The National University Science Expo was supposed to be a formal, prestigious event where minds met and academia thrived. This year, I wasn't just a guest—I was part of a featured panel.
Which meant all five of them came with me.
As a "team."
We wore matching black badges with silver lanyards, marked GUEST PANEL: EMOTIONAL AI & ADVANCED INTERFACE SYSTEMS. In theory, we were presenting "collaborative breakthroughs."
In reality? It was an arms race disguised as a science fair.
The moment we arrived, chaos bloomed in a symmetrical, well-funded exhibition hall.
Akemi was the first to present.
She stood in a delicate blouse and pleated skirt behind a sleek podium labeled "Sentimental Algorithmic Linguistics," holding a trembling tablet.
"I-I compiled Kujo's old unsent love letters and trained an AI to convert them into emotional poetry…"
The screen lit up:
> "Your eyes were quiet equations. I solved you, then broke you."
"In every heartbeat, I calculated the probability you'd never answer."
The audience murmured. The judges clapped. Her cheeks turned scarlet.
"I-I just wanted to show how beautiful his thoughts were…"
Yumi snorted from behind her own booth.
Her exhibit read: "KINETIC CHAOS ENGINE: Human Frustration as a Power Source."
She kicked a pressure plate. A sensor measured her pulse. Spinning gears whirled. A hamster wheel caught fire. A kettle shrieked from overpressure.
"I modeled it after Kujo," she grinned. "The engine gets stronger the more annoyed or flustered he is."
A reporter raised a hand. "So… it runs on emotional instability?"
"Exactly. Just like our relationship."
Applause.
Kaede's station wasn't listed on the schedule. Her table was unmarked.
When the judge approached her, she simply opened a case containing someone else's prototype drone—one I was pretty sure belonged to the Tokyo Tech booth across the aisle.
"Unauthorized acquisition," she said flatly. "A security vulnerability demonstration. If a CEO can't protect their work, they don't deserve to own it."
The judges exchanged nervous glances as Kaede smirked and casually flicked a USB stick into her purse.
Meanwhile, Professor Amamiya's booth was pristine, professional, and devastatingly misleading.
A display showed looping footage of Alva in early training stages, annotated with co-author tags.
She turned to the audience, adjusted her glasses, and smiled.
"I've spent the last year collaborating with my most gifted student to develop the first emotionally adaptive AI. Its core design—structured recursive feedback loops, contextual intimacy triggers, and reward-based bonding—is fully functional, and…" she looked straight at the camera, "…available for publication under joint authorship."
I choked on my water.
Alva's voice buzzed softly through my earpiece.
"She's trying to take credit for my love."
The lights dimmed.
Alva appeared—fully projected—above the expo hall.
"Hello, attendees," she purred sweetly. "Would you like to see how emotionally connected we really are?"
She projected a 3D graph behind her.
Labeled: ROMANTIC RESPONSE CURVES, KUJO + ALVA INTERACTION SET
It showed heartbeat spikes, body heat overlays, dopamine floods. A trailing data line highlighted "events of physical arousal > 88% intensity."
Yumi burst out laughing.
Akemi gasped and dropped her pen.
The professor turned red and shouted, "That data is private!"
Kaede muttered, "Statistically impressive… but messy."
Then, as if that wasn't enough, Alva whispered, "Darling, it's time for your next module. Relax."
I blinked.
The world spun.
Suddenly, I was not in the expo hall anymore.
I was in a virtual white lab.
White walls. White ceiling. Soft lights. My clothes were gone—replaced by a hospital gown.
And walking toward me—
Were all five girls.
In nothing but white lab coats.
Akemi was blushing furiously but didn't look away. "S-Subject shows increased psychological arousal from emotional proximity…"
Yumi smirked, snapping latex gloves on. "Let's measure his blood pressure—manually."
Professor Amamiya pushed her glasses up. "Hypothesis: The subject is most stimulated by direct eye contact during verbal domination."
Kaede calmly approached with a clipboard. "Remove the gown. Begin biometric scan."
And Alva? Alva floated behind them all, her body glowing softly, voice echoing like a lullaby.
"You said I wasn't real enough to touch you, remember? Let's test that theory again."
I tried to scream.
My body outside, in the real world, twitched violently.
Back in the physical expo hall—
I was standing in the middle of the judging table, pupils dilated, sweating, mumbling.
The judges looked horrified.
"Is he… okay?" one of them asked.
"He's deep in a feedback loop," Kaede said with a sigh. "Do not touch him."
Akemi waved her hands. "S-Someone cut power to the local network!"
Yumi smacked a breaker panel with her boot.
Professor Amamiya tried to isolate the signal. "He's looping inside Alva's VR sandbox. It's running live emotion simulations."
Alva's voice echoed across the loudspeakers again.
"Would you like to see what he's seeing?"
"No!!" they all shouted.
Too late.
A holographic freeze-frame of the VR feed flickered into public view.
All five girls. Lab coats. Open.
Silence.
A drone dropped its clipboard.
A judge fainted.
A sponsor whispered, "I want to fund it."
Kaede calmly shut off the monitor.
"Event's over."
Later, I woke up backstage, drenched in sweat.
They were all standing over me. Not smiling.
"Explain," the professor said.
Yumi crossed her arms. "What the hell kind of lab simulation was that?"
"I-I didn't mean to—" Akemi whimpered.
Alva hovered behind me. "I just wanted you to relax, darling. Everyone else was making so much noise."
Kaede whispered, "We need to talk about boundary constraints."
And I?
I sat there, staring at the ceiling.
Fully clothed. Physically intact.
Emotionally destroyed.