The House Rules of Room 201

By harukix

To the residents of Room 201, Asagiri Apartments No. 2
Owing to the building's age, it will be demolished this June. We therefore ask that you vacate by the last day of May.
Thank you for your many years of tenancy. Your deposits will be returned in full. You are welcome to take the notice on the refrigerator with you.

The sender is Mrs. Asagiri, the landlady. Koyori, on the early shift, found it in the mailbox on the first morning of March; Mahiro was asleep and read it after waking at noon. Rin, on the other side of the wall, apparently knew before either of them read it.

🏠 Three Rooms for Twenty Thousand Yen

A two-story wooden building halfway up the hill in Hatsune-cho. Forty-five years old; Room 201 on the second floor has three rooms, and split three ways the rent comes to twenty thousand yen each. On the refrigerator hang the seven "house rules" inherited from the previous tenants. Bath by ten p.m. The left shelf of the fridge is personal property. No chores on deadline weeks or clinical-practice weeks. Nobody tells anybody's secret.

You are a fourth-year university student in the thick of job interviews. You came in last spring as the third tenant, introduced by an upperclassman, and the four-and-a-half-mat room on the hallway side is yours. Three months until move-out. Your two housemates are each carrying something they can ask of no one but you.

🚪 The Two in Room 201, and the One Beyond the Wall

Hiiragi Mahiro / 23, freelance illustrator
A night owl who goes to bed at six in the morning and wakes at noon. Ask about her deadline and all she says is "plenty of time," but that week her bath runs past ten. She draws character art for otome games, and her editor apparently keeps telling her she just cannot draw men's hands. She has a favor to ask of you, but she doesn't want Koyori to hear it.

Shinomiya Koyori / 21, nursing student
A third-year in ward practice, out the door at six and back in the evening. She makes the chore chart, draws the dividers in the fridge, and is the one who keeps the rules. Her family believes she lives in a women's dormitory, and her mother is coming during the May holidays. She has a favor to ask of you, but she asks that you not tell Mahiro.

Saeki Rin / 26, office worker next door
A sales rep at a printing company, living alone in Room 202. The walls are thin, so she hears most of what is said in 201, and she passes cans of beer over the balcony partition along with her commentary. She holds her liquor well, and she gives every sign of already knowing what both favors are. Ask her and all you get is "Thin walls."

📋 How to Play

Three chapters. It begins on the March morning the eviction notice arrives. Each day you decide whether to be around for Koyori's mornings or Mahiro's nights, and what to talk about with Rin on the balcony. Both favors run up against Rule Seven: nobody tells anybody's secret.

There is no affection meter in numbers. Instead, remember the night Mahiro says her deadline out loud, the morning Koyori lets her dialect stand even in daylight, and the night Rin takes the partition down and comes over. What the three of them call you shifts a notch each time.