My Romance Life System

"So like I was saying, that Renji character is completely useless, all he does is loss and spam-" Nina gets cut off.

"Excuse me."

They turned around and it was a girl from the student council. she was staring right at Kofi. "sorry to disturb your morning but the principal would like a word with you."

Kofi was confused, 'The principal? what the hell did I do?'

Nina's easygoing smile vanished. Her hand shot out and grabbed his arm.

"What does he want with you?" she asked, her voice low and suspicious. "It was Jessica, wasn't it? That witch probably ran to her daddy, and now he's called the principal."

The student council girl, who looked like she ran on a diet of rules and regulations, gave Nina a disapproving frown. "The principal did not specify the reason. He just said it was urgent. Please follow me, Dameire."

He looked from the student council girl's impassive face to Nina's worried one. He gave Nina's hand a small, reassuring squeeze.

"It's fine. Probably just a follow-up about Thea. I'll see you later."

"No way," she shot back, not letting go of his arm. "I'm coming with you. Pillar contract, section C, subsection 4: 'Moral support during bureaucratic interrogations.'"

"That is not in the contract."

"It is now. I just added it."

The student council girl let out an impatient sigh. "Only Kofi Dameire was summoned."

He gently detached his arm from her grip. "Seriously, it's okay. Go to class. I'll text you if they're planning to send me to a gulag."

She hesitated, her eyes still narrowed with suspicion, but she finally relented with a frustrated huff. "Fine. But if you're not out in fifteen minutes, I'm staging a rescue mission. And it will be loud."

She gave him one last worried look before turning and walking toward the classroom, leaving him alone with the harbinger of administrative doom.

He followed the student council girl down the hallway, still confused on why he was being called. He looked at the council girl. "So... how is council work going?"

She looked at him for a bit, surprised by his forwardness. "It's an honor to be part of the council, we uphold peace and rules throughout the school."

'Riiiiight, pretty shitty job so far.'

He decided to try a different approach, a little bit of his own awkward charm, because what else did he have?

"So, any idea what this 'urgent' thing is about? Is the school on fire? Did someone finally replace the water in the fountains with soda?"

She did not even crack a smile. Her focus remained fixed on the hallway, a perfect model of unwavering, humorless dedication.

"I am not privy to the details of the principal's agenda. My directive was to escort you to his office. That is the extent of my involvement."

'It's like talking to a robot. A very polite, rule-abiding robot.'

He continued trying to talk to her. It was a valiant, if completely hopeless, effort.

"So, the school trip is next week. Are you excited? I hear the barbecue is legendary."

The student council girl didn't even turn her head. Her gaze remained fixed on the end of the hallway as if it were the finish line of a race she was determined to win.

"I will be attending in my official capacity as a student council representative to ensure all activities adhere to the school's code of conduct."

And with that, the conversation died a sad, lonely death on the hallway floor. Honestly, you'd have more fun talking to the fire extinguisher.

'Right. Of course, she is.'

They finally arrived at the main office. The student council girl gave a crisp, perfect nod to the secretary, her mission complete, and then pivoted on her heel and marched away, probably to go file a report on the proper procedure for walking down a hallway.

The secretary just pointed toward the principal's door.

"He's waiting for you."

He walked in, the door closing behind him. The principal was sitting behind his large, imposing desk, looking as tired as ever. But he was not alone.

Sitting in the other chair, the one Kofi was about to take, was a woman he had never seen before. She was dressed in a simple, professional suit and had a briefcase resting by her feet. She looked… official.

And just like that, the day went from 'mildly annoying administrative summons' to 'oh crap, this is serious'.

"Kofi. Thank you for coming so quickly," the principal said, his voice lacking its usual edge of administrative weariness. "Please, have a seat. This is Ms. Albright. She's from Child Protective Services."

'CPS? Already? What the hell, why is she at school?'

He sat, his body moving on autopilot. He looked from the principal's serious face to the woman's calm, unreadable one. Ms. Albright offered him a small, professional smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Kofi," she started, her voice calm. "Principal Joseph has told me a great deal about the situation regarding Thea. I also have the report from her doctor. It seems you've been instrumental in helping her."

"I just did what anyone would have."

'Which is apparently a lie, because no one else did anything.'

"Not everyone would, I assure you," she said, her gaze steady. "What you did was brave. And it has brought Thea's situation to our attention much faster than it would have been otherwise. We've already opened an emergency case."

The principal leaned forward, steepling his fingers on the desk. "Ms. Albright came here this morning to speak with Thea's teachers. The reports… they paint a very clear picture of long-term neglect. Paired with what happened at the hospital and your own testimony about her living conditions, we have enough to act immediately."

"Act how?"

This was the part where they were going to tell him it was out of his hands, that the adults were taking over. He braced himself for it.

"Normally," Ms. Albright said, opening her briefcase and pulling out a folder, "we would place a child in Thea's situation into an emergency foster home while we conduct a full investigation into her guardian. However, the doctor's report mentioned a… unique alternative."

She looked directly at him, and her professional mask slipped for just a second, revealing a flicker of genuine curiosity.

"He said you offered to take her in."

Kofi's heart suddenly went still.

"He also said you live alone, and that your parents have given their consent for this temporary arrangement."

"They have."

"This is a highly unorthodox situation. I've been a social worker for fifteen years, and I have never seen anything quite like it." She looked down at the file in her hands, then back at him. "We have a fourteen-year-old girl who has been abandoned by her legal guardian, and the only viable, immediate option for a safe home is with a sixteen-year-old boy she barely knows."

She let the absurdity of the sentence hang in the air.

"I know this is an unprecedented situation," she continued, her voice even. "Putting a minor in the care of another minor is not something we do. It is, for all intents and purposes, against the rules."

Principal Joseph leaned forward, his own expression grim. "But we also have a situation where the rules have failed. Thea has been falling through the cracks of every system that was supposed to protect her, our school included."

'Look at him, acting like he didn't allow that shit to happen.' Kofi looked at the principal with a hateful look, that the cps worker noticed.

"So we have a proposal," Ms. Albright said, folding her hands on top of the file. "A way to make this… unorthodox arrangement more stable. A way to give Thea the best possible chance."

She paused, looking from the principal back to Kofi, her gaze steady and serious.

"We would like to ask you, with your parents' full consent, of course, if you would be willing to formally take her in. Not just as a temporary roommate, but as a foster sibling."

The white noise in his brain turned into the high-pitched shriek of a fire alarm.

'Eh?'

They were asking a sixteen-year-old boy who, until recently, considered cooking scrambled eggs a major life achievement, to adopt a sister.

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He looked from Ms. Albright to the principal, searching for any sign that this was a very, very strange joke. He found none. They were completely serious.

"My… sister?" he finally managed to get out, the words feeling like a foreign language in his mouth.

"It would be a legal fiction, for now," Ms. Albright explained, her tone never wavering. "But it would give you a stronger standing. It would give Thea a sense of place, of belonging to a family unit, even if it's an unconventional one. It changes the narrative from 'a girl staying with a boy' to 'a girl staying with her brother.' It offers a layer of social and legal protection for you both."

"Protection from what?"

"From gossip," the principal cut in. "From rumors. This is a small town. A girl moving in with a boy she's not related to… people will talk. And the things they'll say won't be kind. But a brother taking in his sister who has nowhere else to go? That's a different story. It's a story people can understand."

Kofi just stared at them. They had thought of everything. The legal angles, the social perception, the emotional fallout. They had built a neat little box to put this disaster in, and they were handing it to him.

'They want me to be her brother. Her family.'

This was a simple question for him, "alright."