ Afterschool in the Library "A Patchwork Hatchling"

Roberta sat alone in the corner of the library. The literature club meeting had concluded for about an hour now, and again Roberta hadn't seen a single soul present in the library. She merely sat there, quietly reading her book, waiting for it's usual invisible members to arrive. This week the ink printed on the hard covers clasped in between her fingers was named "Patchwork Hatchling". A dispiriting tale of how a young boy was hated by his peers. He had played a practical joke on one of them, a simple emulation of the sense of humor that he had thought was socially acceptable. This joke however seemed to have gone to far, and as the days past he began to feel the atmosphere in the halls he trudged change in it's colors. 'Rather perhaps it was that he saw the carefully placed veil others used to protect from hurting his feelings slowly fray once others saw no need for it'.

She liked the story. The tale was strange and meaningless. The challenges the child faced were benign and harmless. It was a welcome break from the tumultuous daily routine of scolding ambitious fellows and flirtatious young ladies from wasting the opportunities they had in life in favor of a rush of libido. She'd read this tale many times before mulling over the not so subtle symbolism. Regardless of each effort she made however, Roberta failed to grasp the meaning behind the books title.

Rui needed something from the library. He tried not to go there too often. The Literature Club briefly used it as its meeting place, but Rui simply caused too much noise for the librarian on duty to tolerate. And so, she helped the Literature Club acquire a real, respectable clubroom.

Rui took this as a lesson that one way to succeed in life was to irritate people until you got what you wanted. It reminded him of an English catchphrase - "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." Namely, he was finished with the manga he had checked out and he was going to check out a bunch of new manga to read during class.

He had located a bunch of appropriate manga. A bloody vampire yaoi, an isekai girl's fantasy manga, and a delinquent comedy manga, when he realized there was no librarian. In fact, there was no one else in the library except a girl sitting alone by herself. With no librarian, he just decided to leave the library with the books, without checking them out. He thought by worming around the side of the entrance checker, he would prevent an alarm from going on.

That was not to be. There was apparently a sensor on the side, and the alarm started blaring right as he tried to worm around the sensor machine. "Uh, whoops."

Roberta slammed the book in her hands shut. She immediately jumped out of her chair and formed into a sprinting position on the ground, before firmly pushing off with her left foot. As she did, she cleverly zipped through tables towards the stunned book thief. Her pursuit was a short lived endeavor, she barely felt the ground on her feet before she jumped. Roberta landed on the book thief, and attempting to wrangle the book from their hands. She wondered if she should call the police, or if she should hear out the child first.

"Ha. Thought you could get away with theft now did you? Good thing those sensors are double sided."

She then looked to the books that the young woman was carrying. The image of a two pale entities of the male persuasion reminiscent of vampires was plastered on one book. On another, the image of a pair of twins carrying what appeared to be magic wands. On the third, a strange boy who needed better dressing practices was kicking in the face of a younger heavier set student, no doubt bullying him. Roberta doubted that the person needed any of these books. They were all from the manga section, those books very rarely told poignant stories.

"Why did you try to take these books?"

Rui was a little confused at first. Theft? Why would anyone want to steal a book? Rui could certainly understand borrowing a book, but actually wanting to keep a book after being finished with it? In that sense, Rui simply did not immediately think of books as a commodity that one would want to own or take away from another person.

Thus, from his perspective, it seemed utterly bizarre that someone had tackled him out of the blue. As a result, his first conclusion was that the girl simply naturally liked tackling people. His distant second conclusion, was that something about him was just naturally appealing to those who might tackle others.

As a result, he didn't actually respond as much to being tackled. If the girl liked tackling, it was best not to fight her natural urges.

"...take? Huh? Like an endangered animal?" He remembered a detailed statute in some country about what it meant to exactly "take" an endangered animal. It came up in a real estate transaction. So that was the immediate connection he made. He did not explain this reasoning.

His eyes then fell upon the the image of two pale entities reminiscent of vampires embracing each other in a very suggestive manner, one of them biting into the other's shoulder/neck.

"Also, you know, when I look at the vampire yaoi here, we're kinda in the same pose. Well, except you're not biting me. Yet."

Rui looked back from the manga and again towards the tackler, "...do you want to try?"

Luckily for Roberta, the biting vampire on the manga cover was the one on top (the so-called "seme"), so it wasn't really possible for Rui to unilaterally complete the imitation of the cover.